Glamour post 3.08

[TwoBits]

I'll do my bit of community service, and start a new thread, as suggested in that one about Vanheim.

OK, what're your opinions on the new rules? Any complaints still, or is everything 100% perfect now? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

So I'm not just trolling, here's my take - seems to be fitting the bill so far. At least opponents have a few more viable options, especially early game, against it (Glamour that is).

Of course, the counter can still be countered - decoy troops come immediately to mind. And I don't think the changes have impacted the stealth/raiding abilities of glamour troops all that much. So maybe there's still some price/resource tweaking that can be done (like was done with Lanka). Or maybe not. What do you think?

[Sombre]

I'm thinking with something of a 'nerf' on the glamboys, that Lanka might be the next nation to rile people up, since it's basically good in every category.

[Jazzepi]

I tried massing archers against a playing using Vans with a strong E9 bless and a weak N4-6 bless. They were completely ineffective at knocking out the glamored images as was promised.

Jazzepi

[Morkilus]

I don't see glamor as a changeworthy issue; the last change was in fitting with the spirit of the rules and wasn't meant as a pure "nerf" for balancing, though I'm sure the complaints had something to do with it. I don't believe there was a promise to allow everyone to destroy Vans with archers; the higher protection and regen from blesses means you had better have your own troops that can guard your archers while they do their work. I'm guessing that against the F9W9 bless you're going to do a lot better assuming you have some heavy infantry to slow them down.

[Jazzepi]

"I don't believe there was a promise to allow everyone to destroy Vans with archers"

Nobody said anything about destroying Vans. I'm talking about the 150 archers I bought doing absolutely nothing. Actually, what I ended up doing was buying a ton of melee chaff that would soak up the van's high defense, and having argatha mages spamming earth bind to reduce it further.

Neither the archers, nor the spell spammers, not the chaff worked.

Jazzepi

[Gandalf Parker]

It was archers and magic.
The anti-glamour tactics I have seen include many squads of slingers. Or area affect spells and equipment. The Gall Bladder Stick was mentioned.

There is a poison spell which does the entire battlefield which is seems to be particularly effective.

[Beorne]

Ok, so vans require again very specialized tactics (the "very" means the difference between them and the other nations). I think I'll continue to ban them from my games.

[Gandalf Parker]

as compared to Rlyeh? Ermor? Abysia? Jotunheim? Oceania? TirNaGog? Ulm? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Velusion]

I've managed to avoid them in MP play so far http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif.

[Shovah32]

Beorne said:
Ok, so vans require again very specialized tactics (the "very" means the difference between them and the other nations). I think I'll continue to ban them from my games.



The majority of effective strategies require very specialized tactics to deal with - if they were easy to deal with they wouldnt be effective. Your chaff and archers wouldnt have been particularly effective against most good E9N4 sacreds(they have reinvigoration, high protection and regeneration - all things that counter chaff and archers) and would probably have been ineffective against a number of other things. A group of ulmish infantry with flails backed by a couple of elephants/black knights would also probably have broken through a group of chaff and archers, does that mean MA Ulm is overpowered and should be banned?.

You cant honestly expect a group of archers to do alot against high protection, regenerating troops with shields and a horde of chaff was also a mistake as superior mounted troops(with naturally low encumberance) with higher stats, regeneration(to heal and lucky damage you inflict), reinvigoration(you cant just wait for them to get worn out) and higher stats(1v1 they will destroy chaff) can keep fighting almost indefinitely against weak troops.

[Jazzepi]

Shovah32 said:

Beorne said:
Ok, so vans require again very specialized tactics (the "very" means the difference between them and the other nations). I think I'll continue to ban them from my games.



The majority of effective strategies require very specialized tactics to deal with - if they were easy to deal with they wouldnt be effective. Your chaff and archers wouldnt have been particularly effective against most good E9N4 sacreds(they have reinvigoration, high protection and regeneration - all things that counter chaff and archers) and would probably have been ineffective against a number of other things. A group of ulmish infantry with flails backed by a couple of elephants/black knights would also probably have broken through a group of chaff and archers, does that mean MA Ulm is overpowered and should be banned?.

You cant honestly expect a group of archers to do alot against high protection, regenerating troops with shields and a horde of chaff was also a mistake as superior mounted troops(with naturally low encumberance) with higher stats, regeneration(to heal and lucky damage you inflict), reinvigoration(you cant just wait for them to get worn out) and higher stats(1v1 they will destroy chaff) can keep fighting almost indefinitely against weak troops.



Oh please, then enlighten me to what MA Argatha is suppose to do against the vans. As I said, the chaff was a part of a greater strategy. The idea was to earth meld them, so their defense would be abysmal, and just let the chaff wail away on them. I also researched my way to destruction.

Jazzepi

[atul]

Depending upon the research levels, a group of Sentinels can keep W9F9 blessed Vans put for several turns while indy archers and Golem Crafters casting Magma Bolt deal with the damage part (Ench4/Evo3, Attentive Statues (Ench3) might also work). I don't know how well that would work in the field or how cost-effective it'd be, but at least you can make Vanheim player regret ever storming your castle.

