Re: Helheim - lets burn some rubber
 

Oooh, black heart + black bow, now *that* is wicked. Works even against units with bodyguards, and the Chest Wound doesn't hurt as much if you're just firing a bow. One reason I was skeptical earlier of someone raiding you and popping your temples is that Helheim is already *scary* to raid since you never know what's there; now even if you take the province there *still* might be assassins hiding to kill all your mages.

BTW, Piercer costs 3A as well as 3E. That's a hard path combo; did your pretender forge it or did you find some metal adepts or something?

-Max

Re: Helheim - lets burn some rubber
 

The piercer is only 3E in CBM, making it viable. Its on the long list of things that you'll have a very hard time putting to cost effective use in vanilla.

Re: Helheim - lets burn some rubber
 

But how well would that work against an SC with a shield or the missile prot. amulet or spell?

Re: Helheim - lets burn some rubber
 

Only rarely, but you might get lucky. If you're using Bow of Botulf, it's worth trying.

Re: Helheim - lets burn some rubber
 

I'm not 100% sure, but I think Feeblemind on the Black Bow of Botulf is a secondary effect like poison. In that case, a shield won't stop it although a missile amulet might.

-Max

Re: Helheim - lets burn some rubber
 

Botulf is shieldproof, yes.

Missile protection still stops it though iirc.

Re: Helheim - lets burn some rubber
 

Botulf is Magic so you get +2 on the hit roll, but I don't think it's shieldproof. I thought since the Feeblemind is an effect, not effectauto, that you need to do 1HP damage for it to affect the target. (This is according to Edi's DB.) But see the next post, I don't think the 14-dam hit needs to do damage to trigger feeblemind.

Anyway, I tested with Lugh shooting a Titan (parry 9).

In one case the arrow landed in the Titan's square but did no damage or feeblemind:

auto placement player 3
deploycom Noth at 23 11
deploy_side 185 at 23 11 (w60 h30)
deployunits
...
gettarget player 16 targtype 5 unr 340 eu 185 mode 2
blastsqr: unr340 x23 y11 aoe0 dmg14 eff2 spc1073741826 as-1 al0
blastsqr: unr340 x23 y11 aoe0 dmg33554432 eff11 spc1073872896 as-1 al0
battle_incheck
leftplayer teamhp 108 max 108

The titan was set to Hold x 5, Retreat. Visual check shows he's still in 23,11 when the arrow hits the square. Lugh managed to hit the 23,11 square twice, and both times the Titan did not take damage or get feebleminded.

Re: Helheim - lets burn some rubber
 

Update, the Titan finally got feebleminded. There was no damage from the dam-14 on the bow. But the feeblemind is aoe-0, so I think that's triggering a shield check, I can't think of any other explanation for why the arrow hits the square at least 10 times without feebleminding the Titan.

----- turn 3 (rand 384)(check 26336429)
Battle running along just as I have forseen
battle_incheck
rightplayer teamhp 29 max 29
Mrlreport (right): good2 broken0 autobreak0 turn3
Closest enemy (for unr 340)
gettarget player 16 targtype 5 unr 340 eu 185 mode 2
blastsqr: unr340 x23 y11 aoe0 dmg14 eff2 spc1073741826 as-1 al0
blastsqr: unr340 x23 y11 aoe0 dmg33554432 eff11 spc1073872896 as-1 al0
battle_incheck
leftplayer teamhp 90 max 90
Mrlreport (left): good0 broken0 autobreak0 turn3
battle_incheck
----- turn 4 (rand 233)(check 26313981)
Battle running along just as I have forseen
battle_incheck
rightplayer teamhp 29 max 29
Mrlreport (right): good2 broken0 autobreak0 turn4
Closest enemy (for unr 340)
gettarget player 16 targtype 5 unr 340 eu 185 mode 2
blastsqr: unr340 x23 y11 aoe0 dmg14 eff2 spc1073741826 as-1 al0
blastsqr: unr340 x23 y11 aoe0 dmg33554432 eff11 spc1073872896 as-1 al0
affectvic vic185 hv0
hitunit 340 185 dmg33554432 spec1073872896 ba1
battle_incheck
leftplayer teamhp 90 max 90
Mrlreport (left): good0 broken0 autobreak0 turn4
battle_incheck

Re: Helheim - lets burn some rubber
 

I've been trying to play with this and the strategy makes no sense. I have yet to get a start where I have the resources needed to produce the indicated troops early on. The specified army can only conquer weak provinces and if you don't get enough of them around your capital you won't have the resources.

