Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?

[BigJMoney]

My favorite nation right now is Vanheim. This is because of their stealthy playing style, coupled with an air magic focus and the option of minor blood and sacrifices. However, I always feel guilty playing them because they seem to have so much more power and versatility than any other nation I've played so far. I can't find any weaknesses. I can't find any chinks in the Vanheim armor.

Could they possibly be nerfed some time? Please? I really like them, but I don't want an easy game, nor do I want to upset people in MP by choosing them. My suggestion would personally be to make Vans or Valyries non-sacred in this Age (probably Vans).

Just what was on my mind today.

=$= Big J Money =$=

[HoneyBadger]

I don't think they should be nerfed. For one thing, I don't find them personally that appealing to play, which says to me that while they may be powerful, they're not for everybody. If you want more of a challenge in single player just crank up the difficulty factor and add more nations until you start to sweat. As for multiplayer games, if a good nation causes people to complain, then they probably aren't very good players anyway, since the game allows for enough strategy with any nation that one nation that's a little stronger in some areas than another isn't going to break a multiplayer game. I've played a lot of different nations and they all balance out very nicely, considering there's 50 of them and 3 ages to manage. It's just how they balance, not whether or not. Some nations just require less popular strategies to be at their utmost degree of competitiveness. If the nations can be balanced better, objectively, not subjectively, then I'm all for it, but I don't think Vanheim needs to be nerfed and you'd be more than welcome to play it against me if I ever get around to doing a lot of multi-playing.

[CaptainGimpy]

If they have glory ability they should have their armor lessended imho because it's bad enough you have a chance of hitting the wrong guy.

[DrPraetorious]

Oh, no, someone could win!

There are plenty of workable strategies that do quite well against vanheim - I suggest trying a really archer-heavy position; or Abyssia or Jotunheim, both of which have sacred units that beat vanheimers like red-headed nordic stepchildren, glamour or no glamour (with an earth blessing and nature blessing, the vanheim units kill themselves faster than they kill Burning Ones with stabbing.)

You can put void eyes on thugs and send them in to dispel the illusions. You can cast big area of effect spells, against which the illusions provide no defense. Once you've done that, vanheim has mediocre magic (the dwarves are nice), and it has dudes, with axes! This is me, trembling in terror.

Now, occasionally you are going to get rushed and eliminated. You can reduce the viability of rush strategies by playing on larger maps. If you want to play a game without rush strategies - forbid the rush positions. I don't want to play in such games - sometimes you just lose. Them's the breaks. But in any case, if you're going to nerf Vanheim so it isn't viable as a rush position (and by viable, I mean you have a significant chance of taking your first opponent and eliminating him,) it might as well not even be in the game.

[CaptainGimpy]

I usually put the void eyes on my thugs too, I just don't feel like adapting my entire army to the vans when I could just change the strategy on one guy.

[curtadams]

Archer-heavy does not cut the mustard against Vanheim. Between armour, shields, and the fact that half the arrows hit holograms, archers aren't cost-effective at all. Big AOE spells (not 1 hex ones) are not available for some time and most nations can't conventiently cast them anyway. 75% or so of nation designs will have no good counter to Vanheim for 20-30 turns or so and many for considerably longer than that. And that's *without* double-bless strategies. With double bless - (shudder)

And what's wrong with nerfing Vanheim? God knows it doesn't need to be uber in the first few years to be playable. It has good magic, thuggable leaders (a rarity), and even if moderately nerfed those units would be excellent.

[Shovah32]

Curt, not going to comletely dismiss your point but list the nations you find have the most trouble against van(without being 100% tailored for them) and lets see if some people cant work out a way to make them work(to help the community)

[NickW]

Shovah32 said:
Curt, not going to comletely dismiss your point but list the nations you find have the most trouble against van(without being 100% tailored for them) and lets see if some people cant work out a way to make them work(to help the community)

I'm sorry but that's a silly request. Do you seriously want us to type out a list of all the nations in the game save one or two?

If you need a specific scenario to get the conversation rolling, try telling me how to beat a F9/W9 Van rush with EA Ctis. That's a real scenario from a game I'm in.

[Foodstamp]

I can give you a list...

EVERY nation except possibly:

Mictlan
Neifelheim
Helheim
Abysia

These nations are only exceptions if they are tailored to fight Vanheim.

NickW, It is unlikely you can beat such a rush with any nation. People will tell you to mass archers and use AE spells, but when Vanheim rushes, they have all the same tools that you have, with the bonus of being able to mass one of the most superior units in the game.

[mivayan]

Foodstamp said:
NickW, It is unlikely you can beat such a rush with any nation. People will tell you to mass archers (..)

They will? How odd. Flaming arrows can get past shield + protection, shortbows without that... no way.