Tragic poor pretender design is limiting MA Van!!!
The reason why MA Vanheim is such a powerfull rusher has nothing to do with "the awesome power of the Van". The Van are reasonably priced for their power. Probably slightly weaker... The problem is that they are so EXPENSIVE. And this expense is not being exploited, I suspect, by even the best Vanheim rushers. I hear people say "you need Dom 6 at least" to rush with Vaheim. Why?
Vanheim Pretender Dom 3:
Maximum capital invested in Van per turn:
75 gold/16 resources per unit (x) 3 units per turn:
225 gold/48 resources maximum investment in sacreds per turn without temples.
Ermor Pretender Dom 6:
Maximum capital invested in Shadow Vestals per turn:
20 gold/3 resources per unit (x) 6 units per turn
120 gold/18 resources maximum investment in sacreds per turn without temples.
Clearly MA Vanheim is able to put vastly more of the gold income obtained from conquest into building more super-blessed Van before they hit the "sacred limit". Even with HALF THE DOMINION of Ermor they can put in TWICE AS MUCH MONEY.
Second, all Van built flawlessly switch from early game expansion to mid-game raiders. This super-blessed Sacred is easily close to, or is, "The Most Powerful Raider in the Game". Every gold piece you spend on these guys will keep paying off in mid-game.
Since MA Van is protected from "Dominion Kill" by a frightenly fast expansion, there is absolutely no reason why they should waste points on a high Dominion. What's more, because their dominion would then spread much slower, they can now take advantage of the points saved to get Earth 4(using a low New Path Pretender... also made possible because of the lowered Dominion). What's more, I believe this is important, because EA Vans certainly, and possible MA Vans do have a weakness.
Fatigue/Beserk on an expensive relatively high encumberance unit that should always be significantly outnumbered.
"Ceasar's men shall grow tired simply with killing!"-reportedly a statement made by one of Ceasar's enemies.
This really isn't funny. It doesn't really matter if the 10 gold(and decent defense) unit is cut in half by the Van or if the 20 gold high prot unit(neutralized by F9) just has his neck "half cut off". The fatigue is the same. Swarms of relatively high defense but low protection slaves will exhaust the Van. At that point their defense drops. Then they get hit for damage, and the glamour drops. Then their defense HALVES. Things go downhill from there. Did I mention that swarm units get an attack bonus? WEAK summons and WEAK units are the way to go. Make them swing and swing.
That's why they need the Fire Bless. It ups their damage to the point where they avoid exhaustion from normal units while being able to kill high level units.
As for Van's "weak mid-game".... their scales take a long time to reach full effect, and they should have vastly more territory than their enemy(s). This gives them more gold.
Gold=Mages=Research. And their enemies CANNOT share research levels. That means Van should, in the Mid-Game, ALWAYS HAVE A MUCH HIGHER LEVEL OF RESEARCH. They also have a F9W9E4 Rainbow pretender about to wake up. Also, the Super-Van raiders.
How many ordinary kingdoms would it take to beat this? Quite a few. And they simply couldn't unless they shared gems and items and coordinated.
The solution to this craziness is two-fold.
FIRST:
Unit power is balanced on price vs. power in "normal game", and Maximum Recruitable vs. Dominion for Bless Rushes. Van is FINE for normal game. For Bless Rush, Vanheim's expensive unit sacreds need to cost more "Dominion points" to recruit. This brings the maximum capital investment of Vanheim's high cost Van into line with other powerfull Bless-Rushers with lowerer cost units. Other Sacreds may need this change as well.
SECOND:
This is a tough nerf. Vanheim needs some love for this. Lower encumberance, remove the "arrow versus's glamour" change, up one of Vanheim's non-sacred's. Something real.
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