Counters to Niefelheim

[HoneyBadger]

I was actually thinking that zweihanders would be fine weapons for Niefelheim. No finer than, say, a properly designed mace, though, since opponents would sortof slide right off a smooth mace-head, so that you could attack several at once.

The real ability that Niefelheim should have-and lacks-is a natural area 1 effect attack. This is just from a physical standpoint, since they weild (or have the potential to weild) weapons large enough, and designed, to hit more than one opponent at a time.

[Baalz]

Xietor said:
It is my humble opinion that no race I have EVER seen compares to EA Lanka. my gawd, what a juggernaut.

I dunno, I think there are *several* tier 1 EA races. Helhiem, Vanhiem, Neiflheim, and Lanka all tend to inspire "OMG, what the heck do I do now?" when you start next to them. Even the arguably second tier EA races (Mictlan, Sauromatia, etc) can certainly inspire terror in reasonably skilled hands.

Of course everyone's opinion will differ on who fits into what category, but given lots of strong choices I think it can't really be argued that anybody is head and shoulders above the rest of the crowd.

[Xietor]

My poor MA Ctis lizards started out next to both EA Lanka and EA Sauromatria in the Big Game. Talk about lucky starting positions! Can anyone say Blood!

Despite sending out my scouts far and wide, there was no sign of MA Ulm(:

[Baalz]

HoneyBadger said:
I was actually thinking that zweihanders would be fine weapons for Niefelheim. No finer than, say, a properly designed mace, though, since opponents would sortof slide right off a smooth mace-head, so that you could attack several at once.

The real ability that Niefelheim should have-and lacks-is a natural area 1 effect attack. This is just from a physical standpoint, since they weild (or have the potential to weild) weapons large enough, and designed, to hit more than one opponent at a time.

Well, you presuppose that the giants' warfare was evolved to fight man sized opponents. Seems more likely to me that outside of ascension wars the Jarls generally fight each other for power and the axe/Jotun sword is a natural weapon to fight other well armored giants.

You're probably the first one I've heard complain that Neiflheim needs a buff. AOE would mean defense is useless, so if you coupled that with their strength it'd give them offensive power to match their natural defense strength - a very overpowered result. I always thought the boulder throwers should have AOE1 though...

[KissBlade]

Agreeing with baalz's point about Niefel's weapons should be designed more in line of fighting other giant size people. I can't see why the heck Giants would design weapons to clobber tiny humans when stepping on them or kicking them would do much the same. Also Vanheim in EA has NEVER inspired much fear in me.

[Saint_Dude]

Neifelheim is extremely powerful in the early game, slightly above average in the middle game, and fairly weak in the late game. They are ultimately done in by low troop numbers and pathetic PD.

The Niefel giants which cause so much havoc in the early game are an expensive non-factor in the late game. The Jarls may be a good deal at 500 gold, but stocking up on them dramatically cuts down on the number of mages recruited for research or battle magic.

[Meglobob]

Jarls at 500gp are a good thug chasis but if you had the equivilant number of S3 mages equipped with eye of the void + spell focus + rune smasher all guarded by undead chaff (100% cold resistance), scripting soul slayx5, retreat.

Who would win?

[Kuritza]

Not many EA nations can field A3 mages easily, so in many cases these thugs can stay rather powerful in late game too, at least on paper.

[DrPraetorious]

Depends on how you equip the Jarls.

Anticipating combat with astrals, my Jarls are MR 29, and could be higher. That means with a meager penetration basis of 15, you need to beat my DRN by 14 points. Odds of success are lt. 1%.

Jarls have the same weaknesses as any other thug chassis and if you don't diversify you will lose, it's true. For example, in the above combat obviously I'd want to bring counters of my own: astral tempest maybe, undead mastery.

So, yeah, Jarls are not *unbeatable*. They remain, well into the late game, a force significant enough to force your enemies to contort their strategy as-described. You can take advantage of this in turn, which is the strength of LG Niefelheim. That and the raiding, once they fly.