It also left me unable to cope with invasions from two sides the one time I didn't get stuck at the start.


Finally, what's the point of the N4? 5% regen just isn't that much on the sort of units you are using.

Re: Helheim - lets burn some rubber
 

I don't know about 'effectauto' but poison assigned to secondaryeffect will work even when parried and the same is true of various other effects. I haven't tested botulf though, while you have. That would suggest there's something about an effect that decides whether it requires damage to be dealt or not, which is good news for the potential fixing of poison missile weapons.

Re: Helheim - lets burn some rubber
 

N4 gives you 1HP per turn, and when you've cast mistform that's often enough. It also gives less chance of afflictions.

I like W9 a bit better than E9 because it's nice with the lances, it improves your already good defense, and it multiplies your attacks. And Helheim's probably not going to be casting Quickness, so there's no waste there.

Re: Helheim - lets burn some rubber
 

Agreed, the 1hp regen a turn comes in nice when you start using the VanJarls and get mistform. (Which if you follow it strictly is after you start summoning Tartarians?)

It doesn't help much with initial expansion, though. Maybe reduces afflictions on the Helkarlar.

I agree the suggested force is both weak and hard to recruit at first. If you split the starting troops up, you can field a couple Helkarls, then alternate with dwarfs. If you've got the money, that should give you enough resources to field the Helhirding and Huskarls every other turn.
Still I had a lot of attrition with the Huskarls and the occasional total loss. Maybe I wasn't picky enough with my attacks. Still, if the intent is to get site rich provinces for the dwarfs to search, you've got to have a path to reach them, so sneaking around too much doesn't help. Also, couldn't begin to afford a second castle until I'd taken at least one high-income province.
I tend to play on fairly crowded maps in SP, so that may also be a factor. I didn't have a lot of provinces to choose from.

Re: Helheim - lets burn some rubber
 

If it depends on the effect, this might also explain why Lightning Bolt ignores shield parry even though it's not Prec 100.

-Max

Re: Helheim - lets burn some rubber
 

Hmmm, the troops I list here cost a total of 84 resources if you recruit everything from scratch, so you should be able to field one every other turn with your capital only resources...but you start out with enough infantry for two of these squads so you shouldn't really have trouble fielding exactly what I suggest. Also, everything I suggest is of necessity a rough suggestion that you'll have to modify in light of how a particular game is going - it's not the end of the world if you have to skip a turn sending out an expansion party. You are going to have to skip the tougher ones, combine expansion parties to attack the slightly tougher oens and you're going to take some total losses. That's Ok, this isn't a recipe for an uber fast expansion, just a decent one. In a theoretic best case scenario with each of those expansion parties conquering one province per turn you're looking at over 50 provinces by the end of year one. Don't aim that high, you'll never make it! Be more modest in your targets, skipping some, pulling some of your armies together, don't worry if you lose a couple, etc. and you should be able to maintain a respectable if not blistering initial expansion until you're ready to start burning rubber.

Also, perhaps I didn't make it clear, but literally going straight for constr-8 then conj-9 is kind of a perfect ideal that you aim for and can hope for if all the stars line up, but realistically it's seldom going to play out perfectly. After constr-4 when your research starts really ramping up it's a pretty quick sidetrack to pick up alt-3, which in combination with constr-4 and the suggested bless (of which 1 point of regen is a critical feature) gives you thugs easily able to handle the harder indies you skipped over initially. If you're then pressed into an early war (or decide to pursue one yourself) I'd also recommend swinging over and picking up cloud trapeze before the full court press to Tartarians. Constr-4 + alt-3 + ench-4 should give you the muscle to fight it out through mid game, those blessed, buffed & equipped vanjarls are pretty tough. If you're really getting pressed by somebody who is laying down solid thug counters you'll obviously have to reroute your research to more urgent goals, but just a touch more alt research and you're throwing down destruction, you've got strength of giants, legions of steel then weapons of sharpness in your planned research path so your glamoured infantry starts being a pretty darned tough more standard army, and your Helhirdlings start looking like some *serious* 0 enc heavy cavalry.

