Helheim - lets burn some rubber

[Baalz]

Originally Posted by Tolkien

So in terms of usefulness, Thunderstrike beats out Orb Lightning, all the time.

I don't agree with this. To be sure, thunderstike is a great spell, but orb lightning *definately* has its niche. The most obvious being A2 mages can cast it to very good effect if you deploy it properly. Other times orb lightning shines:

If you're fighting guys who are size 5/6 and only one per square, thunderstrike will do 26+ AN damage, while orb lightning for an A4 mage will do 40 AN. Even if you're fighting size 3 cavalry you're still often looking at a very compatible kill count per casting...which is not bad when you consider that you're also not passing out after a few castings.

Orb lightning's short range can actually be very useful for making your mages target who you want them to. Triple blessed sacred cavalry charging straight ahead into your troops? Orb lightning can clear the way so *your* cavalry can waltz up to the enemy archers which is hell of a lot better than blasting the archers with thunderstrikes because they're packed denser so the AI thinks they're better targets.

Orb lightning's fatigue cost for a mage powerful enough to be considering thunderstrike is negligible. You can lay out a lot more damage over a long battle than you could blowing your load on thunderstrikes.

Again, there's no doubt thunderstrike is a great spell, I just object to the assertion that there is no niche for orb lightning. Orb lighting is also a good spell.

[Lingchih]

This build did not work for me. I was annihilated by Vanheim. Perhaps I did not use it well. Expansion was great, but when it came time for war, Van beat the crap out of me.

[Agusti]

Originally Posted by Lingchih

This build did not work for me. I was annihilated by Vanheim. Perhaps I did not use it well. Expansion was great, but when it came time for war, Van beat the crap out of me.

Hi. Me too but I was eliminated by Lanka in a MP game. In turn 15 Lanka attacked me with a lot of sacred Demon troops (Palankasha, blood magic level 1). I wasn't able to recruit more than three Helhirdings (Dom. 3) and my economy was weak. Lanka defeated my armies easily an only one time I was able to defeat their Demons (when I put a lot of Helhirdings together my troops had a very good behaviour in combat against Lanka so maybe in other circumstances my nation could have defended well against Lanka). But it was a war of attrition and Helheim, with the scales proposed in this guide, cannot afford a long term war against Lanka in the first stage of the war (at last with the scales this guide proposes), so I had to put my nation under the IA.

Lanka was able to summon more Palankasha than me recruting Helhirdings and Huskarls. Its troops were very well blessed (Twist Fate, defense + , protection +, etc) so they were a hard opponent for my Helhirdings (my best troops).

I think it's necessary better scales in productivity to get more resources for the sacred troops and more Dominion scale in order to recruit more Helhirdings or Valkyrias. Only with a powerful recruitment of sacred troops Helheim would be able to defend against rush nations, as Lanka for example.

Nevertheless, if it hadn't been by the attack of Lanka my nation was doing things very well and I was leading research and gem income so maybe I could have done very well in the mid-late game

[cleveland]

A Lanka bless-rush is tough to counter for anybody. Those Palankasha's (sp?) are actually cap-only recruits, so your opponent wasn't even expending mage-time summoning them.

You'll want to lean hard on Helheim's air magic next time. By turn 15, you should have ~20 Vanjarls/Hangadrotts (min A2 each), and he's not going to be able to impart any shock resistance to his demons yet.

Send these guys out in small teams scripted for (Blessing)(Mistform)(Resist Lightning)(attack)(Shock Wave)Cast Spells. The AI will autocast Shock Wave, which will be pretty effective vs. those demons with that bless.

[Agusti]

Originally Posted by cleveland

A Lanka bless-rush is tough to counter for anybody. Those Palankasha's (sp?) are actually cap-only recruits, so your opponent wasn't even expending mage-time summoning them.

You'll want to lean hard on Helheim's air magic next time. By turn 15, you should have ~20 Vanjarls/Hangadrotts (min A2 each), and he's not going to be able to impart any shock resistance to his demons yet.

