Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

So your view of what should and should not be optional is the only valid one? Especially when we're talking about a nation that has been a staple of Dominions since the PPP days? That won't fly with anyone. There is a way to get optional über-nations and that's by modding them in either as separate nations or alterations of existing ones. Then those who want such nations can have them in their own games, but most people have no use for them at all.

See the other poster's reply about things that came with the stock game. And if you do want an über-nation, go mod one. It's that bloody simple. Or would that be too inconvenient, too much work for you?

Strawman. Nobody has been demanding constant perfect balance or even that an initial release of a feature be balanced. The only request is that if something is later shown to be a problem balance-wise, it be adjusted in a patch.

Bwaaahhaaaaahaaaa! Thanks for the laugh! You're using the exact same IWOI (Invincible Wall of Ignorance) tactics in this thread that your opponents in the AoW thread used and you can't even see the irony. Oww, my sides! At this rate I'll send you the medical bill for my busted ribs...

Just like Draconians in AoW were an optional choice, as were the draconian heroes and their fire breathing ability and see what you argued there with the precise same logic Graeme, Huzurdadi, I and otehrs have been using here. Thank you for providing the perfect illustration for why you are in the wrong.

Edi

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

Without a doubt it would be more fair, but I worry some flavor will be lost. I think the developers envisioned vans being more common in the middle age and that's why they made them non-capital production. Valkyries are supposed to be your "rare" units in that age.

What I don't want to do at all is make the nations more similar to achieve balance. The joy of Dominions is balance through diversity and flexibility rather than balance by sameness. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

Yep that's a valid issue. Then can I throw another suggestion : maybe then we could have "sacred vans" capitol-only and a tad weaker "mundane vans" elsewhere - ie the same differences than Mtnd Heirdlings vs Heiherdlings from LA Helheim ? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

EA Hellheim and Vanheim units should lose glamour and stealth; Hellhirdrings cost +40.

ME Vanheim has stealth +10, glamour (25 stealth) only on scouts and maybe one or two units. Vans cost +40(ish).

LE Vanheim has stealth and glamour. Van cost +40.

All high def sacred EA cavalry should also get a cost bump (Centaurs, ect..).

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

EA Vans should definately not lose glamour, it is very much thematic for them and removing it is not the only solution to balance problems.

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

That suggestion is sort of overkill... Glamour is their defining trait, really, and they'd probably be weaker than they are worthwhile if you take it away. Thematically, it also seems weird that Late Age gets more... Wondrous, let's say, Vans than Middle Age.

And asking for sacred cavalry (Don't they all have high def?) of an entire age, in nations that aren't causing any trouble to become less easilly deployed is a step towards the sameness mentioned right above, in my eyes.

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

Glamour should be seen less as a combat skill and more a reflection of their pending dissapearance from the world.

In other words, during the early days, the Elven peoples did not need to hide from the prying eyes of the mortal races, but as time goes on and their numbers reduce they become more and more hidden and reclusive.

If you felt the need to compensate them, you could add STR or HP, so that during the "early" days they are more straightfowardly strong, but as the later ages progress they must turn their strength to stealth, or whatever.

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

Also like i argued in another forum, Vans are too powerful for their cost according to the very balance logic of Dominions . 70 gold? For a 25 stealth, sacred 12 armor, high defense, good attack, fastest cavalry in the game, unit? That's a silly thing http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

Remember, what changed between the games was the concepts of Ages. What passed for a mediocre unit before - like Myrmiddon - suddenly becomes much more powerful in the early eras before there are crossbows or other high armor units.

Vans in Dominions 2 had to go against the full gamut of high-armor/defence units. In the EA, Hellhirdrings have almost as high armor values as any other high end unit. Hellhirdrings and to some extent, Vans, are proportionately much more powerful now than they were in Dom2. The increase cost in research also slowed down magical countersteps.

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

Of all the ideas in this thread, the suggestion to take away glamour is far and away the stupidest one.

It's one of the defining characteristics of the Vanir, so taking it away will just break things even worse. Increased gold and resource cost, possibly a reduction of defense and perhaps increased strength, giving them less of a stealth bonus and other such could be good solutions. Afaik stealth isn't tied to glamour. It was not in Dom2, glamour units were just given stealth +25 as a matter of thematics, but e.g. the Mother of Tuathas which had glamour only had stealth 0.

