Helheim Superpower!
 

After some extensive playing as EA Caelum, I have encountered Helheim and the Glamor is amazing! It is almost impossible to beat these armies even with magic weapons, archers, or magic. I then proceded to make a game as Helhiem and I am able to dominate the game early with little effort!

My question is how the hell do I beat this nation? Is there any real way to defeat the armies of hel besides just bypassing them and attacking the back country? Thanks in advance!

Re: Helheim Superpower!
 

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...t=6#Post478477

Some counters are discussed here. In addition the discussion of nerfing vanheim/helheim.

Re: Helheim Superpower!
 

Personally, bypassing them and taking out their support provinces is my favorite tactic.

Every nations doesnt have to balance every nation army-for-army. As long as there IS some nation or some tactic that will work against them. But I agree they seem pretty rough in small blitz games.

Re: Helheim Superpower!
 

You and some guy named Hutier. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Glamour is incredibly tough to contend with
 

I hear you Cerlin; even 10-20 glamour warriors can ruin your day.

On any non-epic scale game, the "glam" nations Vanheim and Helheim are banned in our multiplayer games. As I said in the other thread, they remind me a lot of Ashen Empire Ermor in Dom2...

Re: Glamour is incredibly tough to contend with
 

Yep.

• Reasonably easy to play
• Sufficiently different from other nations as to make standard tactics ineffective.
• Pretty vulnerable to tailored non-standard tactics.

You're Caelum? Try a squad of Mammoths trailing after a screen of indep infantry and set magicians up to cast a bunch of Freezing Mists.

Helhirdings die at about the same rate as anyone else to cloud spells or tramplers and cost 7 times as much each - their glamor is quite effective against many standard tactics - use non-standard tactics to take advantage of your numerical superiority.

-Frank

Re: Glamour is incredibly tough to contend with
 

Your caelum? Get a bunch of flying mammoths(mammoths set to hold and attack beside mages casting flight) and air evocations and blast them away.

Re: Glamour is incredibly tough to contend with
 

I've only played a bunch of ME games the past few months, single player with AIs random/difficult. As a new player it's ridiculous for you smarty experienced guys and gals to think we have to get so pre-planning bonkers whenever Vanheim randomly appears. Because every. Single. time. They dominate all other AIs.

I'm playing Ulm currently. Vanheim counter? Yeah right. I'm supposed to know beforehand? Gosh, the AIs are randomized. Tell me how to counter Van as they roll over two other of the five nations and start nailing the crap out of me. Turn 40-50 or so. Yeah right. Hopeless. And it's happened with ME C'tis as well. And another time. It's awful.

In my dumbo opinion, random games with the AI: Vanheim shows up? May as well quit that game and start another.

But hey, I suppose things are all balanced, yeah? And I shouldn't be playing the AI on random? heh

Re: Glamour is incredibly tough to contend with
 

Sounds like you are having fun!

No, the game is not balanced in the paper-rock-scissors way of thinking or the each-nation-has-equivalent-troops manner either. They ARE balanced in that there are so many different units, spells, tactics, etc. that effectively counters exist to any nation/unit/ability--it just takes thought and creativity.

Not that some nations (vanheim) aren't tough as nails for the inflexible and stupid AIs to take on. They are. And some are tougher than others for People as well, especially if you take a nation that is weak vs that particular nation.

Here's an easy counter for Van's glamour: hip-deep cheap hobbit infantry. Make them wade through hobbit chaff. Have 1 ind HI for every 3 hobbit chaff, and you got yourself a pretty easy, cheap counter.... You just have to worry about food. And archers. And slingers, really.... But standard glam units? Nah.

Re: Glamour is incredibly tough to contend with
 

Turn 40 to 50? Try having 30 Master Smiths show up with the following script:

(Summon Earth Power) (Magma Eruption) (Magma Eruption)(Magma Eruption)(Magma Eruption)

Now put 12 stacks of black plate infantry which are each 2-5 men on "Hold and Attack: None" and place them each up and down the field in a mid-forward starting position.

Now take whatever indie archers you happen to have and stick them in three blobs to fire at Archers, Cavalry, and Closest. Position them in the middle in the top, center, and lower regions.

