Is Vanheim generally considered overpowered? Just asking, I dont claim to know.
 

This is a newbie question becuase I've only been playing for two days.

Is Vanheim generally considered overpowered? I've been having good success with huge masses of fire 9 nature 4 blessed Valkries and Vans and my friends have been complaining that this race is overpowered, due to it's two sacred units and it's excellent mobility.

If this race is considered overpowered I will stop using it. However, since none of us have been playing for more than a few days we don't actually know if it's truely overpowered.

So I figured I'd ask you experienced Dominions Multiplayers;

Is Vanheim overpowered?

Thanks?

Re: Is Vanheim generally considered overpowered? Just asking, I dont claim to know.
 

I don't think so. Valkyries and Vans are strong but killable and expensive to build up (though less so to maintain). Without claiming any experience in multiplayer play, I expect it's just that you've found something somewhat strong and effective, and been given the time to develop a good bit of it, while perhaps your opponent hasn't found or developed anything quite so good yet. But there are plenty of counters out there.

PvK

Re: Is Vanheim generally considered overpowered? Just asking, I dont claim to know.
 

Personally, I don't think Vanheim is overpowered. Your nice sacred units are quite expensive, and your blessing (very nice one by the way) must have cost you a bundle of design points too. The problem, as I see it, is that your friends haven't found out how to defeat it yet.

Personally, I would try huge armies of cheap units : short bows, barbarians, light infantry... The goal being to swarm your Valkyries (who have great attack and defense, but no protection). Multiple attacks will lower their defense, fatigue will also take its toll, and since they won't retreat (berserk) they'll be wiped out.

Re: Is Vanheim generally considered overpowered? Just asking, I dont claim to know.
 

I was one of the unfortunate victims. I was Arco and was using Hyps and Elephants.

His valks were attacking rear and doing terrible damage so I set 2 6 elephant and about 15 Hyp units in the far back to hold his valks while a third unit of dumbos and hyps rushed his front line (which coincidently had a good number of Vans) with my SC pretender. In the end I was totally destroyed. I lost about 45 units plus an assortment of mages. Of his 110 units, I'd guess 40 were valks, I killed maybe 25 of them. His vans and regular infantry were able to bog down my pretender and the rest of my units. I don't know if 18 elephants and about 45 Hyps + my god is a good trade off for what he was able to inflict on me.

My pretender fatigued out rather quickly, an oversight on my behalf it was a Nataraja using 4 enchanted swords a pendant of luck. I over buffed and ended up at like 80 fatigue it did nice damage but 3 turns later it was sitting still getting swamped.

To me, the problem seemed to be his mirror images. Getting through them was hard enough and once through the high defence killed. Coupled with the brutal fire 9, those valks had extreme survivability and extreme damage output, they really hurt.

Im trying to come up with a concept on how to counter them.

Their first strike abilities coupled with that devastating attack and a very nimble defence makes them a real pain. Essentially being able to fly, their first round of attacks decimates whatever formation they hit, reducing the counter attack effectiveness.

They are expensive for sacred infantry price wise, but that said they are still rather difficult to overcome.

Please keep coming with the advice on how to death with these things ;p

Of note, the battle was largely over before my third set of phants and hyps + my pretender hit his front lines.

[ January 26, 2004, 10:47: Message edited by: Osium ]

Re: Is Vanheim generally considered overpowered? Just asking, I dont claim to know.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Against Van I'd say massive archery fire. For the price of a Van you can buy 8 ordinary bowmen: only one lucky arrow will dispel the miror image (high defense does not protect against missiles).
Against Valkyries, try to forge/trade a staff of storm.
Cheers

Re: Is Vanheim generally considered overpowered? Just asking, I dont claim to know.
 

elephants are useless against valks, as trampling is a base 10 attack versus the defencer's defence.

use spells. spells dont care about the defence of valks. If you have armored troops, try for example some blade winds (wont pass high prot), the ladies wont appreciate.

Re: Is Vanheim generally considered overpowered? Just asking, I dont claim to know.
 

I love Blade Wind! My fave spell against lightly armored troops. There's nothing more satisfying than seeing 25-50% of a charging army get killed in the first few rounds of battle. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif Just be sure to have your caster ordered to only cast it twice, right at the start of battle. Once your troops are engaged, you're likely to get heavy "friendly fire" casualties.

Re: Is Vanheim generally considered overpowered? Just asking, I dont claim to know.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">OK guys, who are you using for Blade Wind? Each time I've had someone casting it, I saw a very pretty display of very harmless blades fan out from my mage's hands, either falling very far from any possible targets or grazing them harmlessly.

