Vanheim - help wanted.

[Borg]

I just started up a new game and this time I want to play something completely different.
Something I haven't played before.
So ..........
This is the first time I'm going to play Vanheim (SP)
It's also the first time I will be using Blood Magic.
Which means ...... I really could use some pointers.

Orania map.
All nations in the game (except Ermor)
Win Condition : 10VP (out of a total of 20VP's)

Pretender : Frost Father F3 A3 W3 E1 B3 - research 24
Dominion : 6 - Water Cult
Scales : Order3 Cold2 Growth1 Misfortune2 Magic1
Building : Fortress
Points left : 0


My reasoning :
- I want to keep my Frost Father at home. Let him reasearch and do Blood Summons ( Ice Devils and Fire Devils sound promising from the manual)
- With some equipment he can give a Fire, Water, Air and Blood Bless to the holy troops.
- My first idea is to start researching Blood up to lvl3, to get some Devils and Frost Fiends, then start Construction up to the Powerfull Items to get the necessary Equipment for my mage and Devils ( can these already be used as SC's ? ) Then continue with Blood Magic.
Should I research something else as well ? What and why ?

Maybe I overdid the Misfortune 2 a bit, but with order 3, maybe it'll hold up ? Yes ?

I took Cold2 to get another 40pts, figuring in summer it'll heat up to Cold1 anyway , putting me in ideal conditions.

I would really appreciate some feedback from Vanheim and Blood specialists.
Thanks.

Apart from the risk of losing a lab or temple very early, misfortune-2 should be survivable.

Devils are only troops, not commanders. If you want summonable SCs early, research to Blood-5 for Ice Devils. They're excellent combatants as is, and turn into full-on SCs with just a hellsword (though tricking them out with more toys never hurts). Your Cold scale very much suits them too.

While Devils and Fiends make great troops (not so sure about Frost Fiends though - they're mediocre missile troops IIRC), at one per summoning they're very expensive in terms of mage time until you can summon them in numbers later in the game (or make Soul Contracts).

You might want D3 instead of A3 on your Pretender. Van has plenty of air mages that you can recruit, while D3B3 gives you acces (with the odd item) to great spells like Curse of Blood (lvl 7 - summons a Vampire Lord) and Blood Rite (lvl 7 - summons a 10 or so vampires).

I don't think your Bless plan works. I'm pretty sure that Bless benefits depend on the original magic paths of the Pretender. That I would say is the main downside of your design; Van has some lovely Sacred troops that just cry out for a strong Blessing. Still, you can't have everything.

Mark

[shovah]

if you want blood go mictain imo (or abysia) and yes bless is only affected by your starting paths unfortunatly (l8 sp game my pretender had 10 everthing) and those big blood summons rock as scs.

you could also try my personal fav and give your pretender a high forge bonus (dwarveen hammer, forge lord hammer, the site, forge of ancients ect and spam soul contracts. (ulmish smith with forge lord hammer and forge of ancients empowered to blood 1 should be able to make contracts at around 20 or less slaves a pop (not to mention bloodthorns at around 3-4 slaves)

[magnate]

As others have said, the biggest problem with your design is that Bless effects cannot be obtained by empowerment or items, so you have to have level 4 paths on your pretender from the start. You definitely want F4W4B4 - I would choose S4 over A4, because you can recruit powerful air and earth mages (vanadrotts and smiths), although the D4 blessing is ok too and D4B4 does open up some nice spells.

I would pay for these extra paths by getting rid of your growth scale. With Order 3 you will have no money problems so a death scale would be fine.

I'm playing Vanheim in my current game, with a setup a little like yours:

Great Sage pretender
F4W4E1A1S4N4D4B4 - for summoning, forging, site searching
Watch tower (I never build castles)
Order3Prod0Cold2Death3Misf2Magic1

- it's been great so far, though I have lost three provinces to barbarian/knight attacks, and neither hero has arrived.

If you want your vans and valkyries to really kick ***, you need F9W9 blessing instead of any of the above. I don't know how you pay for this though - I suspect you have to sacrifice order3.

I research construction to get winged shoes for my scouts and SDRs for my blood hunters, and then straight to Blood5 for Ice Devils. I was very lucky to find garnet sorceresses in an indy province - they are B2 so much better blood hunters than vanjarls.

Good luck,

CC

[Borg]

magnate said:
I would pay for these extra paths by getting rid of your growth scale. With Order 3 you will have no money problems so a death scale would be fine.

If you want to bloodhunt isn't it advisable to take a slight growth scale ?
To compensate for the losses and/or to let your provinces grow above 8000 pop where your Blood Hunts apparently stop reducing pop ?

[archaeolept]

it may be advisable but i sure never do ;p

[Truper]

Arch is a veritable Prince of Death (scales), and his Vanheim is the leading power in Truper's Revenge, so his advice shouldn't be taken lightly. On the other hand, I've yet to see any evidence that he's doing any serious Blood hunting.

[quantum_mechani]

archaeolept said:
it may be advisable but i sure never do ;p

Same here.

[Endoperez]

Blood Hunting always reduces population, but with 8000+ pop it will take too long for it to be noticed in the game. Of course, patrolling will bring it down much too quickly, so you'll have to reduce taxes. It seems most people prefer three hunters and zero taxes. The really big difference comes around 5000 people. Below that, it is really hard to find slaves.

Of course, in long games Growth is invaluable, and Death+Misfortune can result in grim events. I usually don't sacrifice that much for a multitude of low blessings. I counted 6 level 4s. I would only have taken Water and Blood, and possibly Earth for mages, leaving the other paths to minimum levels required for boosters. As an example, a Nature 2 pretender can achieve Nature 5 through boosters: N2 -> Thistle Mace, N3S1 -> Moonvine Bracelet, N4 -> Treelord's Staff (+2 levels, but replaces Thistle Mace). And I would leave out Air and Earth if I weren't going for bless, as the national mages cover those two well.

Vanir and Valkyries have awesome defence, but aren't as good on the damage dealing end, so each of Water, Blood and Fire are good blessings. Fire doesn't actually deal more damage until Fire 9, but the flaming weapons make a huge difference. On the other hand, Blood 9 is nigh useless (a chance of cursing the one who killed the unit), but it helps a lot on lower levels. And Water 9 makes your blessed units untouchable by almost all enemy warriors, and gives both them and your mages quickness. As it stacks with the one available from e.g. Boots of Quickness, it is also very powerful.


Also, don't forget to script your Huskarl forces to Fire instead of Attack closest. Those Javelins do make a difference. Unfortunately the better Hirdmen don't carry Javelins. I'd love to be able to use Javelin forces boosted with Strength of Giants and, much later, Rush of Strength.

[shovah]

just a question, would bless quickness+ the spell+ jade armour+ boots of quickness let me cast 5 spells a turn? (4 quickness+1 normal)