Tips for Vanheim

[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?