Edi

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

You're welcome! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

No, IMHO it is definitely overkill. Removing glamour AND stealth AND increasing cost by more than 50%??

I think raising cost of vans/herdlings for Helheim and MA Vanheim by 50% would go long way toward helping tone down their sacred. At 115gp per unit, it will be significantly more difficult to recruit large armies of sacred cavalry. Especially so in the beginning. Slower beginning means less territory, means less money to hire more sacred, et cetera.

Removing glamour would take out the most interesting thematic feature of Vanheim line of nations. I am much more in favor of balancing these nations through cost.

And as I said earlier, Midgard should be left alone. It is clearly much less powerful than Helheim and MA Vanheim. I also agree with Indigo - I forgot to mention that in Midgard vans are capital only, which is indeed a very big difference vs MA Vanheim, in addition to their other several relative weaknesses that I have mentioned in earlier in my post.

I also agree that all van-style sacred cavalry should be capital only for all Ages, for the balance purposes, even if it would be less thematic for MA Vanheim.


When nerfing it's important not to go too far. 50% cost increase for already expensive unit is a big change, no matter how you look at it. If needed it could always be tweaked more with future patches.

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

Increasing resource costs seems necessary, like Inigo Montoya said. It may not make much difference balance wise, but should be done anyway, in addition to any other changes.

For example, the 12 resource cost of Helhirdings seems so low when compared to the norm as to be a bug.

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

It seems like there is something of a consensus on the issue of sacreds needing to be capital only but non-sacred cavalry could be recruitable everywhere. It'd be just a matter of adding one more unit to the roster and adding it to the problem nations as well as tweaking the costs of the sacreds.

I think that would make most people happy while retaining all of the thematics of the nations in question.

Edi

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

Actually it may have a significant impact on balance. To get F9/W9 bless one of the first scales that tend to go is productivity. As of now everybody plays such strategy with Van/Helheim with Sloth3, since there is no much need for higher resources.

If resource cost of sacred cavalery would increase, it would be impossible to hire many sacred units in the capital on high Sloth settings.


That being said, I do not oppose resource increase for Helheim and ME Vanheim that Inigo suggested. Perhaps some combination of resource and money cost increase might be the best solution.

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

I sort of like the idea of making Van capitol only and adding a Mounted Vanir Hirdman unit to ME Vanheim. Alternately, I think that a twenty to thirty gold price increase on Van and Helhirdling wouldn't be an excessive nerf. Both would likely be too much. Restricting Van to capitol only would likely mean that at least some ME Vanheim players would switch entirely to the nonsacred cavalry, and probably field a really souped up Allfather again. Increasing the cost wouldn't change the way Vanheim plays much, but might bring them in line with other nations expansion speed.

In any case I really really don't want MA Vanheim to take the sort of heavy handed beating that the Vampire Queen got when the dom 2 forum raised a similar fuss about her. Vanheim was my favorite nation in dom ppp; it would be terrible if they ended up as awesome flavor text on otherwise unusable and overpriced units.

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

Whenever we talk about "vans" money and resource cost increase, it's important to keep it contained to MA Vanheim and Helheim, since same "van" units are also used in Midgard. However Midgard, as all people here seem to agree, is certainly do not need to be nerfed, since it is clearly much weaker than either Helheim or ME Vanheim.

Perhaps it will be better to have 2 different van units - one for EA/MA, which should be toned down, and one for Midgard, which should be left alone since nerfing it would seriously hurt the nation which is not overpowered in the first place.

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

I like PDF's suggestion about removing the van's sacredness, but I'd take it a step further and suggest that you just wipe out the sacredness altogether. You've still got a really good unit, but it's the bless effects that put them over the top. This seems like a good way to ballance them and isn't anti-thematic. They should definately cost more resources to...

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

There is some love for LA Midgard. I don't know why it's any less prone to spamming then other nations in the early game.

If the Van (under all it's various names) is imbalanced, it's imbalanced in LA as well.

