Thank you! I've been waiting for your BNA: EA Abysia! This explains a lot why they always fold like a wet taco when I encounter them with EA Niefel or MA Jotunheim. That and the AI doesn't play Abysia correctly. Their strength is in the creatures and hybrids they can summon but the AI never/rarely does. Early on their basic troops (on aggressive AI) can cut through the independent and your local province defence like butter, but mid and late game they eventually lose steam and even reach a critical point where their troops become nearly useless. Might also be cool to compare EA Abysia Salamanders, with Conjuration lvl 4 Fire Drakes. I use a dragon sceptre to summon 2 fire drakes a turn for 7 fire gems.
Hello Mr Confusion, Just wanted to add a Thank you for both introducing me to dom 5 a few months ago and doing these nation analysis videos. I'm Hoping to get into multi player sometime soon so may yourself and others online sooner rather than later. TYVM for making the time to entertain us lurkers whilst we gird our loins vs the AI.
Interesting... Abysia was the first nation I played in Dom4 and thinking back on it you're right. I crashed hard in the mid game but didn't really realize why.
Salamanders are amazing when you put them behind your infantry. fast enough to catch up just at the same time as the infantry takes the brunt of the attack, swarms of these obliterate. Also fire drakes with Abysia fronline infantry is absurdly good.
I think having recruitable lvl 3 priests is pretty significant because you can use them to cast Divine Blessing and you can make one your prophet to get a lvl 4 priest. This means you're one item/sabbath/communion/power of the spheres away from casting the lvl 5 priest spell which makes all your priests stronger which can greatly help you deal with demons, sacreds and undead.
22:22 Of note is that EA and MA Abysia have that spell to summon ethereal Abysians. LA Abysia has a slightly different one that summons SACRED Smoulderghosts.
Interestingly enough I have had very good luck with fire opener with infantry focus going into bringing 2-4 warlocks at the same time with a contract to spam devils. I have found that devils are very strong and helpful for mid game and you can get a good bit of them out quickly and consistently to replace those that fall.
Huh. I only ever got the flying Salamanders the last time I played EA Abysia so I just assumed that was all I got from Infernal Breeding. I wasn't aware there were so many more.
Great video. Two thoughts: - Once you account for upkeep, the cost difference between warlocks and dragons isn't that big; after a year, warlocks cost 81g/path and dragons 91g/path. Obviously this doesn't negate the other reasons warlocks are more important. - Rain really ought to have more limited effect. I like "strong effects, strong counters" approach of Dominions, but tte rain effect just does too much.
Two years later and some more experience and would add a third thought: All nations love Lizard Shaman indies, but none as much as Abysia. If you can get them, get them, and as many as possible. With Abysia's heavily armored troops and lack of national nature/earth mages, small-to-medium Shaman communions are an excellent way to dump Wooden Warriors pumping that prot from 17 to 23, as well being sturdy sacred communion slaves for your warlocks, expendable magic duelists, providing blood patrol wolves, much more cost-effective researchers, and a dozen other things. They shore up Abysias weaknesses *and* leverage their strengths. If I don't have a shamen province, I would go to war over one. If I already had one, I'd still value a second one highly.
Last week I tried out an awakened Wyrm with W10E6 quickness + hard skin bless. Managed to get 23 province until turn 12. But it has a terrible cost (Drain 3 Misfortune 3 with some turmoil) . I would like to see an analysis about EA Niefelheim. My best bet is the Keeper of the bridge with N7A6E6 regeneration + air shield + hard skin.
Forgot to say that hellspawn usually have afflictions, or old age. Around 1/5 of my stacks were crippled or limp, losing them on march after a turn or two (though it forces you to have some defenses in your capital, if you want to keep them). Anyway, thanks for sharing this with us. Now I see my favourite nation with a different view.
This is a bit late but there is something good lategame in fire that you could consider training one or two anointed of Rhuax for. At Evocation 9, flames from the sky becomes available for fire 5 casters and anointed can cast it with only one booster needed due to baseline 4 fire (some can even cast it without any boosters at all though you'd need to be very lucky). It's extremely potent vs human mages and large stacks of troops since they need to have a good chunk of built in fire resist for them to survive it.
