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.