[Gandalf Parker]

Jazzepi said:
Oh please, then enlighten me to what MA Argatha is suppose to do against the vans.


Dominions isnt nation-to-nation balance. Its rock-paper-scissors balance. MA Agartha should use other nations against Vanheim.

And what about the statue and sentinel spells? HOw do they hold up against vans?

[Jazzepi]

I summoned a ton of statues. They were great, but the problem wasn't holding off the vans. I built tons of heavy infantry. Heavy infantry does a great job of "holding them off" and the statues are really no different than the infantry. Neither one deals any damage to the vans because of their low attack values, and the van's high defense coupled with high protection.

So what ends up happening is that your meele guys couple with the vans for several long turns. The vans have their reinvig, high protection, high defense, high attack skill, high morale and multiple attacks. They simply break your heavy infantry through morale and fatigue, while your archers are unable to do any damage. See, the whole problem here isn't being able to stop the vans cold in their tracks. The problem is /actually damaging them/.

Honestly, I didn't try magma bolts, but I was busy trying to research up to destruction to blow the armor off the Vans, and get the AoE version of earth grip (earth meld). See, the other part of massing chaff was that if I blew the armor off the Vans, then the huge amounts of light infantry would have no problem wearing down their high defense skill since it's -2 each time they try to defend against an attack.

Just so you know, I ended up "winning" with diplomacy by offering to forge Emor in the game, who had been rather buddy-buddy with me since the beginning, whatever they wanted if they'd simply lay siege to the capital. So Van was weakened by our fighting, I mean he would have killed me in the long run, but he was definitely weakened, and Emor came in and pooped all over his capital.

Jazzepi

[Jazzepi]

atul said:
Depending upon the research levels, a group of Sentinels can keep W9F9 blessed Vans put for several turns while indy archers and Golem Crafters casting Magma Bolt deal with the damage part (Ench4/Evo3, Attentive Statues (Ench3) might also work). I don't know how well that would work in the field or how cost-effective it'd be, but at least you can make Vanheim player regret ever storming your castle.



I just want to make this perfectly clear. I massed over 150+ indy archers and they were completely useless. I was sad I wasted the money on them against the vans.

Jazzepi

[Beorne]

This thread is starting to become like the other ... nobody says all nations should be perfectly balanced, every different nation has its own strength / weaknesses and so on. Is simply impossible to balance something with so many variables like dom3. But Van is much more difficult to deal with than any other.

[Gandalf Parker]

It used to be Rlyeh, and before that Ermor. If Vanheim gets nerfed further then it will be someone else. There will always be one that is harder than any other.

Altho I will agree that the gap seems to be abit much in the case of Vans. A few saved combats with masses of archers against Vans might help convince the devs to whittle it down abit more.

[Shovah32]

You said you researched destruction? With it cast on the vans they should be alot more vunerable to your arrows. I know its probably quite far away but if you can research up to magma eruption those vans should drop like flies. Your sacred statues should take very little damage from the spell(cast by golem crafters with summon earthpower) and with its high damage and AoE it should devastate those vans(with or without destruction). Umbrals should be very effective due to their ethereality(as the vans lack F9) and high health and could provide a very good shield for your archers after you cast destruction(again due to high health and ethereality).
A marble oracle with a shadow brand, charcoal shield and some other protective items(lucky pendant would be good. A ring of tamed lightning would be great if at-all possible) should also be able to hold out almost indefinitely against E9N4 vans(0 enc and with blacksteel full-plate should have around 30 protection).

There are probably about a number of other ways but those are just some suggestions, hope they help.

ps: I too hate it when i waste alot of money(bought a load of tribal indy archers and had to fight MA Ulmish knights...).

[Jazzepi]

One thing to note is that I got rushed by a Vans player. I didn't even have a second castle up by the time they were trying to stomp across my border. All these suggestions are great and appreciated, but most of them require level 4+ in multiple schools of magic which isn't terribly realistic for the early game.

Jazzepi

[Shovah32]

Its also not very realistic to expect an easy counter to a strong, double(well one and a half) blessed sacred as a nation with as poor troops as MA agartha(generally regarded as one of the weaker MA nations-particularly their recruitables) but whatever floats your boat. In most cases when your rushed by superior blessed troops all you can really do is hold them off until you get some decent magics(unless you have elephants or some other unit that can counter them).

Its a generally accepted fact that getting rushed by a bless nation such as vanheim/mictlan can spell disaster for most nations who arent prepared with a strong early game(with a bless/SC pretender ect), for example in the nuance game its currently turn 10 and im already sitting on the bandar log capitol, having conquered all their other provinces with my legionaires supported by a couple of blessed shadow vestals(who did very little of the work).

[Sombre]

3.08 was supposed to make a hail of arrows effective against glamour and thus offer more nations a less extreme (in terms of design points, strat, overall cost) counter to vans.

