Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?

[Gandalf Parker]

Saxon said:
Just briefly, I would like to reiterate that I find Vanheim too strong on all map sizes in single player. Most folks are talking about MP, but I want to raise this again. I think a tone down associated with costs will help address this.

Also, Gandalf, thank you for the ideas on random maps and working to get it part of the vanilla game. One of the weaknesses of Dom II was the limited number of maps available without downloading. The random maps add a great deal to the playing experience for the game, “out of the box.”

Thanks for the thanks. Its good for people to "pay" for free things by thanking the ones that have helped accomplish stuff that someone would like to see more of.

But I really havent seen the Van problem in solo games. I dont think Van has won a single one of mine. Of course I do tend to play really large maps with lots of choke-points, very hard independents, and in MP games its usually a victory point game. Those things tend to create a very different playing field.

[Endoperez]

Twan said:
A line of ae buff spells making troops illusion immune or low level big ae spells doing 1 dammage would be sufficient to balance the game, if well distributed between paths.

Some ideas :
low level evocation fire or water spells doing only -1 AN dammage (max 1 hp like a whip) but in a large ae

Freezing Mist, W3A1, Evoc 3, 1 AN damage on AoE of 4+. Only mediocre range.

low level nature alteration spell "owl eyes", medium ae, giving darkvision + making troops illusion immune
high level ritual version of owl eyes or true seing, make all troops illusion immune on a province for 1 + (extra gems) turns and give a patrol bonus to these troops
(illusion immune troops will also have bonuses against phantasmal creatures and some spells)

Darkvision would become even less useful than it currently is. Some nations are supposed to have a benefit. It only comes into play in very late game (Darkness) or when they defend their castles (Cave Castle, Cave Citadel etc), and if anyone with Nature (anyone after a while) could circumvent this, well... I'd rather have few illusion-strong nations than few underground ones made even weaker.

low level astral thaumaturgy or alteration spell "true seing", small ae making troops illusion immune
a level 5 version of true seing, large ae cost a gem, making troops illusion immune
a level 7 version of true seing, making all troops on the battlefield illusion immune

Eye of the Void is Constr 4, S1 and gives the commander with it an ability to dispel nearby illusions, similar to your suggested True Seeing ability. Regeneration (Thaum 3, N3 for AoE 1, Thaum 8, N4 for whole battlefield), reinvigoration (Relief) and increased magic resistance (Tempering the Will, Antimagic) are other abilities that a commander gets from Constr 4 item, and as you can see, abilities of this level aren't given to units in low-level spells. It isn't a perfect comparison, of course, but I don't think "true seeing" is supposed to be that easy to come by.

high level earth BF enchant "Truth of Weight", the earth only allow creatures having a weight to continue to exist, dispel all mirror images as well as phantasmal warriors and false horrors

What about flying creatures? Mistform? Ethereal? True ethereal? Capability of canceling out Mistform and mirror images (both Air effects) would work; being unable to affect flying units would make Valkyries immune. Affecting ethereal creatures would be strange as it would kill Ghosts and such. Dispelling Phantasmal creatures would be strange because then this would be a very spesifically anti-Air spell.

[Twan]

Darkvision will become useful once maps will be made with (dark) cave provinces, then spells will be needed to grant darkvision.

Eye of the Void is the cheapest +2 penetration item, don't know if anybody already made one for the anti-illusion flavor effect.

Freezing mist is a crosspath spell including a level 3 skill so isn't a common spell. I was thinking about a spell a common elemental mage can cast (say f2 *or* w2).

The last spell is of course another anti-illusion spell and illusions are an air magic thing. As air is near impossible to develop with a non air nation, it's one of the many anti air spells that should exist out of air magic.