And this is a 4X game, so the provinces you conquered earlier on give you more money and gems than your opponents, an advantage which propogates into the late game.

So I don't think late game Niefelheim is weak. I'll agree that it is not as devastating as early game Niefelheim.

A somewhat more successful counter I found was -
F2 mystics spamming pillar of fire,
Oreiads spamming Charm backed up by the penetration suite, and a *huge* communion (boosted the penetration bonus all the way to +8). I got a couple of his Jarls, and since he was MR-focused rather than fire focused, I even managed to keep them as I killed the rest (pity my bless sucked.)

I still lost that game, though, as Ermor then proceeded to eat me alive with darkness + life after death (all of his magicians turned into soulless - who can then see in the dark! Ouch).

[HoneyBadger]

I was reading through the various strategy guides, and I thought I'd add a few late comments on here, considering the tactics that have been suggested already.

First of all, I always seem to forge lots of copper plate for my Jarls. It's an easy forge for Niefelheim, almost to the point of being a no-brainer. It's not the best armour in the world for them, but it's cheap, and better than what they have--they've got the air gems to spend, and it takes care of lightning threats. So that's another reason that shock attacks aren't always the best choice, unless you can deny them air gems.

It's a lot harder for Niefel to defend itself against fire, than it is lightning, *IF* you're not using Niefel recruits as your main force. The best thing you can do is spam Lightning AND Fire. Even then, expect Niefel Pretenders to come with fire magic.

Secondly, Fear Helmets seem like a good choice for them too-and are-but the death gems you spend now are the death gems you don't spend later on. I honestly think they're a superb item to give your Jarls, because they help a lot to keep your giants from becoming surrounded, and they sync with the Jarls' natural Death magic. One of the best items you can give them, for the money, especially since they have the death gems to spend, but they're expensive! and they're low-level items. So one thing you really want to develope is a death-gem income, because you *need* death gems now, and you need them even *more* in Late Game-where Niefelheim starts to fade.

Denying Neifelheim death-gems hurts them.

Niefelheim wants Luck 3. That's, in my opinion, the single most important scale for Niefelheim to max out. Everything else, even Magic, is secondary (you have natural access to the two best research-boosters, skulls and quills). You don't want to build those lovely Niefel recruits, when you can build a Jarl, so Order and Production aren't as important. Not when you can expect 3000 gold atleast once a year (either as a chunk, or in dribs and drabs). You just can't suffer barbarian raids. They'll cut through you like butter, unless you have a decent army in place to compliment your PD.

And that 3000 gold event comes with both a magic item, and lots of fire gems-which is great for a Nation that doesn't otherwise get a lot of fire gems.

Niefelheim PD is worth at best half, at worst a third as much as the PD of almost any other nation-even monkeys!-so you need 1: time to consolidate your forces, and 2: you need your temple and lab to stay in tact until you can purchase atleast 2 more heavily guarded temples and labs. Niefel doesn't care about resources, because while high resource troops are nice, it can always fall back on boulder-throwers and skinshifters, both of which make beautiful PD boosters. And every single PD needs boosters-and needs to be raised up to *atleast* 36, if you expect to hold a province. In SP games, I've been known to literally station a single, kitted out Niefel Jarl, in every single province I own, when using high levels of Misfortune, because barbarian raids are just so devastating. That's extreme, I admit, but it's very expensive for Niefel to hold on to territory. Niefelheim lives and dies on gold income-deny them gold and they're a paper tiger.

Niefelheim, for 200 gold a piece, has a very respectable H2, decent stats, priest. Niefelheim's going to want to build a *lot* of them. Dominion Death is a real risk for Niefelheim, because again, holding territory (and the temples thereon) is hard for them. And with two heavy blesses-Earth and Nature-you aren't guaranteed an awake Pretender with high Dominion. Masses of undead chaff can also be a threat, as mentioned. And while those 200 gold priests are great, they're still 200 gold a pop. Niefelheim is going to want cheaper priests if it can get them, if only for Dominion-maintenance. Deny them cheap priests, destroy their temples whenever possible, and attack their Dominion, even if it's good-force them to maintain it.

