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| Luck/Misforune: Midgard's heroes are forgettable, the PD does alright in repelling barbarians, its armies are mobile, Volva reduce the likelihood of bad events, and you already have Growth and Order removing some of the most dangerous excesses of random events. In short, Midgard is an excellent candidate for Misfortune. Misfortune-3 might be a little too much, but Misfortune-2 works fine. Make no mistake, Misfortune precludes a lot of very favorable random events, such as free gems, massive income hikes, and more. Yet, if you need points this is probably the least painful place to acquire them.
Magic/Drain: The effects of this scale are well known and understood. Basically, you need to balance research needs with other Pretender expectations. Midgard comes alive with Evocation-5, and hitting that milestone earlier is a huge help and hitting it to late can doom your nation. In the long run, your gold scales and hopefully decent early expansion will let you build enough mages to keep up with the Jones in you pick Drain-2, especially if you start with an awake Pretender to research. If not, keeping this scale even is a good idea, and Magic-1 a useful way to go, once again emphasizing long term advantages. Dominion: Since you should have positive scales (if you do not go read some other guide as you clearly have not been reading this one), it makes sense to want a high dominion to help spread your good scales around. Dominion-9 or 10 is too much, though, and go spend those points on some scales you skimped. Dominion-7 is a nice compromise. If you need points, though, you can strip Dominion as low as 5 and plan to aggressively push it using Blood Sacrifice. Choosing a Chasis: The earlier questions remain, do you want an SC chasis and regardless of the answer to the first question you want to pick magic paths that add utility to your nation. Air: Two separate Air boosters come available at Air-4, but Midgard does not have any chance at acquiring an Air-4 mage. Hence, it makes sense to put Air-4 on your Pretender. If not, expect to empower an Galderman very early on. Also, do not bother getting anything less than Air-4. Astral: Astral-4 means Rings of Sorcery and Wizardry can be forged by your Pretender (assuming he or she has a head) and puts Wish within reach though still requiring some empowerment . Astral-2 and Earth-2 (possibly achieved through boosters) let the Pretender build Crystal Coins (Astral +1) and Slave and Master Matrices. However, these low levels of Astral Magic make the Pretender vulnerable to Mind Duel and thus unsuited for SC duty. Higher levels, a minimum of 6, help alleviate these concerns, though they are still there, and make Wish more easily accessed. Blood: Dominion bylaws state Blood Slaves are cheap and empowering with them is always an option. Depending on how much and how soon Blood magic becomes part of Midgard's strategy, there is little reason to include blood magic on a Pretender. However, if a nation wants to start casting blood spells right away, having a Blood-4 pretender to build Blood boosters is acceptable. Also, Blood-3 combines with Nature-2 and Earth-2, separately, to make Armor of Twisting Thorn and Blood Stones, respectively. Death: Death-1 is redundant. Death-2 is useful as getting a Death-2 Galderman requires luck or patience. And Death-2 enables the forging of Skull Staffs, not unimportant. Death-3 is very useful, as it gives Midgard easy access to Skullfaces, an important Death-Booster giving your Pretender Death-5, where Wraith Helms can be forged. Throw Rings of Sorcery and Wizardry on the Pretender to start summoning Tartarians. There is little reason for Death-4 or above. Earth: The capitol Earth income of 1 and the high likelihood of recruiting Galderman with at least Earth-1 make Earth-1 absolutely redundant on a Pretender for utility. If a player wants to be assured a remote site searcher, Earth-2 enables Earth Boots. Still, Earth magic lets players climb a ladder using Troll Kings (requires Earth-3, comes with Earth-3), assuming the player eventually recruits an Earth-2 Galderman. However, Earth magic is great for SC chaises, and Earth-4 helps manage fatigue on Vanjarls should they be used as thugs. Fire: This path offers little help to Midgard. Combined with Earth it allows the forging of firebrands, a great weapon for thugs, but your Pretender's turn is probably better spent doing something else. By site searching other paths, independent mages can hopefully be found to break into fire later on. Nature: Midgard has access to Nature-1 mages at most, and no capitol nature income. Hence, giving your Pretender Nature-2 at least to