[Sandman]

PDF said:
Van pricing is even more ridiculous when compared to KotC, who cost 16% gold more, and ... 5 times the resources, for lower stats except the 20 prot and the "big" lance (all that is heavily factored in the 61 resource cost !).
I suggest Vans to be at least 100-120 gold, or even 150 ! Don't forget that with Dom3 high gold income you can readily have 1000+ gold/turn on turn 10-12, quite easy with those wondrous vans, plus they don't cost much upkeep thanks their sacredness...

The KotC has better attack, strength, hit points and morale than the Van, although the Van is a better unit thanks to glamour, very high defence and a low resource cost.

Vanheim is a cool nation, and I'd hate to overdo things and end up with Vans being useless. Better to take things slowly.

[Wyatt Hebert]

Hello, all...

As a longtime forum lurker, I've watched a lot of debates. I'd like to point out one thing, and ask someone to run a test...

(As an aside, I've played a piece of one MP game, which is why I'm asking for someone to test this idea)

Vans are susceptible to AoE attacks. Everyone acknowledges this. The earliest and most easily spammable AoE I know of is the Magma Children for EA Agartha. It's Conjuration 2 or 3, and has the Flame Strike attack. Can anyone do a realistic test of a turn 10-12 attack on Agartha by Helheim?

I only ask because my EA Agartha game, I was up against Helheim and Ulm (SP, of course), and I had much worse problems against Ulm, typically. Magma Children and the Earth Elementals did a real number on the Glamoured units, and Troglodytes are useful against the unmounted ones...

Of course, you also have easy access to Blade Wind and the Magma spells, but those are a bit too far away to take seriously in a rush, right?

Anyways, just a point...

[Endoperez]

AoE attacks, and trample, are both good suggestions. Abysia can recruit Salamanders, whose attack has AoE 1 IIRC. They should also work well, at least for one turn before they are butchered.

Fire Shield is also very good. Again, EA Agartha has Magma Children and EA Abysia the Burning Ones.

[Gandalf Parker]

Hmmm I didnt think of heat or cold auras as being an area attack. Thats really a good point for the fast games.

[HoneyBadger]

This thread moves to fast

To address the question of a human outwalking a horse or a dog: The Zulu in their heyday could RUN 50 miles, fight a full scale battle, and then RUN back. That's not just one Zulu, that was a whole Zulu division. At the battle of Marathon, a Greek soldier ran something like 26 miles in full armor (he delivered the message of victory and then promptly dropped dead, but still). 20 miles is no problem for a typical healthy human being. The problem isn't the distance, it's motivation. I myself am fat, I've got flat feet, and painful arthritis, and I can walk 12 miles at a stretch. Mind you, there are painful consequences, and it takes me about 3 days to recover, but I have done such a thing before and could again if I found it necessary. Humans get a bad rep compared to the rest of the animal kingdom, but we can wear anything out, eventually, and we can survive in more extreme conditions than just about anything, too, atleast among the "higher" forms of life. We're also able to eat more different types of food than most, and store that food as fat (not a bad survival trick), we have, as far as I know, the finest sense of taste (not smell, mind you) in the whole animal kingdom, and we can deal with both land and-to a limited degree-water environments.

We're not firmly on top of the food-chain by mistake, friends and relatives, and it wasn't just our brains and opposable thumbs that put us here.

[Sheap]

Of course athletes can run 26 miles, they do it all the time, but I don't think the "original" marathon was done in full armor. I'd certainly leave MY armor behind.

I'm squarely in the middle of the food chain

[Kristoffer O]

When I walked to Santiago de Compostela (1000 miles) we met a guy on a horse that made the same journey. We met him for a couple of days before he advanced ahead of us. I think he traveled slightly faster then a human, but for a shorter time each day not to exhaust his mount. By the time we met him he had been traveling for several weeks IIRC. It was just before we crossed the pyrenées and he was a bit worried that his horse 'Pedro' (strange that I don't remember the name of the man, but his horse) would become worse in its hind leg that was a bit exhausted and shaky (or whatever happens to tired horses). So my impression is that hoses are able to travel faster, but are less durable and might need some rest or so once in a while. Not that we didn't rest :-)