Is it just me or is Hellheim troops way to strong?
 

I'm in my 2nd game and playing Caelum becaues the scenario said they were very hard... and boy was it right.

My first game I randomed Hellheim and felt it was a bit to easy once I got my army rolling....

Now I'm having to fight a war with Hellheim as Caelum and Vanheim to boot!

Is it just me or are their armies just WAY to strong... not only do they all have mirrior images but their defense is through the roof. When I played them I could very easily amass their calvary and waste anything even when out numbered.

They just seem really imbalanced here... What am I missing? I realize Caelum may just be a hard nation to play but the other computer controlled nations seem to just be getting rolled by them *** well.

What do you guys think?

Re: Is it just me or is Hellheim troops way to str
 

Deleted.

Re: Is it just me or is Hellheim troops way to str
 

Another problem with MP is that people can ally against you. Since everyone knows the Vanir factions are incredibly powerful unless you use specialized tactics, people are more likely to ally up to defend against an aggressive 'heim expansionist.

If they can be contained long enough to get you a resource base to recruit mages from and enough AoE spells to make it possible to combat them unglamoured then they become much more fair. Like early-age Elephant Rushes against people like Ulm, sometimes the foe you're facing is just incredibly difficult for you to battle. The 'heims fit there.

They should definatly have the balance tweaked a little, since diplomacy should not substitute actual game balance, but what's more of a pressing concern is bringing weaker forces up to the same level as most people than bringing the few super sides down a notch.

As Caelum, you should have access to good mages and good arrows. A successful arrow hit will dispel a glamour. Also, use your Mammoths. Trampling works very well against Glamour in my experience, though I don't know if they take damage on the trample, they do seem to lose guys just as easily that way. At the very least they start losing their glamour shields, and other guys can come in to help out.

Am I right about that? I'm just remembering my hordes of Trogs swarming over the 'heims as being pretty effective.

Re: Is it just me or is Hellheim troops way to str
 

Successful arrow hits dispel glamour? I thought they had to damage the unit to dispel glamour? Even if the arrow hits it might hit the shield or the units protection might be high, especially if they are earth blessed.

Tramples with Mammoths can get rid of glamour but you are only likely to cause 1 damage since their defense is so high.

So other than area affect spells what can work against Helherdlings?

Re: Is it just me or is Hellheim troops way to str
 

Running away? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

Re: Is it just me or is Hellheim troops way to str
 

I do have to point out this line of reasoning isn't going to work if everyone simply gangs up on them like I've seen in many games.

I think the biggest gripe is that they are pretty invincible in the early stages of the game. There is very little you can do about an uberblessed hel/vanheim nation that rushes you out of the gate, which is frustrating.

Once the bigger AoE spells start to get researched things start to even out it would appear.

Re: Is it just me or is Hellheim troops way to strong?
 

Frank is right, a lot of people have raised the concern that these nations are too strong. Have a search for the topic about a month back, as it has some really good ideas on how to fight them and win. There was no consensus on the forum (not that there ever is!) but rest assured that a lot of people share your concern.

As stated, in single player, these two nations tend to hammer the other AI nations. This makes them bigger, richer and stronger, so you tend to see their power more in single player. I often turn them off in the game set up phase, as I got tired of facing them at the end of every single player game, but that is just me.

Many “fixes” were proposed and attacked, but the idea of increasing their cost a little bit did seem to get a fair bit of support.

Re: Is it just me or is Hellheim troops way to str
 

lol seriously!

Any tips for me as Caelum in countering Hellheim other than mass elephants? I tried massing thunderstorm through my lvl 4 air casters but frankly they dont seem to be enough to stop a 200-300 unit computer army. I just lost 2 decisive battles and a good chunk of my territory so I believe this game is over for me but I would like to know what to do in the future.

On a somewhat side note, so far in my two game experiences magic has not played a big role... Spells seem to take a lot of work to get to and dont really make the trouble worhtwhile from a damage standpoint....