Clearly Jazzepi feels mislead - saying "well archers aren't the counter to heavy cavalry" just demonstrates that the van nerf might not have changed them much, since the big alteration was for missiles vs glamour.

[Jazzepi]

Sombre said exactly what was on my mind.

Jazzepi

[Saint_Dude]

Shovah32 said:
in the nuance game its currently turn 10 and im already sitting on the bandar log capitol, having conquered all their other provinces with my legionaires supported by a couple of blessed shadow vestals(who did very little of the work).



As the bandar player in nuance, it sure looked as though there were more than a couple of blessed shadow vestals involved in the attack (39 to be exact - 32 in the battle at the bandar capital).

But Shovah32's point is a good one. Many nations are capable of putting together a brutal blitz with blessed troops, not just the vans.

[Jazzepi]

I'm pretty sure you can build priests to banish shadow vestals as they're undead (correct me if I'm wrong). Since every one of Argatha's casters are priests, I think that's a pretty simple counter. Most everyone has access to priests in their capital.

This is so unlike, say, Vans.

Jazzepi

[Saint_Dude]

Shadow vestals with a f9/s9 bless. Twist of fate and MR 19? Good luck with the banishment. Bandar log has access to level 1 priests. ooh . . . I am sure those vestals were shaking in their boots. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Shadow vestals are also a lot cheaper than van (in terms of both gold and resources) so there are a lot more to fight.

The counter for vestals with a bless like this is the same as for the vans - area effect magic. If you try to get by with priests, chaff, massed archers, and the like, you are going to have disappointing results.

In short they are every bit as likely to steamroll MA Agartha as Vanheim is. At least early on. Of course that isn't saying much, as most nations have an easy time picking on MA Agartha in the early game.

[Jazzepi]

Level 1 priests are just as effective as level 5 priests at spamming banishment.

Jazzepi

[sum1lost]

Jazzepi said:
Level 1 priests are just as effective as level 5 priests at spamming banishment.

Jazzepi


But are less effective against a high mr, since magic levels impact penetration, if I remember correctly.

horay 4 listening.

[Jazzepi]

That, I did not know. I read on here that the banishment was exactly the same.

Jazzepi

[Saxon]

A voice from the single player crowd here.

If the Vans are still trashing large forces of mixed troops, they are still going to dominate the single player maps. This leads to the same “Vans vs human player” end games that I seemed to run into all the time. Linked to this, I stopped having Vanheim in my single player games a while back, but I have noticed that Trig’o’how’doyou’spellit seem to end up beating other AI regularly.

It appears that the AI has a real problem with glamour.

In any case, I will put Vanheim back in the game and see what happens.

My other point is to support Jazzepi. If 150 archers do not at least remove some glamour, there is a bit of a problem. These are not SC, they are recruitable troops. I don’t expect the archers to win, but they should be able to at least scratch the enemy. It wasn’t high Air blessing these Vans had, it was Water and Earth.

[vfb]

Not only that, Banishment is AoE 2+(2* H level), Dam 3+(2* H level). According to the spell spreadsheet, not the manual, it's even range 15 + (5* H level).

H1: AoE 4, Dam 5, range 20
H2: AoE 6, Dam 7, range 25
H3: AoE 8, Dam 9, MR-1, range 30
H4: AoE 10, Dam 11, MR-1, range 35
H5: AoE 12, Dam 13, MR-2, range 40

(Extra bonus points if you go to the all effort of making an H5 priest just to cast banishment http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif )

[Valandil]

Actually, saxon raises a good point. Vanheim has extremely easy acces to archery neuters (Air bless, arrow fend). How will a buff to archers vs glamour actuallly weaken vanheim, save by makoing F9 W9 (slightly) less attractive?

I'm a SP player, mainly, and I should mention that I've never ran into the "Vans vs. Human player" situation before- It's usually Ry'leh or Ermor (Even MA).

[Velusion]

I don't think this thread was to rehash the "Van's kick everyone's asses in the early game badly" thread. I think this thread was just to see if the 3.08 change actually weakened the vans somewhat.

The only player with any experience has been Jazzepi - who has said (from what i can tell) No, it hasn't.

[atul]

Hm, when I ran a quick test with a screen of statues and 50 indy archers, the glamour did get dispelled on quite many vans. However, after that you're left with a problem how to kill low-resource-cost high-defence high-protection cavalry. Which is not easy.

But evocation spells at least seem to work better against Vans nowadays.

[AreWeInsaneYet]

banishment is almost USELESS against shadow vestals, no matter what priest you are, H1 or H3.

I did a test run just now, using 8 C'tis priest king(who has much better precision--10 to 7--than agartha priests) scripted to 5x banishment banish 27 shadow vestals led by one ermor priest(NO ASPOSTACY, that is), and the result is pretty ridiculous: the first wave of banishment go before bless killed 6 vestals, and that's pretty much about it. yes, the second and third wave killed only 1 of 21 left, leave me 20 experienced vestals and 8 good fried lizard holy meats.

[Sombre]

Did you give the priests any meatshields?