site search and build Thistle maces is key to having a strong Nature income. Nature-3, when combined with a Thistle Mace and Moonvine Bracelet (Nature-3, Astral-1) yields Nature-5 where Treelord Staffs (+2 Nature) can be forged and Mother Oak and Gift of Health can be cast. It also allows players to summon Fairy Courts and the important Fairy Queen (Nature-3, Air-3 and heals). The bless benefits of Nature-4 are negligible, but there. Water: Unlike fire, water can be part of a long term strategy for Midgard, though it has no immediate synergy with its mages. Items like Boots of Quickness are tremendously helpful for thugs. More importantly, Clams can be forged with Water-3 and Nature-1 give Midgard a substantial Astral income boost. So, using a pretender to site search early is one way to go, and hope to get either independent mages capable of forging Clams with some boosters/empowerment, or summon a Naiad with combined Nature and Water magic. Finally, Water-4 gives a +2 defense bonus to some already incredibly high defense sacred units. Worth considering for the bless alone if the player plans on making Vanjarls thugs. Physical Forms: Thanks to Skinshifters, you don't need a Super Combatant to expand. However, some players just like the comfort of knowing they have an 80+ HP unit that can be equipped to take on entire armies at some point in the game. This section is for you. In general, such builds are best set to be asleep while your nation builds up research and items to equip and buff the Pretender when he awakes. Wyrm (50p) Build 1: Like King Pawn's opening, its hard to go wrong with this build. High HP, Regeneration, and fear when combined with Dominion-10 for Awe+2 creates a great early expansion Pretender in the absence of equipment and magic. The simple utility of this build makes it difficult to disparage it, though it goes against what has been suggested elsewhere. It will help Midgard expand very early on, though its own utility plummets once magic arrives and everyone else allies against you and your enormous early expansion. In addition, the Wyrm is amphibious allowing Midgard to expand into water provinces with out forging. Wyrm (50p) Build 2: Forgo early expansion, spend less on Dominion to put some Magic Paths on the Wyrm. Certainly doable, but the absence of chest and hand slots suggest another chasis for this strategy. Titan (125p): Expensive, but probably worth it. He comes with Air and Earth Magic, Size-6, and a phenomenal shield. 50 more points to add a new path, which is not recommended. Asynja(75p): Cheaper and slightly smaller than the Titan, the most important difference is the lack of base Earth magic. This Chasis also has the highest defense and attack skills. If you choose to forgo Earth magic on your SC Pretender (certainly a viable decision), then chances are this is your chasis. Keeper of the Bridge (75p): Comes with Air and Earth magic and a giant Patrol bonus. Most useful if Midgard's scales do not include Growth to help income as he can Patrol while taxes are set high. Obviously, keeping him awake is vital to this practice. Other than that, very similar to the Asynja. Father of Winter (75p): A Size-6 Pretender for cheap and has synergy with cold environments. The base Water magic, however, is less useful than Air or Earth for Super Combatants. Nature magic is recommended as an additional path. Allfather(150p): The most expensive form available (the VQ might as well not be available). However, new paths are 20p cheaper than other SC's, and the Allfather has a ton of comparative advantages. Air and Death magic are present as bases, which are two paths useful to Midgard. Other advantages of the Allfather include, flying, glamor, Size-6, and sailing. Rainbow(0-60p): The large variety of rainbow pretender chasis and the lack diversity among them allows them to be described together. Basically, choosing a rainbow lets Midgard invest in 2 to 4 additional paths than what a super combantant would allow. This advantage is compounded by the presence of path synergies, like Astral and Earth. The Sage, the Enchantress and the Crone are probably the best choices for this purpose. The Sage provides an enormous research bonus, the Enchantress comes with two paths and generates an Astral Pearl every turn, and the Crone does not cost any points and has four miscellaneous slots. However, depending on what paths you want almost any of the chasises can be used. 8.20.2.2 Assortment of tips -> Firstly: Vans are great. They are expensive and capitol only(for LA) but are considered one of the most powerful and cost effective sacred units in the game. Generally used with W9, often with F9 added and occasionally with E9 or N4-9.
