Niefelheim Pretender Design Question

[Belac]

I am relatively new and haven't played many nations that benefit from extreme blesses (I've been too enamored of good scales and huge armies).

But now I've been looking at Niefelheim, and a pretender design strategy occurred to me. It's about 180 degrees different from what I usually do, so I find it intriguing. Can anyone tell me if it's (a) been done to death already, (b) completely stupid, or (c) possibly a good idea?

Here goes: Imprisoned 9W9F5S Oracle (I believe it requires 1 bad scale to make it work).

With this, you can't pump the dominion high and have luck/growth/productivity, but you get a powerful dual-bless and
late-game astral boost including ring-forging.

[Agema]

That will give you a vastly destructive force of giants - for a few turns each battle.

Your first problem: You only get one giant per square and giants are very expensive, so your army is small and doesn't hit many opponents. Each turn, with two attacks, each giant will probably kill 2 opponents, but take 8 fatigue. Step forward 13 turns, and your giants collapse unconscious from exhaustion. So you can only kill (giants x 2 x 13) enemies before you slow down a lot. It's very easy, particularly against undead or spells like swarm, to meet that many enemies, and your cold aura isn't going to help you that much.

Here you meet your second problem. Giants have a ton of HP, but they will steadily take damage, and they'll take a lot more when exhausted. Thus your 70-HP giants are actually starting to look very vulnerable and very easily to kill after a few rounds of combat. If your opponent has spells like Stellar Cascades and ohters that cause fatigue damage, it's going to be even worse. Although without regeneration from a nature bless, they merely need to throw enough of any damage spell and your giants will die eventually.

If you are going to bless giants like that, the optimum is always going to be taking high Earth and Nature blesses. Earth prevents them tiring out, nature allows them to take vast amounts of punishment. E9N4+ is what you want to look at.

[Belac]

Originally Posted by Agema

That will give you a vastly destructive force of giants - for a few turns each battle.

Your first problem: You only get one giant per square and giants are very expensive, so your army is small and doesn't hit many opponents. Each turn, with two attacks, each giant will probably kill 2 opponents, but take 8 fatigue. Step forward 13 turns, and your giants collapse unconscious from exhaustion. So you can only kill (giants x 2 x 13) enemies before you slow down a lot. It's very easy, particularly against undead or spells like swarm, to meet that many enemies, and your cold aura isn't going to help you that much.

Here you meet your second problem. Giants have a ton of HP, but they will steadily take damage, and they'll take a lot more when exhausted. Thus your 70-HP giants are actually starting to look very vulnerable and very easily to kill after a few rounds of combat. If your opponent has spells like Stellar Cascades and ohters that cause fatigue damage, it's going to be even worse. Although without regeneration from a nature bless, they merely need to throw enough of any damage spell and your giants will die eventually.

If you are going to bless giants like that, the optimum is always going to be taking high Earth and Nature blesses. Earth prevents them tiring out, nature allows them to take vast amounts of punishment. E9N4+ is what you want to look at.

Thanks. I hadn't considered fatigue so much. I guess the W9F9 bless, sexy as it is, is better for nations with larger numbers of sacred units. Two followups:

1) With nature mages casting spells/forging items that grant fatigue lifting/regeneration, does this strategy improve, at least for Niefel Jarls?
2) Would an E9Nx oracle make sense (i.e, is the other part of the strategy bad as well)?

Originally Posted by Gandalf Parker

In general I think of Niefelheim as one of the best defensive nations in the game. If you are playing it for your love of "huge armies" you will find it pretty rough. But their PD is great and they "turtle" well (mostly stay at home building up slowly). They can be a good choice on small maps with many players where they dont have to go far in order to do battle.

Thanks for the advice. I am looking at this for a way to break away from my love of huge armies and do something completely different (small numbers of elite units). Of course, Niefelheim has 'huge' armies in a completely different sense...

[Gandalf Parker]

In general I think of Niefelheim as one of the best defensive nations in the game. If you are playing it for your love of "huge armies" you will find it pretty rough. But their PD is great and they "turtle" well (mostly stay at home building up slowly). They can be a good choice on small maps with many players where they dont have to go far in order to do battle.