Starvation's nice, but I've never had a *real* problem with starving Niefels, because I've always managed to forge wineskins and cauldrons with my Gygjas-and it's really easy to stick one of each on their high movement, holy, stealthy, tough scouts, and ship them out wherever needed--and easier, once you can give the scouts winged boots. I *love* Niefel scouts, by the way. If you can ever figure out a way to make a bunch of them, like 25, they make beautiful raiders-raiders that can carry around cauldrons/wineskins, or maybe a skellspam amulet and a bottle of water (water elementals are tougher when they're frozen)-Equipped, they can support your outlying provinces all by themselves, and your Skratti can follow, supporting them with spells.

Deny them Nature gems, and you're not only denying them food items, you're denying them healing, and one of the best spells for Niefelheim-perhaps the best global-Gift of Health, which not only heals them, it gives them even more HP.

Niefelheim doesn't have good access to healing-the best it can manage, bar Globals, is Fairy Queen. Curse the crap out of their commanders, their units, their pets, the rats in their cellars, whatever they have, whenever you can. Horror-mark is ok too, but not as nice, because a Niefel Jarl can take out a lesser Horror very consistently, unless you catch them early (without a magic weapon), and are lucky. A well-equipped Niefel Jarl can even give a Doom Horror several afflictions, before it's taken out, so horror marks aren't the best tactic to use against them. So skip horror marking, unless you can *really* spam it, and always focus on Curse, Curse, and more Curse. Afflict them, and deny them healing, whenever you can. A severely afflicted giant is actually better than a dead giant-because it's still drawing a paycheck. Disease is nice enough, but *always* expect a regeneration bless. Once Niefel breaks into healing, it really becomes a powerhouse.

When considering Darkness as a counter to Niefel, don't be surprised with Niefel starts building it's own undead. Breaking into undead is a great tactic for Niefel-cheap skellspam amulets become invaluable, when each one produces an endless stream of human-sized darkness/cold immune chaff units. Fun to stick on non-death mage scouts, and the weakest Jotun commanders (which are still both Sacred). And while Niefel might not have many good paths to the water, they do have the Wyrm Pretender, and they have *plenty* of water magic to use when they get there, so undead can help there too. Banes are my favorite, because you not only get a tough, powerful undead unit, you get a tough, powerful undead unit with a vicious magic weapon, which solves problems like Etherial units, and any lingering horrormark problems, and deals out painful, lingering death.

So again, deny Niefelheim death gems, prepair for undead, and deny them a foothold in the water-because once they get there, they can start spamming sea serpents and krakens (tons of them-water gems aren't otherwise all that useful to Niefelheim, compared to most of the other gems, and they get lots), recruiting chaff, and all the rest. And they can *easily* forge both water and air breathing items, so they can put critters *in* the pool, and take them *out* of the pool, pretty much at will.

Three units are particularly ignored as Niefel powerhouses, and particularly nasty, because they're ignored, and because they mesh well with seldom taken Blesses that Niefel has access to:

The first is the aforementioned non-capital sacred Scout. Scouts are stealthy, no surprises there. But they're also sacred, with all the fun that entails. And while weak compared to most Jotun commanders, they're still Jotuns, which makes them ridiculously better than the average human. Another nice feature is that they've got javelins. Slap a shield on them, and an eye of precision, and those javelins are mean!
They're so mean infact that a Death bless isn't entirely out of the question, since with the damage they dish out, you're pretty much ensuring an Affliction with every single javelin. These guys are straight up your best option, if you want to take a Niefel Pretender (ironically, not a common choice), because they mesh the best with a Death+Water Bless. You still want Nature, though, and since these guys aren't casters, Berserk is a great option if you want to spend the points for it. You can go with Horror Helmets for these guys, or better yet, Horned Helmet, if you've got a high Water bless going, that you can take advantage of. And the spears, while actually not that bad, can be traded out for swords of swiftness. Scouts should carry around food items, and either a skellyspam amulet, or a bottle of water-waterbottle Scouts should be equipped with Rime Hauberks whenever possible, so you can freeze the water elementals they produce, immediately. And Skratti can follow scouts, and spam Quickness.