Re: Helheim - lets burn some rubber
 

I had similar trouble getting this strat off the ground, but found a nice way to make it work.

I was going to post it here, but it became so long that I'm going to give it it's own thread in the main forum.

Your strategy is really awesome, Baalz. :up:

Re: Helheim - lets burn some rubber
 

Hmmm, a couple people seem to be having trouble getting this opening to work while I'm very consistently able to do it every time I test it. I must be failing to communicate some aspect so let me see if I can clearly show how I do this start. I've attached a zip with the turns starting with the first fight (turn 3). I'll also assert that this was not a particularly lucky start, in fact this was slower than what I usually do with more backtracking due to my capital being placed right against some impassable mountains limiting my options for expansion.

Turn 1: Scout -> prophet, recruit Helkarl & 2 Helhirdings.

Turn 2: Scouting reveals my neighbors are:
30 militia/heavy cavalry
20 militia/archers
40 wolf tribe
50 militia/archers

Seeing only one province I’m confident I can take with the smaller expansion squad I decide to combine them for this turn. From the flanks the Helkarls are scripted to bless and attack rearmost, Hulkarls are holding and attacking and the serf warriors doing the same from behind them. I choose to attack the wolf tribe primarily because it has the most neighbors and thus best prospects for good expansion next turn.

I recruit a dwarf and 4 Huskarls.

Turn 3: Oops. What I outlined in turn 2 was what I meant to do, but apparently I accidentally sent half my army to attack the 20 militia as I had originally considered, and also forgot to send my prophet along for smiting. Oh well, I carry the day anyway as my Helkarl runs back and kills the wolf tribe leaders. Total losses: 1 Huskarl and most of my serf warriors (who I was mostly just trying to kill off anyway).

Attack 20 Militia/archers
Attack 10 militia/heavy cavalry (include my prophet this time!)
Recruit Helkarl, Helherding and 6 more Huskarls

Turn 4: Unlucky roll makes my Huskarls route from militia of all things, but my Helkarl and Helherding escape unscratched. Heavy cavalry dispatched with no casualties.

The Helkarl who ran away collects the Helherding and joins in an attack with the fresh recruits on 30 militias and archers. Other army lacks confidence in all it’s potential targets and falls back to collect reinforcements. Recruit my second dwarf and 10 Huskarls. Prophet moves to where he can support my army next turn.

Turn 5: Battle successful, lost one Huskarl. Split that army up, half attacking 30 militia, half moving into position to attack next turn. 3rd army, having collected reinforcements moves into position for next turn. 2 dwarves head out to site search. Recruit a Helkarl, Helherding and a dozen Huskarls.

Turn 6: Battle successful, no casualties. Scouting reports look grim so I reconsolidate my western squads. Attack 40 militias/heavy cav to the easy and move third army into position. Recruit a dwarf.

Turn 7: Battle successful, no casualties. Time to start saving for a castle, recruit another dwarf. Attack 50 militia/heavy cav with my double Helkarl squad + prophet. Also attack 40 barbarians and 40 lion tribe with armies 2 and 3. 3 dwarves out site searching now.

Turn 8: All attacks successful, total casualties 6 Huskarls (there were a lot of heavy cavalry). Yeah! Found steel ovens which would obviously be great given this strategy if this was a real game. Attack 30 militia/HI, 20 ghouls/longdead, and 30 militia/HI. Recruit another dwarf and some indie commanders to put up extra forts.

Turn 9: All attacks successful, total casualties 3 huskarls. Simultaneously start construction on forts 2&3. Recruit a dwarf, & pull my prophet back to start putting temples in these extra forts. Attack 40 hoburg militia, 70 jaguar tribe (using two Helkarls), and 10 LI/archers.

Turn 10: Ayeee! The 10 light infantry had an air mage. Luckily my rear attacking Helkarl killed him first. Size 1 Hoburgs proved to be pretty good against glamoured troops, they ran me off but the Helkarl & Helhirding survived. Other two attacks successful, total casualties 10 Heurlkarl.


So, I think this is far enough to demonstrate the technique. Turn 10 I've got 15 provinces, 2 castles going up and have several dwarves out site searching, would be cranking out a dwarven hammer and about to start the skull mentor factory if this were a real game. Again, this is pretty consistent with the other tests I've done, I'm not sure what you guys are doing differently. I had some good luck, some bad, but as I mentioned I generally can do a little better with the ability to spread evenly in most directions.

