Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?

[Ozymandias]

Just to clarify a few things, EA Vanheim has capitol only sacreds that aren't nearly as good a chassis as Van or Helhirdling. Their defense is a respectable 12 before they berserk, but only 7 after. They cost three times as much as elite infantry of other nations. I don't believe that EA Vanheim has sacreds of excessive power.

Helheim and MA Vanheim are different. Van and Helhirdlings both have stock defense of 19. Oiorpata are the next closest sacred with 18 defense. White Centaurs, Equite of the Sacred Shroud, Tiger Riders, Wind Riders, Androphags, and Red Guard all have defense 17. Vanir cavalry have very high defense, particularly with a water blessing. This means that they are very rarely hit in melee, which provides normal troops very few chances to remove their mirror images. All of the previously listed sacred cavalry become very survivable in hand to hand with a water bless; Vanir cavalry have only a small advantage, but it is magnified by their mirror image. Also it is worth noting that of all the sacreds listed above, only Van are not capitol only.

In addition to their excellent tactical attributes (helhirdlings are arguably the very best national troop of any era; van are only slightly worse) they also have superior strategic abilities. The standard MA Vanheim army of a Vanjarl and a half dozen Van is sailing, glamorous, and map move 3. Helheim loses sailing on their Vanjarls, but they have flying Disr and Valkyrie forces to help compensate. One thing that all of the people who have rightly said that Vanir armies are beatable have neglected to mention is that the Vanir nations get to pick their battles. Even if they are beatable by large carefully scripted armies, they are more mobile then those armies and can easily bypass them. EA Abysia's sacreds are very powerful, but they don't appear all through your empire attacking wherever you are weak because they have to move in a visible, ploddingly slow group.

Finally the blesses. Water 9, fire 9 gets mentioned a lot on this thread, and personally I believe that water is the most powerful bless available to high defense sacreds. Fire is the best bless which provides magic weapons. Death and earth blesses are both helpful to casters as well as melee troops, and nature blesses are strong in direct proportion to the hit points of the sacred units, but for nations with basically human hit point sacreds suitable for combat fire 9 water 9 pretenders will be chosen often. I would prefer for the less optimal blesses to be made more useful rather then nerfing the big two. Making the earth blessings armor bonus not contingent on armor, making the save for death weapons at -4, not limiting the magic resistance bonus from an astral bless to 18, and removing the save for blood curse would all be good starts. I'm not sure what a good improvement for the air bless would be, but it needs help too.

[Inigo Montoya]

Ozymandias said:
Just to clarify a few things, EA Vanheim has capitol only sacreds that aren't nearly as good a chassis as Van or Helhirdling. Their defense is a respectable 12 before they berserk, but only 7 after. They cost three times as much as elite infantry of other nations. I don't believe that EA Vanheim has sacreds of excessive power.

Helheim and MA Vanheim are different. Van and Helhirdlings both have stock defense of 19. Oiorpata are the next closest sacred with 18 defense. White Centaurs, Equite of the Sacred Shroud, Tiger Riders, Wind Riders, Androphags, and Red Guard all have defense 17. Vanir cavalry have very high defense, particularly with a water blessing. This means that they are very rarely hit in melee, which provides normal troops very few chances to remove their mirror images. All of the previously listed sacred cavalry become very survivable in hand to hand with a water bless; Vanir cavalry have only a small advantage, but it is magnified by their mirror image. Also it is worth noting that of all the sacreds listed above, only Van are not capitol only.

In addition to their excellent tactical attributes (helhirdlings are arguably the very best national troop of any era; van are only slightly worse) they also have superior strategic abilities. The standard MA Vanheim army of a Vanjarl and a half dozen Van is sailing, glamorous, and map move 3. Helheim loses sailing on their Vanjarls, but they have flying Disr and Valkyrie forces to help compensate. One thing that all of the people who have rightly said that Vanir armies are beatable have neglected to mention is that the Vanir nations get to pick their battles. Even if they are beatable by large carefully scripted armies, they are more mobile then those armies and can easily bypass them. EA Abysia's sacreds are very powerful, but they don't appear all through your empire attacking wherever you are weak because they have to move in a visible, ploddingly slow group.

Finally the blesses. Water 9, fire 9 gets mentioned a lot on this thread, and personally I believe that water is the most powerful bless available to high defense sacreds. Fire is the best bless which provides magic weapons. Death and earth blesses are both helpful to casters as well as melee troops, and nature blesses are strong in direct proportion to the hit points of the sacred units, but for nations with basically human hit point sacreds suitable for combat fire 9 water 9 pretenders will be chosen often. I would prefer for the less optimal blesses to be made more useful rather then nerfing the big two. Making the earth blessings armor bonus not contingent on armor, making the save for death weapons at -4, not limiting the magic resistance bonus from an astral bless to 18, and removing the save for blood curse would all be good starts. I'm not sure what a good improvement for the air bless would be, but it needs help too.

I agree with this post entirely. Vans in particular are overpowered. The ability to choose where you fight (glamour) in conjuction with a non-capital only production gives this unit too much benefit for its cost. The solution is to up the cost slightly with the next patch. The thing we should be arguing is how much the cost should be increased.

As far as improving the Air Bless, I'd really love to see A9 be 100% shock resistance.

[PDF]

Inigo,

Why not just have MA Vanheim Vans limited to capitol-only ?
To me it'll be sufficient to rebalance MA Vanheim.

