SuperVans!

[Huzurdaddi]

But if you take the crone her dominion is 1?
If its a larger map then it should be hard to build a lab in a sage province and have normal research there.

That's ... that's insane! But ... I like it! I wonder if it would work. I bought her with a dominion of 5 ( did not check to see if there was a better buy out there ... probably is ).

[Stormbinder]

[quote]Originally posted by Gandalf Parker:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Huzurdaddi:

Hard on the scales? Sure is. You are going to have to choose between drain 3 and misfortune 3 ( imo ). If you take drain 3 pretty much forget magic ( which is a shame, you have blood magic ... *sniff* )

But if you take the crone her dominion is 1?
If its a larger map then it should be hard to build a lab in a sage province and have normal research there.

---

Yeah, but the crone for pretender when you have Odin, who fits excellently with the rest of your units? It's too painfull, I would rather sacriface a bit more scales but have powerfull SC.

As for sage sure, it would help, but you can't build your entire strategy on finding a sage province. What if you don't? I've had many games where I didn't find a single sage province, or found it too late to make a differense. Besides even with 1 sage province it's only additional 4 reseach per point max with magic scale at -3.


To Huzurdaddy: The choice between misfortune 3 and magic -3 is quite easy IMHO. Fortune is the first scale that I sacriface for most of the nations, in case of Vans its almost no brainer if you want to have high bless imo. Magic on the other hand - I am not so sure. For example I am cursing myself for not taking +1 or +2 magic in my game with water 9 bless already, since vans are so slow in reseach even with normal scales.

[PvK]

I don't think magic scale is so vital to research... you can research in some corner without your dominion, and/or use items that overpower the drain - a simple quill will cancel even a drain-3 dominion for research purposes.

PvK

[Stormbinder]

Originally posted by PvK:
I don't think magic scale is so vital to research... you can research in some corner without your dominion, and/or use items that overpower the drain - a simple quill will cancel even a drain-3 dominion for research purposes.

PvK

Well you are going to need hell lot of quills to for all your researchers to compensate for you scales since it is worst reseach items out of 3 avalaible (3 reseach for 5 gems). You are going to have bunch of vans commanders doing nothing but forging new quills every turn. Also if you are going to make quell for all your reseachers, you can pretty much forget about other uses of airgems, which are so good for both forging and summons (Air Queens, Staff of Storm, bows of war, flying bots/carpets, displacement armor, etc. , etc)

[PvK]

Originally posted by Stormbinder:
...
Well you are going to need hell lot of quills

Well I never have...

to for all your researchers to compensate for you scales since it is worst reseach items out of 3 avalaible (3 reseach for 5 gems).

I mentioned quills because they are the easiest to get, as an example of how easy it is to overcome drain-3.

If you're doing serious Construction, then of course the other items are better, and utterly overpower drain scale, even more efficiently.

You are going to have bunch of vans commanders doing nothing but forging new quills every turn.

No I'm not.

Also if you are going to make quell for all your reseachers, you can pretty much forget about other uses of airgems, which are so good for both forging and summons (Air Queens, Staff of Storm, bows of war, flying bots/carpets, displacement armor, etc. , etc)

Ya, but I'm not making quills for all my researchers, except maybe early on. That was just an example that I hoped would illustrate my point that drain-3's effect on research can be overcome (though with effort and cost, of course).

PvK

[Stormbinder]

All right. I though you were suggesting using quells to overpower (meaning fully compensate) -3 reseach on my reseachers as a method to live in drain 3 for Vanheim.

But what other option do you have? As a standard Vanheim you can't have any death 2 mages for skull mentors, and very unlikely to have much death income or even more than few death 1 mages anyway, since you only have 1/7 chance to get a death 1 mage on your expansive national mages. And there are some must-have items on death scale that you will need for you SC if you are to compete in MP (wraithsword is a primary example, or your SC vans will just pass out, especially on water 9 blessing) (180 gp for none blessed reseach 6(3 on drain scale) gnome or 380gp on Van). And affordable ligthless latern (fire 1) is not available until you'll get at Con6, which is very long way to go for Vansheim on drain 3 scale. At the end it's almost like catch22 situation - "you need reseach to get reseach".

I think many other nations would do better than Vans on drain 3 scale, due to their better national reseachers and/or avlaibility of death magic, directly or through more than 1 random picks. Quills alone can only get you that far, as I think we both agreed.

[ May 18, 2004, 06:09: Message edited by: Stormbinder ]

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by Stormbinder:
since you only have 1/7 chance to get a death 1 mage on your expansive national mages. (180 gp for none blessed reseach 6(3 on drain scale) gnome or 380gp on Van).

Dwarfs are not expensive. They are only 180 gold, which is exactly the right price to buy one every single turn. You probably should do this as well, since they are very powerful and useful mages, and you can never have enough of them.