Now put the rest of your Ulmish infantry in a couple of big hold and attack blobs behind all the rest of your stuff.

Finally, take this army and march it directly to the Vanheim capitol and kill everything in your path. A turn 45 Ulm should have virtually no problem beating a van army in the field - especially one that's compuer controlled.

-Frank

Re: Glamour is incredibly tough to contend with
 

That really surprises me. In most of my games Ermor takes the lead early on, and Oceania is the leader later (for AIs of course). I would think it might be a small map with indepts set to a low number if Vanheim walks all over the other AIs.

Re: Glamour is incredibly tough to contend with
 

I agree, that's a good tactic against Vanheim. Although I am not sure why would you want your decoy HI infantry to be positioned in 2-5. They will rout easly due to both small size (plus they would be subject for the additional "below 5" morale check), and the whole squard would likely to be destroyed anyway by vans as soon as they connect. As a decoy, I would use single soldiers.

And why "hold/attack/none" rather than "hold/attack/closest" or "hold/Attack/rear"?

But these are minor points, either way such army will steamroll van's sacred troops, I agree.

Re: Glamour is incredibly tough to contend with
 

Try Tien Ch'i in early games against Helheim on small maps-and especially maps which are continents with no islands. Use your chariots and warriors of 5 elements with lots of support to capture provinces and your national archers and massive amounts of cheap pike plus lots of province defense to take away provinces from Van, ensuring they can't capture them back. Make sure you've got better scales than they do (if they're using high bless strategy, you will) and build temples like crazy on those guarded provinces. Eventually you should attrition them to death and be able to build an army strong enough to take out their home province. Once you do, destroy their fortress! The reason for this is, if they happen to capture the home province back, it gives you a handful of rounds to take it back before they can get the fortress set back up and start rolling out the sacreds again. Use your whole national budget if you can for a couple of rounds and really build an ungodly force on that home-you don't ever want them to get it back if you can help it(see above)-and guard the surrounding provinces just as well if you can-after that, just demolish them slow and steady. As far as magic goes, Tien Ch'i has excellent rainbow mage-priests, some of which can fly, so you can beat them magically as well as economically, so long as you're better at holding the territory you've got than Helheim is.

Re: Glamour is incredibly tough to contend with
 

Thanks a lot for the advice, Frank! I'll try that during the course of the next week. Sounds hilarious. I play each game over the course of 2-3 weeks, not having ten hours a day to play.

I'd love to see the Magma Eruption en masse take those Van bastards out. I should probably bring a small crew of siege folks along. Risky though, gold-wise, when I'm being nailed by R'lyeh from another direction. Very expensive but I do have about nine fortresses, so could muster it in about five or six turns. But seems like it would be terribly worth it to get Van off my left buttock. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

I appreciate the response. And I also am stunned at how so many of you are master strategists with Dom3. Jerks!

Oh, and Gandalf - I've never once had a problem dealing with Ermor. In fact, in this game, they're right next to me and I knock them down easily as they're having a lot of fun raining on Bandar Log's parade. But I suppose that could be the AI being even more moronic and inept than I am. And it's a largish map, 140 provinces or whatever, with default settings. (other than the AIs set to 'difficult' and me sucking against Van) http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Glamour is incredibly tough to contend with
 

Thanks for some caelum advise as well! Finding ways to deal with this ability is part of the fun for me. My current tactic of letting them crash against my walls is paying off if I can follow up. Now back to attempt the win!

Re: Glamour is incredibly tough to contend with
 

I think that once you have to face Helheim, it's a bit too late to choose another nation.

Re: Glamour is incredibly tough to contend with
 

You haven't researched the Polymorph Nation spell, have you?

Re: Helheim Superpower!
 

If you're playing Caelum bypassing them is a better plan. You can hurricane their fortified provinces to stop production and raid everything else to take away gold and gems. You can eliminate their armies later, after their economy has been destroyed.

Re: Helheim Superpower!
 

This is a great idea. Remember that Helheim is powerful because it is capable of projecting substantial force and of raiding effectively. But if you can project more force or raid him back better, then he's toast.