[AreWeInsaneYet]

No. I just want to see exactly how well priests will do against vestals (e.g. how good is 8 banishment against normal vestals, how good is 8 against blessed one), as I already knew from my own experience that an army(read:20 to 40) of these shady girls in real battle is just unstoppable without mage's intervention.

High Priests and Banishment are there for LA Ermor' undead chaff, they are no match for few elite shock troop. Just imagine that: would you spam banishment against a Wraith Lord?

[LoloMo]

Going back to the Vans pre and post 3.08, I did not notice any difference. Massed archers still had no significant effect in any battle. I played C'tis versus Helheim in the Unlucky MP game, and fought helheim before and after 3.08. I rushed research Shadow Blast which worked. I remember that there also wasnt much difference in shadow blast effectiveness also pre and post 3.08 patch.

[Sombre]

Well in fairness the vestals would get hit by more banishments in a battle, since they wouldn't walk right over to the mages and kill them all - there would be some chaff in the way.

If you were testing whether poison slingers were a viable counter to heavy Arco infantry, you wouldn't just put 20 slingers against 20 heavy infantry, would you?

From the sounds of it, I don't think priests would work as a counter though.

[LoloMo]

I'm playing blessed shadow vestals in two MP games. I'm not worried about banishment at all. On the other hand, I'm scared of flaming arrows. Very scared =)

[Baalz]

Honestly, seems like the bigger change with regards to the vans is that glamor no longer protects against *spells*. Perhaps a few scepters of authority might work well now if your screen can hold them for a few turns? Generally, there are not going to be a whole lot of vans, so spells that effect just one target might work out well. Also, has anybody yet seen the vans go up against crossbows (or arbalests) in 3.08? Seems like that would work significantly better than short bows.

[tibbs]

Saint_Dude said:
Shadow vestals with a f9/s9 bless. Twist of fate and MR 19? Good luck with the banishment. Bandar log has access to level 1 priests. ooh . . . I am sure those vestals were shaking in their boots. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Shadow vestals are also a lot cheaper than van (in terms of both gold and resources) so there are a lot more to fight.

The counter for vestals with a bless like this is the same as for the vans - area effect magic. If you try to get by with priests, chaff, massed archers, and the like, you are going to have disappointing results.

In short they are every bit as likely to steamroll MA Agartha as Vanheim is. At least early on. Of course that isn't saying much, as most nations have an easy time picking on MA Agartha in the early game.



I am playing MA Argatha in your game and I believe you need a strong, Awake SC pretender if you intend to have a chance to stop the early rush when playing as one of the nations with a weak start. Also having good diplomacy and being aware of your neighbors and the surroundings can make a big difference.

[thejeff]

The problem with this fix is that it probably affects the most problematic units least. Vans and Helhirdings carry shields and are fast enough to cross the field in a round or two. Even without the glamor, it's hard to get enough arrow hits on them to matter.

EA Vanheim's Vanheres are unshielded infantry. Without shields they'll take more hits and they're slower so you'll get more rounds of fire, before they start slaughtering your meat shield.
Vanheres are good sacred troops, but I don't think EA Vanheim was considered anywhere near as overpowered as Helheim or the later Vanheims.

I haven't played with the Sidhe, but they're mostly shielded infantry right? So they'll get more volleys, but still take few hits.
I don't believe they're considered overpowered either.

The problem units are the ones least affected by the change.

[llamabeast]

I think that Baalz makes a good point, that the most important change was that glamour no longer works against spells, rather than against arrows. Losing protection against arrows is just an added bonus to my mind.

[Shovah32]

Vans with an E9 bless have high protection and shields. You shouldnt really expect arrows to do any damage to them but if the arrows arent removing glamour then theres a problem.

[Kristoffer O]

Sound as if there is some consensus on blessed vanir (especially mounted) still being too powerful (or at least more powerful than most other strategies).

[Shovah32]

I honestly dont think they are that bad and i believe there are quite simply better sacreds out there. One of the big reasons vans get hit so hard is that they require slightly more specialized tactics to combat effectively and the ai tends to struggle with this(they are also probably the most well known and popular).

[thejeff]

Arrows (and everything else) don't remove glamor unless the do at least one point of damage.

It does sound like Van and Helhirdings may still be too powerful. I'd like to suggest that any further nerf be to them and not to glamor in general.

[Baalz]

Not to sound contentious, but I'm curious as to what you would consider a quite simply better sacred? Yes, obviously there are plenty of examples of different units being better in certain niches, and perhaps you can lay out an opinion that another unit is a straight up more cost effective combat unit (though I can't think of any). The thing about the vans though is they are extremely effective at *everything*. Sure, they'll beat the snot out of you through just brute force, but even if you do manage an effective counter, their glamored stealth plus high movement allows them to control the combat both strategically and tactically. Stopping their raiders is well nigh impossible for many nations, raiding them back is pretty much suicidal as you can't tell where any of their map-move 3 defenders are, and very few tactical rituals short of late game are effective given their MR and general hardiness. This is an aspect that often gets overlooked when people are complaining about their brute strength, their brute strength is multiplied by their insane versatility. That's why they're so hard to counter, stern resistance is not met with a headlong charge, but being greeted with that other aspect of the Vanir - the fact that they're better guerrilla warriors than Pangea.

