Help with Vanheim
 

I've been playing quite a bit on the Orania map on Mighty AI with 14-15 AI players. I have no problems early on, but in the midgame I am getting swamped by the AIs armies that have 150+ troops.

What I have been doing is going with a pretender with primarily air, and either death or blood magic. I have tried all forms of awakenings, but still have the same problem. Plus, I am having difficulty in researching new spells.

I have been going with Order and productivity scales with -1 on misfortune, because I need the cash and the resources to produce their excellent troops. I have been focusing on the Vanherses because I like their berserk ability, should I use Hirdmen more? Should I use their less powerful cav. commanders (can't remember their names now)?

Re: Help with Vanheim
 

No, no, no, no, you take either Fire 9, Water 9 or both blesses as Vanheim. F9/W9 pretender and crappy scales is a time-honoured strategy. Just build Vans, they are slaughtering machines with those blesses and they are mighty with even just Fire or Water bless at max.

Re: Help with Vanheim
 

I'll have to try that again. I tried it once, but didn't have the spell power or army size to survive. I'll give it a go since I've learned quite a bit about the game since then.

Re: Help with Vanheim
 

It's EA Vanheim, isn't it? The high-blessing strategy still works. All Vanir have high defense, and their Glamour ability adds even more to it, and Water 9 with its defence makes it almost impossible for normal units to hit them. The quickness doesn't hurt either. Be careful about fighting bigger armies, though, because your Vanir will get fatiqued (bad!) and their defense goes down when they are targeted by many attacks (-1 def for every time they've been already attacked that turn).

Fire 9 makes their weapons Flaming, and increases their Attack. They will be able to handle almost any enemy then, and their natural defense is usually high enough to keep them alive.

Dwarves are good casters. Try researching Blade Wind and using more dwarves on the battlefield. Just be careful with your own troops; you don't want your own Blade Wind to accidentally hit them.

Beware bows. They hurt a lot. Storm helps, and Arrow Fend helps even more.

Re: Help with Vanheim
 

Yeah, its EA Vanheim, and your post illustrated a lot of what I have been thinking about. I've tried a rainbow bless, but that didn't really work well. I've thought about an A9 bless for the air shield. I've tried a F9/W9, but we didn't have enough troops. I wonder if a F9/E9 for the reinvigoration would be good.

The only problem with that is missing out on all the cool A3+ spells you get like storm and thunder strike, etc.

How much should I focus on the construction, should I just focus on the Evo school?

Re: Help with Vanheim
 

On a big map you can't rely on just your blessed troops, so taking good scales instead of blessings might be worth trying out. Take Oracle or some other low cost high dominion pretender, max out scales, build lots of castles and just get bigger armies than the AIs (or just big enough, since you can out-maneuver the AI).

Also, figure out what magics to research since that's what will win or lose the end game (less so in SP, but it's something to learn if you ever plan to play MP) .

Re: Help with Vanheim
 

Btw, same applies to Helheim. W9F9 bless on sacred troops is just brutal.

Re: Help with Vanheim
 

Actually, on large maps it has biggest impact. With small number of sacred troops you will be able to take out indies without any losses and get lots of provinces fast as a result. Also, imprisoned pretenders can take W9F9 without getting too large hit to scales. You can still have decent income.

Re: Help with Vanheim
 

On big maps you can rely on sacred troops until you start building SCs and mage squads that can annihilate AI armies at will.

Re: Help with Vanheim
 

Sure, it can help speed up expansion a lot. But biggest impact on big maps? I don't see it.

On a small map the deciding wars will probably be fought while the blessed troops are still relevant. Not so on a big map (assuming, of course, you survive that far).

Re: Help with Vanheim
 

If your trying a f9/w9 bless go with an imprisoned *insert name of pretender who can easy get f9w9* with 1 or 2 sloth, or 2 misfortune and as much order and dominion as you can afford.

Re: Help with Vanheim
 

One thing to notice is that your troops all have a fairly high gold to resource cost. This means that you can fairly comfortably use Sloth to get design points. If you want to go for a bless strategy, I would personally go for F9 and skip Water. Glamour already does a lot to keep your troops alive, and your sacred troops and leaders all have multiple attacks, so you might as well ensure they hit insanely hard. Sticking to a single bless is a *lot* cheaper than going for a dual bless, and the better scales that you can afford may solve your problem of not having enough troops.

I wouldn't worry about putting Air on your pretender to gain access to the better Air spells, that is after all what Vanadrotts are for http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

If you are having difficulty researching, you are probably not buying enough Dwarven Smiths. They are your best researchers. You can also research Construction 2 early on, and build some Owl Quills.

An outline for a design incorporating the points I've mentioned:

Take an Awake Red Dragon. Give him Fire 9. Take Order 1, Sloth 3, Cold 1, Luck 1, Magic 1, Dominion 6. These scale choices can be tweaked to taste, but are probably how I would do it.

