Helheim Superpower!

[Gandalf Parker]

tromper said:
I've only played a bunch of ME games the past few months, single player with AIs random/difficult. As a new player it's ridiculous for you smarty experienced guys and gals to think we have to get so pre-planning bonkers whenever Vanheim randomly appears. Because every. Single. time. They dominate all other AIs.

That really surprises me. In most of my games Ermor takes the lead early on, and Oceania is the leader later (for AIs of course). I would think it might be a small map with indepts set to a low number if Vanheim walks all over the other AIs.

[Corwin]

FrankTrollman said:
Turn 40 to 50? Try having 30 Master Smiths show up with the following script:

(Summon Earth Power) (Magma Eruption) (Magma Eruption)(Magma Eruption)(Magma Eruption)

Now put 12 stacks of black plate infantry which are each 2-5 men on "Hold and Attack: None" and place them each up and down the field in a mid-forward starting position.

Now take whatever indie archers you happen to have and stick them in three blobs to fire at Archers, Cavalry, and Closest. Position them in the middle in the top, center, and lower regions.

Now put the rest of your Ulmish infantry in a couple of big hold and attack blobs behind all the rest of your stuff.

Finally, take this army and march it directly to the Vanheim capitol and kill everything in your path. A turn 45 Ulm should have virtually no problem beating a van army in the field - especially one that's compuer controlled.

-Frank

I agree, that's a good tactic against Vanheim. Although I am not sure why would you want your decoy HI infantry to be positioned in 2-5. They will rout easly due to both small size (plus they would be subject for the additional "below 5" morale check), and the whole squard would likely to be destroyed anyway by vans as soon as they connect. As a decoy, I would use single soldiers.

And why "hold/attack/none" rather than "hold/attack/closest" or "hold/Attack/rear"?

But these are minor points, either way such army will steamroll van's sacred troops, I agree.

[HoneyBadger]

Try Tien Ch'i in early games against Helheim on small maps-and especially maps which are continents with no islands. Use your chariots and warriors of 5 elements with lots of support to capture provinces and your national archers and massive amounts of cheap pike plus lots of province defense to take away provinces from Van, ensuring they can't capture them back. Make sure you've got better scales than they do (if they're using high bless strategy, you will) and build temples like crazy on those guarded provinces. Eventually you should attrition them to death and be able to build an army strong enough to take out their home province. Once you do, destroy their fortress! The reason for this is, if they happen to capture the home province back, it gives you a handful of rounds to take it back before they can get the fortress set back up and start rolling out the sacreds again. Use your whole national budget if you can for a couple of rounds and really build an ungodly force on that home-you don't ever want them to get it back if you can help it(see above)-and guard the surrounding provinces just as well if you can-after that, just demolish them slow and steady. As far as magic goes, Tien Ch'i has excellent rainbow mage-priests, some of which can fly, so you can beat them magically as well as economically, so long as you're better at holding the territory you've got than Helheim is.

[tromper]

Thanks a lot for the advice, Frank! I'll try that during the course of the next week. Sounds hilarious. I play each game over the course of 2-3 weeks, not having ten hours a day to play.

I'd love to see the Magma Eruption en masse take those Van bastards out. I should probably bring a small crew of siege folks along. Risky though, gold-wise, when I'm being nailed by R'lyeh from another direction. Very expensive but I do have about nine fortresses, so could muster it in about five or six turns. But seems like it would be terribly worth it to get Van off my left buttock.

I appreciate the response. And I also am stunned at how so many of you are master strategists with Dom3. Jerks!

Oh, and Gandalf - I've never once had a problem dealing with Ermor. In fact, in this game, they're right next to me and I knock them down easily as they're having a lot of fun raining on Bandar Log's parade. But I suppose that could be the AI being even more moronic and inept than I am. And it's a largish map, 140 provinces or whatever, with default settings. (other than the AIs set to 'difficult' and me sucking against Van)

[Cerlin]

Thanks for some caelum advise as well! Finding ways to deal with this ability is part of the fun for me. My current tactic of letting them crash against my walls is paying off if I can follow up. Now back to attempt the win!

[B0rsuk]

HoneyBadger said:
Try Tien Ch'i in early games against Helheim on small maps-and especially maps which are continents with no islands.

I think that once you have to face Helheim, it's a bit too late to choose another nation.

[HoneyBadger]

You haven't researched the Polymorph Nation spell, have you?

[alexti]

Cerlin said:
After some extensive playing as EA Caelum, I have encountered Helheim and the Glamor is amazing! It is almost impossible to beat these armies even with magic weapons, archers, or magic. I then proceded to make a game as Helhiem and I am able to dominate the game early with little effort!

My question is how the hell do I beat this nation? Is there any real way to defeat the armies of hel besides just bypassing them and attacking the back country? Thanks in advance!

If you're playing Caelum bypassing them is a better plan. You can hurricane their fortified provinces to stop production and raid everything else to take away gold and gems. You can eliminate their armies later, after their economy has been destroyed.

[FrankTrollman]

alexti said:

If you're playing Caelum bypassing them is a better plan. You can hurricane their fortified provinces to stop production and raid everything else to take away gold and gems. You can eliminate their armies later, after their economy has been destroyed.

This is a great idea. Remember that Helheim is powerful because it is capable of projecting substantial force and of raiding effectively. But if you can project more force or raid him back better, then he's toast.

So if you can either con a Helheim opponent into meeting you in the field when you have a better army (Abysian Burning Ones come to mind), or split your force and simply destroy his economy faster than he can destroy yours (for example: with Caelumite packs), then you can make for a victorious war.

Helheim is a powerful position because it can compete as both a raiding force and a standup army and it is relatively easy to play. But it can be beaten at any of its games. It isn't the fastest or the strongest - it's just both fast and strong. If you play to your own strengths, victory can be yours.

-Frank

[alexti]

Unfortunately, this works just because it's Caelum - another superpower. Caelum is probably the only nation that is better at raiding than Helheim (some amphibian nations can be considered better at raiding if they play 1 vs 1 - but that's just because Helheim can't raid well underwater). Mobility-wise, Caelum is probably also the only nation that's better than Helheim (in mid-late game Mictlan probably can join the top in this area too). In terms of brute force on the battlefield, only few nations can match Helheim (and Caelum, of course, is one of them). I think that the only reason we don't hear that many complains about Caelum is because it requires noticably more competent play (than Helheim) to be efficient. But if Caelum is not rushed in the first 10 turns it will be very strong.