Niefelheim - Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf?

[Baalz]

@AreaOfEffect: Ah, I also never realized relief was worthwhile, I never once cast it after reading the description. That certainly makes it on the list then.

[KissBlade]

Originally Posted by AreaOfEffect

@ Kissblade - Your thesis is based on the idea that a jarl without a E9-N4/6 bless is nothing. That isn't remotely close to the truth as that bless provides only a meager boost. A boost that is completely reproducible with magical items or battlefield spells. Jarls start out scary and their bless just makes them slightly scarier. The bless is just an add-on to an amazing unit. Take it away and they are still jarls. Also, you highly underestimate what 3 years of additional earth income amounts to. It isn't one or two extra hammers, but an income to actually do something with your pretender. As for being able to cast anything worth while, a pair of earth boots and the blood stone you picked up after empowering your god in blood lets you cast every earth spell in the game! Even with just the boots you lack the ability to cast Earth Blood Deep Well and that is all. A real earth pretender has skill in other paths so that he can do things like summon Golems, rain down meteors in combat, forge swords that deal non-resistible AoE damage with each swing, and make astral boosters for all his fellow astral mages. In my estimation, the real earth pretender is the master lich described, not some stupid one-eyed monster who got caught!

Where do you get the idea my thesis is based on this? A) 3 years = dormant? Last time I checked it was one year. B) E9 globals are significantly tougher to dispel than e4. C) The pretender I mentioned can do all of this ju st as easily. I didn't say anything about a cyclops.

The point is build still allows you to use the same exact strats. NO good niefel players I know neglects skrattis or gygjas even when blessed, that thought's ridiculous. And the ability to toss on shrouds on your skratti's is just an alternative and as I said, regular jotun jarls become great thugs with just the bless. As for the bless being recoverable by items. ANYTHING can be pumped up by items. I can power my indie commanders to be SC's if I get enough gems but that's not cost effective. prot+4, reinvig +4, regen and the extra MR is a lot of slots and gems. Casting "bless" in battle is free.

[Baalz]

Originally Posted by MaxWilson

Thanks, Baalz, for showing me where Blood is useful--forging magic items. From now on I will be about a hundred times more likely to wish for blood slaves...

Oh man, don't overlook the rest of the blood arsenal at your disposal, I wasn't exaggerating when I said that rain of toads can easily win you the game in a variety of circumstances. Bloodletting is perhaps the easiest battlefield damage spell to cast (doing AN damage to boot), and blood rain is *sick* against starving troops using no other combos....particularly if you have, say, quickened giant werewolves to make sure that any route is extremely bloody. If you're afraid of the micro just ignore any of the smaller blood spells and it's still extremely worthwhile to use.

[Renojustin]

Something very easy to consider here would be to drop your Magic level from 1 to -2. That's 120 points that are going to fall right into your lap for practically free. Any nation that can build skull mentors is losing very little for the trade, and Neifelheim also has nice, high-value researchers who aren't hurt by the research drain.

A nice bonus is that the drain dominion is yet another dominion penalty to force on your opponents, particularly when you're using Earth 9 bless for heavy reinvigoration regardless. (Which you can now do, among other things, with your 120 extra points.)

[Baalz]

Eh, I don't know, I suppose you could pick up drain but it wouldn't be my first choice. It'll drop your researchers from 8 to 6 research, a drop of over a third. You could make it work for sure with your strong early game using no research, but if you're planning on having your pretender out site searching rather than researching this can be a long way up to constr-4, and you're likely not going to have the D gems to do something like what I suggested in the Helheim guide (where several mages are out site searching). All in all I'd say you're better off stacking the mentors on top of already solid research - your research is going to win it for you in the end of the game rather than your blessing.

[Tifone]

Wow, I have to admit I was in the group of the "never bothered with Relief" too. Now those Clockwork Horrors really become worthy!! Thanks a bunch AreaOfEffect

[AreaOfEffect]

@ Kissblade - My apologies, I mistakenly put you in the imprisoned category. I suppose I was temporarily blinded by rage.

[WraithLord]

You say the Skratti werewolf form doesn't cost upkeep and that its a known bug. I have tested this in SP game and saw no indication to that in the upkeep number. I mean, I took a skratti and changed it to werewolf and the upkeep number stayed the same. Anyway I take your word for it and think this exploit should be specifically banned in MP games house rules.

[Baalz]

It doesn't show up until you cycle a turn. Check you upkeep. Change a skratti to werewolf form while recruiting nothing. End turn. Your upkeep next turn will be lower.

[rdonj]

I'm pretty sure the upkeep cost change doesn't show up until the next turn. Try having a bunch of skratti, change them all at once and don't build anything that turn.

Edit: Too slow! *dies*