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[Shadowlord]

W9 doesn't seem terribly useful for giantkin, to be sure.

You may also discover problems keeping them fed if you invade, because of how much supply they need in Ermor's supplyless deadlands (if you don't kill Ermor before they deplete their population). Heh. The supply items all require nature to make, too.

The last time I played SP I defeated Ermor by accidentally domkilling the AI (because the AI made its pretenders with low dominion values), but I was slowly driving its walls of undead back... And I was playing MA Ulm, so I had troops who were good at killing undead, but not quite as good as some other nations. MA Ulm is basically 'easy' mode, in that they have badass fighters that can roll over their foes, and can buff their resources, and have priests that can throw iron darts and iron blizzards, but they are otherwise weak in terms of magic (and weak to magic).

Mind you, I don't think people play MA Ermor in MP much, mostly because it's a good way to get dogpiled. Same with Sceleria.

Against Ermor, the easiest, cheapest strategy that works for everyone (against cheap undead anyways) is to amass a metric fuckton of priests and set them all to cast banishment, and deploy them against the enemy armies, with some chaff in front to hold the undead long enough to banish them. (Ideally with your good troops behind the chaff and in front of the priests to kill anything that gets through.)

[Delta Foxtrot]

I haven't seen people ganging Sceleria that much, but I suppose I should play a bit more MA to be sure.

Tried my first MA game as Ashdod in a 1v1 map, AI randomed MA Ermor.  Such great practice 

Anyway, I decided to try something different and go for a W9E4 bless.  I figured with quick berserker giants I would have a bunch of offense.  Unfortunately I kinda forgot to check their encumbrance, which was 5.  So they would take 10 fatigue per turn of melee combat with quickness :/

Is this useless?  I'm thinking I could maybe up it to E9, or fight a non-domkill faction.  But my PD is outperforming my sacreds, which might be a sign to think of a better bless.  Probably boring old E4N9.

Berserking adds +2 fatigue per turn so eventually those giants will be building up 12-14 (I'm not sure if berserk fatigue gets doubled by quickness) per turn. So yeah.
And then we get to consider the fact that those giants are size-5, I'm not sure if even high defence helps you to avoid being hit when you can't get any chaff to fill the squares.

I like to use W9 when I have high defence or attack density with my sacred squares, and giants don't really offer either.

If you want to do a "different" giant bless, I'd look into B9, N9 and/or a mix of minors. Yeah N9B9 isn't exactly novel, but I don't think it's as popular these days anymore. And perhaps the new pricing system makes a rainbow mage with S4B4F4 with or without N9 viable. I don't know, just thinking aloud at this point. I probably shouldn't, B4 on a giant is a horrible waste of points. So uh, B9S4?

W seems a bit suspect because your giant will get hit, size-5 really hurts there. F minor could work, attack 12 (+2 from berserk) is good, but I suppose it could be improved a bit. B as a major has its perks. MR will be one of the things people will try to target so that's not a bad thing to buff via S bless. D feels a bit useless, but I guess you could toss together a D9N9 Demilich and giggle at the novelty, there are worse ways to play if you ask me. Throw in S4 for demilich mobility as much as MR boost for the sacreds.
A is as useless as ever for these guys and you seem to be aware of the ubiquity of N/E.

So there's some food for thought. You can't really beat N/E for giants, but some variety is nice, either because you want to surprise people or concentrate more on scales. Definitely do E8 minimum if you want to continue experimenting W9Ex, there's just too much fatigue otherwise.

[EnigmaticHat]

So, just pulled off an air trapeze thug attack against the AI.  That's... terrifying.

[EnigmaticHat]

Just discovered the glory that is the nationgen mod.  It creates new civilizations by mashing together game mechanics and sprites from the old ones, plus a few extra things.  What's kind of hilarious about it is that while it can quite unbalanced, with factions having internally some units which are far better than others, the base game has the same problem.  So it actually feels decent compared to the base game, although of course the new factions lack the flavor of the handmade ones.  And sometimes it spits out something truly ridiculous, for better or worse.