[Inigo Montoya]

PDF said:
Inigo,

Why not just have MA Vanheim Vans limited to capitol-only ?
To me it'll be sufficient to rebalance MA Vanheim.

Without a doubt it would be more fair, but I worry some flavor will be lost. I think the developers envisioned vans being more common in the middle age and that's why they made them non-capital production. Valkyries are supposed to be your "rare" units in that age.

What I don't want to do at all is make the nations more similar to achieve balance. The joy of Dominions is balance through diversity and flexibility rather than balance by sameness.

[PDF]

Inigo Montoya said:

Without a doubt it would be more fair, but I worry some flavor will be lost. I think the developers envisioned vans being more common in the middle age and that's why they made them non-capital production. Valkyries are supposed to be your "rare" units in that age.

What I don't want to do at all is make the nations more similar to achieve balance. The joy of Dominions is balance through diversity and flexibility rather than balance by sameness.

Yep that's a valid issue. Then can I throw another suggestion : maybe then we could have "sacred vans" capitol-only and a tad weaker "mundane vans" elsewhere - ie the same differences than Mtnd Heirdlings vs Heiherdlings from LA Helheim ?

[SelfishGene]

EA Hellheim and Vanheim units should lose glamour and stealth; Hellhirdrings cost +40.

ME Vanheim has stealth +10, glamour (25 stealth) only on scouts and maybe one or two units. Vans cost +40(ish).

LE Vanheim has stealth and glamour. Van cost +40.

All high def sacred EA cavalry should also get a cost bump (Centaurs, ect..).

[Teraswaerto]

EA Vans should definately not lose glamour, it is very much thematic for them and removing it is not the only solution to balance problems.

[UninspiredName]

That suggestion is sort of overkill... Glamour is their defining trait, really, and they'd probably be weaker than they are worthwhile if you take it away. Thematically, it also seems weird that Late Age gets more... Wondrous, let's say, Vans than Middle Age.

And asking for sacred cavalry (Don't they all have high def?) of an entire age, in nations that aren't causing any trouble to become less easilly deployed is a step towards the sameness mentioned right above, in my eyes.

[Corwin]

SelfishGene said:
EA Hellheim and Vanheim units should lose glamour and stealth; Hellhirdrings cost +40.

ME Vanheim has stealth +10, glamour (25 stealth) only on scouts and maybe one or two units. Vans cost +40(ish).

LE Vanheim has stealth and glamour. Van cost +40.

No, IMHO it is definitely overkill. Removing glamour AND stealth AND increasing cost by more than 50%??

I think raising cost of vans/herdlings for Helheim and MA Vanheim by 50% would go long way toward helping tone down their sacred. At 115gp per unit, it will be significantly more difficult to recruit large armies of sacred cavalry. Especially so in the beginning. Slower beginning means less territory, means less money to hire more sacred, et cetera.

Removing glamour would take out the most interesting thematic feature of Vanheim line of nations. I am much more in favor of balancing these nations through cost.

And as I said earlier, Midgard should be left alone. It is clearly much less powerful than Helheim and MA Vanheim. I also agree with Indigo - I forgot to mention that in Midgard vans are capital only, which is indeed a very big difference vs MA Vanheim, in addition to their other several relative weaknesses that I have mentioned in earlier in my post.

I also agree that all van-style sacred cavalry should be capital only for all Ages, for the balance purposes, even if it would be less thematic for MA Vanheim.


When nerfing it's important not to go too far. 50% cost increase for already expensive unit is a big change, no matter how you look at it. If needed it could always be tweaked more with future patches.

[Corwin]

Ozymandias said:
Just to clarify a few things, EA Vanheim has capitol only sacreds that aren't nearly as good a chassis as Van or Helhirdling. Their defense is a respectable 12 before they berserk, but only 7 after. They cost three times as much as elite infantry of other nations. I don't believe that EA Vanheim has sacreds of excessive power.

Helheim and MA Vanheim are different. Van and Helhirdlings both have stock defense of 19. Oiorpata are the next closest sacred with 18 defense. White Centaurs, Equite of the Sacred Shroud, Tiger Riders, Wind Riders, Androphags, and Red Guard all have defense 17. Vanir cavalry have very high defense, particularly with a water blessing. This means that they are very rarely hit in melee, which provides normal troops very few chances to remove their mirror images. All of the previously listed sacred cavalry become very survivable in hand to hand with a water bless; Vanir cavalry have only a small advantage, but it is magnified by their mirror image. Also it is worth noting that of all the sacreds listed above, only Van are not capitol only.

True. I think all people are complaining mostly about Helheim and MA Vanheim. I would like to add, that even if EA Vanheim and Helheim would be toned down, IMHO it's important that these changes would not affect Midgard. (LE Vanheim)

Midgard is significantly weaker than Helheim or MA Vanheim. Their mages are much worse on the battlefield(they don't have neither air 3 van commanders, not earth 2-4 dwarves), they don't have flying sacred valkiries, and all other Midgard's national troops are relatively weak for the LA and their prices and stats, comparable to other nations. Plus because other nations have generally much better national troops in LA than in EA/MA, the advantage of van's sacred is correspondently smaller.

So personally I am ok with increasing price of sacred for Helheim and ME Vanheim a bit, but I would strongly vote against doing the same for Midgard. Notice that all people on this threat only complain about Helheim and ME Vanheim, not Midgard. If some sort of nerf will happen, it would be sad if Midgard would also be nerfed just because they also have "van" troops, despite the fact that this nation it doesn't deserve it.