I mean I had roughly 5 lvl 4 air casters using thunderstorm vs hellheim and though it defintely damaged them, I was not able to win the battle. They outnumbered me 2:1 from a troop standpoint. Had I used the 2000 resources for 16 elephants it might have been a different story...

Perhaps casters are only good late game and I just rushed to them real early.. i dont know... my strategy was to crank out non stop my eagle kings so i could cruise around nuking armies but it didn't work out when I started running into these huge 200-300 unit armies, especially when they were controlled by Hellheim and Vanheim

please some tips vs these nations! btw this ie EA

Re: Is it just me or is Hellheim troops way to str
 

200-300 units? That's a lot of vanir.

Air spells are not great for damage output. Thunderstrike is nice, but yeah, it isn't going to be decisive. If you want decisive impact from zaps, you want fire or water.

If you want good use out of your air magic - go into alteration. Wind Guide makes a *huge* difference in the effectiveness of your archers - they hit roughly twice as often, in my experience. Of course, you only need that once per army.

Phantasmal Army is also a great spell. If you can get ten guys to cast that (which you should, if you're facing up against 200-300 helhirdlings), that's a whopping 250 guys. They're not great units individually, but they can pin the helhirdlings down (especially with no fire bless) while your real units pepper them with wind-guided arrows.

Other than that, the evocation that really shines against glamour armies is freezing mist. You don't care much about the damage that it deals, but it pops their glamour. You may need to put water-boosting items on your guys before they can cast it, though.

Magic has to be used situationally - if you're not familiar with the magic list, it can seem pretty useless. Unlike in dom2, you don't just grab a bunch of guys and tell them to hurl lightning bolt - you can still do that, but in dom3 it generally isn't cost effective (but it depends on who you are fighting.)

If you can get science fiction levels of magic, note that many of your units are lightning immune. If you switch to an entire army of Storm Guard, and give a few of your eagle kings a stack of air gems each, they can shoot shimmering fields, which is a spell that really will kill an entire army of Vanir all by itself.

Re: Is it just me or is Hellheim troops way to str
 

Yes, I agree. In our group games Helheim and Van have a very low victory scores. Maybe it's cause they are forbidden because they are too strong? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Yes, van and Helheim are way unbalanced, lot of people is awaiting a serious nerf.

Re: Is it just me or is Hellheim troops way to str
 

I think something people will often overlook is that Helheim and Vanheim don't just have very powerful units, but they also have the best stealth abilities in the game. Better than Pangaea, which is supposed to be the great stealth nation.

It's not necessary to use that power when you can dominate the battlefield, but it's there, and having some extra special strategy cooked up that can beat an army of Vanir will help only if they all gather up into a nice bunch for you to kill.

Re: Is it just me or is Hellheim troops way to str
 

Only their sacreds really. Come early mid game, a good Helheim player at war with you will literally be all over your empire except where your main army is. Standard anti raiding squads won't work because Helheim raiders crushes them. You can tell you're fighting a good helheim when your chokepoints simply don't work. Between flying Dis + Valk raiders with stealthy helherdlings, it's a toughie for most nations. Especially if research is kept at standard pace. Evocation spells DO work, but as the above poster, the harder part is actually catching them in the act. Caelum is actually pretty strong, lightning bolt => thunder strike is a legitimate counter against Helheim as well as your standard mammoth/wingless group to hold them off.

Judging from your dismissal of magic though, that is probably why you're having trouble. As numerous people pointed out in this thread, magic plays a very large part of this game. In fact, the reason you're probably having a tough time is because you're dismissing it so easily. Especially because Caelum is a magic nation!

Re: Is it just me or is Hellheim troops way to str
 

A-Ha! Please don't forget that the AI gets more money and resources in higher AI levels than normal. If you're fighting a hard or impossible AI, then no wonder that he can spam Helhirdings and Vans and run you over with those. A MP gamer would not be able to do that. Recruiting Helhirdings is the only option for Helheim, though, as all the other units are merely chaff...

Helheim doesn't sail!?

