How many Niefel Jarls is too many...

[licker]

Is there even an upper limit here?

I just kinda feel like when you have more than one per province (assuming you aren't losing provinces right and left) you've hit some kind of critical point...

[Tifone]

Lol, looks like it's time to jump to the neighbour's jugular

[licker]

Originally Posted by Tifone

Lol, looks like it's time to jump to the neighbour's jugular

Indeed, though which neighbor?!?!?!

[JimMorrison]

Originally Posted by licker

Indeed, though which neighbor?!?!?!

A) You have researched Wolven Winter, and you want to go after someone with high Heat scales, who will suffer terribly from your fearsome blizzards.

B) You have NOT researched Wolven Winter, and you want to go after someone with high Cold scales preferably, so you retain your Cold Power bonuses.


(Oh and to answer the question, you never have enough, let alone too many, Niefel Jarls, unless you start the turn with >500g.)

[Taqwus]

Upper limit? Heh, as long as you can afford 'em... you're not playing Hinnom, after all.

Jump somebody who'd really, really want to have more time for research and site-finding, like TC.

[Tifone]

Yep, attacking Bandar Log or TC early can be a pain for these nations, they really want the time to get to the late game. Just remember the early astral nation can (and will) curse and/or horror mark your Jarls, so expect to lose some. Even C'tis could be an option, before they start researching too many poisoning spells.

I dare not to agree with JimMorrison Nations with strong cold scales take them usually as their have some degree of CR. I.e. Ulm. Which is bad, as the cold aura of the Jarls is your main chaff killer. Better at this point some nation with neutral scales, your cold aura will be less strong (but IIRC you can boost the aura with Breath of Winter anyway) but you don't risk facing too many CRs, and expecially not to meet some cold immune thug. But it's just my opinion.

And yeah, unless you can cast Wolven Winter, avoid whoever can toss around too much fire!

[chrispedersen]

I don't think Jim was being entirely serious when he advocated taking on a cold nation. Game logic speaking (aka, say anything that sounds logical and avoids me getting attacked).

Niefle imo should absolutely *not* attack other cold player - so their cold dominion can spread.

Avoid hot players until you research wolven winter.

[JimMorrison]

Actually, I was being totally serious. My point was, if you don't have Wolven Winter yet, you're probably still fairly early in the game. There are 4 other Cold scale nations in EA, let's look at them -

Vanheim: No Cold Resistant troops at all.

Helheim: No Cold Resistant troops at all.

Ulm: All troops are 50% CR, but in my experience, 50% doesn't really do that much to mitigate auras. Also of note, if your Jarls are Quickened (Personal Quickness is so fast to research), a few of them can cut through full sized early game armies without breaking a sweat.

Caelum: With 100% CR units, and some of the best research and evocation abilities, these are the most potentially troublesome, especially if they want to just raid you to death in counterattack. Again, however, if you can pin them into a fight, a few Quickened Jarls will devastate them, if they haven't brought enough Lightning to get you down in short order (if you did 8N, it's unlikely that they did).



There are distinct benefits to attacking a Cold scale nation early. First, your Cold Power will be assisting you. Second, each province that you take will be giving you much better income from day 1 (compared to even temp scales, you are -15% income, right off the top). Third, if it's an early war anyways, who cares if they spread Cold scales, any spread they have already done will be just fine as a base for your consolidation. Remember, early game you have no way to spread Cold scales without Temples or Preaching - later on you will want to religiously use Wolven Winter ahead of your armies, and so you are not reliant on hoping for an enemy to spread your Cold, you just do it yourself.

[HoneyBadger]

Too many Niefel Jarls = Damn, I won already?

Actually, if you have more than one Niefel Jarl per province-assuming you meant that you have 1 Niefel Jarl guarding each province-then it probably means you're not using them to their full potential.

Niefelheim's greatest weakness is that it must always be on the offensive. They don't defend well at all, on a cost-basis, so just gather up those Niefel Jarls and start slamming them into your enemy, starting with whoever's the greatest danger to you. There's a lot of tricks to making the most of them, but it sounds like your game may be stalling, anyway, so raw action might be the best thing you can do at this point, if only for the learning experience.

[Aezeal]

... to change a lightbulb