Death's true threat isn't the -% pop/turn. Death 1-3, but especially death 3, open up horrible poploss events. Growth/Death is a misleading scale - unlike basically all other scales, it's completely asymmetrical in effect. Growth 3 is good, but Death 3 is terribad, way more than the inverse of growth 3 cause death 3 has common 50% poploss events. Death 2 has 20%, death 1 has 10% poploss events. On the other hand, growth has no real popgain events. I've played full MP games with Luck 3 Death 3, but death 3 is brutal as hell. When I ran the rough math on my one non-domkill nation MP game over like 40 turns and 40 provinces, luck 3 death 3 was somewhere around -8% pop/turn once poploss events were factored in, which completely overtook death 3's built in -.6% poploss from scales.
@@GeneralConfusionPlays how do you go about doing that? sorry if ill ask a lot in the future, im relatively new to this game haha, and thanks for helping me out :)
@@Gamma_ No worries man! For troops, the spells Antimagic and Army of Lead both confer army-wide +4 to MR, and Iron Will is the same effect but only AOE 1 so a lot harder to use effectively. The best way to counter thugs like that, though, is with thugs of your own; if they have E paths you can give them an Amulet of Antimagic for +4 and then cast Iron Will for another +4, which will push their MR up somewhere into the 20s and make it very unlikely for damage reversal to affect them.
Ah ok ill look those spells up, and how do you deal with assassins? Im playing as EA Machaka, my troop are going strong, but their commander just get sniped by Ermor assaasins, so all my good units just gets stranded in a province haha
Misfortune 3 in EA is pretty easy to deal with, other than turmoil 2's 20% poploss event. MA/LA Misfortune 3 is so bad, it's the indie knight attack minigame, but EA does't have knights.
You're really overplaying the counters for Abysia by a lot and are overplaying the need for an expanding pretender. You 100% have to go scales as EA Abysia. Anything less than growth 3, Productivity 3, and Order 3 is a straight up throw and you will 100% get out-paced by the mid-game/mid-late game. They also benefit immensely from a very strong dominion (I prefer at least 8+). Abysia is a nation that REQUIRES Heat 3 to fight, otherwise you're at a major disadvantage. A strong dominion will help push Heat 3, incurring heavy fatigue penalties to other nations you will be fighting. Burning Ones are an absolute trap where Abysia can't afford to take a combat bless to improve their terrible defensive stats. I would only ever recruit them for thug busting because their damage output is pretty high, especially versus single targets. Where Abysia shines is with spell orientated blesses, particularly ones with extremely high reinvigoration. Since all of your mages outside of warlocks are sacreds, it will help you immensely against the common counter of rain. In addition, since all of your mages will likely be over fire two (most damage fire spells require Fire 2) in combat with phoenix power, they will be taking half fatigue from casting those spells, negating the rain fatigue debuff. Also take in the fact that as a nation that consistently recruit Fire 2+ mages regardless of the mage you choose is incredibly strong. Other nations that have access to fire don't consistently recruit fire 2 mages at the rate of abysia, making your fire evocation spells en masse much more stronger. Once Abysia gets access to Pillar of Fire, there are no counters to stop them. Combined with all their mages being over fire 2, the damage is much too great for any fire resistance/protection to protect your troops. In short, EA Abysia is a nation that grinds you down with temples pushing an oppressive dominion and overwhelming mage numbers that outputs damage that CANNOT be ignored (Also spells like heat from hell, fire storm, and inner furnance all exacerbate fatigue issues for enemy armies). Some additional notes, only recruiting warlocks in this age is INCREDIBLY bad. Do not do it. Their upkeep is far too great and you will never get enough of them to keep up with actual blood nations. Go play Xibalba, Berytos, Mictlan, Lanka, and Hinnom, if you want to experience nations that actually can do blood magic well. Warlocks are a nice additive to bolster your magic paths and to give access to astral, not something that your nation focuses on. Also, Abysia is a nation that when it gets magic diversity is basically GG because your nation's troops take buffs incredibly well (Wooden Warriors on Abysian infantry is also kinda funny as an example). Finding magic sites that recruit mages to paths that you don't have access to is a game changer, and indie mages (particularly lizard shamans) are very helpful as well. Tl;DR Abysia is a nation where every problem looks like a nail and you are a very large, heavy, and fiery hammer.
how does imprisoned with o3p3h3g3m1m0 scales and E4S4D3B3 magic paths sound for pretender? bless is running 2x reinvig and far caster. EDIT: Forgot to mention dominion candles are set to 7.
