Re: Vanheim Musings
I have played Van in my last 3 MP games. You could go with a F9/W9 blessing, but...
1) You can't totally skimp on dominion
2) 70 gold isn't something to sneeze at
3) You also have to factor in the costs of Vanir and Smiths
IMHO van is better served with 1 bless and decent scales then a double bless and crap scales. Take a dragon with F9. He can go out romping after you get Fire Shield, and can solo 90% of the indies.
F9 blessing works incredibly well and still allows you to take decent scales. You can't take drain as Van, as smiths are your only viable researchers at 180 gold a pop, and capitol only you can't mass them. 1 a turn.
Valks/Vans is an effective combo. Most people shy away from Valks, I have no clue why. Set to hold and attack, you can get in their rear and they tear through archers and commanders. And your vans take care of the infantry.
You need to supplement your national forces with summons. I am one of the people who actually like vans troops, but you will be spending the majority of your income on smiths, vanir, vans/valks, and indy mages. Build 1 smith a turn, and turn any 1b smiths out to get a blood income going. Hopefully you'll get lucky and find some amazons, if not you will have to boost 1 smith to start the blood booster chain. Storm demons are awesome, and you can easily get Arch and Ice devils if you plan right.
Earth is your friend, it will give you access to great summons, and dwarven hammers. Learn to abuse this.
You also have mages that can cast petrify with 1 earth booster, or if you get lucky and get a 4e smith, with summon earth power. This is huge, as you have national mages that can deal with SCs.
Blade wind will take out half of the armies...the half that use lightly armored troops, and you can get access to a bunch of different combat spells depending on what your randoms are. You need smiths to research, so only pull them out once you have the basic things done (alteast con4,evo4-5, Alt 3, conj3 etc.). You can win most of the early wars without them, and they really come into their own once you have researched what they need to dish out the pain. This is especially true if you haven't found sages.
Vanir at 280 (cb mod) your going to need to lead your troops. I generally don't use them as thugs (thats what they are not SCs), as they are your only general that can lead 50 troops. They are great mages, so I would use them as such.
Your greatest weakness is in site searching and research.
Send your friends here and have them ask why they should use the patch first off, and the mod second off. I have never heard of anyone that didn't patch a game...so I really can't understand that angle.
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