So if you can either con a Helheim opponent into meeting you in the field when you have a better army (Abysian Burning Ones come to mind), or split your force and simply destroy his economy faster than he can destroy yours (for example: with Caelumite packs), then you can make for a victorious war.

Helheim is a powerful position because it can compete as both a raiding force and a standup army and it is relatively easy to play. But it can be beaten at any of its games. It isn't the fastest or the strongest - it's just both fast and strong. If you play to your own strengths, victory can be yours.

-Frank

Re: Helheim Superpower!
 

Unfortunately, this works just because it's Caelum - another superpower. Caelum is probably the only nation that is better at raiding than Helheim (some amphibian nations can be considered better at raiding if they play 1 vs 1 - but that's just because Helheim can't raid well underwater). Mobility-wise, Caelum is probably also the only nation that's better than Helheim (in mid-late game Mictlan probably can join the top in this area too). In terms of brute force on the battlefield, only few nations can match Helheim (and Caelum, of course, is one of them). I think that the only reason we don't hear that many complains about Caelum is because it requires noticably more competent play (than Helheim) to be efficient. But if Caelum is not rushed in the first 10 turns it will be very strong.

Re: Helheim Superpower!
 

Quite a few nations have stealth which can be used for this purpose also. Possibly one of the reasons Ive never noticed this "problem" is that I tend to play stealth nations and striking behind the lines is something I use more than head-to-head armies. Pangaea is my favorite, but others can do it also.

Re: Helheim Superpower!
 

Stealth isn't really a big bonus for raiding. The key is cheap and mobile hit squads. Stealth is a sort of poor substitute for mobility: it allows you to get to unexpected places, but at the cost of many turns. Try to count how much it will cost you to raid 10 provinces per turn turn after turn with Pangaea.

Re: Helheim Superpower!
 

I said it was possible. Whether or not its preferable I think lies more in what a persons preferred methods are. An advantage of stealth is not getting caught. You can pull back into provinces they dont own. It helps to tie up alot of their manpower hunting you or their gold buying PD. Also Pangea, if you use Pans, can toss attacking maenads as they move stealthy thru an area.

Re: Helheim Superpower!
 

any tips for C'tis vs. Helheim?

Re: Helheim Superpower!
 

I've heard good things about Poison Slingers, but I've never actually been in the situation myself.

Re: Helheim Superpower!
 

I don't think that "personally preferred methods" has any role here. I'm consider the situation when Caelum player act efficiently and not trying to role-play and the opponent is trying to employ the best possible counter-strategy.

You're correct that steath allows you to escape, but it cost you a turn (which means your effective number of raiding party is halved while you still pay full upkeep) and when you attack you always face Caelum's raiding squad (or worse) which means you suffer losses and getting replacement back to the front takes time. Caelum has no need to hunt your stealthy raiders, they just take all provinces. There will be accidental clashes with your raiders and this kind of attrition is in Caelum's favour. In a few turns you'll find yourself with about as many provinces as the number of your stealth raider parties and this number will keep shrinking...

Re: Helheim Superpower!
 

Not if you use Pans

Re: Helheim Superpower!
 

Gandalf, I think you would really like Caelum. Since you like to avoid the big confrontations and attack where it is unexpected (Pangea tactics you use). That strategy is Caelum's best (in my opinion).

Re: Helheim Superpower!
 

I do enjoy Caelum, especially for large maps. Up to about mid-game I tend to preach a "measles" strategy. Jump over the hard indepts and spot yourself across the map in 3-province jumps. You can hit human players early in the game. And you can quickly move armies forward. But for them to hit you back they have to get thru one of yours, 2 indepts, one of yours, 2 indepts. That gives you a great advantage for building up PD and replacment armies.

Of course my answer to that strategy is my Pangaean armies since I only have to knock out one link at a time in the chain.

Re: Helheim Superpower!
 

Do you want to demonstrate your strategy in duel?

Re: Helheim Superpower!
 

Whats to demonstrate? A Pan can move thru an area and "attack" it without losing its stealth. It drops maenads in that province and they attack. That makes it fairly efficient as a pain-in-the-back-provinces.

