Re: Is it just me or is Hellheim troops way to str
 

KissBlade,

Sorry, I missed the recruitment bug and am strangely unwilling to go exploring in the bug thread. Can you give us a line or two on what that problem is/was? Did it get cleaned up in the last patch?

Cheers!

Re: Is it just me or is Hellheim troops way to str
 

It was cleaned up after the first patch where the majority of Helheim's overpoweredness shone through. Essentially Helherdlings were not capital only.

Re: Is it just me or is Hellheim troops way to str
 

This mean that now Hel and Van are balanced? And that the dev will not do anything to tune them down? Bad ...

Re: Is it just me or is Hellheim troops way to str
 

There is only so much you can do without completely breaking the thematics of those nations. Unfortunately, in SP they tend to become monsters since the AI is not properly equipped to handle a mass of glamoured medium-high to high defense unit armies.

I don't know what the perfect solution is, but there is a big distinction between balancing and overnerfing and it's a very fine line to walk.

Edi

Re: Is it just me or is Hellheim troops way to str
 

I've had to fight helheim/vanheim in a few games and yes they are extremely strong. Not unbeatable though.

In one game, I played as Niefleheim (the giants). I had a big army of high end giants (the ones with the longswords and shield + mail armor) vs an army of vanheim (cavalry + infantry, all glamour) and lost : my giants couldn't hit vanheim because of their high defense and although my giants resisted well, in the end, they lost.
So I changed tactics : I put a few sacred giants (the ones with frost aura) in my army of giants and put everyone on hold and attack. Next battle, the cavalry arrives first on my line of giants. The giants, with their relatively high defense, take very few hits from the cavalry charge and hold the cavalry. The long battle starts, like the battle I first lost. But this time, the frost aura of the giants is there. Basically, the combat took a long time and the aura froze the cavalry and the glamour infantry that came behind and my giants did a killing. I eradicated the vanheim army and lost very few giants.
That tactic of high defense troops + aura vs vanheim/helheim is of course limited to a few nation.

Otherwise, something that works very well too, and is quite cheap, is N1 mages with high defense troops: the N1 mages are scripted to cast eagle eye then tangle vines x4. Eagle eyes increases their precision, and tangle vines (area 1, so at least 2 cavalries) halve the defense of the vanheim troops . With eagle eyes, they almost always hit the first row off enemy troops, so your units can slaughter them very quickly.
I prefer tangles vines to vine arrow because it's area effect 1 (vine arrow is 1 unit), no save roll (vine arrow has to hit), lvl 1 spell (vine arrow is lvl 3) so it's available very early in the game and very effective.

Re: Is it just me or is Hellheim troops way to str
 

Yrkoon,

Nice use of Tangle Vines, I didn’t know about the defense cutting in half effect. It explains how I once killed an enemy dragon that was trying to route. Held down and defense in half, it was my PD that killed them!

Nature One is also pretty easy to get, especially on independents, so it is open to most nations. I agree that Vine Arrow is not as good, but if you give plain commanders the vine arrow bow and add it to the Tangle Vines, it adds up.

KissBlade,

Thanks for clarifying, that makes sense.

Re: Is it just me or is Hellheim troops way to str
 

Saxon,

routing units also get a -4 penalty to defense, so with the vines on top of that, that dragon must have been very very easy to hit.

As for helheim/vanheim, anything that reduces their defense is good too. I think earth meld does it. Numbness does it to for sure (-3 def, -3 att). There must be more spells that would work as well.

But tangle vines is really great and easy to 1) research and 2) find casters to use it

Re: Is it just me or is Hellheim troops way to str
 

I think that rising cost or lowering def has very few thematic considerations ...

The fact I so stubbornly want to nerf Van is they were my favourite Nation, and now they are out from our games bacause unbalance.

Re: Is it just me or is Hellheim troops way to str
 

I wouldn't mind a slight downawrd adjustment of their defense. It could also be justified by the Van not needing to train so much because their glamour gives them an unfair advantage over mortals and a consequent dose of arrogance.

Whether the devs agree with that is a different matter.

Edi

Re: Is it just me or is Hellheim troops way to str
 

Van isn't that bad actually. There's been rare complaints about Van, and only in blitz usually.

Helheim/Niefelheim are usually the problem ones. Van just got lumped with them.