Dom 5
Order 3 Prod 3
Cold 1-2 Misfortune 2 Magic 1
8.20.3 Helheim 8.20.3.1 Helheim guide
As soon as I got the full game I started a game as Helheim just to see what everyone was so excited about with the sacreds. I keep starting other games but then fun tricks occur to me that wouldn't work without Helheim's combination of paths (the only path I wish it had and doesn't is Astral) so even without dual-blesses I keep coming back to it. Here's one I haven't tried yet but which seems quite dirty. For a long time I didn't know what to do with the Air-1 Svartalfs beyond using them as inferior earth or death mages. Then someone pointed out that the +350% affliction chance from death-9 applies to spells as well as weapons, and suddenly possibilities... emerged. The E3A1 Evoc-7 spell Rain of Stones claims to be pretty much equivalent to Blade Wind except that it covers the whole battlefield. It's not. Unlike Blade Wind, shield-equipped units still take heavy damage. It's usually not enough to kill them, but most units in the army will take 3-7 points of damage even with Prot 12. Combine that with a D9-blessed Svartalf (which requires astral mages to forge Shrouds of the Battle Saint for 5 pearls, available at Const-4) and pretty much the WHOLE BATTLEFIELD is going to be afflicted. Of course that includes your own forces. I can therefore see two scenarios: 1.) Soften up enemy armies the turn before attack with a blessed air Svartalf placed on the back of the battlefield, scripted to . If you want to save the Svartalf, add Ironskin in there first and give him three Earth gems instead of one to reduce his fatigue enough to still be able to retreat. Or write him off and save the gems. Cost: 5S, 1-3E, in exchange for annihilating an enemy army of arbitrary size as a useful force. 2.) Research Enchantment-4 and use a Winged Helmet or Bag of Winds to boost him to A2. Then cast Cloud Trapeze to drop said Svartalf onto an enemy army in the magic phase before normal movement takes place. Follow up if possible with a normal army attack on the same turn to wipe out the pathetic remnants--they'll still be low on hitpoints and probably morale. This tactic would work even without the D9 blessing, but the synergy is that even if the enemy out-foxes you in the movement phase (causing your regular army to miss), your Svartalf will have done more than just killing off 20% of the force with Rain of Stones. He'll have crippled the whole army. Cost: 28A, 5S, 1-3E. Hopefully you get to reuse the helm and shroud so the marginal cost is 3A, 3E, for a cruise missile that can cripple armies of arbitrary size. I'm dying to test this out, but I understand the #startspell map command is broken so I can't use Gandalf's test map and I haven't had a chance to do it in a game vs. myself. It occurs to me that the cruise missile variant wouldn't work vs. armies with lots of Paralyze, etc., in which case you'd probably add a couple of castings of Call of the Wind to provide extra targets, and give him Earth Boots to eliminate one round of delay. -Max Edit: Of course, in practice you've got Dwarven Hammers so the cruise missile variant only costs 20A, 3S, 3E, and the regular is 3S, 1E. Plus 180 gold for the Svartalf. : ) Okay, so I tested this and it looks like I overestimated the damage Rain of Stones does against armored troops. Out of an army of 100 Ambibate nobles I tried this on, fully 38 survived with no afflictions, and some weren't even wounded. But 24 were killed and 46 were afflicted. Even Flames From the Sky won't get you that affliction rate. 12 chest prot vs 14 damage...I'd think it would be biased to head hits, which would be 15 prot instead, but it's hard to tell without a mod or a lot of living pillars. The chance of getting a 0 damage body hit is 38% though, according to the table, which is pretty close to what you got. No idea how 24 of them died though, that seems like a really really high number. 38% had no afflictions, but when I watched the battle replay a lot of those were from little 1-2 point hits, and the occasional unscratched guy. I did run it a couple of times and 25% dying is about par for the course; maybe it's not really 14 damage. Or maybe it's armor-piercing; one Ironskinned Svartalf with Prot 20 took 11 points of damage and died, which is a lot more plausible with AP than normal attacks. The thing I was most surprised about, though, is that shields don't help. Blade Wind does almost nothing to Ambibate Nobles, but Rain of Stones stomped all over them and I presume it will do the same to any medium infantry (or EA heavies). [Comment: it comes from above, maybe it hits the head (thus taking into account mostly their helmet) ]
the Ambibate Nobles' protection is actually *better* on the head (15 vs. 12), so 14 damage should be negligible. And the Ironskinned Svartalf's Protection was 20 on both head and body. ]
Once upon a time, Helheim was one of the real EA powerhouses. Then the double nerfbat came across their shoulders and they were humbled. The Helhirdlings were drastically reduced in power with the nerfing of glamour, glamour no longer protects against ranged effects or spells. The once terrifying sacred cavalry now often struggles against mere javelin PD in sufficient numbers and archers both of which are common in PD and indies. The more grievous of the nerfs though was the plague which wiped out most of Helheim¿s dwarves. The Svartalf became capital only and Helheim lost its only cost effective non-capital researcher. Leaning on sacred units for early expansion means sending priest/mages out rather than researching, leaving a research gap that is impossible to close with their very expensive and ineffective Helkarl/Vanheres researchers who add insult to injury by requiring temples as well as labs to recruit. Finally, your opponent pretty much knows what to