It also is great as an assassin since you dont have to keep testing the province to see whats left and if you can take it. Each turn you get an assassination, followed by a maenad attack.

The drawback of course is their cost. But for a total-stealth strategy it has a good function.

Re: Helheim Superpower!
 

Maenads without a commander will rout on the very first turn. They will have absolutely no effect unless your opponent does not purchase a single point of province defense. If that's the case, then you'd be better off using scouts, since you could capture 17.5 provinces for the same cost as a single Pan.

Actually that's not quite correct, they will have some effect. They'll raise unrest by about 2 per attack, so you have a 350 gold spy that's about one fifth as effective for ten times the price.

By the time you've set up a blood economy and research to get black hearts there will be no independent provinces left to use them on. Every province will have a permanent province defense commander that is completely immune to assasination and will prevent an unlimited number of non-magical, non-mindless troops from routing.

The other drawback, of course, is that it has absolutely no effect on a province with one province defense.

Re: Helheim Superpower!
 

I've beaten helheim with the pale ones, by using a lot of earth magic and lots and lots of Beameths from Death Majic, I found that armies with 30-50 Bemeths supported by large groups of Enliven statues with magma children and throw in some Trolls. I put minimum 25-30 Bemeths in each of my armies, usually 30-50, put on attack and put in front line. put the statutes on the flanks of the bemeths. also make sure your intrinsic defense in all your provinces have at least 25 in beginning and higher later on, my important provincies I put up to between 70-80 as Helheim loves to sneak in and attack you behind the main lines. this is just what i found out in fighting them.. good luck

Re: Helheim Superpower!
 

Demonstrate how well you can do vs Caelum with that strategy. I can play Caelum even though I'm not a Caelum expert.

You need a commander to make Maenads fight. And if Pan participate in attack, next turn you can't attack another province without exposing yourself to demolition squad.

Re: Helheim Superpower!
 

Actually thats not true. Maenads attack anywhere from two to five rounds. Definetly long enough to get a rout from the other guy in many instances. And of course estimations about how long it takes to make a Pan reasonable as an assassin depends on the game which is part of my point.

Sure lets play. 1500 provinces, indepts at 9, scattered structures and monsters across the map, AI's with alliances, 25 victory points (provinces with crowns that you have to take and hold) with 20 VP needed for a win.

Re: Helheim Superpower!
 

Do maenad start having already gone berserk ? Berserking units units usually doesn't rout even when the whole army does, it might explain ...

Re: Helheim Superpower!
 

1500?? Indies at 9? Those are some bizarre settings.

Re: Helheim Superpower!
 

Gandaf is well known to love *big* maps, he's almost legendary for this. ^_^

Re: Helheim Superpower!
 

Completely incorrect. They rout on the first turn, which you would know if you had bothered to test it. Even if they didn't rout, five maenads (which is more than what you will get in an opponents order dominion) are not going to rout a province defense that costs 23 gold, which is what your Pan costs you every single turn.

Why would you suggest adding AIs and extra provinces to a two player multiplayer game that would take several years to complete unless you didn't want to debate honestly? You've also just given the victory to Caelum with those conditions, since he'll be able to cloud trapeze into all of the victory provinces long before your footsloggers get anywhere near them.

Re: Helheim Superpower!
 

Those are the kinds of games I like to play. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
That was part of my point from the beginning. I wouldnt have bothered poking into this thread at all if it had said that Vans were a problem on small map multiplayer kill-everyone games that tend to end quickly, or something like that. It might seem that most people play Dom as player-vs-player arenas. And that leads to the impression that its what Dom is for. But thats mostly from the traffic in these forums. Obviously the vocal people in these forums dont reflect most players altho they might reflect a large number in these forums. With such a good manual, much of the traffic here are people who are looking for those type of games.

Even discounting solo players which there must many MANY of based on sales... there are many variables in even MP thats that would matter. Large maps, hard indies, high research, low resources, MP games that stress alliances instead of PvP, Victory Point games (I dont think Ive ever played a game with the Devs that wasnt a VP game so it definetly cant be discounted as part of what Dom is). Its usually better to try and state that something is true based on the types of games being played.

