Re: Broken Nations
 

What are you talking about? EA Van sure as heck has Van troops. They get that purple clad infantry and the sacred Vanheres. Sure they aren't the mounted terror of later ages but can own stuff just as well.

Re: Broken Nations
 

What do you mean by "no Van soldiers"? They have Huskarl and Hirdmen for 25 and 30 gp, with full Vanir traits from Stealth and Glamour to elite skills and great magic resistance. The Vanheres have Berserk +5, giving them both protection and insane damage potential with their two attacks (at 12 and 11 before berserk) and above-average strength.

Re: Broken Nations
 

You said it yourself - they don't have mounted sacred troops of late Van or Helheim, the kind of troops that make these nations so powerful. I didn't mean that EA Vanheim is weak, but as far as qualtity of sacred troops go, you have to agree that vanhere soldiers are not even close to mounted van/hel sacred troops. And their survivability is much lower due to none-blessed def 12.

Re: Broken Nations
 

WTF? We lost themes and variety, and then in EA we essentially get two clones of Vanheim? Feh.

Re: Broken Nations
 

As I said, I was comparing them to the mounted sacred troops of their same nation in leter era, or to the sacred troops of the sister nation Helheim. Comparable to these sacred mounted troops vanheres are much more fragile in melee, with their bereserker and all. IMHO suriviability for sacred troops (unless they are none-capital and/or dirt-cheap) is more important than damage potential. And you forget to mention that Berserker 5 also means that they are very clumsy in combat - most of the hits will connect, and thier armor is not that high to be able to protect them against troops with decent melee weapons.

Re: Broken Nations
 

The two "clones of Vanheim" have VERY different national troops from both each other and from the MA Van we knew as base Vanheim in DomII. Whole nation of stealthy glamour units, instead of just one, sacred, mounted Vanir plays very differently than the old Vanheim.
Vanheim and Helheim aren't copies of each other, either. Helheim has cavalry, Valkyries and flying commanders for the latter but no Sailing, as well as different magic.


I also disagree about your notion of less variety. Vanheim with Midgård and Helheim themes is just three nations, with only one of them in play at once, against EA Helheim or Vanheim, MA Vanheim or LA Midgård.

EDIT: EA Vanheim DOES have cavaly, but it isn't sacred. Other poster's comment confused me.

Re: Broken Nations
 

This makes no sense to me. You complain about loss themes and the coexistence of two themes in the same sentence? EA Vanheim doesn't really have an analog, but I'd rather have a new vanheim PLUS the old Helheim theme than not. I'd rather have both Iron Faith and Black Forest rather than the current mishmash. It's not like there is a nation that didn't get made because of Vanheim; we are getting another EA nation in an upcoming patch, and who knows what else.

Re: Broken Nations
 

Have you actually played EA Vanheim? I've killed Ermorian forces THREE TIMES larger than my forces of F9 blessed Vanheres and three Van commanders - two of them shooting lightning bolts and third of them was on melee.

Glamour guarantees they won't get often hit anyway, high def or low def.

Of course Helheim, the mounted terror of Early Age is even stronger.

Re: Broken Nations
 

Nonsense. In Dom2 there were 17 playable nations. Of these, 13 had themes, to a total of 23 themes, making for a grand total of 40 different nations. Dom 3 has 49 playable nations. In addition, given the changes to the random magic system, and the lesser powers of indy mages, the nations of Dom3 actually play differently throughout the game, rather than rapidly becoming quite similar to each other. Furthermore, how adding a scad of new spells, summonables and magic items to the game results in less variety is mysterious.

Re: Broken Nations
 

One more time, I've been comparing vanheres, who are the only sacred troops(troops, NOT commanders!) EA Vanhem has, to the mounted sacred troops of sister nation Helheim, which you keep calling poetic names "mounted horror" http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif OR to the similar Van troops of ME Vanheim, OR to the same troops of Midgard. The helheim mounted troops are almost exactly the same as Vans btw, the difference at stats is very neglectable.

Let me repeat myself - I never said that EA Vanheim sacred suck. But I do say that comparable to Vans or their Helheim analog, they are significantly worse, and clearly not in the same league.

Your example of fighing Ermor with Venhers and Van commanders shooting lighting balls is clearly irrelivent for comparing EA Vanghheim sacred troops to those of MA/LA Vanheim and Helheim.