Yet another new person with a question...

[Fantomen]

It think that's all a bit too extreme Squirreloid. There's nothing wrong with playing around with the game.

MA Ulm and other human nations is good practice for the very reason you mention, that it forces you to learn scripting. More challenge = better practice.

[Squirrelloid]

Originally Posted by Fantomen

It think that's all a bit too extreme Squirreloid. There's nothing wrong with playing around with the game.

MA Ulm and other human nations is good practice for the very reason you mention, that it forces you to learn scripting. More challenge = better practice.

I feel like i'm talking past you.

Its your first game. You don't know *how* to script. Not how to script well, how to script at all. The mechanics, not the nuances.

Yes, later experimenting with different races is great. But for your very first game? The complication of subtly different infantry does not needed to be added on top of learning the game UI.

[HoneyBadger]

I don't think it's an issue with EA Tien Ch'i. It doesn't really matter what units you decide to make, despite their diverse equipment (hint: it's not really that diverse). Build enough of whatever, any single unit type, and you can beat the AI with it by throwing enough of that unit at the AI's troops. Any of their units can form the core of a successful military (we are talking about the AI, afterall).

Even their cheap infantry is really useful in the early game, because of their long pikes.

In the meantime, by seeing what works better, in certain situations, you can gradually learn the Nation, and through that, the game.

And you have the option of easily switching gears in mid-game. Build too many chariots, and you can start supplimenting them with pikemen and archers, on the cheap.

You also don't have to worry about screwing up with a bad Pretender build.

Most anything will have some success, from an extremely high Bless, too low Magic, too hot, too cold, no growth, etc.

Low Dominion can be salvaged with TC's cheap priests (again, it's the AI). Expansion is solved by "build whatever", and the very decent starting army, so you can have an imprisoned Wyrm, or a statue, and still be successful.

You'll just become more successful, over time.

[thejeff]

As opposed to Neifelhiem, where you have essentially 2 useful troop types? Skinshifters and Neifel Giants? And Neifel Giants only if you've taken the right bless. Everything else might have some use as meatshields for your mages, except that your mages work better as thugs than artillery.

It's also not immediately obvious how lousy the troops are. Some of them look quite nice, but they're expensive and giant, which means they'll be easily swarmed and due to the way the combat mechanics work, they get slaughtered.


So your troops are capital only. For anything else you really need to rely on thugs. Which is fine. It's what Neifelhiem is about. But it's hardly an easy into to the game.

Neifelhiem is also pretty unforgiving of mistakes. Especially if you're running a bless. The Neifels are expensive. If you screw up and lose a group that really hurts. If you wait to recruit too many of them to be sure, it'll take forever to expand.
And as was said, the PD is crap. That may be a good thing to learn in training for MP, but it can turn a minor setback into a rout. Especially since PD helps convince the AI not to attack, even if the PD wouldn't stop it. Having little or no PD is an invitation for a multi-front war.

On a larger scale, if you're thinking of this as hard-core training for MP, Niefelheim might be a good choice. A lot of things you have to do with this nation are the basics you'll need to learn for MP. For a more general introduction, I'd recommend anything that doesn't rely on thugs or a bless. Good solid troops, maybe archers and mages that work well as artillery. And no blood. Play around with the basics first, then branch out. This may not be the quickest way to good MP, but a lot of people play SP more than MP anyway.

And who cares about the complication of subtly different troop types? You're fighting the AI. It's bringing pile of random junk at you anyway. Recruit some of each, maybe buff them a bit and rain destruction down on the enemy from behind them. Ulm is actually good at that. And it works well in SP.

I'd really echo Foodstamp's advice from earlier. Pick something that sounds interesting or just pick a random nation. See what you can do with it. If it gets boring or too frustrating, switch to someone else. Maybe the nation that was beating you. If the game does grab you, you'll soon have more nations you want to try out than you have time to try them.

