How to fight Giants in this game ?

[Baggio]

Hey, I have basic question: how to win agains a Giants nation when I play as a human nation ? Yesterday I play a 1vs1 game vs AI in the Early Ages. I play as Arcoscephale and the AI play as Hinnom. I just got wasted by the Hinnom forces. The Giants seems so much powerful than the human infantry... Guys, have you any idea how to defeat them in battle ?

[Mormacil]

Many small dudes withy big axes works pretty well. Alternatively immobilize the giants with magic, then cut them to pieces.

[Eldritch Gentleman]

As EA Arcosephale, your best option is likely to use your mage engineers and mystics to buff your own units and debuff your opponent's. Strength of giants on your own men, and destruction and earth meld on the enemy's, should kill off the AI effectively enough.

[Baggio]

Unfortunetly, EA Arcosephale don't have any dudes with big axes...only spears :) But thanks you guys for answering.

[DasaKamov]

Try to find a province with independent greatswaord and maul-wielding barbarians if your national troops don't provide enough striking power and use them as anti-giant auxilaries. Independent lizardmen with tridents or Bone-Tribe barbarians with spetums can also help you out.

[Fortuna]

With just Alteration 3, your mystics can spam Luck on your troops (note that Luck is more effective for humans than giants). With Alteration 4 you can also spam Body Ethereal, which would make your troops almost invincible against vanilla giants, but that also requires a lot more Mystics, and Raphaites would kill you just the same.

[wilson.max]

Giants aren't actually all that powerful--but if you're new to the game, they mess up your force calculations because you're not used to thinking in terms of gold cost yet. 1000 gold worth of giants is weaker than 1000 gold cost of humans, usually; but 20 giants are much stronger than 20 humans.

Giants have some other advantages like less vulnerability to evocations/Foul Vapors/similar, but for the most part they are weaker than humans.

[applenta]

The Acoscephale has this interesting Oreiad, can she seduce more commander than she's worth, can she stall the advancing army by taking their commander away? This Acoscephale has the economic and research advantage so might as well try to outgrowth your opponent, the Myrmidon with formation bonus is good at harassing too. And if you are lucky, you might assimilate a commander that give you the needed window of opportunity to hard counter your enemy, kind of unpredictable to plan ahead other than outgrowing and assimilating more commander into your legion. Play defensively and fortify your land with cold scale to stall the enemy too.

I suppose if you want to make use of Oreiad, you can take the Wind Walker blessing, give her flying carpet, safety escape and stealth upgrading items. Then sneak to the enemy and deprive them of their commanders while adding to your own. Not sure if MR is involved in seduction to need Arcane Finesse blessing.

[terve886]

Originally posted by wilson.max:

Giants aren't actually all that powerful--but if you're new to the game, they mess up your force calculations because you're not used to thinking in terms of gold cost yet. 1000 gold worth of giants is weaker than 1000 gold cost of humans, usually; but 20 giants are much stronger than 20 humans.

Giants have some other advantages like less vulnerability to evocations/Foul Vapors/similar, but for the most part they are weaker than humans.

I would say that giants are for most part stronger than humans. They are just more expensive per unit and are more easily countered by spells that target single enemies as you can't mass produce giants super much.

[wilson.max]

Yes, the Oriead can mess up an enemy advance that way. She does need an adjacent friendly province to take the enemy to, or she will refuse to seduce.

Note also that if seduction fails (target isn't interested in women, or succeeds on its morale check), there will be a battle, so try to give her some nature gems to cast Swarm (if you have it researched) or have some other strategy for actually killing the target.

Finally, don't forget that the enemy can find her when she's hiding in the province, which makes her have to fight the whole army alone. It's a risky strategy but it can pay off in magic diversity.

[wilson.max]

Originally posted by terve886:

Originally posted by wilson.max:

Giants aren't actually all that powerful--but if you're new to the game, they mess up your force calculations because you're not used to thinking in terms of gold cost yet. 1000 gold worth of giants is weaker than 1000 gold cost of humans, usually; but 20 giants are much stronger than 20 humans.

Giants have some other advantages like less vulnerability to evocations/Foul Vapors/similar, but for the most part they are weaker than humans.

I would say that giants are for most part stronger than humans. They are just more expensive per unit and are more easily countered by spells that target single enemies as you can't mass produce giants super much.