High defense, high speed, high protection, high MR, high damage output (with a good bless), high stealth, high maxage.... given that, what sacred is quite simply better?

[NTJedi]

Shovah32 said:
I honestly dont think they are that bad and i believe there are quite simply better sacreds out there. One of the big reasons vans get hit so hard is that they require slightly more specialized tactics to combat effectively and the ai tends to struggle with this(they are also probably the most well known and popular).



I agree Vans are not that bad especially since they are capital only. On very small quick game maps they obviously seem too powerful which is why we hear about it.
Even if one of the nations was more powerful it provides more of a security blanket for new players which will probably lose the first few games anyways.

[Velusion]

NTJedi said:
On very small quick game maps they obviously seem too powerful which is why we hear about it.



This is incorrect. Almost all of the people complaining about them here don't play blitzs or "quick game maps".

I'm still undecided about the changes being enough, but I thought I would clear up this common misperception.

[Jazzepi]

I never play blitzes, although Hidden Signs ended up being one because of the tiny size of the map. I don't think the game was designed with them in mind, and their tendency towards bless rush is boring for me.

Jazzepi

[Micah]

OTOH keep in mind that Van and Hel have the worst researchers in the game. 3 RP for 160 gold, temple and lab both required...that's significantly worse than using shaman researchers. They need troops that are kind of unfairly good, because their ability to get to late-game magic is kind of unfairly bad. It's also hard to take magic-3 with a double bless.

MA Van having build-anywhere sacreds is kind of over the top with their raiding potential though, I'll certainly agree to that.

Vans and helhirds may be overpowered, and they're certainly going to put the hurt on people early on...small maps are a problem, but their nations' magic potential is fairly low...I think it might make for a more interesting nation if the sacreds got bumped down a bit but some better research options were available...perhaps the addition of philosopher-like serf mages, forbidden to cast spells (no paths) that are employed to help research, maybe 5 RP for 100 gold. (philosophers are 50 for 5 and benefit from sloth scales IIRC, so hopefully that's not stepping on Arco's toes too much, since they're twice the cost.)

Adding something like that in exchange for some of the sacreds' power would open up more magical options later in the game for the glam nations and give them a tradeoff, not just a straight nerf. It would also allow them to make more decisions about where to focus instead of having to go for the bless strat every time. I think it's the units that are the problem, not the nations as a whole.

[Velusion]

I'm still undecided about how the latest patch helps but...

I pretty much agree with Micah about the root cause. It's not that the heims are completely unbalanced over the course of the game it's just that they have such an overwhelming early game strength that the vast majority of defenders have almost no chance against them. That aspect of their "play style" is simply not fun - no matter which side you are on.

You should always have a decent chance to at least fight off a rush nation.

[Jazzepi]

Velusion said:
I'm still undecided about how the latest patch helps but...

I pretty much agree with Micah about the root cause. It's not that the heims are completely unbalanced over the course of the game it's just that they have such an overwhelming early game strength that the vast majority of defenders have almost no chance against them. That aspect of their "play style" is simply not fun - no matter which side you are on.

You should always have a decent chance to at least fight off a rush nation.



I agree with Velusion. I think the problem is that right now the nation is balanced for an entire game.

So your Vans might rush player A, and B, but then get crushed in the end game.

While this is fine for players C-F who didn't get rushed and still have a fair chance against them, but what ends up happening is that Vanheim is like this lottery ticket of death for 1-2 nations every time they get into a game with a bless rush strategy where there is no early game way to defend against it.

Jazzepi

[AreWeInsaneYet]

...Only if there wasn't a nation named Caelum.
Oh, wait, There is.

EA Caelum definitely rush better than Van, which you can try out in a game(few units work against early mammothes, those actually worked are very vulnerable to early LB & TS). The only reason they don't is that they simply could do better focus on long-term plan, which is what Van cannot.

Van rushes not because of they can, but because they must. That IS the van style, if you don't follow, you are nobody later.

Here goes a quotation from pre 308:


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.

[Saint_Dude]

Velusion said:
You should always have a decent chance to at least fight off a rush nation.



That would be nice. But there are a number of nations (in addition to the vans) which can take out the majority of nations with an early bless rush irregardless of tactics.

Mictlan (all ages) - what do you do when you find out you have Mictlan as a neighbor on turn 5, and then are rushed by 50 dual blessed jags (and assorted chaff) on turn 7?

EA Niefelheim - what exactly is the early counter for blessed niefels? They eat vans for a light snack. Abysia can stand up to them, but who else?

MA Ermor - shadow vestals are nearly as cheap as jags and more resistant to counters such as massed archers. Depending on priests to save your bacon is laughable.

EA Pangaea and Lanka, and MA Marignon, Machaka and Jotunheim, - can also put together a pretty brutal rush. Better have your own bless strategy working or an awake SC pretender, or these nations will eat your lunch early on.