Not to mention the really chaotic stuff I like to throw in like scattering squads of monsters all over the map. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif But I know thats totally off the wall. Johan tells me that every once in awhile.

Re: Helheim Superpower!
 

Really? You've polled a representative sampling of the population who plays the game? Or are you just making stuff up like when you tell people that commanderless troops won't rout on the first turn.

Re: Helheim Superpower!
 

It does seem to be a random roll of the dice to see which side decides to rout first. Its not an absolute either way so its not a great tactic, but it does have its uses. People I have used it on have complained loudly about it and it has forced them to alter their planned strategies. It might not be a game winner, but its a game affector.

Most of my tactics tend to be more useful as an big-game ally than on a PvP small-map blitz. But it might also be that Ive never bothered testing them in those types of games so I will leave that rating of them up to people who are experienced in those types of contests.

Re: Helheim Superpower!
 

If your opponent has no commanders, which as I already explained, is not the case for anybody who has bought a single point of province defense. If they have, then the maenads rout on their first turn, every single time. After 30 turns with a single Pan in each of 10 provinces, not a single battle was won.

Re: Helheim Superpower!
 

You know where that could still be extremely useful is if you are fighting Vanhiem or Heleheim (midly back to topic). It would actually let you see where there troops really are and what kind of forces they are building up.

I wonder if you had a harpy attack a provence the same turn the maenads spawn... one that was repeately shown to have low PD. How high of a PD you could take out? If you could make them raise it to 7+ you could then take it out with small raiding force. That might be troublesome to deal with if they have to focus their main attention elsewhere.

Re: Helheim Superpower!
 

What you're suggesting is not Caelum vs Pangaea, but rather who takes over AI and indies first. Which is what Caelum will likely do first anyway, though it's irrelevant to the current discussion. But 1500 provinces? Either the game will crash or one of the players will die before the game ends http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Helheim Superpower!
 

It would be an interesting game since the map would be large enough for both nations to fully use their abilties. And its probably true that Caelum is one of the best opponents for Pangaea (much better than a head-2-head nation such as Ulm or Pythium). Some of my favorite tactics for Pandaea (and I do have others) just doesnt work well on small map games.

But yes 1500 was shooting for the extreme. In fact its the maximum number of provinces that the game presently allows. None of my 1500 games have ended yet. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Its also a very different game to generate a map with mountains at 50 which creates almost a maze of chokepoints.

And to give each province a chance of a completely random squad. It really forces a change in strategy to find a province that you HAVE to go around. Such as finding that it has a Sphinx there with Tree Lord bodyguards and Manticore troops. While the next one has a slinger leader with monolith bodyguards and turkeys as troops.

Re: Helheim Superpower!
 

That would be pretty neat to counter uber-blesses if the best sacreds weren't stealthy.

Hm. That sounded a bit nasty perhaps.

Re: Helheim Superpower!
 

It definetly creates a different game.
And makes Johan crazy when I do it. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

But then he used to cringe at the random map generator in Dom2. Maybe Dom4 will see a "chaos game" option.

Re: Helheim Superpower!
 

I don't mind strong indies with random squads. 1500 provinces will just make the game a micromanagement hell. I don't think it will be much different from 100 province duel. Distance is approximately a square root of number of provinces, so on 1500 province map the distance between the provinces will be around 19, and on 100 province map around 5. For Caelum it's just 5 turns of extra travel time. So even if Panagea goes totally defensive it adds only 5 extra turns for development. Do you want to reach any particular stage before the war starts? We could play 100 map with NAP for certain number of turns. It's actually better for your strategy if it needs time. Even on a huge map I could start raiding and attacking pretty soon. With flying scouts and troops Caelum doesn't even need a corridor to start raiding, just few step-stone provinces. And Pangaea won't even be able to counter-raid because it will take them 10+ more turns just to reach Caelum.

Re: Helheim Superpower!
 

Gandalf, I definitely want to play you someday. That's just the kind of map I prefer. 1500 provinces, very high research, minimum supply, indeps at 9, victory points are fine (although I can do without them), I do like high resources, but I can do without them too, gold can be whatever. I'd be an honor to play (and be beaten by) someone with so much experience.