[HoneyBadger]

EA Tien Chi beats Helheim easily, with it's pikes and chariots eliminating the glamour pretty easily, and the warriors of the 5 elements destroying it's special troops. Add in Chi's other troops, like their decent archers and heavy glaive-users, and it's a slaughter.

I've done it consistently over quite a few games.

As far as weakening Hel/Van instead of strengthening other nations-well, the ones that need strengthened are weak to begin with, and not just against Hel/Van.

I'm not saying boost Caelum, Niefel, T'C, Lanka, etc. I'm talking nations that have a hell of a time beating Helheim OR Niefel OR Caelum OR T'C, like EA R'lyeh for instance.
Sure, it's easy to weaken Hel/Van-a lot easier than it is to strengthen half a dozen nations-but EASY isn't always BEST, and Hel/Van are good nations, they're internally balanced, and they work for a lot of different styles of play.

You may have an easier time of cutting the legs out from under Hel/Van than lifting up and fixing up the least competitive nations in the game-and you certainly can tell yourself that you're doing the least amount of so-called "damage" to the 'holy internal balance' of the game, but the end result will be a game which isn't as fun to play-and that's the bottom line, fun. It's more trouble to fix a nation, but it's also a really good opportunity to make that nation more FUN to PLAY.

Plus, if done really well, it should firm up the overall balance of nations in the game.

And those things makes the game overall better, rather than worse.