Re: Is it just me or is Hellheim troops way to str
 

Helheim doesn't sail http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Is it just me or is Hellheim troops way to str
 

Oops, yes I meant STEALTHY XD. Mind bargled.

Re: Is it just me or is Hellheim troops way to str
 

Aren't these overpowered nations somewhat toned down in the Conceptual Balance Mod?

Re: Is it just me or is Hellheim troops way to str
 

Their cost was increased. The veteran players don't seem to think it's a problem. In my Helheim MP game, I was able to expand pretty quickly, but the Helhirdings are quite the liability because of their cost when having to face the right kind of army: in this case, a huge number of Wind Guided Warrior Maidens. The hail of arrows is usually enough to pop the glamour, and then the Helhirdings fall as fast as any other heavy cavalry. I've pretty much decided they aren't that great as a regular troop; you're better off just using them against indies and as raiders as KissBlade suggested.

Re: Is it just me or is Hellheim troops way to str
 

thanks for the advice with the archers, I will try that... BUT in my experience archers just dont do much damage due to the fact heavily armored troops can shrug off their arrows with ease... Almost all of Hellheims troops have pretty good armor

Do you find archers are useful even against more heavily armored foes?

Re: Is it just me or is Hellheim troops way to str
 

Thunderstrike should be very effective. You just need lots of chaff. Try something like Aim (or better windguide) then Thunderstrike x 3 and retreat. Spread enough chaff around to delay his troops. If you are blasting Helherding ranks you are popping 100 gold per thunderstrike hit. As long as your Eagle Kings survive you can throw away 20-30-40 archers (2-400 gold) you will do far more damage.

Re: Is it just me or is Hellheim troops way to str
 

I should point out another reason Helheim was considered overpowered before was because of the recruitment bug.

Re: Is it just me or is Hellheim troops way to str
 

KissBlade,

Sorry, I missed the recruitment bug and am strangely unwilling to go exploring in the bug thread. Can you give us a line or two on what that problem is/was? Did it get cleaned up in the last patch?

Cheers!

Re: Is it just me or is Hellheim troops way to str
 

It was cleaned up after the first patch where the majority of Helheim's overpoweredness shone through. Essentially Helherdlings were not capital only.

Re: Is it just me or is Hellheim troops way to str
 

This mean that now Hel and Van are balanced? And that the dev will not do anything to tune them down? Bad ...

Re: Is it just me or is Hellheim troops way to str
 

There is only so much you can do without completely breaking the thematics of those nations. Unfortunately, in SP they tend to become monsters since the AI is not properly equipped to handle a mass of glamoured medium-high to high defense unit armies.

I don't know what the perfect solution is, but there is a big distinction between balancing and overnerfing and it's a very fine line to walk.

Edi

Re: Is it just me or is Hellheim troops way to str
 

I've had to fight helheim/vanheim in a few games and yes they are extremely strong. Not unbeatable though.

In one game, I played as Niefleheim (the giants). I had a big army of high end giants (the ones with the longswords and shield + mail armor) vs an army of vanheim (cavalry + infantry, all glamour) and lost : my giants couldn't hit vanheim because of their high defense and although my giants resisted well, in the end, they lost.
So I changed tactics : I put a few sacred giants (the ones with frost aura) in my army of giants and put everyone on hold and attack. Next battle, the cavalry arrives first on my line of giants. The giants, with their relatively high defense, take very few hits from the cavalry charge and hold the cavalry. The long battle starts, like the battle I first lost. But this time, the frost aura of the giants is there. Basically, the combat took a long time and the aura froze the cavalry and the glamour infantry that came behind and my giants did a killing. I eradicated the vanheim army and lost very few giants.
That tactic of high defense troops + aura vs vanheim/helheim is of course limited to a few nation.

