good races for/against newbies. - Page 3

thejeff · #21 August 25th, 2005, 11:18 AM

Taking on armies by themselves is pretty much the definition of an SC. If you bring an army, you have to make the army tough enough not to route before the SC kills everything or the SC will retreat even if they're winning. If the army is that tough, they'd probably win without the SC.

Unequipped NJs aren't quite in that class, but even with a little gear they're real close. The N9 bless helps mostly by keeping afflictions away.

Last time I tried Neifelheim, I think I started with a Gode and an army of Woodsmen and separately a NJ and my W9N9 Son of Neifel. With the blessing on the NJ and a few buffs, the two of them could handle most 9 str independents. (Quickness, Breath of Winter, Personal Regeneration, maybe something else I'm forgetting.)

Sieges and major battles against a nation's main forces, you may want more. Of course, by that time you should have enough construction and gems to outfit the SC properly.

magnate · #22 August 25th, 2005, 12:00 PM

Surely BoW does not stack with the NJ's intrinsic cold effect?

thejeff · #23 August 25th, 2005, 12:38 PM

It either stack with or replaces, I forget which. The spell is better though. Larger area at least.

quantum_mechani · #24 August 25th, 2005, 02:48 PM

Quote:

magnate said:
Surely BoW does not stack with the NJ's intrinsic cold effect?

It does stack. Natural chill does fatigue damage only, BoW is actual damge. And back to the blesses, indeed it would only save 20% of the flags, but in low armour cases like that, I would rather have that then the +2 stregth. And anyway, for magic reasons I usually consider it a bit of a waste to pur blood on my pretender.

magnate · #25 August 25th, 2005, 03:07 PM

For a race with recruitable blood mages I'd be inclined to agree with you, but B4 on a pretender can be a great kick-start for a non-blood nation like Caelum or Arco.

I think I'd still rather have +2 strength on my weak sacreds (like flags or jaguar warriors) than 20% air shield, but I've not done extensive comparisons. It's reasonably easy to deal with archers in other ways, providing your scouting is good enough to anticipate meeting them. On bigger sacreds (vans, jotuns etc.) I'd definitely take the +2 str. I'm still not convinced about reinvigoration though - I'm currently playing as Vanheim and my vans/valks are not getting fatigue noticeably over 10 (ie. most fights last only 3-4 rounds).

Anyway, I wonder what the OP made of all this - did you stick with Neifelheim in the end, and if so with what pretender setup?

CC

quantum_mechani · #26 August 25th, 2005, 03:11 PM

Quote:

magnate said:
For a race with recruitable blood mages I'd be inclined to agree with you, but B4 on a pretender can be a great kick-start for a non-blood nation like Caelum or Arco.

It is a kick start, but only by around 10 turns. Unless I'm extremely unlucky, I can usually have a b3 mage by turn 30-40 for any nation, just working with blood randoms. And blood hunting with your pretender is usually a waste unless you happen to be using a blood fountain.

magnate · #27 August 25th, 2005, 03:28 PM

I wouldn't consider myself a particularly advanced player of MP, but isn't 10 turns quite a long head start? I mean, that could make the difference between getting a fair share of the ice/arch devils and getting none of them - all for a turn or two's blood hunting with your pretender (which can then of course do research or forging or fighting or whatever).

I mean, I wouldn't want to over-egg the idea, but on something like a VQ it costs only 16 points to get to B4, and even on a crone or other 10-point-path chassis it costs only 82 points. That's not much to get all your sacreds +2 str *and* a 10-turn quicker start to your blood economy. I guess how useful that it depends on how quickly everyone else's blood economy works - that's what's so great about this game, everything depends on everything else.

CC

quantum_mechani · #28 August 25th, 2005, 04:26 PM

Quote:

magnate said:
I wouldn't consider myself a particularly advanced player of MP, but isn't 10 turns quite a long head start? I mean, that could make the difference between getting a fair share of the ice/arch devils and getting none of them - all for a turn or two's blood hunting with your pretender (which can then of course do research or forging or fighting or whatever).

I mean, I wouldn't want to over-egg the idea, but on something like a VQ it costs only 16 points to get to B4, and even on a crone or other 10-point-path chassis it costs only 82 points. That's not much to get all your sacreds +2 str *and* a 10-turn quicker start to your blood economy. I guess how useful that it depends on how quickly everyone else's blood economy works - that's what's so great about this game, everything depends on everything else.

CC

I never said it is never a good option, only that in general, 4a on your pretender is more useful. Great early buff spells, and so much harder to break into air magic than blood magic.

Hiro_Antagonist · #29 August 25th, 2005, 06:24 PM

Quote:

magnate said:
Anyway, I wonder what the OP made of all this - did you stick with Neifelheim in the end, and if so with what pretender setup?

Well, I haven't decided yet. The game doesn't actually start for another month or so (yeah, that's a while,) but there's a big prize on the line so I'm 'studying' hard-core.

From my dealings against the AI, I still seem to be doing better with Jotun/Neifel than any other race, but I think they might expect that from me since I've played them in the past. So I might just pick another arce to maintain anonyminity as a player (it's an anonymous game) so that I can avoid peoples' attention. Thankfully, I still have a while to consider your guys' feedback and experiment/practice on my own.

As I posted in another thread, I tend to have problems against 5 Difficult AI's on Desert Eye after about turn 20-25 or so. (Before that, I'm usually at or very close to top player according to stats graphs.) Does that speak poorly of my skill?

-Hiro_Antagonist

sushiboat · #30 August 26th, 2005, 03:39 AM

Ermor Ashen Empire has some nice advantages for novices. You don't have to worry about buying troops; you get them for free. In fact, you do very little with money besides constructing buildings. You can take very bad scales (Turmoil 3, Sloth 3, Cold 3, Death 3) and get design points to buy up a lot of magic on your Pretender and high dominion. Other nations have difficulty invading your dominion because their troops starve.

With Ermor AE, the two challenges are research and diversifying your troops. Your mages have to be summoned, and your gem income won't grow as quickly as others' gold income. You can forge Skull Mentors to help your researchers. Your Pretender should start searching for gems early as your empire expands.

Diversification is an issue because having armies with only undead is a weakness. Priests can destroy large numbers of undead, and there are many anti-undead spells and items. Also, most of the AE undead are mindless, so mages with Astral mind attack spells ignore them and target the commanders. Ivy Kings can summon Vine Ogres cheaply, and some of the Elemental Queens and Kings can summon elementals for free. For the parts of your empire that have adequate supply to support some living troops, Call of the Wild summons a Werewolf and wolves. The Werewolf can summon more wolves for free.

One thing about playing Ermor AE (or Shadow Gate) is that it is very different from playing any living nation. There are fewer techniques that you can transfer from Ermor to another nation. However, since you can afford to put a lot of magic on your Pretender, you will get to play around with most, if not all, of the available spells and items in Dom 2.