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

I know Dominions2: SC's and Dominions3: F9W9, but Dominions:PPP ? What does PPP stand for ?

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

Not really. Have you played Midgard in MP?
Read the earlier posts by me and Inigo, it states several reasons for it. You have to consider the nation as a whole when making any changes to its untis, or you will end up with broken and unbalanced nations.

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

Dominions: Priests, Prophets & Pretenders

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

Oh, come on. You know I'm being overly sarcastic.
Was there anything particularly overpowered in Dominions:PPP ?

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

Massive armies of flying monkeys raised on prune juice

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

PAir Elementals, POrder, & Patrolling maybe?

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

Oh, now I remember something. I heard there was an 'Attack Commanders' order. I remember someone mentioning you were required to have a staff of storms just to keep your mages alive.

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

I just discovered that indy Crystal Amazons have defense 19 sacred flying cavalry, so Van and Helhirdling aren't the only sacreds with that kind of defense. I'm starting think that a modest price increase for Helhirdlings and Van of both eras is sufficient.

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

I'm still fond of the idea of changing Glamour so the images go away when the *images* get hit. It makes sense and cuts back on the Defense-Glamour interaction which is a big part of the problem. You might still need to bump up the cost a little.

Capitol-only + high resource cost sacred is an excessive fix because sometimes a bad location can leave you starved for resources in your capital. It's used, effectively, for Marignon and seems too effective - has anybody every seen a really effective double-bless Knights of the Chalice strategy? A better approach to the low resources cost would be to reduce the armor. If that approach is taken, it should be tried with no other fixes because cutting the armor alone might make them vulnerable enough to missles. That + another nerf is a big risk of overnerf.

Generically I'd like to see some weakening of the units rather than just increasing the cost. Fundamentally, when you have some units which are virtually impossible to harm by many nations well into the game (and tough even after than) it's very hard to have a fair cost.

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

This is exactly the solution I proposed many pages ago, but my posts are so long that little details like these are hard to extrapolate.

I think this is a fair and thematic difference. "Vans move forth into the world, but lose their holiness by making a pact with men." All while the Valkyries remain faithful and become the only sacred unit available to MA Vanheim.

I think this would work. If this seems too unbearable to the devs and most others in the community, then consider simply giving Vanheim an inherent weakness, and make it thematic. One minor thing would be to take away their Cold1 nature, but that doesn't seem like quite enough to me.

=$=

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

Heat vulnerability?

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

I support this idea, in fact it's just a plain better idea than mine, and solves elegantly the issue IMHO http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

Maybe but these are indies, and rather rare ! Noone will base a double-bless strat on *possible* Crystal Amazon encounters, so they are just a "bonus" if found and you happen to have a good bless, nothing more...

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

They also have low defense, and die to arrows easily. And since they are flying they can be always targeted by "fire at flyers", unlike cavalry, which can be masked with any other cavalery, with cavalry being much more common than flyers.

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

I agree that they are certainly not something anyone would plan for. I was just mentioning them because when I listed other sacred national cavalries nothing had as high a defense as Van. I think the ability to hang out at the furthest back edge of the battlefield and still close instantly does tend to mitigate their arrow weakness quite a lot though.

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

I have to agree with you on Gandalf as a long-time lurker, even before I started posting. According to him, there are no units that are more powerful/useful than others, nor units weaker/less usesful than others (see the thread on redundant/useless units I put up).

It's really an intellectual malady. Some people just have an intellectual framework where every position or argument or thing is valid or just as good as one another, and Gandalf seems to be the representative of them.

On the topic at hand, I agree that Vanheim/Hellheim are noticeably stronger than their competitors. And while I do agree that it's impossible to perfectly balance everything in a game of this nature--and one nation has to be top and one has to be the worst--Vanheim/Hellheim may be too far above other nations to have a fair, workable MP game within them if the map is small.

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

He's obviously clueless. The stubborn idiocy of some posters is just obtrusively obvious.

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

It's just Gandalf; I think even NTJedi seems to agree that Vanheim/Helheim are overpowered.