And no, I didn't empower Abysian mages in Earth so as to be able to cast BW. Those were typically Ulmish Black Priests or Smiths.

(But, if you don't want your Mages to cast BW more than once, it's typically enough not to give them any gems; at 80- Fatigue for level 3, it would take Earth 4 to still be conscious after two castings)

Re: Is Vanheim generally considered overpowered? Just asking, I dont claim to know.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Vans and Valkyries can be beaten by heavily armored units and by damage spells. His were fire-blessed, though, so armor is not very good. In that case, I would suggest firey spells, like fireball, falling fires, and so forth. Cheap archers and xbows work well too; they only have 13 protection, and a single hit kills their mirrror image. Of course, Valkyries can fly... so you have to distract them with a closer target than your archers. But elephants won't work at all.

Re: Is Vanheim generally considered overpowered? Just asking, I dont claim to know.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">How far are your mages from the front of the battlefield? I tend to put master smiths right behind my Ulmish infantry, but far enough away that stray arrows won't hit them.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">That's what summon earthpower and the earth reinvigoration belt is for with Ulm. Give your smiths earth boots and the belt, maybe an eye of aiming if you have independent air mages. Cast summon earthpower, blade wind X 4. They will get a bunch off in a battle that way.

Re: Is Vanheim generally considered overpowered? Just asking, I dont claim to know.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">It also helps if a pretender you're trying to use as an SC has somewhat more endurance than a schoolgirl, because it's not much use if its only action in a battle is to pass out. You need a minimum reinvigoration level equal to twice your melee encumberance to be worthwhile.

Re: Is Vanheim generally considered overpowered? Just asking, I dont claim to know.
 

Or a Wraith Sword. No good for a trampler though...

Re: Is Vanheim generally considered overpowered? Just asking, I dont claim to know.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Your opponents army cost quite a bit more than yours, elephants suck against Van, and you can put better equipment on your Nataraja.

Vs. Van I'd stick with Hoplites screening mages, perhaps with a bunch of javelin armed infantry. Tangle Vines and Earth Meld are effective against high defense units, as are evocations. Area effect spells are nice against Glamour.

For the Nataraja, have a Mystic cast Body Ethereal and Luck on him, equip a Wraith sword (or two!) plus 2 weapons with good defense, add some decent armor and reinvigoration, plus regeneration and quickness if you can get it. Against Vanheim make sure you have lightning resistance and boosted attack to hit Van. Season according to what spells the Nataraja can cast.

Re: Is Vanheim generally considered overpowered? Just asking, I dont claim to know.
 

The one nice thing about Vanheim is they can make their own little slayers. With an appropriate blessing, a Vanjarl during a storm can cast Mistform. When equipped with a Wraith Sword and mistformed, they are hard to hit and hard to kill. Try with a Water9 Blessing for effect.

Re: Is Vanheim generally considered overpowered? Just asking, I dont claim to know.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Well, hard to hit except with spells, you are piling on evasive parameters (high defence, mistform), but still the unit has something like 12 HP. A single star fire hiting will earn him a one way trip to heaven. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif

Re: Is Vanheim generally considered overpowered? Just asking, I dont claim to know.
 

Sure http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif But they have a decent MR. Not saying they are invulnerable. Just that they can make someone's life quite hard. That's what fodder troops are for http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif Plus the fact that when they have quickness they can hit the rear fairly decently.

Re: Is Vanheim generally considered overpowered? Just asking, I dont claim to know.
 

My nataraja was self buffing quickness ethereal body and ironskin, then attacking rear. She had chainmail of displacement and some flying boots I was able to pickup as well as the luck pendant. I was trying to scrounge for a regen or reinvig item, I just couldnt come up with one. I thought the chainmail sounded cool, but im not exactly sure what it did if anything ;p

It's easy to say don't use elephants but I had no idea what he was using till it was too late so I had to make do ;p I thought my tactic was sound, just not heavy enough numbers wise. With another 2 units of Hyps/elephants It would have been pretty close.

Valks imo are just an extremely potent unit. Using blade wind sounds good in theory but because the valks fly, and he has them set to attack rear, I guess I'd need to bring in a massive horde of useless units stick them in the back somewhere and just accept any FF as a neccesary evil ;p For some reason it reminds me of Braveheart and the "send the irish, arrows cost money" ;p The trick is to get them to attack stuff they can't kill super fast, or just give them ALOT of fat to chew while you deal with the rest of the attack.