@@kunknown2340 I think it could be a little better. I'm not entirely sure what pretender chassis you're taking in that example, but I'm going to guess it's the E2S1 monument. The death and blood crosspaths are very nice, especially if you can get to vampire lords, but I think I'd prefer to use the points elsewhere. Even a E4S4 monument would be pretty much doing the same exact thing as your suggestion, except you could also have maxed out Magic scales (with 1 in Luck) to reach laterns faster. Laterns are very nice because it shortens the power trough that Abysia enters during the mid-game. I personally don't think it worth sacrificing 160 points for a little magic diversity, but your experience maybe different. I generally rely on indies or magic sites with recruitable mages to fill the magic diversity need, but I'll admit it is inconsistent.
@@kunknown2340 LA Abysia is a bit different and since LA tends to be a more scale heavy age, you really start to feel the difference of half growth. However, your access to blood is far and away so much better to the point that I would say that it's top tier blood nation and should be your primary focus. I personally like dormant Neteret of Many Names with E4S4N4 as she will give you just enough in the way of astral boosters and some magic paths that you might struggle to get. Additionally, she will against increase your research to lessen the mid-game power trough that all Abysias experience. I go 3T1S1G3L3M (2 reinvig, far caster, unaging, minor posion resist). I know it sounds a bit whacky to have 3T and only 1G for a blood nation, but keep in mind that your growth is still 1/2 and that your humanbreds are only 9 rec points. Get to blood 3 first and transition to using their national crossbreeding as your primary chaff/soldiers because all your gold is going to be used up on mages. LA abysia is much more efficient with this spell because not only do you have more blood hunters, but your warlocks actually have a higher adept crossbreeder skill. Next go to con 6 to reach lanterns asap and from there you can adapt to what is happening in the game from there. You can just go full scales with an immobile pretender and be perfectly fine, but I personally like titans because I think they're fun and underrated.
@@Thatguyovertherechil Hmm interesting, you have a similar strat to a guy named Mardagg. Except he rushes constr and then conj (going mostly conj if involved in early war) before finally investing into blood. He also recommended not investing in growth, but if I had to, only put 1 scale on it so as to not waste pretender points.
I notice you allways appraice mages by gold/path. But level usefullness is not linear, each additional level is in general at least twice as good as bevor. Breaking roughly even by halfing the fatigue alone. A mage with one path level four is amazing. A mage with four paths level one painfull to see. Maybe instead of mage_effiency = sum_for_all_path(level)/gold use mage_effiency = sum_for_all_path(2^level)/(2*gold)
Getting into that much detail is tbh rather less than more useful, at least for me; I'm not trying to generate an exact formula, just working off a quick rule of thumb. For an 'average' mage, if you're paying about 60-75 gold per path you're probably getting decent value, depending on chassis; more gets prohibitively expensive very quickly, and less is cheap and high value.
I see, for the average mage it is indeed a passable rule of thumb and high level mages get discussed in detail anyway. Trying to generate exact formula is just kinda my thing and in some way one could argue my profession :P
I personally find Burning Ones a trap, they're too expensive. Sure, ten Burning Ones can take on any indie, but that's *700* gold worth of Burning Ones. Abysian troops are almost worse. 20 gold for Heat Aura and mediocre stats? You don't hire *Elves* and they have better stats than them (other than Sacred Elves and Nemidian Warriors). TL:DR Abysian troops are hot trash, but Burning Ones are worse.
It's more like 5-6 Burning Ones that can take most indie provinces, which IME is basically in line with other sacreds. You're right in that you don't want to make a lot of Abysian national units if you can help it, but early on churning out 20-30 Burning Ones to get really solid expansion with is definitely worth it.
Thank you! I've been waiting for your BNA: EA Abysia! This explains a lot why they always fold like a wet taco when I encounter them with EA Niefel or MA Jotunheim. That and the AI doesn't play Abysia correctly. Their strength is in the creatures and hybrids they can summon but the AI never/rarely does. Early on their basic troops (on aggressive AI) can cut through the independent and your local province defence like butter, but mid and late game they eventually lose steam and even reach a critical point where their troops become nearly useless. Might also be cool to compare EA Abysia Salamanders, with Conjuration lvl 4 Fire Drakes. I use a dragon sceptre to summon 2 fire drakes a turn for 7 fire gems.
Hello FieldMarshalConfusion! I just thought I'd mention, the EA Xibalba video is not in the Nation-Analysist Playlist. The bat-people are not amused!