Re: Helheim - lets burn some rubber
 

Its worth mentioning that orb lightning scales up very well with air power. Having said that, Vanjarls are air 2 and blood 1. Blood 1 brings sabbaths. Perhaps the reader can see the potential for reverse communion sabbaths with storm, storm-power, aim, reverse communion Orb Lightning smack-downs?

Caelum only wishes...

Re: Helheim - lets burn some rubber
 

If you're reverse communing (always a good idea) and put up stormpower, then why stay with orb lightning when you can spam thunderstrike (and reinvig)?

Re: Helheim - lets burn some rubber
 

because orb lightning scales with air magic skill?

Re: Helheim - lets burn some rubber
 

This build did not work for me. I was annihilated by Vanheim. Perhaps I did not use it well. Expansion was great, but when it came time for war, Van beat the crap out of me.

Re: Helheim - lets burn some rubber
 

In what way did you find it to be deficient? How did you get the crap beat out of you?

Re: Helheim - lets burn some rubber
 

BTW I don't consider 15 provinces by the end of year 1 rocket fuel. 15 is exactly my target for a nation acceptable to play in mp with an expectation of a chance at winning.

Re: Helheim - lets burn some rubber
 

The law of probabilities would dictate that a nation could lose even if it made stronger decisions every turn.

One data point is hardly enough to make a fair judgment...
Can I guess that Vanheim got some important research done before you?
That's usually a game winner.

Re: Helheim - lets burn some rubber
 

If you actually read what I posted, I very clearly indicate your initial expansion with this build is intended to be "respectable but not flashy enough that your neighbors are talking about ganging up on you" (and 15 provinces, as mentioned is at the lower range of what I've managed in my tests). Clearly you're not going with the full court press for your initial expansion, you could fairly easily double that expansion if you didn't heavily invest in early site searching, castles, and an awake non-expansion pretender - but then you'd obviously be pursuing a different strategy. This is actually a pretty good illustration of why I think it's silly how much tunnel vision people get - investing in a blistering initial expansion is a poor use of your resources if you're trying to use the strategy I lay out here. Its perpetually surprising to me how badly even most vets seem to be at assessing the real power level of their opposition - the most powerful (defined as most likely to end up winning) nation is often not the one with the most provinces.

You can fairly easily assess the raw power of a nation by looking at its income levels, but the applied power is a function of raw power multiplied by leverage....and leverage is everything from research and castle count to their available troops, magic paths and upkeep. A frequent component of conversations is how some nations are more or less predisposed to be a late game power...yet more often than not its the guy who is leading in provinces who gets dogpiled on. Province count is almost totally worthless to consider in a vacuum, and if Abyssia, Pythium & Mictlan are all vying for second place as you pull into late game it's pretty silly to think that Eriu or Man is winning despite the fact that they're in a solid 1st place in provinces and income (silly in an abstract sense, obviously there's a lot more to consider than what the nation is).

Re: Helheim - lets burn some rubber
 

In practice, you will almost never get the initial expansion during an actual MP game that you get in build testing. Other players also expand fast, and will attack an overexpanded player who pushes into what they consider their 'implicit territory' (the provinces surrounding their cap, and probably many of those within two steps of cap too). For these reasons (and the latter one especially) metrics like initial expansion are over-hyped.

Initial expansion capacity possesses some minimum requirement to be competitive, but with some threshold beyond which it is pointless. For most MP games (which have about 12 provinces per player) most nations will not get 15 initial provinces. Most will get whatever the mean number of provinces per player is, regardless of how well they do in testing (unless they do just really really bad).

Re: Helheim - lets burn some rubber
 

Baalz,

Perhaps you would be good enough to rank the nations you create guides for?

And whether you consider them top tier, second tier etc.

I think this would go a long way toward giving perspecitve.

For example, how would you rank niefle, sauromatia, Helheim, and pick some other races you've made guides for.

I've no problem with some hyperbole but I think it lacks a bit of perspective to put Niefle and yomi, sauro and man in the same boat, regardless of the strength of the guide.


You can't burn rubber with all of them. Some burn rubber. Others burn oil.

