Question about EA Tir Na N'og

[Jarkko]

Been tempted to try them not as a bless-thug nation, but as a scales-heavy wannabe-MA Ulm. Now why would anybody want to be MA Ulm is of course another question

Anyway, they have many paths available. A rainbow pretender providing access to some death and astral opens up lots of more potential.

Early expansion is ridiculously easy. Grab a Sidhe champion and half a dozen Sidhe Warriors. Script the Sidhe Champion with Quickening Song, other spells*4, Attack rear (if he did have Flight as last script, he will fly right to the backs of the enemy). With that song you have quickened glamorous elite infantry, which will rip apart anything in their path. You can pump out such expansion parties each turn. Research will of course suck (as you have nobody researching unless you took an awake rainbow), but you don't need many such groups out there. Meanwhile the sucky starting army stays home to patrol. You'll have gold coming through your nose in no time, so should be easy to pump out at least three forts first year (and those Sidhe champions all can build temples and labs in the new forts).

Haven't really thought how to go on from that on. But you'll have a bunch of elite infantry with high MR, and soon some kick-butt buffs available. With any of luck the rainbow pretender should find something useful, and meanwhile Sidhe Lords become available in masses from all your forts.

[Torgon]

Seems like the big difference between Eiru and TNN are the Sidhe warriors. Eiru has no recruit anywhere glamour troops, TNN does. The way Baalz outlines in his guide, in order to be a highly successful raiding nation Eiru has to invest in a great bless for their Sidhe Lords (plus additional equipment). The Sidhe warriors enable them to field stealth raiding parties from any castle. Makes them look a little more like Vanhiem. The Sidhe warriors are fairly decent, but what could we make of them.

Sidhe Warrior compare to Vanheim Huskarl
Gold 25 Gold 25
Resources 12 Resources 13
HP 13 HP 13
Pro 10 Pro 11
Morale 12 Moral 11
MR 14 MR 14
Enc 3 Enc 4
Str 12 Str 11
Attk 12 Att 12
Def 15 Def 14
Pre 12 Pre 12
Move 2/12 Move 2/11

Stealth 25 Same except no darkvision or forest
Glamour surv
Forest Surv
Darkvision
Spear/Javlin/Shield Axe/Jav/Shield

So the big weakness I see on both units, vanhiem and TNN is the low protection. Vanhiem is sort of stuck with it. Vanhiem also has the Vanhere, Mounted Hirdmen and Hirdmen, but they're capital only or more expensive, respectively. And except for the Vanhere who has berserk they're protection is still low. Yes you could bring an earth Vanadrott along with a pair of earth boots to buff, but this seam like a waste and a huge risk for a capital only mage who could reliably raid all by himself.

Now for TNN. What do you have? Nature mages that are recruitable from every castle. specifically the Bean Sidhe and the Sidhe champion

First the Bean Sidhe. Their A1W1N1 plus a random AWEN. So one in four will be able to cast Wooden Warriors right out the box. Every one will if you just give them a thistle mace. The earth randoms can cast legions of steel with just a pair of boots and an earth gem.

The Sidhe champion is 1A1N but 140 vs 220 gold for the bean (both compare nicely to the 280 Sidhe Lord, Plus the bean is more useful generally). The Champion can lay down the same buffs. His stats are a little worse than the Sidhe lord but he's a whole lot cheaper. Still holy so he could also work with a slight bless.

These two and a few Sidhe warriors seem to get even better when you look at those level one nature enchantment spell songs that these guys have access too. Specifically healing song, quickening song, song of bravery. Cast quickening song right out of the gate with either one. Now you have quickened glamour protected Sidhe warriors. If you go with the Sidhe champion just place him such that he follows right behind your warriors. He seams fairly survivable so you shouldn't be too worried about losing him. Now with healing song you have quickened, regenerating, glamour protected Sidhe warriors.

For the price of a Sidhe lord you can get a sidhe champion plus 6 sidhe warriors. I've been going through a few test runs (about 20 so far , and this can reliably take out PD up to around 20 or so. After that it goes to about 2/3 or 1/2. Bump it up to 10 or 12 warriors and you can reliably get up to 25.

Now you've got raiding parties without needing to fork over a huge amount on E9N6 bless as you have to for Eiru. Thus better scales and more warriors. Plus more Ri's, Sorceresses, and Baobhan Sidhe.

