Tips for Vanheim

[chrispedersen]

Originally Posted by Baalz

I don't want to threadjack, but I suppose this is on topic. Owl quills are just plain bad in almost all situations. I'm speaking in general here, not just about Vanheim. Consider that the gap they're trying to fill is very early research which means also that you're very gem constrained. This means not only for the quills, but for dwarven hammers. If you've got a hammer, you're unlikely to have 2, and you're likely to have other things you'd like to use it on. This means, generally, the cost of the quill is often 5A (not 3) and you've not had time to build up a stockpile or income of them. For 5A you're probably getting a research boost less than one more cheap research mage (3RP +1 for a magic scale)....but you've used up a mage-turn forging (another if you insist you managed a hammer) and possibly many more if you're out manually site searching to try and get some early A gems for quills. All this to do the work of (generally) one extra castle spitting out research mages.

Compare this to my suggestion in my Helheim guide where 3 castles are doing the research output of 10 while picking up points being in a drain-2 environment - it's a completely different scale. Obviously it's an apples to oranges comparison, but my point is why it works for the strategy I suggest is because of the point of the game you're at (you've got gems to use) the fact you can have sufficient hammers (because you've got gems to use and need less hammers to process gems into research points) and because of the research concentration (you don't need many forgers or research mages for impressive results). Owl quills are too little bang for the buck, and too hard to output at the point of the game they fit because of your constraints.

Vanheim starts with an a1 mage that can be profitably turned to filling in and making Owl quills as necessary.

Its gem income is 3e and 3 air. Vanheim is capable of researching Con-2 by turn 5, even without a researching pretender. And on turn 5 he will have precisely the gems needed to build the hammer - and unless he has had luck - no other gems *but* air.

It isn't a question of building a 3rd research castle. At this point in the game you are presumably building a *2nd* research castle. Just like all the other nations.... and like them you will also build a 3rd castle.

The question is getting the maximum return on every investment you make in the game.

Building a dwarf hammer on turn 5 will save you 2 gems (or more) every turn - its equivalent to increasing your gem income by 2 (almost).

Early in the game, you have no better use for your air gems. Getting 180 rp for a 3 gem investment, over a 65 turn game is a pretty good investment.

Buying 1 quill per turn over 5 turns is equivalent to *one* additional research level. Over 10 turns.. its 165 rp, or two additional research levels.

I doubt there is a better return on investment than investing in construction early as vanheim.

15 turns of constant one dwarf per turn yeilds you 420 research points. It gets you to cloud trapeze, and one level of research.

15 turns of constant dwarf plus 10 turns of owl quills gets you 585 research points. Ie., it gets you Con-2 plus ench-4 plus *two* levels of research.

And this ignores that you will likely be making a second hammer before turn 15.

In other words, taking construction and building owl quills *pays for itself* before turn 15.

[Jazzepi]

I took a closer look at this nation today and came to this conclusion:

Dual bless vanheres are an awful trap. Because of your weak magic diversity, and the availability of other nations with cheaper / better blesses than yours, there's no reason to try to bless out this nation.

If you ignore the idea of going double bless, then there's a couple of possibilities left.

1. Single bless relying on Vanhere's as a good starting point.
2. Rainbow pretender w/ good scales
3. Awake pretender

I really think that it's easy enough to expand with the Hirdman troops. They're /excellent/. When's the last time you've seen heavy infantry with 17 defense, 12 morale, and 12 attack skill? Oh, and they have glamor which is like getting twist fate for free!

Since we're going to go with an awake/sleeping rainbow pretender and you already have access to great earth and air I would probably focus on what you /don't/ have great access to when picking magic paths.

Fire - I really hate fire on pretenders like this unless you're doing one of two things with it. Forging rune smashers / summoning the fire kings. You shouldn't be doing either with Vanheim. So no fire.

Air - No need. You'll easily have air 4, even 5. Throw in air 1 if you've got points left over.

Water - You've really got no way to use this besides diversifying into water off of mage sites. You can summon up Naiads and clam horde which is a good enough reason for me to recommend water 3.

Earth - I'd probably put 1 on a rainbow mage. Give the mage earth boots, then have them forge crystal coins if you need extra astral boosting.