Re: Helheim - lets burn some rubber
 

In my recollection, the death scales beat me up. I did well in my initial expansion into the Van player, but he then came back with a vengeance (to be fair, Van was played by one of the best players of the game.) Money became hard to come by, when I still needed it. He used skellie amulets on all his commanders, which actually outclassed my skellie spamming, and lots of magic bows on his commanders as well. It was bit unorthadox, but it worked. My small numbers of troops could not win.

It was the RAND game currently still in action.

Re: Helheim - lets burn some rubber
 

Hmmm, if you've got Order-3/Luck-3 then Death-3 isn't nearly enough to push you into "poor income" territory, particularly in the early game. No doubt you can always run out of money, but I don't think you can blame the scales for that one. Sounds like pretty early fighting if skellie amulets carried the day, but from a theoretical point of view I'm having a hard time picturing how skellie amulets are going to be much of a problem for lots of (net) 0-enc thugs wielding firebrands supported by 0-enc heavy cav and well blessed flying sacreds (who fly in and kill the back row before the skeletons get critical mass). If you're going for skellispam for yourself did you try leveraging sabbaths with reinvigoration? That's a powerful way to raise a whole lot of undead. Your pretender could forge master/slave matrixes as needed to get svartalfs in on the action throwing summon earthpower on top of an E9 blessing on top of reinvigoration. Those master matrixes can pull double duty if you're clever by letting you stack invulnerability and fire shield on your fire brand wielding 0-enc thugs (followed by reinvigoration of course)...which basically turns them into the ideal skellispam counter. If you're feeling particularly fancy you can add on summon earthpower to the mix which will let you quicken self (via your pretender if you've no better options) and breath of winter...which doesn't help against skeletons, but does work very nice against most other things when you've got several thugs working together for big fights. I don't doubt what you're saying, but I have a hard time picturing how in an early fight Vanheim has enough death income to be anywhere near competitive with Helheim in dropping skeletons if that's the route you wanted to take...considering you're leveraging all that on D3/D4 Hangadrotts each one should be an almost never ending vomit of shuffling dead if you really focus on skellispam. If you're that hard pressed and are pushing skellispam forge a couple skull staffs rather than skull mentors and you're looking at D4/D5 guys with 8 reinvigoration hitting turn 6 with no fatigue (due to the reinvigoration blood spell). As to magic bows it seems like your first target in this strategy is thugs who can drop air shield, which seems like an ideal counter.

It sounds like you just got out played. No shame in that if you're playing against a skilled opponent, but unless I'm missing something it doesn't sound like the build itself failed you.

Re: Helheim - lets burn some rubber
 

The thing is though, if you're reverse sabbathing and put up a mass stormpower, your communion slaves (Vanjarls) have Air-3. Unless you use Hellpower (which is kinda risky if you're using a big sabbath, as you'll likely get swarmed by horrors), of course; it only however gives A5 (or 5 NoE). Air-3 gets you thunderstrikes, which massively outclass Orb Lightning, hands down.
Let's compare:
Fatigue: Thunderstrike (50-), Orb Lightning (10-)
Damage/NoE: Thunderstrike (26+, AN, 1 AoE, and larger AoE Damage+Stun), Orb Lightning (10, AN, 1+ NoE (at A3, 3))
Range: Thunderstrike (100), Orb Lightning (15 {very very low})
Precision: Thundertrike (+0), Orb Lightning (+2)

So in terms of usefulness, Thunderstrike beats out Orb Lightning, all the time. It has an AoE damage/stun effect outside of the actual spell center, and Range 100 is awesome, (certainly when compared with Range 15, which, really sucks). If you choose to Orb Lightning spam, you'll do far less damage then with Thunderstrikes, not including extra AoE damage/stun (far, it would take an A8 mage to outcap damage done by a Thunderstrike in an AoE, 78+ vs. 80 (10*8)). The precision bonus with Orb Lightning won't be too big of a deal, and when the fatigue issue comes up...well, that's why you're reverse sabbathing (i.e. having masters spam reinvigoration). When you include the extra damage done by the extra AoE and stun, thunderstrikes are infinitely more useful in terms of damage/turn and army decimation then Orb lightning, and provides alot more security for you (the massive range allows you to space out your slaves around the battlefield, so they can't all be killed at once), and it also takes full advantage of sabbaths (reinvigoration). The thing about Orb Lightning is, though, that (I think, I'm not quite sure)it may hit the same unit on the same square multiple times. However, to take advantage of that, you'd need to be really close to your target thug or SC (assuming they aren't lightning-resistant). Certainly it's useful if your opponent is sending horrors your way (on your PD), but most thugs you'll find will get a copper plate or something, so it isn't too useful in that regard.