Now the baobhan sidhe seems to be a strange beast. An expensive assassin with A2. If someone can figure out something else to do with her I'm all ears. Is she a money sink or would something interesting work? The thing that first comes to mind is giving her an eye of aiming, then assassinating using thunderstrike, thunderstrike(Just 2 extra air gems). Not sure how often this would work, but it seems like it would reliably take out most mages not kitted out with lightning resistance, even if they had body guards. They're stealth +45 so patrolling for the buggers would be a huge pain. (Would this work?)

I'm imagining an interesting set of moves that could prove quite devastating. Take a number of baobhan sidhe, move them to a province with a fort. Perhaps one owned by someone that doesn't even share a border with you so they're not expecting it. At the same time move in a number of your raiding parties. Equip the raiding party leaders with wall shakers. Use the baobhan sidhe to take out the leaders inside. Simultaneously attack the province with the army that you've pulled in under his nose. Bring enough Sidhe Warriors + wall shakers to bring the walls down in one turn. Attack the next turn. Unless he has a large army within striking distance (which you should be aware of since you have parties all over his territory) or was just camping out inside with a significant force, you just walk right in the gate. Pair this up with other simultaneous raids on the surrounding provinces and you can push the time you need to break the walls down to 2 turns. A great city falls in two with just 4 shakers, a fortified city to 5 shakers(assuming you don't outnumber the defender at all).

Same strategy would would when attacking a large force outside the walls. Assassinate using Baobhan Sidhe and attack simultaneously with a force they didn't even know was next to them the turn before.

As I said before, very little experience with MP. Haven't even tested this plan out in SP. Seems interesting but may have huge holes when put to the test.

[Torgon]

Seems like the Bean sides and Sorceresses would also be perfect candidates for artificially communions and crystal shields. Only problem is the only option to forge them would be with your pretender, unless you got lucky with an indi mage site (which doesn't seem that unlikely in EA).

Also, looks like they did receive some love in the latest CBM. That's where the quickening song came in along with the mists spells which could be interesting.

Possible Pretender build

Dormant Crone:
E4S4D4N4

Scales: Dom 5
O3S2L3M1

Is it worth even trying to leverage into death with the nurfs to Tartarians? Will treants, rocs, etc be all you need?

[Corinthian]

The big problem with TNN as I see it is not the bad protection, but the bad damage. Glamor cant hold up in protracted battles so killing your enemies fast is necessary. The problem is that their best cap only warrior cost 50g but only have one str18 attack. Against giants or anything tough they will fail horribly. And they are not good enough to warrant a fire bless. And they are too expensive to work as chaff.

This can be worked around using thugs and thunder spammers come midgame. But if someone rush them they are done for.

[Festin]

I have played as TNN once in MP (vanilla), and performed reasonably well. My solution to the rush problem was hiring a Sorceress every turn and going directly for Thunderstrike. I think you can hit it before most nations can rush you. Meanwhile, it is entirely possible to have a decent expansion using firbolgs. They are good, but you will lose at least 1-2 solders on almost every type of indies, so be prepared to reinforce the expansion party.

[thejeff]

I haven't played around with TNN/Eriu in the latest CBM.
Did they trade Soothing Song for Quickening Song? Quickening sounds nice, but Soothing Song was brilliant for large battles. A handful of N1 mages could keep your Thunderstrikers going forever and let them recover from the big BF spells quickly.
And Healing Song actually gives regen now? Or did it always and I'm just misremembering?

[Jarkko]

Originally Posted by Corinthian

The big problem with TNN as I see it is not the bad protection, but the bad damage. Glamor cant hold up in protracted battles so killing your enemies fast is necessary. The problem is that their best cap only warrior cost 50g but only have one str18 attack. Against giants or anything tough they will fail horribly. And they are not good enough to warrant a fire bless. And they are too expensive to work as chaff.

This can be worked around using thugs and thunder spammers come midgame. But if someone rush them they are done for.

TNN gets in CBM 1.82 the quickness song at Ench0. Buying the sacred 50g infantry makes no sense, but buying the 25 gold glamorous elite infantry makes much more sense Quickened they will rip apart anything in their path.

[Festin]

Did they trade Soothing Song for Quickening Song?

Soothing Song is still present. And I think that Healing Song does not give regen.

[Torgon]

No healing song doesn't give regren. Basically just meant that in a small battle with just few troops and a commander it can effectively fill the same roll as sacred troops with regen from a big nature bless.

[thejeff]

Except that you've got to keep the commander up near the troops and still casting. Which can be tricky.