Otherwise, something that works very well too, and is quite cheap, is N1 mages with high defense troops: the N1 mages are scripted to cast eagle eye then tangle vines x4. Eagle eyes increases their precision, and tangle vines (area 1, so at least 2 cavalries) halve the defense of the vanheim troops . With eagle eyes, they almost always hit the first row off enemy troops, so your units can slaughter them very quickly.
I prefer tangles vines to vine arrow because it's area effect 1 (vine arrow is 1 unit), no save roll (vine arrow has to hit), lvl 1 spell (vine arrow is lvl 3) so it's available very early in the game and very effective.

Re: Is it just me or is Hellheim troops way to str
 

Yrkoon,

Nice use of Tangle Vines, I didn’t know about the defense cutting in half effect. It explains how I once killed an enemy dragon that was trying to route. Held down and defense in half, it was my PD that killed them!

Nature One is also pretty easy to get, especially on independents, so it is open to most nations. I agree that Vine Arrow is not as good, but if you give plain commanders the vine arrow bow and add it to the Tangle Vines, it adds up.

KissBlade,

Thanks for clarifying, that makes sense.

Re: Is it just me or is Hellheim troops way to str
 

Saxon,

routing units also get a -4 penalty to defense, so with the vines on top of that, that dragon must have been very very easy to hit.

As for helheim/vanheim, anything that reduces their defense is good too. I think earth meld does it. Numbness does it to for sure (-3 def, -3 att). There must be more spells that would work as well.

But tangle vines is really great and easy to 1) research and 2) find casters to use it

Re: Is it just me or is Hellheim troops way to str
 

I think that rising cost or lowering def has very few thematic considerations ...

The fact I so stubbornly want to nerf Van is they were my favourite Nation, and now they are out from our games bacause unbalance.

Re: Is it just me or is Hellheim troops way to str
 

I wouldn't mind a slight downawrd adjustment of their defense. It could also be justified by the Van not needing to train so much because their glamour gives them an unfair advantage over mortals and a consequent dose of arrogance.

Whether the devs agree with that is a different matter.

Edi

Re: Is it just me or is Hellheim troops way to str
 

Van isn't that bad actually. There's been rare complaints about Van, and only in blitz usually.

Helheim/Niefelheim are usually the problem ones. Van just got lumped with them.

Re: Is it just me or is Hellheim troops way to str
 

Yes they are, and in a very simple way that I don't see why Illwinter would find unthematic. Simply upped costs for glamour troops, and in the case of Helhiem capital only svartalfs.

Re: Is it just me or is Hellheim troops way to str
 

Also, resource cost of Light Weight Scale Mail was almost doubled, which hits the Hangadrotts at least.

Re: Is it just me or is Hellheim troops way to str
 

retreating with hit and run is actually something I have not tried much of at all...

could someone point out to me the strengths of doing this and perhaps some techniques...

is it very effective overall?

thanks!

Re: Is it just me or is Hellheim troops way to str
 

Deleted.

Re: Is it just me or is Hellheim troops way to str
 

I think that no matter what changes are made, there will be "not allowed in my groups games". But I consider it more based on "my groups games". If a group primarily plays one type of game (map size, game settings, number of players, victory conditions) then there will always be something that hits hard in that type of game. Therefore it gets left put bt people who play that type of game over and over and over.

But it shouldnt be balanced for that game. If it was then it would become imbalanced for other groups playing other games.

Re: Is it just me or is Hellheim troops way to str
 

I think is not useful arguing about thre discrepancies between perception and inner truth, you know it's ALL about perception in every aspect of life. If you try hard you can find inner truth in religion, or perhaps in love. We're talking about DomIII.
We made up our decision (and I, who am the host, have a big influence in the process) after a set of games vs van. Not because prejudice (van/hel is among our favored nation) but because unbalance. I can assure you that a little cost increase and/or defence reduction would please me and re-open van/hel nations.
I don't think that any nation should need a so hardly customized "anti" tactics, it ruines my games. I prefer to developing a tematic nation rather an anti -heim nation. I like so. But there is a previous big thread full off better explained reasons by better english language people explaining Van overpower.
Btw, in the previous thread it seemed that all people (excluding two, at most) was in agree that Van was overpowered, and every once in a while this subject shows up.
So, what's your problem? You win with Van with you friends? I don't understand .... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

Re: Is it just me or is Hellheim troops way to str
 

Same applies to middle age vanheim, by the way. They have same dual-blessable sacreds, which completely decimate any PD and cannot be caught. Throw in commanders which can reach defence 30 - in my test games, three dual-blessed van commanders with some simple items crafted with construction level 4 were killing a fully equipped Sea King troll SC (without casualties, of course).