Plus, Thunderstrikes are easier to reach. Evo-4 vs Evo-5.

Re: Helheim - lets burn some rubber
 

The only good thing about Orb Lightning is that A1 mages can spam it. Other than that, there isn't really anything good.

Re: Helheim - lets burn some rubber
 

Honestly, I really don't see why it's Evo-5. I don't see why it has to be higher then Thunderstrike. Anyone care to enlighten me to the reasoning?

(makes a mental note to suggest a lowering in CBM)

Re: Helheim - lets burn some rubber
 

You've totally sold me on this tolkien- i can't wait to try this.

Re: Helheim - lets burn some rubber
 

I don't agree with this. To be sure, thunderstike is a great spell, but orb lightning *definately* has its niche. The most obvious being A2 mages can cast it to very good effect if you deploy it properly. Other times orb lightning shines:

If you're fighting guys who are size 5/6 and only one per square, thunderstrike will do 26+ AN damage, while orb lightning for an A4 mage will do 40 AN. Even if you're fighting size 3 cavalry you're still often looking at a very compatible kill count per casting...which is not bad when you consider that you're also not passing out after a few castings.

Orb lightning's short range can actually be very useful for making your mages target who you want them to. Triple blessed sacred cavalry charging straight ahead into your troops? Orb lightning can clear the way so *your* cavalry can waltz up to the enemy archers which is hell of a lot better than blasting the archers with thunderstrikes because they're packed denser so the AI thinks they're better targets.

Orb lightning's fatigue cost for a mage powerful enough to be considering thunderstrike is negligible. You can lay out a lot more damage over a long battle than you could blowing your load on thunderstrikes.

Again, there's no doubt thunderstrike is a great spell, I just object to the assertion that there is no niche for orb lightning. Orb lighting is also a good spell.

Re: Helheim - lets burn some rubber
 

Right, and don't forget that the real fatigue cost for orb lightning with an A3 mage is even lower than stated, at around 3, not 10.

Re: Helheim - lets burn some rubber
 

And don't forget that orb lightning does stun damage as well (per lightning, which amounts to far more than that of thunder strike for higher path mages, but it's not AoE).

Re: Helheim - lets burn some rubber
 

Well, thanks for the correction: I was basing this on a human-sized units. I forgot about giants (in which case, Orb Lightning is going to be more useful).

My main problem with Orb Lightning is the range (15 is rather small), and that the fatigue for Thunderstrike, if you're reverse sabbathing with reinvigoration (which was the discussion that sparked the whole Orb Lightning vs. Thunderstrike debate), is more or less irrelevant, as fatigue won't be much of an issue in that case.

Re: Helheim - lets burn some rubber
 

I tried to run a reverse communion with the thunderstrikes and blood sabbaths and it didn't work. If you'll bear with me, maybe you can explain what i did wrong.

i was breaking a seige from formoria (i hate formoria) and they had lots of troops of various sorts and i had about 12 helherdlings and some infantry and 8 vanjarls.

the first four vanjarls were scripted with:
sabbath slave, blessing, thunderstrike, thunderstrike, thunderstike
the next 3 were scripted with:
sabbath salve, thunderstrike, thunderstrike, thunderstike, thunderstrike
and the last was scripted with:
sabbath master, mistform, reinvigoration, air shield, reinvigoration


Instead they sat around casting holy avenger and sermon of courage and the sabbath master casted fanatacism.

Why didn't they cast as i was hoping they would? thanks for any help- i am still having lots of trouble with my sabbaths/communions.

Thanks ahead of time.

Re: Helheim - lets burn some rubber
 

did they have slaves?

Re: Helheim - lets burn some rubber
 

Sabbath/Communion slaves don't get a boost in their casting level, unless a master casts something like Power of the Spheres/Hell Power/Summon Storm Power. So they were unable to cast thuderstrike because they weren't A3s.

Only the masters get a casting level boost from just having communion slaves.

Re: Helheim - lets burn some rubber
 

Dang, thanks for that clarification, VFB. I for one (and there are likely others) was under the mistaken notion that slaves had their effective caster levels raised, just like masters.

