[thejeff]

Well, I tend to worry about my weaknesses and assume others have strengths I don't know about. I lost at least one serious battle to Mictlan and was worried he could repeat that.

So, it's hard for me to tell. Do you think this was just a case of Vanheim being ridiculously overpowered? I'd like to think it was more a matter of skill and some luck. I never felt like I was unstoppable until very recently.

As sort of a (not-quite-yet) post-mortem here's how it looked to me:
I think Vanheim's reputation helped get me NAPs early on, so that I could focus on one front at a time. That was going to be Ermor, mostly because you were growing quickly and conveniently located, but Sauromatia attacked me first.

I beat them quickly, but it took all my strength and we each only had a few provinces at the time. The poison arrows and skeleton spam hurt a lot. He pulled his witch kings back at one point when I didn't know how to stop them if they'd attacked instead. That let me reinforce and take his capital.

I was very weak right after that and when Lanka attacked, I could grab provinces from him, but couldn't touch his main blessed army. If Marveni had joined with him, as he expected, or even remained neutral, Vanheim would have been in trouble. Marveni did most of the work of beating Lanka, then got bogged down in his capital.

I had a few turns of peace then, with Marveni bogged down and Mictlan fighting Ermor. My scouts saw that Arcosephale had no troops or PD in most of his provinces. Being Vanheim made that more effective, since I could get actual armies to his castles, but much of that landgrab anyone could have done with scouts.

Then I had 3 turns before the NAPs broke. Luckily for me, Mictlan didn't attack with much if anything right away, so I could focus on Marveni first. If Ermor and Mictlan has come to terms and all attacked at together I don't think I would have lasted long. I could hardly make progress against Mictlan at first, Jaguar Warriors are not much weaker than Vanheres and he seemed have more of them. Blade wind did more than my sacreds. Wrathful skies on the other hand was a great disappointment.


I still don't think Vanheres make Vanheim anywhere near as abusive as Helheim or the other ages Vanheims. They're slower, so can be shot/cast at for longer than Vans and unshielded so arrows are more effective. The glamor is nice, but without the high defense, there isn't the synergy with the W9 bless and berserk lowers defense making it even worse. Earth works well, and helps the mages, but I'd be tempted to try just Fire or maybe Fire and a low Nature to avoid afflictions.