In short, nations with good sacreds and a good bless tend to eat their immediate neighbors in the early stages. The Vans are not unique.

[vfb]

Vanheim in LA (Midgard) also has got a nice turn 8, 200-unit skinshifter rush, as an alternative to a Van rush. Or so I hear. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Jazzepi]

vfb said:
Vanheim in LA (Midgard) also has got a nice turn 8, 200-unit skinshifter rush, as an alternative to a Van rush. Or so I hear. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif



Nobody suspects the werewolves.

Seriously though, I think the amazing scales + werewolves rush is a great tactic and I was very pleased that I randomly got Midgard so I could try it again. 40 werewolves can take on any neutral province, so you can expand like crazy, and you just roll over whomever doesn't have archers. Even with archers, you have early access to mist, yay!

Jazzepi

[vfb]

If you hadn't been swamped by a whole bunch of nations, you might even have had a chance to test that out! Midgard has loads of Air gems, so even an A2 Galderman can use an extra gem and cast it, right?

And does Storm stack with Mist?

Edit: Nothing to stop MA Van from doing the same with a Vanjarl. All the anti-glamor arrows discussion assumes you're not also casting Mist, right?

[Velusion]

Saint_Dude said:
That would be nice. But there are a number of nations (in addition to the vans) which can take out the majority of nations with an early bless rush irregardless of tactics.

....

In short, nations with good sacreds and a good bless tend to eat their immediate neighbors in the early stages. The Vans are not unique.



Sure you can design many nations to be a bless rush nation that will very likely be able to defeat another non-bless rush nations early - but thats like saying "you're probably going to die" compared to "you are going to die".

No other nation can turn out troops as powerful (aka invincible) in MA as Vanheim on turn 1. MA Ermor is very potent (probably too potent) - but at least they HAVE a weakness... even if it isn't easily exploitable. The fact that you can't even effectively counter-raid Vanheim is the last nail in the frustration/helpless coffin.

At least I feel like I have a small chance against Neifiel MA Ermor or Lanka - whereby I feel almost completely helpless against a W9/F9 MA Vanheim. (and I've been on the receiving end of all except Lanka)

The only other comparable frustration IMHO is the "elephants vs. all infantry non-bless rush nation" scenario... but that's a whole other problem - and limited to very specific nations vs. a limited few other nations.

[Jazzepi]

vfb said:
If you hadn't been swamped by a whole bunch of nations, you might even have had a chance to test that out! Midgard has loads of Air gems, so even an A2 Galderman can use an extra gem and cast it, right?

And does Storm stack with Mist?

Edit: Nothing to stop MA Van from doing the same with a Vanjarl. All the anti-glamor arrows discussion assumes you're not also casting Mist, right?



Yup, you're guaranteed the ability to cast mist with your Galdermans out of the box. Every one of them comes with A2. The spell requires A3, but you can gem your way to it. It costs 2 gems per casting, per big battle. But that's a pittance, really considering what you're doing to the opponents archers.

Honestly, I made three bad play errors, and then more that followed. One was not attacking you sooner if I was going to. Two was not attacking C'Tis instead of you and taking on that vassalage and tribute. Three was not attacking the one undefended province you had when I was sieging your capital, had I done that, when Mehir routed he would have died instead of retreating there.

I just checked. Experience +1 longbowmen with a base precision of 12, had 4 current precision with both storm and mist up. The same longbowmen had 7 precision with just mist up. This means they stack! My observation would say that each effect cuts precision by half, and together they do by a quarter.

Jazzepi

[NTJedi]

Velusion said:

NTJedi said:
On very small quick game maps they obviously seem too powerful which is why we hear about it.



This is incorrect. Almost all of the people complaining about them here don't play blitzs or "quick game maps".




Vans are capital only units... so the larger the map the less their effectiveness. The only issue is with large maps custom start settings should be placed by the host otherwise five players could be jammed together while one player is far away in the empty garden of eden.
Also considering the game has so so many different nations it's nice to have one or two stronger nations... especially for the SP gamers. I could understand the logic of balancing all the nations if there were only 7 or less to choose as we see from most games... but we have 62 nations to choose thus let there be some variety.
HOW many nations can DOMINIONS_3 have until Illwinter is finally allowed to create one super powerful nation? 100? 500? 5000?
If every single game you play has to have all opponent options balanced then it removes the option of playing a multiplayer or singleplayer game with a very strong opponent.

[sum1lost]

Jedi, perhaps you don't understand. The problem with Vanheim is that playing next to them means death. It isn't that they aren't balanced in the long game, it is simply that in the short game they are unstoppable. Start next to them, and die. Simple as that. That doesn't make for a very fun game, unless you also like self-inflicted eye-wounds and volunteer for unneeded amputations.

[Beorne]

sum1won said:
Jedi, perhaps you don't understand. The problem with Vanheim is that playing next to them means death. It isn't that they aren't balanced in the long game, it is simply that in the short game they are unstoppable. Start next to them, and die. Simple as that. That doesn't make for a very fun game, unless you also like self-inflicted eye-wounds and volunteer for unneeded amputations.