I think you're agreeing with me, but just to make sure:

1 Bashanite (50 gold) will beat 1 Cardaces (10 gold), but 100 Cardaces (1000 gold) will beat 20 Bashanites (1000 gold), assuming equal formations (e.g. both in line formation). And Cardaces aren't even particularly good humans.

Do we agree?

[DasaKamov]

Originally posted by wilson.max:

Note also that if seduction fails (target isn't interested in women, or succeeds on its morale check), there will be a battle,

There's a *chance* of their being a battle, but a Seduction which only fails by a small margin will result in a "The target of the seduction would not abandon his duties, but he did not want to betray the seducer and allowed her to escape" result as well, if that mechanic is the same from Dom 4 to Dom 5. ;)

[terve886]

Originally posted by wilson.max:

Originally posted by terve886:

I would say that giants are for most part stronger than humans. They are just more expensive per unit and are more easily countered by spells that target single enemies as you can't mass produce giants super much.

I think you're agreeing with me, but just to make sure:

1 Bashanite (50 gold) will beat 1 Cardaces (10 gold), but 100 Cardaces (1000 gold) will beat 20 Bashanites (1000 gold), assuming equal formations (e.g. both in line formation). And Cardaces aren't even particularly good humans.

Do we agree?

I do agree with you that the giants would lose to the similar costing human army in a direct battle. However as the quantity of giants is lower, they are easier to target single target spells, inluding debuffs and buffs.

Buffing an army of giants is much easier than buffig army of humans in early game, but giants are also more vulnerable to spells such as armor of achilles or mind burn.


Also Carcades are pretty great infrantry with their formation fighter ability and length 3 weapons.

[wilson.max]

Originally posted by DasaKamov:

Originally posted by wilson.max:

Note also that if seduction fails (target isn't interested in women, or succeeds on its morale check), there will be a battle,

There's a *chance* of their being a battle, but a Seduction which only fails by a small margin will result in a "The target of the seduction would not abandon his duties, but he did not want to betray the seducer and allowed her to escape" result as well, if that mechanic is the same from Dom 4 to Dom 5. ;)

Right, thanks for the correction.

My point was that you need to be prepared for a battle, just in case the person who mentioned Oreiads did not know that.

[wilson.max]

Originally posted by terve886:

Buffing an army of giants is much easier than buffig army of humans in early game, but giants are also more vulnerable to spells such as armor of achilles or mind burn.

Also Carcades are pretty great infrantry with their formation fighter ability and length 3 weapons.

Cardaces, Hastatii, Principii, whatever. I get the same results with any of them: the giants lose.

Which troop buffs do you have in mind? The ones I can think of (Protection/Wooden Warriors, Luck, Strength of Giants, Legions of Steel) are all AoE, which means that they actually work better on armies of humans than on armies of giants due to greater troop density. (Of course, giants can recruit indy humans to fill in the gaps in their formation and increase their troop density.)

Giants have an advantage on buffing individual units though, especially thugs. A Frost Brand, Blue Dragon Scale Mail, and Luck + Body Ethereal on a Jotun Skratti is far more valuable than the same equipment + buffs on a Wind Lord.

[boozermonkey]

Arco has several advantages it can use.

1. Vine Ogres. Orieds can spam these. Use them as your front line troops to occupy the giants while your Cardaces and Peltasts swarm them from the sides.

2. Golems for thugs.

3. Mystics are good with evo spam, are cheap, and you have the luxury to throw every mage you have at the enemy thanks to Philosophers doing your research for you. This means you have the luxury to devote all your battle strength mages to every fight, while Hinnom certainly can't do that.

4. Know your enemy. Hinnom has a lot going against it. Giants are great, yes, but they are rediculously expensive in terms of gold, resources, and upkeep. This is in opposition to the fact that their better units cause unrest and eat pop, further stirring the pot of unrest in their provinces, and thus reducing their ability to generate a lucrative economy.

Hinnom likes a blood economy. This means they will need to devote further resources to blood hunting, which in turn further reduces their economy.

Their sacreds are crazy expensive and unsustainable in the long term. This makes Hinnom (and most giant nations) a one trick pony. They are amazing in the short and early game. Their luster quickly fades in the mid and late game. Their best hope is their Blood 9 national summons, and their thugs/SCs.

Defeating them in the long game is simple. Just outlast them and weed their battle strength down fight by fight. They simply cant replenish their forces as fast as you can as a human nation.