Lightining doesnt kill vans, frozen heart is a lvl6 spell and it doesnt kill vans too unless you use powerful mages.
On top of it einheres are one of the strongest infantry units in the middle age.
I simply dont know how to stop a dual-blessed vanheim, it's got no weaknesses. I'd suggest giving non-commander vans 10 hitpoints and removing glamour defense bonus (mirror image is enough, really).

Re: Is it just me or is Hellheim troops way to str
 

I dont think the numbers are quite that unanimous (not that it would matter even if it were). And in case you didnt, put me in that othr group

I think that threads like this collect people who agree with it so I wouldnt measure the responses that way. Plus you can always write off new players (no offense meant to anyone) but it seems that every nation they try during the learning curve ends up striking them as a problem because the balance is in the next nation they try.

Remember that in this game, the balance isnt between each nation. Its more of a rock-paper-scissors balance. As long as there is a nation which can beat a nation, then there is balance. We might not like it but it aint broke.

Re: Is it just me or is Hellheim troops way to str
 

To be honest, new players dont find Vanheim that evil. In our community, we have quite some newcomers who keep advising 'its ok, just build more heavy infantry' or 'use mages'. Its old players who started with Dominions 1 think that dual-blessed vanheim is the most scary nation there is at the moment. Myself included.
As for the rock-paper-scissors - to be honest, I am yet to find a nation that doesnt have problems with Vanheim. Even if there is one, its one out of how many? Something's wrong with it.

Re: Is it just me or is Hellheim troops way to str
 

Most of the "problems" with Vanheim seem to be problems going head to head. Most of the answers to it seem to be defense, magic, stealth, etc. If the same tactics are being used then there will always be a "usually wins". I wouldnt want all nations to be balanced to where army-vs-army is the designing factor. The nations I most like to play do their "balancing" by using othr tactics than just my army is bigger than your army.

Re: Is it just me or is Hellheim troops way to str
 

Vanheim/Hellheim are not out of balance. They are simply very, very strong nations early in the game or on small maps.

From midgame onwards those nations shrivel up and die rather easily.

Its all been discussed before and its always players who are fairly new to the game who complain. Look on defeating those nations as a challenge.

Neither nation has come anywhere near winning any MP I have played in and I have played alot. Those games are on 15 prov/player maps. Small 1 on 1 blitz games is a different story and Vanheim/Hellheim walk over most other nations but I do not play those so no problem for me.

Re: Is it just me or is Hellheim troops way to str
 

I think the issue here is that unexperienced people suffer extraordinary defeats compared to normal combat unless they develop and use "anti" tactics as somebody said (even if in some cases, it's just: "use magic"), instead of being able to just use a naive "My army is bigger than your army" assessment of the situation like they normally use to do. I don't want to generalize and say that everybody who says that Vans/Hels are unbalanced (hello? earth/nature bless Niefel? Ermor?) is an unexperienced newb, but that's the conclusion that they usually come to and they get exited about here on the forums.

Re: Is it just me or is Hellheim troops way to str
 

Except of course double blessed Van troops, or worse Hellheim, are also undetectable stealthy raiders. Small groups of them can trash much more expensive armies and then either disappear or join together to beat more serious forces.

I'm suspicious of claims that it must be balanced because there are so many options that something must work.

Of course the heims can be beaten. In early game, by other uber-bless nations or maybe SC pretenders, or more likely alliances. Late game they're not so strong, unless they got enough advantage from early victories.

I'm not sure "can be stopped by 2-3 enemies after wiping out the nearest neighbors" counts as balanced.
But maybe I haven't played enough multiplayer.