Gandalf probably thought the "Coalition of the Willing" v. Iraq was an even fight, and it was Saddam's generals' unwillingness to exploit their many advantages that cost them the war http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

Just a note for people dumping personal criticism:

You do know that personal criticism reduces attention to and acceptance of your claims, especially when the target was involved in the Dom3 project?

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

1. While I am loath to make "ad hominem" arguments as a rule, in some cases they are valid.

And honestly, I find most of Gandalf's posts on threads of this nature worthless, because you know exactly what he will say and he rarely even tries to make "arguments."

And please note that I made criticisms regarding the type of arguments (really "assertions") he makes, rather than making comments about his mother or directing graituitous epithets at him.

2. Who cares if he was a beta tester or even more heavily involved in the development of Dom III?

There are tons of people in this world who are "involved" in projects but are in reality deadweights contributing nothing to those projects. I suppose we should take Dan Quayle seriously when he discourses upon geopolitics because he was the VP?

Besides, even if Gandalf really understood the game inside-out, the acid test is still to translate that "knowledge" into persuasive--or at least intelligible--arguments. Bromides like "every side has its advantages and disadvantages" do not make intelligent arguments.

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

Why don't we all cool down a bit?

Gandalf has been very valuable member of Dom community for as long as I remember, which goes back to Dom2 beta days. (when I was actively lurking on this forum) Yes, sometimes he takes position that I personally think is incorrect, which sometimes may correspond with original dev visions. Like in this case of Helheim/Vanheim issue. But this is understandable, since he was part of this vision and had certain influence on it. However calling all his posts worthless is totally uncalled for - he contributed a lot to the Dom community.


Also devs do listen to us MP players. In the latest patch for example, they reduced cost of vastly underpowered Oni demonic troops - something that me and other MP players have been vocally complaining about. (granted, the current price reduction didn't go nearly far enough unfortunately, but it is certainly a step in right direction) It shows that they do care and they do listen.


Personally I am reasonably sure that devs will do something about Helheim and MA Vanheim in the next one or two patches. These 15 pages long thread clearly shows that there is a overwhelming general consensus among MP players (which I support) that units of those two nations are currently too good for their price/stats - on these 15 pages only two people posted any objections.


However making personal attacks does nothing to help your cause, quite an opposite.

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

Given that it seems that only reliable way to beat _any_ nation that has decent sacreds troops and a double blessing is .... to have your own good sacred troops and a strong blessing, I'd love to see sacredness wiped out altogether, for all nations. Maybe leave sacred commanders (mainly since I can't see have priest powers on a unit that isn't sacred), but a mod that wiped out all sacred troops and replaced them for balance would be great.

At least until Illwinter does something about the blessing mess they've made.

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

If this thread gets locked I won't be alarmed or disappointed. I think we've covered everything, at least voiced all the major concerns, and the thread is now boiling down to a little bit of seething, which is absolutely unecessary. I don't agree with the way some of the other side's arguments have gone, but the truth is that we are all entitled to an opinion, even if it is stated in an illogical manner. I think there are enough people here to make decisions for themselves about whether a person's opinions prove valuable or not; I don't think anyone need point it out.

Let's also remember that the majority of the people posting in this thread do not represent the majority of the people who play this game regardless of how good the arguments are. And no matter if we are right or not, this game is the dev's baby, and they are going to have some personal feelings about the issue. The only thing that personally surprises me about this issue is how beloved the Vans must be to them as a nation, yet they don't go all the way to ensure their proper balance in the pack. But hey, if you can't beat `em, join `em. I'll just play the Vans as I feel fit (except to stray to other nations occasionally to make sure I'm actually good at the game). This issue certainly isn't worth getting upset about. If anyone has any more points to make about the issue and not about other peoples' points, you might get the chance to squeeze them in, `ere we remain.

=$=

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

You could just stick your commanders inside the main troop formations to protect them from fliers, although Amulets of Missile Protection were pretty mandatory.

A few things I remember in addition to those are that Gateway worked like Astral Travel, and that scouts could be used to hunt blood slaves. Sphinx could & did Teleport.

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

I have not disagreed with everyone. There is a definate agreement amoung a large number of players that there is a problem here for MP, small maps, no victory conditions. Thats probably why the devs are interested in hearing some suggestions (and why the thread is not locked).

