Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?

[Hullu]

If a counter for something is harder to find than it is for all other stuff. It means on the average this one thing is more powerful.

[DrPraetorious]

Van has a powerful strategy, and there's no denying that it has a powerful strategy which is -
1 - Fast
and
2 - Easy to use.

Likewise Abyssia and the other heims.

If you go up against an experienced Sauromatia player, you'd better have a very strong strategy against Sauromatia, or you're in deep trouble.

Likewise for any other strong nation - if there are nations that don't have this property, then those nations are underpowered, and need to be buffed up somehow. Having only played a fraction of the positions seriously, I'm not sure which those are (people gripe about Oceania a lot.)

Now, the *heims and EA Abyssia have an easier time getting their nasty funk in gear, so they have significant advantages, especially on smaller maps, or with people who don't like to manage complicated strategies or field skirmishers.

But if you nerf them appreciably, they're useless. They don't get an early surge of face-hugging, and their magic is mediocre (except for Niefelheim.)

[HoneyBadger]

I'm going to run some tests with Helheim vs Atlantis, early age, the theory being that even though Atlantis doesn't have archers, they do have ready-to-order Bladewind coupled with heavy duty tramplers in the form of Basalt Kings equipped with Boots of the Behemoth, plus lots of cheap-o poisoner troops and they're amphibious, which should nullify partially or wholely early expansion. I'm using Helheim because Vanheim's ability to cross oceans makes this latter issue more vague, and because supposedly Helheim has better blessed troops, which seems to be the issue. I'd also like to put forth the (harder to test) theory that early age Ermor, in the long run, has more dangerous blessed calvalry because their calvalry recovers from disabilities, making it possible to have three and four star experience blessed troops with no hearts. I'd also imagine that ea Ermor would be successful against Vanheim etc. due to their propensity for cheap, tough javelin-throwers, which they should be able to make several times as many of as the Vans can make sacred troops.

[Shovah32]

Better than bladewind they have access to AoE spells like magma eruption later on. They can also get amazingly tough sacreds and basalt kings with an e9-10(possibly n4) bless.

[Aseth]

ok, stupid iron numbers:
early era

Van - 25 sacred vans with w9f9 bless,5 sacred van comanders(1 of them prophet),dominion 5, 3 order -3res 2drain 3 misfortune

C`Tis - 4 sauromancers, 1 Lizard King (Prophet),120 HI,3 lvl enchant reserched, dominion 5, 3 order, 3res, 3grows, 2 hot, 1 magic, 3 misfortune

C`Tis lose 20 battles from 20... sad

BUT now some MEGA-MAGIC-STRATEGIC-HINT, change 120 HI for
50Elite Warriors & 80 Slave Warriors(yep, i have so much money for them because of GOOD scales)

C`Tis win 20 battles from 20... hmmmm... what is wrong... Ou! Bingo! HI usless against so-heavy-hitting & hi-def troops, but little Slave-Lizards kick them... It`s miracle my friends! (all Slave-Lizards die)

next, change 80 Slave Warriors to 20 Chariots
C`Tis win 20 battles from 20... and even some troops exept Sauromancers survive!

[Shovah32]

I thought elite warriors would do better vrs van. Duel to lower resources they can be massed faster and with 2 attacks(with decent skills on elite warriors) they can hit them hard. You used the sauros near the flanks right?

[Aseth]

i use Sauromanser & all other forces of C`Tis in the far left (back)
in the center to spam big cloud of skeletons.
All forces of Van - far right (forvard),for faster entering combat.

to Edi here your`s hard numbers

[Shovah32]

I used to do a similar set-up with ctis but, ive found putting the sauromancers out towards the flanks a little top/bottom(left/right) allows skeletons to reach combat faster(moving round rather than through your army) and helps defend vrs flankers.

[PDF]

Aseth said:
ok, stupid iron numbers:
early era

Van - 25 sacred vans with w9f9 bless,5 sacred van comanders(1 of them prophet),dominion 5, 3 order -3res 2drain 3 misfortune

C`Tis - 4 sauromancers, 1 Lizard King (Prophet),120 HI,3 lvl enchant reserched, dominion 5, 3 order, 3res, 3grows, 2 hot, 1 magic, 3 misfortune

C`Tis lose 20 battles from 20... sad

BUT now some MEGA-MAGIC-STRATEGIC-HINT, change 120 HI for
50Elite Warriors & 80 Slave Warriors(yep, i have so much money for them because of GOOD scales)

C`Tis win 20 battles from 20... hmmmm... what is wrong... Ou! Bingo! HI usless against so-heavy-hitting & hi-def troops, but little Slave-Lizards kick them... It`s miracle my friends! (all Slave-Lizards die)

next, change 80 Slave Warriors to 20 Chariots
C`Tis win 20 battles from 20... and even some troops exept Sauromancers survive!

What blessings did have Vanheim ? It all hangs up on that, Vans aren't very money-effective without bless , and the Ctis units you've used aren't sacred...

[Aseth]

Van - w9+f9 bless
C`Tis - god with w9 bless for test Ctis Sacred Dancers (all Dancers died in tests don`t even scratch Vans,so i didn`t post these tests), but Slaves & Chariots not sacred.