Send these guys out in small teams scripted for (Blessing)(Mistform)(Resist Lightning)(attack)(Shock Wave)Cast Spells. The AI will autocast Shock Wave, which will be pretty effective vs. those demons with that bless.

In other circumstances and with other scales my nation could have done better defending against Lanka (with more money and more resources to recruit more Helhirdings...and more Dominion, of course). And quick access to air magic spells, I agree with you, but I spent the first turns researching construction as this guide proposes

I only had 4 o 5 Vanjarls in turn 15 and only one castle (a second one was about to be constructed) in another province and they were scattered everywhere conquering indie provinces. I would have needed a lot of money and castles to recruit 15-20 Vanjarls in 15 turns and I wasn't able to do that in my game with the scales Baalz proposes here (shortage in money and resources). Or maybe I could have recruited them instead of Helhirdings and infantry, but I don't like the idea.

"The strategy does not stand/hold the first contact with the enemy".The problem was that my strategy was not good to face Lanka and I made a mistake to not changing my strategy and my research priorities when I spotted Lanka so near to my provinces.

It's a hard lesson but a good one

[Baalz]

In what way did you find it to be deficient? How did you get the crap beat out of you?

[chrispedersen]

BTW I don't consider 15 provinces by the end of year 1 rocket fuel. 15 is exactly my target for a nation acceptable to play in mp with an expectation of a chance at winning.

[Redeyes]

The law of probabilities would dictate that a nation could lose even if it made stronger decisions every turn.

One data point is hardly enough to make a fair judgment...
Can I guess that Vanheim got some important research done before you?
That's usually a game winner.

[Baalz]

Originally Posted by chrispedersen

BTW I don't consider 15 provinces by the end of year 1 rocket fuel. 15 is exactly my target for a nation acceptable to play in mp with an expectation of a chance at winning.

If you actually read what I posted, I very clearly indicate your initial expansion with this build is intended to be "respectable but not flashy enough that your neighbors are talking about ganging up on you" (and 15 provinces, as mentioned is at the lower range of what I've managed in my tests). Clearly you're not going with the full court press for your initial expansion, you could fairly easily double that expansion if you didn't heavily invest in early site searching, castles, and an awake non-expansion pretender - but then you'd obviously be pursuing a different strategy. This is actually a pretty good illustration of why I think it's silly how much tunnel vision people get - investing in a blistering initial expansion is a poor use of your resources if you're trying to use the strategy I lay out here. Its perpetually surprising to me how badly even most vets seem to be at assessing the real power level of their opposition - the most powerful (defined as most likely to end up winning) nation is often not the one with the most provinces.

You can fairly easily assess the raw power of a nation by looking at its income levels, but the applied power is a function of raw power multiplied by leverage....and leverage is everything from research and castle count to their available troops, magic paths and upkeep. A frequent component of conversations is how some nations are more or less predisposed to be a late game power...yet more often than not its the guy who is leading in provinces who gets dogpiled on. Province count is almost totally worthless to consider in a vacuum, and if Abyssia, Pythium & Mictlan are all vying for second place as you pull into late game it's pretty silly to think that Eriu or Man is winning despite the fact that they're in a solid 1st place in provinces and income (silly in an abstract sense, obviously there's a lot more to consider than what the nation is).

[Lingchih]

Originally Posted by Baalz

In what way did you find it to be deficient? How did you get the crap beat out of you?

In my recollection, the death scales beat me up. I did well in my initial expansion into the Van player, but he then came back with a vengeance (to be fair, Van was played by one of the best players of the game.) Money became hard to come by, when I still needed it. He used skellie amulets on all his commanders, which actually outclassed my skellie spamming, and lots of magic bows on his commanders as well. It was bit unorthadox, but it worked. My small numbers of troops could not win.

It was the RAND game currently still in action.