Re: Is it just me or is Hellheim troops way to str
 

Once again. I'm not an unexperienced player. I have played Domionions 1 and Dominions 2, some blitzes and pbem games in Dominions 3, some of these won. I know how to use magic etc, BUT:

In one of the games I play atm I have to face a e9/w9 vanheim as a MA Tien Chi. He rummages through my provinces and I cannot do much against him. Lightning bolt doesnt kill his units, falling frost is entirely useless because of defense check, gifts from heaven arent reliable against small and fast armies (not to mention I cant send my mages with crafted boots to all provinces he may or may not attack), frozen heart is not researched yet but even that is only useful with my capitol-only mages because vans have +3 hit points, my regular troops are scattering like dust without doing any damage. I have three SK Sea King trolls who can kill any amount of such vans (did some tests), but two or three vanjarls with simple equipment can kill him with 100% decree of success.

Gandalf, you say I shouldnt go head to head? Sorry, couldnt you elaborate how should I survive his raiding then? Not going head to head with Vanheim means playing on his own field - I wont outraid him, you cant raid better than 2-blessed Vanheim. Oh, before you mention it, there are two or three consorts in each of his provinces. Yet my income keeps dwindling while his stays the same thanks to the raiding.
Vanheim dies easily in late game? I beg to differ, he STILL has vastly superior troops and magic that matches my own (air 3, earth 3).

Re: Is it just me or is Hellheim troops way to str
 

Try playing larger maps, fewer AIs, Jotunheim in a defensive mode, Pangaea in a guerilla tactics mode, Caelum in a hit-n-run mode, Abyssia in a pushed dominion mode, Arcosphale in a pushed research mode. Those are the ones Id try.

Re: Is it just me or is Hellheim troops way to str
 

I don't know why for example EA Vanheim would suck at mid or end game. Their magics are not bad. Air and Earth. Granted, they are capital only, but that doesn't make their magic power weak, and the troops are still deadly as raiders even if they can be beaten by high research magics.

It proves nothing that they have won no MP games we know of. There are so many variables at play there.

Re: Is it just me or is Hellheim troops way to str
 

Gandalf, I'm sorry, but my post was about multiplayer. No AIs, only human players - were this Vanheim computer-controlled, I'd trample him with my SCs and call it a day.
So my point still stands, what am I missing? People say that only inexperienced players complain about Vanheim, I'm open to their suggestions. Situation is explained above.

Re: Is it just me or is Hellheim troops way to str
 

Teraswaerto here is Tyrants MP game winners so far, its really the only concrete evidence we after go about the balance of nations:-

.5 for joint win.

EA-
Caelum- 1
Sauromatia- 1
Tien Chi 1

MA-
Pythium 1
Ulm .5
Machaka .5
Man .5
Ermor 1
Vanheim 1
Jotunheim 1
Pangaea 1

LA-
Argatha 1
Mictlan 1

As you can see Hellheim and Vanheim have NO WINS in EA and 1 Vanheim win in MA. If Hellheim/Vanheim really are unbalanced they would be clocking up more wins.

Re: Is it just me or is Hellheim troops way to str
 

Or all of these people that are arguing that they're overpowered could be teaming up on them in MP.

Re: Is it just me or is Hellheim troops way to str
 

Ahhh that makes a difference, in that case I would change "fewer AIs" to "more players" and leave the rest the same. So it becomes...

Try playing larger maps, more players, Jotunheim in a defensive mode, Pangaea in a guerilla tactics mode, Caelum in a hit-n-run mode, Abyssia in a pushed dominion mode, Arcosphale in a pushed research mode. Those are the ones Id try.

You might also look at the other "out of balance" posts. Such as the one about summons being too powerful, and the one about SuperCombatants being too imbalanced. Since this game does not balance every nation against every nation (thank you Illwinter for not making another chess game) then the fact that there are more than one "this is too powerful to be fair" would tend to be a balance unto itself.