[Quitti]

Actually, Niefelheims PD is under mediocre at best in my opinion - jotun militia are pretty much useless, and while the jarl at PD20 is a very good thug even unequipped if blessed, it won't make much difference when he routs the moment the militia that amount of PD gives you dies.

Also their mages are expensive per research point in the magic-filled early era, so they'll either need some very lucky independent mage finds or simply HUGE amounts of gold. The good thing is that the skratti are awesome combat mages, singlehandedly they can even dispatch sc's solo when you hit high blood magic, and they can be turned into very efficient killing machines with proper equipment in werewolf form.

I agree with Agema, e9n4 or e9n6 bless is the optimal for the giants - possibly if you really want, add in some astral for late game astral power and some added magic resistance (the thing the giants really like is more MR when paralyze/soul slay starts to be the norm in the battlefield). Your Niefel Jarls and Niefel giants really benefit from the reinvig4 and prot4 from earth and the regen keeps them standing when the few odd hits get in or they spontaneously combust or whatever they like to take damage from.

[Agema]

Niefel Jarls absolutely want the earth bless for +4 reinvig, it means you can possibly do away with needing +reinvig items (or alternatively use +reinvig items and cast Quicken Self). It also makes them much more active if you employ them as combat mages rather than thugs/SCs.

Regeneration is also brilliant. If you take damage, it makes you less likely to take an affliction. Further, if you use them as SCs they inevitably pick up a few cuts and bruises whilst single-handedly wading through the enemy. Just a small bit of regeneration stops lots of cuts and bruises adding up to death.

Finally, there's an item called Shroud of the Battle Saint. Put it on your Skratti with an E9N4-6 bless and change shape the Skratti into a Werewolf on the strategy map (don't use the battlefield command!) - you've now got another source of extremely lethal SCs. Yum.

[Fantomen]

On the other hand, Niefelheim has super awesome skinshifters. You can try playing them without a bless and use skratti werewolves for sc duty.

[Huzurdaddi]

Originally Posted by Fantomen

On the other hand, Niefelheim has super awesome skinshifters. You can try playing them without a bless and use skratti werewolves for sc duty.

And what armor do you want to put on them? Well if you have 9E6N or 9E8N robe of the battle saint is the most efficient.

9E6N or 9E8N works great on their Jarls, it works great on their troops, it works great on the werewolves when they wear RBS.

The only thing you may want is a little astral for the MR. But it is of lesser importance than the earth and nature.

It is sad about the skinshifters, they should be moved to MA.

EDIT: Agema beat me to it, doh! Should not have skipped to the end of the thread!

[Belac]

Originally Posted by Huzurdaddi

And what armor do you want to put on them? Well if you have 9E6N or 9E8N robe of the battle saint is the most efficient.

9E6N or 9E8N works great on their Jarls, it works great on their troops, it works great on the werewolves when they wear RBS.

The only thing you may want is a little astral for the MR. But it is of lesser importance than the earth and nature.

Is an Imprisoned Oracle a good way to get an E/N dual bless? Or does Niefelheim need an awake god for research/a mobile god for exploration/is there some other reason why this physical form is unsuitable?

[chrispedersen]

Originally Posted by Belac

Is an Imprisoned Oracle a good way to get an E/N dual bless? Or does Niefelheim need an awake god for research/a mobile god for exploration/is there some other reason why this physical form is unsuitable?

Most people chose the master druid, especially under CBM due to the starting paths of e/n.

That being said, the imprsioned oracle can certainly make a good choice. It depends on where you want to take your game.

For example, were I playing with several hot nations one might conclude that pushing cold might be very important. Whereas the points saved on a Dom9 pretender would easily have the oracle pay for itself.

Similiearly, if you wanted to go using scrattis SC's you really do not need an N bless. However you will be crying for MR.
So an F9S9 oracle or FOB may well be worthwhile (presuing niefle gets these).