On the 1st turn, buy a Vanjarl and a couple of Vanheres. Leave your Dragon in human form, and have him research Construction. On turn 2, make your Vanjarl your Prophet, buy a Dwarven Smith, and whatever other troops you can reasonably afford. Switch your Dragon to his Dragon form, script him to Fire Closest, place him about 1/4 of the way away from the front of the battle board, and send him out to take the most weakly-defended province next to your castle. You want to start conquering ASAP to minimize the affects of all that Sloth by using the admin value of your Fortified City to gather resources. On turn 3, your Prophet can lead your army out to begin conquering as well.

Once you hit Construction 2, you can make Bracers of Defence and an Amulet of Missle Protection for your Dragon, and start forging some Owl Quills to boost your research.

Your next research goal might be Evocation 2, so your Vanjarls can start tossing lightning bolts at the enemy with their superb precision.

Hope this helps.

Re: Help with Vanheim
 

Hmmm, how much the Owl Quils will speed up research? And were they 1 or 2 Air?

Re: Help with Vanheim
 

I think owl quills are two air.

How do you turn the dragon from man to dragon? I think part of my problem might be derring do. I could be expanding too slowly rather than risk battles with few troops. Plus, I am researching Evo to 2/3 before researching Const, I should probably reverse that.

Re: Help with Vanheim
 

Actually its -2 def per attack in dom3, at least according to the manual.

Re: Help with Vanheim
 

Early on you can use Vandrotts to take weak independents using shock wave. Remember to get lightning resistance to 100% before doing this.

Later in the game give a Vandrott a Staff of Storms, a ring of tame lightning, and some air gems, and then cloud trapeze him onto armies scripted to cast summon storm power and then Wrathful Skies. This combo can destroy small armies if they are not prepared.

Re: Help with Vanheim
 

Select change shape (instead of defend order), u can do it in tactical combat, (just script, cast spell, change shape or whatever), as well. I start off as mage, cast spells, then change to dragon to play with the little people. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/evil.gif

Re: Help with Vanheim
 

Actually Wrathful Skies can destroy large armies in they're not prepared.
Unless they can kill the caster before it goes off. Which since they can't fly and arrows are hampered by the storm...

Re: Help with Vanheim
 

For this combo imho Turins old AQ combo works best.

1 SC AQ, and 1-2 supporting AQs, which have a staff of storms, cast wrathful skies and living clouds.

This combo, when executed properly, can kill almost any army.

Well at least could in Dom2, have not seen it yet in a Dom3 mp http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

Re: Help with Vanheim
 

What is an AQ?

Re: Help with Vanheim
 

Queen of Elemental Air.

Re: Help with Vanheim
 

Air Queen, everybody's favourite supercombatnant because their lightnings are fiver times HOTTER than the surface of the sun.

Re: Help with Vanheim
 

Huh? This demands experimental verification. lightning swarm is... 6an. What's inner sun?

Re: Help with Vanheim
 

You mean their van troops have their melee weapon and the hoofs of their horses, right? Could you please remind me, can multiply attacks with defferent weapons from the unit be applied to the different soldiers in the enemy squard, or will they all target the single target?

IIRC the weapon with multiply attack always attack the same single target, the mutiply weapons attack different targets in the same square, and quickness or W9 bless allows you attack 2 different square. Is this correct?

BTW what will happen if you apply W9 bless on top of quickness spell or boots/jade armor? Will it give you more than 2 attacks per round?


Another question - will van's horses also get "flaming hoofs of death" with F9 bless, or only van's melee weapons will get it? In other words, will fans make 2 6AN attack or 1?
Thanks.

Re: Help with Vanheim
 

Multiple attacks from one creature (in Dom2 at least) could be directed against any creature. However, you could never attack creatures in more than one square without an AOE or quickness. This was irrespective of whether the attacks came from multi-attack weapon or from multiple different weapons. I.E. A non-quickened no AOE attack commander could kill five hoburgs, or three men, or two cavalry, or one sphinx.

Re: Help with Vanheim
 

6 hoburgs. Anyone capable of killing a sphinx in one go is pretty awesome...

Re: Help with Vanheim
 

I'm in love with EA Vanheim. Glamour troops are really fun and they survive very well. I don't even use a blessing and my casualties have never been greater than 4 in any given battle, vs. indies or not.

Van's are nice, but I use mostly spear huskarl's and hirdmen because they cost less and I don't need the movement since I've got my commanders casting lightning bolt/orb. Been working for me.

Re: Help with Vanheim
 

Just to heads up everyone, the Owl Quill was (thankfully) boosted in Doms3. It now gives +3 RP instead of 2. I think it's actually worth it if you have a A1 mage dedicated.

=$=

Re: Help with Vanheim
 

The Owl Quill has given +3 RP since the days of Dom 1.