Astral - I always throw this on my rainbow mages. Astral pearls are easy to convert into other types since they're each worth .5 of any other gem. It also helps forging great boosters for when you inevitably find an astral 1 mage site. Being able to forge starshine skullcaps, and crystal coins, makes leveraging them a lot easier. You also want access to rings of wizardy and sorcery, a ladder that you can climb easily with S3.

Death - Death 3 is a must here. It's a great late game investment that gives you access to tartarians late in the game. It's not an easy ladder to climb, but mound fiends + skull staffs + +1 death masks + rings can get you there. Just being able to summon mound fiends at least allows you to get an undead factory going.

Nature - Nature 3 is definitely a great pick for a pretender. It gives you easy access to mother oak through nature +1 stick + moonvine bracelet. You can also spend the gems to summon other nature mages early on that can turn your gems into an army of vine ogres, or simply cast mass protection for your troops.

I would probably pick an awake enchantress with these paths.
F0
A1
W3
E1
S3
D3
N3

Scales
Dom 6
O3
S1
C2
G2
Misfortune 2
Magic 1

You can easily go with a dormant enchantress and pickup 151 points which translates into better scales, but I think the awake research + extra gems is worth more.

Jazzepi

[P3D]

I'd put Fire 1 on the Rainbow, that'd give you access Flaming skull. You can forge the AE Elemental Staff easiest by an E3A1 Dwarf+2 air Boosters+ring or EA3 Vanadrott + Bloodstone + Boots + RoW (or Robe for that matter). Now you have F4 on your F random Dwarves.

I made some experiments with ES-dual bless, but the Vanheres are still more fragile than ideal. I also realized that the Strength of Steel path is not the best for expansion - it requires a Dwarf and a Vanhere to lead. So go with a Rainbow and EN(W?) minor bless for thugs/spellcasters and let her sleep.

[JimMorrison]

Was wondering if anyone else thought there was a better way for Vanheim than "OMG huge bless!".

I tried multiple times to get a good start with Van with a heavy bless, and at highest difficulty the AI was able to expand faster than I was, due to unavoidable attrition of the Sacreds.

So (this is with CBM, mind you) I decided to try the "ultra cheap, disposable Awake SC" route, and took the Asynja for 25 points, just giving her 4 Air. This afforded excellent scales, which you desperately need considering how voracious Vanheim is for gold.

Anyway, the Asynja comes with starting gear and can comfortably conquer most indies from turn 2, saving heavy cav and barbs and whatnot for when you get her buffs researched.

Sure, she brings little to the table other than what she is, but she is a rather capable chassis for defending your homeland, and she buys you incredible expansion, while still allowing very nice scales. The idea is to leverage your cash into any indy mages you find, building mages like crazy (you do not need castles for research, only Labs - castles are mostly just for troops), and manually site searching any new paths until you get the income to upgrade to remotes, and begin wholesale bootstrapping.

[Viajero]

Originally Posted by JimMorrison

Was wondering if anyone else thought there was a better way for Vanheim than "OMG huge bless!".

I tried multiple times to get a good start with Van with a heavy bless, and at highest difficulty the AI was able to expand faster than I was, due to unavoidable attrition of the Sacreds.

So (this is with CBM, mind you) I decided to try the "ultra cheap, disposable Awake SC" route, and took the Asynja for 25 points, just giving her 4 Air. This afforded excellent scales, which you desperately need considering how voracious Vanheim is for gold.

Anyway, the Asynja comes with starting gear and can comfortably conquer most indies from turn 2, saving heavy cav and barbs and whatnot for when you get her buffs researched.

Sure, she brings little to the table other than what she is, but she is a rather capable chassis for defending your homeland, and she buys you incredible expansion, while still allowing very nice scales. The idea is to leverage your cash into any indy mages you find, building mages like crazy (you do not need castles for research, only Labs - castles are mostly just for troops), and manually site searching any new paths until you get the income to upgrade to remotes, and begin wholesale bootstrapping.

A bit of a old thread but hopefully the contributors are still around. Wondering if this ultracheap pretender strtaegy is really viable. What about the end game? with no major magic access, and no major S, how would you propose to face other nations "spamming" tartarians, royalty etc?