Helheim Superpower!

[Cerlin]

After some extensive playing as EA Caelum, I have encountered Helheim and the Glamor is amazing! It is almost impossible to beat these armies even with magic weapons, archers, or magic. I then proceded to make a game as Helhiem and I am able to dominate the game early with little effort!

My question is how the hell do I beat this nation? Is there any real way to defeat the armies of hel besides just bypassing them and attacking the back country? Thanks in advance!

[calmon]

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...t=6#Post478477

Some counters are discussed here. In addition the discussion of nerfing vanheim/helheim.

[Gandalf Parker]

Personally, bypassing them and taking out their support provinces is my favorite tactic.

Every nations doesnt have to balance every nation army-for-army. As long as there IS some nation or some tactic that will work against them. But I agree they seem pretty rough in small blitz games.

[Evil Dave]

Gandalf Parker said:
Personally, bypassing them and taking out their support provinces is my favorite tactic.

You and some guy named Hutier.

[biekert]

I hear you Cerlin; even 10-20 glamour warriors can ruin your day.

On any non-epic scale game, the "glam" nations Vanheim and Helheim are banned in our multiplayer games. As I said in the other thread, they remind me a lot of Ashen Empire Ermor in Dom2...

[FrankTrollman]

As I said in the other thread, they remind me a lot of Ashen Empire Ermor in Dom2...

Yep.

• Reasonably easy to play
• Sufficiently different from other nations as to make standard tactics ineffective.
• Pretty vulnerable to tailored non-standard tactics.

You're Caelum? Try a squad of Mammoths trailing after a screen of indep infantry and set magicians up to cast a bunch of Freezing Mists.

Helhirdings die at about the same rate as anyone else to cloud spells or tramplers and cost 7 times as much each - their glamor is quite effective against many standard tactics - use non-standard tactics to take advantage of your numerical superiority.

-Frank

[alexti]

Cerlin said:
After some extensive playing as EA Caelum, I have encountered Helheim and the Glamor is amazing! It is almost impossible to beat these armies even with magic weapons, archers, or magic. I then proceded to make a game as Helhiem and I am able to dominate the game early with little effort!

My question is how the hell do I beat this nation? Is there any real way to defeat the armies of hel besides just bypassing them and attacking the back country? Thanks in advance!

If you're playing Caelum bypassing them is a better plan. You can hurricane their fortified provinces to stop production and raid everything else to take away gold and gems. You can eliminate their armies later, after their economy has been destroyed.

[FrankTrollman]

alexti said:

If you're playing Caelum bypassing them is a better plan. You can hurricane their fortified provinces to stop production and raid everything else to take away gold and gems. You can eliminate their armies later, after their economy has been destroyed.

This is a great idea. Remember that Helheim is powerful because it is capable of projecting substantial force and of raiding effectively. But if you can project more force or raid him back better, then he's toast.

So if you can either con a Helheim opponent into meeting you in the field when you have a better army (Abysian Burning Ones come to mind), or split your force and simply destroy his economy faster than he can destroy yours (for example: with Caelumite packs), then you can make for a victorious war.

Helheim is a powerful position because it can compete as both a raiding force and a standup army and it is relatively easy to play. But it can be beaten at any of its games. It isn't the fastest or the strongest - it's just both fast and strong. If you play to your own strengths, victory can be yours.

-Frank

[alexti]

Unfortunately, this works just because it's Caelum - another superpower. Caelum is probably the only nation that is better at raiding than Helheim (some amphibian nations can be considered better at raiding if they play 1 vs 1 - but that's just because Helheim can't raid well underwater). Mobility-wise, Caelum is probably also the only nation that's better than Helheim (in mid-late game Mictlan probably can join the top in this area too). In terms of brute force on the battlefield, only few nations can match Helheim (and Caelum, of course, is one of them). I think that the only reason we don't hear that many complains about Caelum is because it requires noticably more competent play (than Helheim) to be efficient. But if Caelum is not rushed in the first 10 turns it will be very strong.

[Gandalf Parker]

Quite a few nations have stealth which can be used for this purpose also. Possibly one of the reasons Ive never noticed this "problem" is that I tend to play stealth nations and striking behind the lines is something I use more than head-to-head armies. Pangaea is my favorite, but others can do it also.