Im wondering if serpent dancers might be a viable counter, with a water blessing they'd have high defence. They are much cheaper allowing me to build more of the dancers for absorbing the valk attack, and a massive zerg of regular infantry for frontal attacks. Sauromancers terroring it up to disperse his other stuff. Go for high domain, that would allow me to eventually push out a fair wack.

I have another question, when using a fire blessing, on say a spider or a knight, does the fire armor piercing attack also apply to the hoof/fang attacks? High defence negates the armor piercing aspect of fire9 bless, but I wonder if the +atk gained from it would overcome the defence.

Re: Is Vanheim generally considered overpowered? Just asking, I dont claim to know.
 

Yep - fodder time. Let the Vans massacre 100 units - but let them be cheapos - undead, provincial defense, tribals, militia, etc. Not expensive Hypaspists and elephants. Try to get them to engage a fresh unit of competent troops only after they're tired out from killing the cannon fodder. May be difficult to choreograph. Lots of cheap archers are a good idea too, though they could also end up killing your cannon fodder if you try to coordinate tactics.

PvK

Re: Is Vanheim generally considered overpowered? Just asking, I dont claim to know.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Nothing. I thought it gave mirror image, but actually it just gives a defense bonus, while most armor gives a defense penalty. IMO it should give mirror image.

Re: Is Vanheim generally considered overpowered? Just asking, I dont claim to know.
 

As Arco you have prime access to - somehow - precise combat spells (star fire, mind burn, soul slay). A mystic cost 3 times a Valks, but can cast quite a lot of these spells anyway.

You can also buff the bodyguards around your mage by etheralizing them with the same mystics.

Re: Is Vanheim generally considered overpowered? Just asking, I dont claim to know.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">It's amazing how many people think of the Nataraja as a female being. I guess it's because hindu art often represents the human body in a manner that seems effeminate to western eyes.

Anyway "raja" is the sanskrit title for "lord", and Nataraja is just an avatar of Shiva, who is known to be a male deity.

Re: Is Vanheim generally considered overpowered? Just asking, I dont claim to know.
 

40 Valkyries? That's a huge wad of gold. Just play Abysia, make a couple Soul Contracts, and let the Devils pile up. By the time he has been able to buy 40 Valkyries, you'll have twice that number of Devils. I'll take a Devil over a Valkyie any day.

Re: Is Vanheim generally considered overpowered? Just asking, I dont claim to know.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">2400 (or so) gold spent on a side, and on the other construction 6 researched, one dwarven hammer, 120 slaves, plus surely one or two +1 blood items on the other side. Are you not overstating a bit your case? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: Is Vanheim generally considered overpowered? Just asking, I dont claim to know.
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">It's amazing how many people think of the Nataraja as a female being. I guess it's because hindu art often represents the human body in a manner that seems effeminate to western eyes.

Anyway "raja" is the sanskrit title for "lord", and Nataraja is just an avatar of Shiva, who is known to be a male deity. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">The issue isn't helped by games like Final Fantasy (multiple Versions)where Shiva has always been a female summon. That made me laugh when I first saw "him" step out of a block of ice as a bikini-clad ice queen. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: Is Vanheim generally considered overpowered? Just asking, I dont claim to know.
 

nataraja is one of 3 supreme god in Hinduism. He has a wife named Parvati(daughter of Himalaya-8848),and a elephant son Ganesh. obviously, FF11' artist have made a mistake here^^

http://www.cartage.org.lb/en/themes/...n/as198781.jpg

[ January 28, 2004, 02:16: Message edited by: void ]

Re: Is Vanheim generally considered overpowered? Just asking, I dont claim to know.
 

Combat started around turn 22 or so between us. He did an amphibious landing on the Pythium players capitol. The Pyth player and I were border skirmishing when his cap got captured and then the Van player just began to pick up Pyths provinces while I tried to convince the Pyth player i'd leave him alone to try and stop Van. By the time we engaged it was maybe turn 30-31? Thats alot of time to be producing an army thats gonna take minimal losses Indi hunting and saving it up for major confrontations. I also made a couple rather large mistakes. I forgot to finish my Nataraja's script one time so HE just stood there after buffing up and got killed by militia /sigh ;p. Later on I had a massive army probably 20+ phants and over 100 hyps attack a province. Well I scouted the wrong province apparently because the one I ended up attacking had two pretenders and about 150 vine ogres. Lord of Fertility and Great Mother...It wasnt pretty ;p

[ January 28, 2004, 07:40: Message edited by: Osium ]