Hello Mr Confusion, Just wanted to add a Thank you for both introducing me to dom 5 a few months ago and doing these nation analysis videos. I'm Hoping to get into multi player sometime soon so may yourself and others online sooner rather than later.
TYVM for making the time to entertain us lurkers whilst we gird our loins vs the AI.
Interesting... Abysia was the first nation I played in Dom4 and thinking back on it you're right. I crashed hard in the mid game but didn't really realize why.
Salamanders are amazing when you put them behind your infantry. fast enough to catch up just at the same time as the infantry takes the brunt of the attack, swarms of these obliterate. Also fire drakes with Abysia fronline infantry is absurdly good.
I used fire drakes just now and they kill troops really well, but died too quick imo. They're worth saving for a huge fight though
I think having recruitable lvl 3 priests is pretty significant because you can use them to cast Divine Blessing and you can make one your prophet to get a lvl 4 priest. This means you're one item/sabbath/communion/power of the spheres away from casting the lvl 5 priest spell which makes all your priests stronger which can greatly help you deal with demons, sacreds and undead.
22:22 Of note is that EA and MA Abysia have that spell to summon ethereal Abysians. LA Abysia has a slightly different one that summons SACRED Smoulderghosts.
Yep, I mentioned that. The LA version is a lot better for that reason.
Interestingly enough I have had very good luck with fire opener with infantry focus going into bringing 2-4 warlocks at the same time with a contract to spam devils. I have found that devils are very strong and helpful for mid game and you can get a good bit of them out quickly and consistently to replace those that fall.
Doesn't luck increase chance to get better crossbred ?
Can you make a blood heavy game? I want to see what you can really do with blood and how to establish a proper blood economy
I would love to see a basic nation analysis of TNN, Eriu and MA/LA Man!
Huh. I only ever got the flying Salamanders the last time I played EA Abysia so I just assumed that was all I got from Infernal Breeding. I wasn't aware there were so many more.
Great video. Two thoughts:
- Once you account for upkeep, the cost difference between warlocks and dragons isn't that big; after a year, warlocks cost 81g/path and dragons 91g/path. Obviously this doesn't negate the other reasons warlocks are more important.
- Rain really ought to have more limited effect. I like "strong effects, strong counters" approach of Dominions, but tte rain effect just does too much.
Two years later and some more experience and would add a third thought: All nations love Lizard Shaman indies, but none as much as Abysia. If you can get them, get them, and as many as possible. With Abysia's heavily armored troops and lack of national nature/earth mages, small-to-medium Shaman communions are an excellent way to dump Wooden Warriors pumping that prot from 17 to 23, as well being sturdy sacred communion slaves for your warlocks, expendable magic duelists, providing blood patrol wolves, much more cost-effective researchers, and a dozen other things. They shore up Abysias weaknesses *and* leverage their strengths.
If I don't have a shamen province, I would go to war over one. If I already had one, I'd still value a second one highly.
Last week I tried out an awakened Wyrm with W10E6 quickness + hard skin bless. Managed to get 23 province until turn 12. But it has a terrible cost (Drain 3 Misfortune 3 with some turmoil) .
I would like to see an analysis about EA Niefelheim. My best bet is the Keeper of the bridge with N7A6E6 regeneration + air shield + hard skin.
Love video, left a comment to help channel vis
Forgot to say that hellspawn usually have afflictions, or old age. Around 1/5 of my stacks were crippled or limp, losing them on march after a turn or two (though it forces you to have some defenses in your capital, if you want to keep them).
Anyway, thanks for sharing this with us. Now I see my favourite nation with a different view.
This is a bit late but there is something good lategame in fire that you could consider training one or two anointed of Rhuax for. At Evocation 9, flames from the sky becomes available for fire 5 casters and anointed can cast it with only one booster needed due to baseline 4 fire (some can even cast it without any boosters at all though you'd need to be very lucky). It's extremely potent vs human mages and large stacks of troops since they need to have a good chunk of built in fire resist for them to survive it.
This actually explains a lot. I initially played Abysia but my expansion always halted in the mid-game and I started losing.
Been waiting for this for a while. I pretty much play them and roman themed nations.
Death's true threat isn't the -% pop/turn. Death 1-3, but especially death 3, open up horrible poploss events. Growth/Death is a misleading scale - unlike basically all other scales, it's completely asymmetrical in effect. Growth 3 is good, but Death 3 is terribad, way more than the inverse of growth 3 cause death 3 has common 50% poploss events. Death 2 has 20%, death 1 has 10% poploss events. On the other hand, growth has no real popgain events.