Completly agreed.
It seems that all those defending Van are playing sp, if they had started a mp near van they would be aware of their power. Vans (even unmounted) are so clearly overpowered that a look on the units db is more than enough.
"Van is only strong in the early game". You know better than me because that advantage in the early game means big advantage in the late game, it's characteristic of strategy resource based war games.
Perhaps the only good argument against Van nerfing is "I want a game with some very unbalanced nations". To help newbies? To do rush experiments? To win easily?. But at least is an argument.
I love vans, I ever played vans (and pangea) in Dom2. I hope they will be balanced to reintroduce them on my games.

[Saxon]

Baalz has a good point. They have a ton of advantages, they are great units. That versitility should not be underrated. The nation is balanced by the fact they have a weak end game, but in every 4X game, the beginning is the most important part. The rush is a very valid strategy and if well managed, will give you a great start over your oppenents.

The only other person who has spoken specifically about single player reports that they do not have the "Heim vs human player" effect, so perhaps my experience is not typical. Still, given that humans have a tough time stopping them, I don't see why the AI would do any better.

[Sombre]

The AI is simply not a challenge for me unless I handicap myself, but speaking from a SP standpoint, Vans are still too good. A better balanced game reduces the problems caused by how random the AI is, so resulting in slightly better SP gaming overall. This applies to all units which are miles better than anything else you could build - they just aren't desirable in the vanilla game.

[Gandalf Parker]

Interestingly even before the nerf, on massive AI tests it was not the heims that came out on top. I dont even remember them winning any of the games tho they probably did.

The tests were like endurance tests for the game. All of the nations were in as AI's, the game was run on immeadiate hosting and went for days. Mostly I watched for crashes (of course), CPU loads, hosting time (it started at about 1 hosting every 10 minutes and went to alittle over 30 minutes), and memory leaks. Each game did create a log and a scores page. I did not keep great notes about the winners but I was looking to see if the same nation came up too often. There was nothing worrisome to report to the beta team.

Different maps, map sizes, victory conditions, other settings did make a difference in the game. In abit above average times on standard settings; the games tended to be Undead Ermor doing well in the early game, Oceania in mid game, and Arcos in late game if it had managed to get there.

I had considered automating it all and doing a big batch of one-on-one contests but I never got motivated enough to do it.

[thejeff]

But that's because the AI can't actually play a bless strategy.

It doesn't take a good bless, except by accident. If it does it doesn't recruit enough sacred troops. When it does use sacreds it often doesn't bother to bless them.

Why would expect the AI to do well with an uber-bless rush nation?

[mivayan]

NTJedi - the "Van" unit is only capitol only in LA. MA Vanheim can build them anywhere.

Has anyone seen a difference when fighting ea vanheim/helheim non-sacreds? I'm thinking of flaming arrows and bladewind etc.

[Baalz]

I don't know that in practice they are so magically crippled as all that. Helhiem in particular has easy access to dwarven hammers, owl quils, and skull mentors and with their rapid expansion capabilities and broad path searching it's not unreasonable to expect to have several different indie mages available for recruiting to do the bulk of researching. They certainly don't lack for casting/forging power once the research is going. They may not be a research powerhouse but I certainly don't see them having no late game potential particularly as expansion->gold->mages->research so they can certainly compensate for a bit of cost ineffectiveness on their researchers.

As Velusion points out there is a difference between being rushed by vans and other rushes, it's the difference between being able to come up with a counterattack that has some chance of working (perhaps small, but possible) and feeling completely helpless because you can't think of anything that would even theoretically be realistic. To the people who keep saying vans aren't that bad, I hope I don't sound condescending, but have you actually gone up against a good player wielding vans? The people making these complaints are not newbies who roll over on a firm rush. Mammoths, Jaguar Warriors, and giants are *not* the same thing for the reasons I mention above - the strength of the vans is brutal but the really unballanced part is that the brutal strength is combined with unparalleled flexibility. They're better heavy cavalry than Ulm/Marignon/Man, better raiders than Pangea/Caelum, and better defenders than anybody else.

[Velusion]

mivayan said:
NTJedi - the "Van" unit is only capitol only in LA. MA Vanheim can build them anywhere.

Has anyone seen a difference when fighting ea vanheim/helheim non-sacreds? I'm thinking of flaming arrows and bladewind etc.



I'd be curious to know. I would think the 3.08 change really helps the mid-game against glamour units. What's funny is that both FA and BW also got nerfed in the last patch http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif (which is good IMHO).

[Saxon]

Gandalf,

Most interesting to hear about the multiple long runs of the AI games. Given that no one else is reporting the issue, perhaps my sample size is too small or I am getting unusual results. In the game I was playing last night I was facing Arco in a mid to late game and their wide range of astral spells were adding up to make them much more challenging than the early game nation I know.

[Valandil]

I assume, with the massive number of test that have been run, that someone has tried an identical unit without glamour? Seems that that would quickly isolate the problem (that is, if we can agree on whether there IS a problem.)