Some interesting things I found within a set of 20 generated EA races:
A ridiculously powerful sacred fomorian, with both soldier and commander variants.  They all dual wield broadswords, one of which is enchanted, have ambidextrous 4, solid armor, are amphibious, have gift of water 50 and sailing 999, and have throwing axes because why not.  Oh and almost as much health as a Neifel Giant.  Most sacreds in this mod only have like 1 or 2 special features, so these guys won the awesomeness roulette.  Said race also includes apes riding giant spiders.
A sacred of normal size and power, that's only unusual quality is a glaive which paralyzes other sacreds on hit.
A race with two pairs of mages, both pairs have blood and then depending on which one you hire either air or death, the more expensive pair is slow to hire but gets some extra stuff and a guaranteed B3.  That seems like a cool mechanic for something randomly generated.  Also a cheap cap only infantry which is granted a second life as a ghouls when they die.  Despite being in the EA, they access have both crossbows and nets.
A "Boring Mage" that randomly gets one of D3, E3, S3, or F3.
A sacred with an exceptional short bow (better damage and accuracy, no special features) and a normal axe, with Berserk +5.
A faction with an innate N4 mage with a 25% chance of N5, a 9 gold 1 resource sacred monkey with "exceptional fists" as well as a bite attack, which throws sticks and stones.  Also hawk riders.
All kinds of awesome rider/mount combos.  The best has to either humans riding unicorns or hoburgs riding cavemen.
A faction of hoburgs whose mages all autosummon a fire elemental at the start of fights.

And probably a bunch of other stuff I missed.  Most of the factions consist of a lot of variations on the same theme combined with a couple standout units or unique mechanics, which feels pretty similar to vanilla.

[Karlito]

One of the multiplayer games happening right now is entirely with nation-genned nations.

[Farce]

One of the very first nationgens I got was fairly straightforward Vanir... until you got to their mages, who all had invulnerability and were kitted the fuck out.  The weakest was on foot and only had like B1 or something, whereas the rest were all mounted and geared up in armor with weapons and stuff.  The mounted ones had invuln 20, while the lesser dude had probably like invuln 10 or something, IIRC.  I never actually tried them out, as I was more interested in surfing all the nations I'd genned, but yeah, that looked hilarious.

Also fun:  Dudes mounted on fossilized giant skeletons.

[E. Albright]

A "Boring Mage" that randomly gets one of D3, E3, S3, or F3.

Do you have the seed (and NG version) of this nation? Boring is basically never supposed to come up as an adjective, so either that was the result of some very slim odds (which is possible) or (more likely) something not working how it was supposed to.

[EnigmaticHat]

A "Boring Mage" that randomly gets one of D3, E3, S3, or F3.

Do you have the seed (and NG version) of this nation? Boring is basically never supposed to come up as an adjective, so either that was the result of some very slim odds (which is possible) or (more likely) something not working how it was supposed to.

"-- Nation seeds generated with seed 556118595"
"-- Nation 100: Celburg generated with seed 1876707522"

I'm reasonably sure the version I downloaded was called "nationGen_0.5.0-reupload.zip", not sure if that's the official version or not.

[E. Albright]

That's the most recent "official" version. There's been seven more mostly-content (but with small amounts of coding) patches since then; no major new engine features, but Amazons, Sobek, and ichtyids were added as full nations, cavemen as an ally-only race, and several nations got new gear, mounts, or troop types (clockwork exoskeletons and giant parrots for hoburgs, Colossi for Machakan humans, zotz updated and given riding scorpions, etc.). They're "quasi-unofficial", insofar as they're made with the knowledge, blessing, and input of Elmokki, but no actual participation since he doesn't have time to work on it himself. Latest version is here.

Spoiler: Post-0.5.0 NG content samples (click to show/hide)

[Kagus]

That's...  Incredible.  That is some seriously awesome randomization/mishmashing going on, I'm impressed.

[Culise]

This update to the NationGen makes me want to run up a hundred or so nations, load the Oeridia map, and go hog wild.

[Elfeater]

Is there a link to the nation gen update?

[Culise]

Is there a link to the nation gen update?

They're "quasi-unofficial", insofar as they're made with the knowledge, blessing, and input of Elmokki, but no actual participation since he doesn't have time to work on it himself. Latest version is here.

EDIT: Oh, unless you meant a more direct link.  In that case:

Get those amazing* new cloaks here: Mega.co.nz

*Cloak graphics may not actually amaze you; individual results will vary. If your amazement lasts longer than four hours, please consult a physician.

[Elfeater]

Is there a link to the nation gen update?

They're "quasi-unofficial", insofar as they're made with the knowledge, blessing, and input of Elmokki, but no actual participation since he doesn't have time to work on it himself. Latest version is here.

EDIT: Oh, unless you meant a more direct link.  In that case:

Get those amazing* new cloaks here: Mega.co.nz

*Cloak graphics may not actually amaze you; individual results will vary. If your amazement lasts longer than four hours, please consult a physician.

Thanks

[E. Albright]

This update to the NationGen makes me want to run up a hundred or so nations, load the Oeridia map, and go hog wild.

You'll get "too many sprites in the mod" errors with 100 nations. You should be okay with 40 or so, though.

I'm pretty happy with the general diversity of nation sets that get generated right now. Not perfectly happy, and there's a slew of new features and other nations I'd like to see added, but I'm reasonably happy with the mods it generates right now. Not that this stops me from still adding more, mind you.