I've played full MP games with Luck 3 Death 3, but death 3 is brutal as hell. When I ran the rough math on my one non-domkill nation MP game over like 40 turns and 40 provinces, luck 3 death 3 was somewhere around -8% pop/turn once poploss events were factored in, which completely overtook death 3's built in -.6% poploss from scales.
How do you properly counter damage reflect from thugs and pretenders?
Stacking MR; damage reflection is an MR check.
@@GeneralConfusionPlays how do you go about doing that? sorry if ill ask a lot in the future, im relatively new to this game haha, and thanks for helping me out :)
@@Gamma_ No worries man! For troops, the spells Antimagic and Army of Lead both confer army-wide +4 to MR, and Iron Will is the same effect but only AOE 1 so a lot harder to use effectively. The best way to counter thugs like that, though, is with thugs of your own; if they have E paths you can give them an Amulet of Antimagic for +4 and then cast Iron Will for another +4, which will push their MR up somewhere into the 20s and make it very unlikely for damage reversal to affect them.
Ah ok ill look those spells up, and how do you deal with assassins? Im playing as EA Machaka, my troop are going strong, but their commander just get sniped by Ermor assaasins, so all my good units just gets stranded in a province haha
And how do you cast big spells that costs 100% fatigue and up with casters that has no access to blood and or astral for communion?
Sorcerer's of the Sands get you Death Fire also Air and Earth
Also I'd love if you would take a look at EA Vanheim, I love air nations :)
Pangea analysis any age?
Turmoil 3 and misfortune 3. Seems risky
Misfortune 3 in EA is pretty easy to deal with, other than turmoil 2's 20% poploss event. MA/LA Misfortune 3 is so bad, it's the indie knight attack minigame, but EA does't have knights.
I wouldn't really like getting the 20% pop loss, but still good to know. Never figured that it was different from age to age
Next please:
EA Tir na Nog
MA Man
You're really overplaying the counters for Abysia by a lot and are overplaying the need for an expanding pretender. You 100% have to go scales as EA Abysia. Anything less than growth 3, Productivity 3, and Order 3 is a straight up throw and you will 100% get out-paced by the mid-game/mid-late game. They also benefit immensely from a very strong dominion (I prefer at least 8+). Abysia is a nation that REQUIRES Heat 3 to fight, otherwise you're at a major disadvantage. A strong dominion will help push Heat 3, incurring heavy fatigue penalties to other nations you will be fighting. Burning Ones are an absolute trap where Abysia can't afford to take a combat bless to improve their terrible defensive stats. I would only ever recruit them for thug busting because their damage output is pretty high, especially versus single targets. Where Abysia shines is with spell orientated blesses, particularly ones with extremely high reinvigoration. Since all of your mages outside of warlocks are sacreds, it will help you immensely against the common counter of rain. In addition, since all of your mages will likely be over fire two (most damage fire spells require Fire 2) in combat with phoenix power, they will be taking half fatigue from casting those spells, negating the rain fatigue debuff. Also take in the fact that as a nation that consistently recruit Fire 2+ mages regardless of the mage you choose is incredibly strong. Other nations that have access to fire don't consistently recruit fire 2 mages at the rate of abysia, making your fire evocation spells en masse much more stronger. Once Abysia gets access to Pillar of Fire, there are no counters to stop them. Combined with all their mages being over fire 2, the damage is much too great for any fire resistance/protection to protect your troops. In short, EA Abysia is a nation that grinds you down with temples pushing an oppressive dominion and overwhelming mage numbers that outputs damage that CANNOT be ignored (Also spells like heat from hell, fire storm, and inner furnance all exacerbate fatigue issues for enemy armies).
Some additional notes, only recruiting warlocks in this age is INCREDIBLY bad. Do not do it. Their upkeep is far too great and you will never get enough of them to keep up with actual blood nations. Go play Xibalba, Berytos, Mictlan, Lanka, and Hinnom, if you want to experience nations that actually can do blood magic well. Warlocks are a nice additive to bolster your magic paths and to give access to astral, not something that your nation focuses on. Also, Abysia is a nation that when it gets magic diversity is basically GG because your nation's troops take buffs incredibly well (Wooden Warriors on Abysian infantry is also kinda funny as an example). Finding magic sites that recruit mages to paths that you don't have access to is a game changer, and indie mages (particularly lizard shamans) are very helpful as well.