[MaxWilson]

Sombre said:
3.08 was supposed to make a hail of arrows effective against glamour and thus offer more nations a less extreme (in terms of design points, strat, overall cost) counter to vans.

Clearly Jazzepi feels mislead - saying "well archers aren't the counter to heavy cavalry" just demonstrates that the van nerf might not have changed them much, since the big alteration was for missiles vs glamour.



You would expect the glamour nerf to roughly double the number of hits against Vans, but an E9 bless will reduce the number of hits by something like a factor of 2.5, as well as reducing the damage when an arrow does manage to hit. I'm still kind of surprised the archers did "nothing" to the Vans.

-Max

[llamabeast]

Max! Hello, haven't seen you around for a while. Been on holiday?

[NTJedi]

sum1won said:
Jedi, perhaps you don't understand. The problem with Vanheim is that playing next to them means death. It isn't that they aren't balanced in the long game, it is simply that in the short game they are unstoppable. Start next to them, and die. Simple as that. That doesn't make for a very fun game, unless you also like self-inflicted eye-wounds and volunteer for unneeded amputations.



As I wrote earlier...
Also considering the game has so so many different nations it's nice to have one or two stronger nations... especially for the SP gamers. I could understand the logic of balancing all the nations if there were only 7 or less to choose as we see from most games... but we have 62 nations to choose thus let there be some variety.
HOW many nations can DOMINIONS_3 have until Illwinter is finally allowed to create one super powerful nation? 100? 500? 5000?
If every single game you play has to have all opponent options balanced then it removes the option of playing a multiplayer or singleplayer game with a very strong opponent.
For those who cannot accept the sentences listed above then the answers are simple... either don't use Vanheim in your game since you have almost 60 others to choose OR use a MOD to balance Vanheim as you see fit.

[Sombre]

Or they could be balanced in vanilla and then /you/ could use a mod to make them unbalanced and overpowered, as you see fit. To my mind that would make more sense.

But I believe people have argued this point with you before and you just kept repeating the same stuff, so forget it :]

[thejeff]

Illwinter should make a really unbalanced nation. Armies of cheap recruitable SCs, cheap uber mages, etc.

A nation that even run by the AI, would require an alliance of players to stop it.
That would be a real challenge.

</snark>

[Gandalf Parker]

Ive asked for that from the experts for awhile. Those who feel they know exactly what the AI does and doesnt do well could create a mod for a bigger better AI. If they know how to beat it so easily then it seems they might be able to fix it.

Amos has done a few nations that are not balanced for players, but none that seem to be specifically playing up the AI strengths and removing things the AI overuses.

[Warhammer]

How do you test for balance? What is an effective test?

Does Vanheim win all the MA games it is in? I think the evidence shows that they do not. It also appears that Vanheim is balanced for the entire game, rather than just the beginning or just the end. They have poor researchers and must have a substantial position in the late game so that they can hold on to win. But, if they do not have that position, they will not win.

Let's look at other classic games. In Diplomacy, is Italy balanced? Is Russia or France balanced? No, that is actually part of the game. Everyone must negotiate to set up a situation where Russia or France won't win. Only then can the other nations embark on their own path to victory.

In Republic of Rome, the player that holds the Cornelius family at the beginning of the game has a large advantage. Many have house ruled it so that they do not have such a powerful position, but I find those games less interesting than those with a powerful Cornelius that is guaranteed Censor and a 15 influence at the end of the first turn.

In Empires in Arms, France is far and away the strongest power in the game. Again, only by first curtailing France can the other nations pursue victory.

What people are ultimately upset about is that in MP Dominions if you start next to Vanheim you are hosed. If that is the case, you need to rely on your diplomatic skills to save you.

The thing is, in every massive MP game like Dominions, someone has to be the first two or three players out of the game. It might suck, it might seem like the lottery, but if it wasn't Vanheim, it'd be someone else that people were grousing about. Heck, if all things were equal, the game would eventually stalemate if all players were of equal ability.

[MaxWilson]

llamabeast said:
Max! Hello, haven't seen you around for a while. Been on holiday?



Hi! I had to swear off Dominions for a month while I finished my spring term classes. Now I'm done with coursework and have only my master's thesis to go, so I've permitted myself a bit of fun again. Good to see things are still stable here. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

-Max

[kot23]

Just my two cents on the subject: I agree that total balance cannot be achieved in a specific part of the game: some nations are better for the start of a game (when battles are important to set your initial borders), others are better in the long run (when there is a large empire running).

I don't have that much experience with vanheim, I always thought that Neifelheim was the BEST nation: Niefel Giants with W9N6(+) bless were invincible. warhammer above makes a good point about diplomacy but it is only (half-)supported for MultiPlayer games.

In general, I think that it is good to have different styles in the nations: although this may make them unbalanced, some players may get a far more better playing experience with a style they like more. This variety also increases diplomacy and cooperation in multiplayer games, while in single player... come on, the AI is not _that_ good yet, you can take any nation in the long run if you play carefully.