After reading your post, I went and re-read Baalz' communion guide (carefully, this time ;) ), and sure enough, in the bit about reverse communions, it spells out the need to cast booster spells to raise slave levels. A very important fact to get straight.

Re: Helheim - lets burn some rubber
 

Ttheir caster level but only when calculating the fatigue cost the slaves takes from the master's spell.

It's the reason why a 4-slave communion can cast more than twice as many spells as a 2-slave communion.

Re: Helheim - lets burn some rubber
 

Reverse communion works best with fire or earth spells because it's a lot easier to cast the appropriate buffing spell. If a master casts Earthpower/Phoenix power then power of the spheres it raises lowly F1/E1 guys up to level 3, which lets you cast the fun stuff like falling fires/blade wind. Air and water are a bit harder as you'll often be looking at just the 1 level bump from power of the spheres...and not even that if you're doing a sabbath with no available astral.

Re: Helheim - lets burn some rubber
 

I meant to say "It actually affects their caster level"...
Somehow my post didn't turn out that way.

Re: Helheim - lets burn some rubber
 

Hi. Me too but I was eliminated by Lanka in a MP game. In turn 15 Lanka attacked me with a lot of sacred Demon troops (Palankasha, blood magic level 1). I wasn't able to recruit more than three Helhirdings (Dom. 3) and my economy was weak. Lanka defeated my armies easily an only one time I was able to defeat their Demons (when I put a lot of Helhirdings together my troops had a very good behaviour in combat against Lanka so maybe in other circumstances my nation could have defended well against Lanka). But it was a war of attrition and Helheim, with the scales proposed in this guide, cannot afford a long term war against Lanka in the first stage of the war (at last with the scales this guide proposes), so I had to put my nation under the IA.

Lanka was able to summon more Palankasha than me recruting Helhirdings and Huskarls. Its troops were very well blessed (Twist Fate, defense + , protection +, etc) so they were a hard opponent for my Helhirdings (my best troops).

I think it's necessary better scales in productivity to get more resources for the sacred troops and more Dominion scale in order to recruit more Helhirdings or Valkyrias. Only with a powerful recruitment of sacred troops Helheim would be able to defend against rush nations, as Lanka for example.

Nevertheless, if it hadn't been by the attack of Lanka my nation was doing things very well and I was leading research and gem income so maybe I could have done very well in the mid-late game :)

Re: Helheim - lets burn some rubber
 

A Lanka bless-rush is tough to counter for anybody. Those Palankasha's (sp?) are actually cap-only recruits, so your opponent wasn't even expending mage-time summoning them.

You'll want to lean hard on Helheim's air magic next time. By turn 15, you should have ~20 Vanjarls/Hangadrotts (min A2 each), and he's not going to be able to impart any shock resistance to his demons yet.

Send these guys out in small teams scripted for (Blessing)(Mistform)(Resist Lightning)(attack)(Shock Wave)Cast Spells. The AI will autocast Shock Wave, which will be pretty effective vs. those demons with that bless.

Re: Helheim - lets burn some rubber
 

I would say that its better to do your own setup taking ideas from Baalz's guide.
Perhaps tweaking the magic on your pretender to gather the points to bigger dominion score. Lesser earth? more sacred units.
Perhaps going to somewhere else instead of construction to have some battlemagic earlier.

On the other hand I see this as a strategy as a gamble that you will not
be rushed so early to see the benefits of quicker research.

Other choice is to do the usual sacred units rush instead while doing a slower chase of constructing skulls.

Re: Helheim - lets burn some rubber
 

In other circumstances and with other scales my nation could have done better defending against Lanka (with more money and more resources to recruit more Helhirdings...and more Dominion, of course). And quick access to air magic spells, I agree with you, but I spent the first turns researching construction as this guide proposes ;)

I only had 4 o 5 Vanjarls in turn 15 and only one castle (a second one was about to be constructed) in another province and they were scattered everywhere conquering indie provinces. I would have needed a lot of money and castles to recruit 15-20 Vanjarls in 15 turns and I wasn't able to do that in my game with the scales Baalz proposes here (shortage in money and resources). Or maybe I could have recruited them instead of Helhirdings and infantry, but I don't like the idea.