Tl;DR Abysia is a nation where every problem looks like a nail and you are a very large, heavy, and fiery hammer.
how does imprisoned with o3p3h3g3m1m0 scales and E4S4D3B3 magic paths sound for pretender? bless is running 2x reinvig and far caster.
EDIT: Forgot to mention dominion candles are set to 7.
@@kunknown2340 I think it could be a little better. I'm not entirely sure what pretender chassis you're taking in that example, but I'm going to guess it's the E2S1 monument. The death and blood crosspaths are very nice, especially if you can get to vampire lords, but I think I'd prefer to use the points elsewhere. Even a E4S4 monument would be pretty much doing the same exact thing as your suggestion, except you could also have maxed out Magic scales (with 1 in Luck) to reach laterns faster. Laterns are very nice because it shortens the power trough that Abysia enters during the mid-game. I personally don't think it worth sacrificing 160 points for a little magic diversity, but your experience maybe different. I generally rely on indies or magic sites with recruitable mages to fill the magic diversity need, but I'll admit it is inconsistent.
@@Thatguyovertherechil I was using the warlock. What would be a good LA pretender build?
@@kunknown2340 LA Abysia is a bit different and since LA tends to be a more scale heavy age, you really start to feel the difference of half growth. However, your access to blood is far and away so much better to the point that I would say that it's top tier blood nation and should be your primary focus. I personally like dormant Neteret of Many Names with E4S4N4 as she will give you just enough in the way of astral boosters and some magic paths that you might struggle to get. Additionally, she will against increase your research to lessen the mid-game power trough that all Abysias experience. I go 3T1S1G3L3M (2 reinvig, far caster, unaging, minor posion resist). I know it sounds a bit whacky to have 3T and only 1G for a blood nation, but keep in mind that your growth is still 1/2 and that your humanbreds are only 9 rec points. Get to blood 3 first and transition to using their national crossbreeding as your primary chaff/soldiers because all your gold is going to be used up on mages. LA abysia is much more efficient with this spell because not only do you have more blood hunters, but your warlocks actually have a higher adept crossbreeder skill. Next go to con 6 to reach lanterns asap and from there you can adapt to what is happening in the game from there.
You can just go full scales with an immobile pretender and be perfectly fine, but I personally like titans because I think they're fun and underrated.
@@Thatguyovertherechil Hmm interesting, you have a similar strat to a guy named Mardagg. Except he rushes constr and then conj (going mostly conj if involved in early war) before finally investing into blood. He also recommended not investing in growth, but if I had to, only put 1 scale on it so as to not waste pretender points.
I notice you allways appraice mages by gold/path.
But level usefullness is not linear, each additional level is in general at least twice as good as bevor. Breaking roughly even by halfing the fatigue alone.
A mage with one path level four is amazing. A mage with four paths level one painfull to see.
Maybe instead of
mage_effiency = sum_for_all_path(level)/gold
use
mage_effiency = sum_for_all_path(2^level)/(2*gold)
Getting into that much detail is tbh rather less than more useful, at least for me; I'm not trying to generate an exact formula, just working off a quick rule of thumb. For an 'average' mage, if you're paying about 60-75 gold per path you're probably getting decent value, depending on chassis; more gets prohibitively expensive very quickly, and less is cheap and high value.
I see, for the average mage it is indeed a passable rule of thumb and high level mages get discussed in detail anyway.
Trying to generate exact formula is just kinda my thing and in some way one could argue my profession :P
I'll now put this random comment on a 4 year old video just to confuse general confusion!
How dare you
@@GeneralConfusionPlays who knows, maybe you'll get back to Dom (and play one of my favourite nations!)
I personally find Burning Ones a trap, they're too expensive. Sure, ten Burning Ones can take on any indie, but that's *700* gold worth of Burning Ones. Abysian troops are almost worse. 20 gold for Heat Aura and mediocre stats? You don't hire *Elves* and they have better stats than them (other than Sacred Elves and Nemidian Warriors). TL:DR Abysian troops are hot trash, but Burning Ones are worse.
It's more like 5-6 Burning Ones that can take most indie provinces, which IME is basically in line with other sacreds. You're right in that you don't want to make a lot of Abysian national units if you can help it, but early on churning out 20-30 Burning Ones to get really solid expansion with is definitely worth it.
He makes it sound like Abysia is utter trash and just shouldn’t bother being played, if I’m honest...