[rdonj]

...what? I've beaten impossible AIs before, without using niefel jarls in ANY capacity, using nothing but javelin troops, skinshifters, and a small number of meatshield guys as arrow catchers. So I have no idea where you're coming from. Besides, skinshifters may be cap only, but they also take completely negligible amounts of resources so are quite massable. Niefelheim's troop lineup may not be *great*, but it's completely usable and solid enough.

If I wanted to suggest hardcore MP training, I'd pick a kailasa or a bandar log before niefelheim. If you can beat full on impossible AIs with those nations, you are definitely ready for MP.

[thejeff]

Well, I bow to your awesomeness. Though you'll note that I did mention skinshifters.
I'll concede that the javelin troops have some use. I've done roughly the same, though I used some mages and thugs as well. But neither of us are new to the game.

Where I'm going with it, is that recruiting most of Niefelheim's troops is a losing strategy, and it's not obvious to a new player that it's a losing strategy. Other than Neifel Giants and Skinshifters, expensive high-resource giant troops will die to the hordes of chaff the AI likes to throw around. And it's not obvious why, since they look tough.

The advice given was "Try Niefelheim, they've got good armies and mages. You'll win easy." Not, "Use mostly Skinshifters, or Niefels if you took an E9Nx bless." Of course, the most detailed advice also talked about using Skratti to kill SCs, which isn't really useful to a newbie playing SP.

Hardcore MP training as in "here's a good way to force a new player to use MP style tactics", not as in a final test to prove you're ready, which I agree Kailasa or BL would be great for. Maybe hardcore was the wrong word.
It was the idea that the lousy PD was an advantage, that sparked that idea, but the whole nation points in that direction. Small groups of elite troops, recruitable thugs/SCs, basic troops become useless quickly, etc.

[Valerius]

Originally Posted by thejeff

The advice given was "Try Niefelheim, they've got good armies and mages. You'll win easy." Not, "Use mostly Skinshifters, or Niefels if you took an E9Nx bless." Of course, the most detailed advice also talked about using Skratti to kill SCs, which isn't really useful to a newbie playing SP.

Hey, that's not fair! The core of my suggestion was bless + chill aura + some evocation, which would then give you the leisure to experiment with Niefel Jarl SCs and dabble in blood magic. I merely mentioned Skratti as SC killers in an attempt to illustrate the differences in power level.

As you can see Munkie, people will have varying (and strongly held) opinions. One nice thing about SP is if things go wrong or you hate the nation you're playing you can just start a new game.

I'll mention one other thing. Let's say you've played for a few dozen turns and you're enjoying it but you want to try some new things. Backup the turn files and then if things go wrong you can just copy them back into the saved games folder and try again.

[HoneyBadger]

The strong "forgiving" factor is partly why I recommended EA Tien Ch'i. I have a feeling that starting with Niefelheim promotes the desire for a "strong bless strategy", for all situations, which can be dangerous in competitive play.

[Squirrelloid]

Originally Posted by HoneyBadger

The strong "forgiving" factor is partly why I recommended EA Tien Ch'i. I have a feeling that starting with Niefelheim promotes the desire for a "strong bless strategy", for all situations, which can be dangerous in competitive play.

Skinshifters are not sacred, and are perfectly playable. Not to mention other units as already mentioned. So i'm not sure why Nieflheim necessarily promotes a strong bless mentality.

Indeed, i usually see EA TC taken with a larger bless than even a bless-focused Nieflheim takes.

[HoneyBadger]

It's Niefelheim.

You don't think Niefelheim would tend to promote a strong bless strategy to an inexperienced new player? If the obvious elements of the Nation didn't, then certainly the Forums would, since the most obvious and straightforward strategy for Niefelheim includes "Earth9,N4+" almost by rote.

Sure, you can do lots of other things with Niefelheim, but those other things are advanced strategies.

Tien Ch'i, you can literally do anything with, including destroy your scales and Pretender, for the ultimate Bless. I've had something like 4A,4F,9W,4A,4N,1B on a Father of Winter before, and destroyed the AI.