Heavy Nature on Impossible?(No 11 books)

[Anskiy]

So for a challenge, I'm trying out a heavy nature focus on Impossible and... how do you get anywhere? The best summon you have is Sprites, and they are pitifully weak. There's not much to help your city troops either. Invariably, this leads to a very weak early game which allows AI to mushroom fast with their illegal resource/production bonuses and then crush you mercilessly.

[I like Serena]

It's indeed difficult to win impossible with a focus on nature but without 11 books.
Sprites are too expensive, although a single unit can protect your capital pretty well against any immediate threats.

Here's one way to at least have a fighting chance: start with dwarves and join them with war bears for pathfinding.
That is, dwarves are one of the few units with mountaineer, which combines with forester to pathfinding.
To be fair, just starting with dwarves is already a winning strategy regardless of spellbooks. It's just that they are so slow, but with war bears they speed up nicely in the early game.

Alternatively I'd focus and gamble on getting basilisks soon enough to still make a difference.

[Anskiy]

So far, it seems like I have to get lucky with lairs and hunt as many sprite compatible ones exist. It sorta works but is not ideal, and the rampant cheating means the AI can clear lairs more effectively, forcing a swift hunt with Earth Lore. If all else fails, I'll definitely try out dwarves, though I would prefer non Myrran races.

[rgp151]

I've done Nature on Impossible without 11 books, but depends on which version of Impossible you mean. Not 1.5x Impossible, that is impossible. 1.3x Impossible, yes.

Its a summon strat, as with any of the elemental schools.

9 books + Conjuration + Nature Mastery. Best Race is clearly High Elves.

I like to start with a stack of 2 Bears and 6 Sprites or sometimes 2 Bears and just 4 Sprites if you find something weak enough. The hardest part about Nature is that Sprites are so powerful in nodes, so it can make taking early Nature nodes much more difficult than Sorcery or Chaos. Still you can find non-Sprite nodes and take them, or take Sorcery nodes, which can be pretty easy.

Build straight for Elven Lords. Take any heroes that have Mountaineering for the Pathfinding. Elven Lords are super powerful, and work really well with Web and some buffs. You may build Settlers to get on Adamantium/Mithril if you find a good place for that, but only a single Settler for a prime spot. Try only capturing towns for everything else.

You should be able to take Neutral Towns with your Bear/Sprite stack pretty easily. Focus on taking Neutral Towns and Neutral Encounters. Get nodes if you can, but its not the focus. The real payoff, however, is Basilisks with Pathfinding and Water Walking. That's the real killer. The problem with Nature, however, is poor resistance and little way to deal with Death Magic, but that's why you have High Elves, which have high resistance. So against Death (or Sorcery) rely your Elven Lords and Longbowmen. Against anything else, get those Basilisks out ASAP. Then follow-up with Gorgons. Use a Basilisk with Pathfinding and Water Walking, paired with Gorgons.

Use your Earth Lore for superior scouting to find neutral towns and capitals and be prepared to strike fast at capitals with Pathfinding Basilisks.