When I say IF I mean that its possible that the DEVS will agree it needs a fix. Any suggestions that wont do too much damage to other methods of play will get considered Im sure. So keep the suggestions coming. Lets not decalre the game broken, and lets not fill the thread with comments about other people.

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

Hi, and thanks. It's been a while since I inspected the development of this thread. I'm glad about how it turned out. Perhaps some heat, but interesting reading.

We were aware thet the vanir were powerful when we released the game. This thread and earlier experiences confirm this.

Vanheim will not lose glamour. Nor will it lose +25 stealth as stealth is linked to glamour. It was in dom2 as well, but wasn't explicit IIRC.

There will probably be some kind of change, but initially rather minor, like the oni cost change.

If you like you can continue discussions here, but I will not follow it unless notified for some reason.

Thanks!

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

My suggestion: take away Vanheim's starting fortified city and replace it with something more modest. Not a big change, but it would slow them down a little bit.

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

I stick with my suggestion to increase the resource cost of MA Vanheim vans to 32. This slows them down in the early game by 50%. I hate to nerf all sacred units (decreases bless strategy diversity), or require that MA vans be built capital-only (decreases national diversity).

Sticking to the OP, my position is MA Vanheim is overpowered. If you make their vans capital-only, you are nerfing them by hurting their late game, but you don't diminish their early double bless rush effectiveness. If you increase their resource cost (or perhaps both gold and resource cost), you are hurting their early game and to a lesser extent their late game. It feels more balanced to me to up their resource cost and it actually feels more accurate to pay more resources for vans for what you get (lance, javelin, horse, etc).

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

Given that the extreme north has not historically been a heavily populated part of the world, starting with a city has always struck me as generous.

My preference would still be to add some useful anti-van spells at lower levels, rather than nerfing vans. Given that folklore is chock full anti-faery magic procedures - as many as there are to use against demons - I think there should be some in-game, and that requires a "Fae" designator. These could be national spells or not, I give some examples below but I'm hardly a folklorist.

So we need a "Fae" tag, with a little icon, which the various faery creatures would have (faery queen, nymphs, should also have it, I'm sure there are units I'm forgetting), and add spells that harm Fae creatures, especially overland. To use against vanheim, overland spells would require a great deal of skill to use unless you are attacked (because you have to figure out the van's unit locations).

Iron Sun - Alteration 1
10 Earth Gems, ESS
Using the power of sympathetic magic, the light of celestial bodies is infused with the spiritual properties of cold iron. Creatures of fae or elven nature that do not find shelter from the light will be slain if they cannot resist the magic. Up to half the fae creatures in a province can be struck dead in this way in an exposed area, but fortresses and forests provide shelter from the deadly light.

Elfbane - Alteration 2
40 fatigue, NDD, AoE 4, Range 20, Deadly poison(fae only), 5+ damage fatigue (poison), Armor Negating, MRN
The mage will blow the seeds from a sprig of elfbane, and magically expand them to a great cloud. Elfbane is mildly toxic to most beings, producing irritation and fatigue, but is deadly to cratures of a fae or elven nature.

Circle of Salt - Enchantment 1
20 fatigue, W, Aoe 5, Range 5, 75+ fatigue damage fae only, maybe weakness, too?, no magic resistance allowed
Magically purified sea salt is an effective deterrent against faery creatures. Although a bag of the salt cannot be thrown far, fae creatures struck by it will quickly find they lack the strength even to lift their own limbs.

And you get the point. Obviously I think such a thing would be great for the basic game - game balance considerations aside - but if we just had the tools to mod it in ourselves that would satisfy me just fine.

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

Vanir are not fae, they are gods. They invented iron forging and eat salted pork. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

EDIT: hmm, seems I cant stay away from the thread http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

You know that most of these ideas can be tried with a mod file to see if it really helps. Also, putting in all of the nations as AI and doing super fast turn generations can show you fairly quick how turns out. Turning on the score.html helps also by giving you some real numbers to look at each turn.

Re: Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?
 

Of course, the AI isn't likely to pull off a bless strategy, especially with a computer-generated Pretender. (Though that's easy enough to get around)