expect so they can start working on counters the second they realize they¿re your neighbor. Since the double nerf Helheim¿s dominance has drastically waned, their usual pattern is an aggressive dual bless rush which quickly fades as their research struggles and their glamour fails to protect them from a variety of counters. I haven¿t seen Helheim do impressively well into late game since this massive double nerf, so I figured they needed a guide. To properly play Helheim, you need to get into the right mind set. Whereas Ulm is the model of German efficiency, Helheim is a V-12 American muscle car. You¿re lacking the AC, and you¿re not paying attention to your abysmal gas mileage because you¿re all about raw, concentrated, glorious *power*. Some of the suggestions I put forth in this guide might make you wince a bit because they perhaps feel wasteful, perhaps they feel like a bit of a loose cannon, but you have to play a nation with the grain, and injecting nitro is not about efficiency. It¿s about leaving the poor schmuck sucking your exhaust at the light. So, I¿m gonna go ahead and lead with your pretender, and you¿ll have to bear with me a bit as to why I make some of these uncommon choices. As with all my guides, this build has some room to be tweaked once you understand the song we¿re trying to sing and you want to try some harmonies of your own. Lets take an awake master druid 2F 4W 9E 2S 4N, with Order-3, sloth-3, cold-2, death -3, luck-3 and drain-2 with a dominion score of 3. Eeeek! Not only high death with a blood hunting nation but drain! Didn¿t you just get through lamenting their difficulty with research? The thing to keep in mind is you¿ve got to embrace your strengths and play the way the nation naturally flows. Some people look at a weakness and try to directly compensate for it. They see a nation vulnerable to a rush and thus want a SC pretender. They see a nation with weak research and think that means you have to take a magic scale, maybe even look at the terribly expensive magic-3 scale. Me, I¿d rather set the tempo so the dance never hurts my lame foot. If all I¿ve got is terribly inefficient researchers, then I¿m not going to use them. Now, I¿m betting some of you are confused at this point. The blessing I suggest is not something that lends itself to a standard bless rush, particularly with a dominion score of 3. But I¿m not using my non-capital researchers. So, no rush and extremely weak research¿.what the hell do I have in mind? Raw, concentrated, power my friend, listen to the growl of that beautiful engine. With this blessing you¿re going to be able to expand against moderate to weak indies using just a single Helkarl with a single Helhirding and a half dozen huskarls. Set the Helhirding to guard commander and he¿ll be permanently wedged into the same square as the commander, thus halving the number of attacks he¿s fending off and the blessing is giving you extra defense, and a high enough armor that your one point of regeneration will cover the odd hit that does land while the reinvig makes sure you keep on kicking. The huskarls are there to take the attention of the indies, catching the arrows, javelins, etc on their shields and tying up the infantry with their high defense and glamour, while your two mounted guys attacks the rear. You¿re gonna take a casualty here or there but your expansion will be reliable enough and a bargain for the price. You¿re fielding a cheap expansion party every round for the first couple. Avoiding the tougher indies shouldn¿t too much of a problem because your primary goal is not the high income, well defended territories, it¿s the much more modestly defended mountains and wastelands. That raw power at this point is concentrated in just a handful of guys in each squad, and with those nice order/luck scales you won¿t have any problem with cashflow despite sticking to the lower income indies. Don¿t hesitate to use your stealth to sneak on by anybody that looks like they¿ll give you too much of a fight you¿ll be having a very brisk expansion even if you¿re picky about where you attack. This isn¿t just to make your initial expansion run smoothly, it¿s also exactly what you want the most. After the first two turns you¿re going to switch to fielding an expansion party every other turn, alternating with recruiting a dwarf. The dwarves are going to go our site searching in those mountains and wastelands, forests and swamps. What you need the most is earth and death gems, and conveniently every dwarf will hit both of those with at least level 2. Meanwhile your very modest gold outlay and very nice income scales will let you pop up a second castle pretty quickly, along with a lab and temple. If you¿re doing well you¿ll likely get castle three up pretty quick as well, but really it¿s only the second one which is urgent. Out of every non-capital castle you ever put up you will do exactly the same thing every turn, recruit a Vanjarl and nothing else (if you¿re pinched you can recruit some troops, but that¿s just an emergency measure). Unmodified, the Vanjarls have 4 research points in drain-2 at a staggering 280 gold. Ignore that, just assume they can¿t research and mentally put them at 0 research points. These guys aren¿t meant to research, at this point every one you recruit should be set to blood hunt. This is also immensely expensive for a blood hunter, but just ignore that little voice because we¿re interested in power, not efficiency. You shouldn¿t have any probably affording two Vanjarls and a dwarf every round which is really all you should care about. Meanwhile, your pretender solidly researches construction. Your pretender has 29 research points and doesn¿t really care about the one point he loses from drain. Download 5.74 Mb. Share with your friends:
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