Advice for Abysia against Niefelheim

[Sammual]

Don't try to take them in one battle. They have the advantage in large battles. Use a few short battles to weaken them first. The giants will take battle afflictions and over time will take starvation afflictions as well. Hit and run fights don't let them use the chill, rejuve, or regen to any effect.

Sammual

[Shovah32]

As said raiding will help. Combine that with a large number of battle-axe abysian infantry and as many fire mages as possible(if you can research up to pillar of fire that could be a big help) to burn his giants to death. High strength battleaxes are great for damaging the giants a bit and massed fire spells(falling fires and pillar of fire preferably) can do a large amount of damage to them. Another option would be taking a fire9, high dom, high prod pretender and using burning ones who, while not being very resistant to giants attacks can do great damage with high attack, high strength, flaming morning stars.

[Teraswaerto]

I think Incinerate is the best fire damage spell against the giants, better even than Pillar of Fire, maybe. Armor negating instead of armor piercing like all other fire spells, high damage, precision 100.

Falling fires and other area of effect spells will do much less damage to a single giant, and they regerate so fast.

Soul Slay is S3, Blindness is F1, so penetration will be much better.

[Baalz]

One thing I think I did wrong with the salamanders was attack in a Cold-1 province, rather than a Heat-3 province. Would that make a lot of difference to the amount of damage the salamanders would do, and how quickly they get tired?

Yes, I'm not sure about the salamanders, but the heat/cold of a province makes a pretty significant difference on the durability of the giants (ice devils as well, FWIW). If my memory is correct there is a +/- 1 to both natural armor and defense (as well as strength) per temperature shift, which can make a sizable difference if you’re hitting for 20 (minus) 18, or 20 (minus) 12. The defense difference doesn’t impact the salamanders, but it does help the survivability against whatever else you’ve got and a difference of +/- 3 again, isn’t trivial. I know when I play Niefelheim one of my top priorities is to research to wolven winter so I can control the temperature for any big battles. I don’t remember, is there a heat counterpart to wolven winter? If so, that would definitely be something to look into.

At any rate, the heat scale definitely effects the amount of heat that your salamanders radiate even if it doesn’t directly effect the encumbrance of the giants. At some point it should be able to overcome the earth bless reinvigoration (maybe cast that internal furnace spell that increases your heat radiation?). Hmmmm, I’m not sure how the cold/heat aura’s interact with each other, but it seems like those salamanders radiate a fair amount and you can fit more of them into each square. Just a thought.

[DrPraetorious]

Actually, it's the *action point* bonus that really hurt him that battle. My giants practically teleported across the battlefield - in a hot province they're much slower.

Clearly, I'd have to be a complete fool to simply march on his capital. I'm going to make some quick gains while he reinforces (and yes I have scouts), fortify a new border, and then start freezing provinces remotely before battles start.

[Manuk]

You can't count in assasins. as cool as they are they are meant more to kill researchers than commanders. He just have to bring basic 30g commanders and your assasin's turn is wasted and his army moved away from him.
Altough it would be nice to kill his priests. Unless he has some tough prophet or something for divine blessing instead of the common blessing.

How about lizardmen shaman casting curse to the giants.

Indy archers plus fire arrows.

Raiding devils.

Devils on hold and attack large enemy monsters (if the
commanders are bigger than the common giants this can be a sort of assasination).

Body etereal on vanguard?

dunno.

[Baalz]

DrPraetorious said:
Clearly, I'd have to be a complete fool to simply march on his capital. I'm going to make some quick gains while he reinforces (and yes I have scouts), fortify a new border, and then start freezing provinces remotely before battles start.

Heh, yeah, pretty much all strategy is easier said than done against an opponent who is on the ball, but its good to know if you can force your opponent into a disadvantageous situation. I think the Abyssian dominion pushes heat the same way the Niefelheim does cold, so your strategy of fortifying and freezing him out should be applicable in reverse. Thaw those giants out! I'm guessing that those dual blessed giants have probably led to a low dominion score any chance of dominion push? Get a couple of blood sacrificers near the border and pair it with aggressive demon-bred raiding in his back country and the heat will really cut into the income necessary to crank out those expensive giants (I think heat-3 will give -30% income for Niefelheim). Give a "warm welcome" to the giants who try to come in and squash your temples, stay in the high heat dominion and play with the home-field advantage.

[llamabeast]

DrPraetorious said:

Actually, it's the *action point* bonus that really hurt him that battle. My giants practically teleported across the battlefield - in a hot province they're much slower.

I'm not sure the action points are that important - if both sides have melee armies, when they meet each other doesn't really matter.

The big problem as I see it is the cold aura. Most armies have about two hits at the giants - enough to injure them significantly if you have good men - then the army falls asleep in the cold, and the giants mop up with no casualties. Of course their extra armour and defence make a big difference too.

In my test games, Abysia beats Niefelheim trivially in a hot province, and almost can't win in the cold. But I think it's likely Niefelheim will have Wolven Winter (trying to estimate from the score graphs) and given that he'll probably be able to guess where any important battles are, how can I possibly beat him? I wish there was some kind of counter to wolven winter, but there isn't as far as I can tell, and so no matter how good my dominion is, for only 10 water gems he can turn the heat-3 province where a battle will occur to cold-3, dooming my poor soldiers.

If he hasn't got Wolven Winter he's stuffed.