2-the Niefel Priests (I forget their name). Not as good as a Niefel Jarl, or even a Jotun Jarl, out of the box, they're still Sacred, have better stats than a scout, and they're still Holy 2. If I expected undead units, or lightning attacks, I'd be thinking "hey, what if I took a high Air bless?". They lack shields, but with an Air bless (and they're self-blessing), who needs a shield? And shock's no longer a big deal, when you're 75% resistant to it. And these guys are non-Capital, so build to your heart's content! You can decimate any undead you encounter with them, Dominion's no longer a problem, because you're not concentrating on Niefels anymore, and while they might not be "as good as a Niefel Jarl" in combat, they're still pretty damn good, right out of the box, with an air bless-and you're building 10 of them to every 4 Niefel Jarls. With those numbers, they're arguably better than Niefels, if you want to concentrate on non-Niefel units, like skin-shifters, since they can spam Sermon of Courage. These guys are great, if you want to go with a Titan Pretender. High Earth/Air Bless is beautiful for these guys. Expect to forge helmets for them, though. And since you don't need a shield, you can consider 2 frost brands-cheap and easy for Niefelheim. Rime Hauberk is another nice option. It's cheap, and it gives them the cold aura they lack, in combination with decent Prot. High Air bless also makes your Niefel recruits a lot more palatable, in that they're now going to shrug off cold *and* lightning, which more or less neuthers Caelum against them, and all those fancy missle-tactics that everyone has so painstakingly crafted to work against you, aren't working so well, anymore.

But the *BEST*, most wonderful, glorious, all-round good thing about high Air+Earth bless is that your Pretender can now summon the ultimate PD booster-Watchers.

Watch closely as a half dozen cheap Watchers turn Niefel PD from grungy to great in seconds!

The third, and best, unit is the Skratti. I loooooove Skratti. They're good researchers, they've got access to multiple paths, they're your key to a blood economy, they can shapeshift into not one but two extremely useful forms, including a stealthy wolf, and they're fast-not just Jotun fast either, they're one of the fastest units in the entire *game*. Have them cast Quickness and the Chill Aura spell (they can do that by themselves), and give them two Swords of Swiftness, a horned helmet, and an amulet of reinvigoration, in their were-jotun form, and they're basically quisinarts of death, with 4 sword attacks, a bite, and a gore attack, all at Jotun strength, times whatever Quickness gives them, plus the same cold aura that the Niefels are always bragging about. And they've still got armour, boots (*flying* quisinart of death, anyone?), and 1 misc slot to fill. At 250 gold a pop, properly equipped, they might actually be *better* for the money than a Jarl, considering that Jarls need Earth/Nature blesses to come into their own, and Skrattis aren't even sacred. On top of all that, they're a stealthy caster-be careful with that last, though, Skrattis in wolf form drop most of their equipment. Again-provided you can find a way to forge Shrouds-a good unit for taking advantage of Death+Water, with Nature bless optional, since they're even better as melee fighters than they are as mages. Air + Earth won't hurt them, either, since they'll otherwise be vulnerable to missles, shrouds only offer 8 Prot, and they need all the Reinvigoration they can get. IIRC they get natural Regeneration, too. If so, and if you *can* Shroud them, they don't even need a Nature bless. With their extreme versatility, and furious speed, Skrattis are, hands down, a better choice for Prophet than a Niefel Jarl.

Now, Death, Water, and Air are three paths that Niefelheim definitely doesn't need to break into, but they've got some interesting Pretenders that come with exactly those paths, so it's something to give some thought to.