"The strategy does not stand/hold the first contact with the enemy".The problem was that my strategy was not good to face Lanka and I made a mistake to not changing my strategy and my research priorities when I spotted Lanka so near to my provinces.

It's a hard lesson but a good one :)

Re: Helheim - lets burn some rubber
 

Yes, as Cleavland says Lanka is one of the classic bless rush nations and configured for such they're going to have a strong advantage against most nations in this situation. That doesn't mean you can't win, but it does mean you're going to have to outplay your opponent to win because in straight fights few troops can wade in and defeat well blessed palankashas. In this type of situation you'll need to (temporarily) abandon your long term planning and go into full emergency mode, divert your mages and research from what you had in mind to short term useful stuff. Evocation and lightning are a good suggestion, here are a couple others assuming you're following the template in this guide.

Turn 15 you should have construction-4 done and a pretty decent gem income with your research surging. Palankashas have a small buckler and are vulnerable to sufficient archery, so one option would be to delay them a few turns and push up to construction-6 (you should be able to achieve this pretty quickly if you pull your pretender back for research duty and leverage those skull mentors you're cranking out), then leverage those dwarven hammers you've been building to crank out bows of war. Your Vanjarls have a base precision of 16 and can self buff aim, half a dozen of them firing from behind your PD (which being high defense glamoured will last longer than average) will be very punishing. Any one of these should also be able to destroy Lanka's monkey PD (which is very vulnerable to archery) and is stealthy and very maneuverable, so you should be able to take 3-4 of their provinces for each of yours you lose. Combine this with lantern shields, which will auto summon corpse candles to the flanks of your enemy, making them run around to deal with them while you punish them brutally. Mix in a couple of black bows, visions foes, piercers, just man's crosses for Lankas thugs and just generally to put more of your gems to use. Don't hesitate to recruit a bunch of indie commanders if you've got more bows than Vanjarls - though once you see how that 20+ precision works you'll be in love with using them.

Meanwhile you've pushed up to evocation-4, a quick run with your strong research engine. At this point you're dropping blade wind and thunderstrike, and you're officially past the part where you're under the gun of a "bless rush". Palankashas go down very quickly when you can bring this kind of artillery to bear.

Another option would be hitting the alteration research. Palankashas are going to be coming in relatively small numbers, dropping destruction on them is probably all it would take to make your huskarls very competitive - but as long as you're there use false fetters to serve them up on a platter.

So, again, no doubt you're gonna have a hard time dealing with a good Lanka bless rush, but by turn 15 your options should really start opening up. Trying to fight them with helherdlings is a sucker's game, you're playing where they have a strong advantage. Particularly if you're using a build like the one I suggest here - forget about your sacreds as you're not built to optimize them. Rather than do that, try to shift the fighting to where you can leverage the strengths that you've cultivated (strong early research, lots of early vanjarls, good early gem income).

Re: Helheim - lets burn some rubber
 

Baalz, thank you. But one thing is what I would like to expect from the strategic point of view of your guide and the other the reality. And the reality was that my Svartalfs dind't find any earth gem site (very bad luck, I know) so in turn 15 I hadn't forge any Dwarden Hammer because I only collected 1 earth gem/turn. So my research was going very well but my gem production was not so good so I couldn't have forged magical items as easily as I/you would like.

I like the idea of recruiting Vanjarls as there's no tomorrow and use them to cast air spells, it would have been a better option than recruting Helhirdings as a priority. But I maintain that you can not easily defend Helheim only with Vanjarls and a bunch of sacred troops unless Helheim prioritizes his research in evocation and alteration spells very quickly instead of construction 4 or 6, specially if the gem production is bad.

Your guide is very interesting but need tweaks and adjustments specially when Helheim has to face a serious menace from a rush nation or when things are not going as was expected :)

Re: Helheim - lets burn some rubber
 

Considering how common E sites are, finding no E income is incredibly unlucky. At that point its time to accept the inevitable and die with dignity, because nothing you can do is going to matter.

Definitely agree with baalz that your sacreds are not going to stand up to Lanka's sacreds. Lanka is the only nation in the game who can X9Y9Z9 (say FWS) bless and never look back. Even Mictlan stops and thinks for a moment before sucking down Drain 2 scales. Your sacreds are only going to melt against F9W9S9 palankashas. So once your gem-research engine fails, you really are done for.