Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?

[BigJMoney]

My favorite nation right now is Vanheim. This is because of their stealthy playing style, coupled with an air magic focus and the option of minor blood and sacrifices. However, I always feel guilty playing them because they seem to have so much more power and versatility than any other nation I've played so far. I can't find any weaknesses. I can't find any chinks in the Vanheim armor.

Could they possibly be nerfed some time? Please? I really like them, but I don't want an easy game, nor do I want to upset people in MP by choosing them. My suggestion would personally be to make Vans or Valyries non-sacred in this Age (probably Vans).

Just what was on my mind today.

=$= Big J Money =$=

[HoneyBadger]

I don't think they should be nerfed. For one thing, I don't find them personally that appealing to play, which says to me that while they may be powerful, they're not for everybody. If you want more of a challenge in single player just crank up the difficulty factor and add more nations until you start to sweat. As for multiplayer games, if a good nation causes people to complain, then they probably aren't very good players anyway, since the game allows for enough strategy with any nation that one nation that's a little stronger in some areas than another isn't going to break a multiplayer game. I've played a lot of different nations and they all balance out very nicely, considering there's 50 of them and 3 ages to manage. It's just how they balance, not whether or not. Some nations just require less popular strategies to be at their utmost degree of competitiveness. If the nations can be balanced better, objectively, not subjectively, then I'm all for it, but I don't think Vanheim needs to be nerfed and you'd be more than welcome to play it against me if I ever get around to doing a lot of multi-playing.

[CaptainGimpy]

If they have glory ability they should have their armor lessended imho because it's bad enough you have a chance of hitting the wrong guy.

[DrPraetorious]

Oh, no, someone could win!

There are plenty of workable strategies that do quite well against vanheim - I suggest trying a really archer-heavy position; or Abyssia or Jotunheim, both of which have sacred units that beat vanheimers like red-headed nordic stepchildren, glamour or no glamour (with an earth blessing and nature blessing, the vanheim units kill themselves faster than they kill Burning Ones with stabbing.)

You can put void eyes on thugs and send them in to dispel the illusions. You can cast big area of effect spells, against which the illusions provide no defense. Once you've done that, vanheim has mediocre magic (the dwarves are nice), and it has dudes, with axes! This is me, trembling in terror.

Now, occasionally you are going to get rushed and eliminated. You can reduce the viability of rush strategies by playing on larger maps. If you want to play a game without rush strategies - forbid the rush positions. I don't want to play in such games - sometimes you just lose. Them's the breaks. But in any case, if you're going to nerf Vanheim so it isn't viable as a rush position (and by viable, I mean you have a significant chance of taking your first opponent and eliminating him,) it might as well not even be in the game.

[CaptainGimpy]

I usually put the void eyes on my thugs too, I just don't feel like adapting my entire army to the vans when I could just change the strategy on one guy.

[curtadams]

Archer-heavy does not cut the mustard against Vanheim. Between armour, shields, and the fact that half the arrows hit holograms, archers aren't cost-effective at all. Big AOE spells (not 1 hex ones) are not available for some time and most nations can't conventiently cast them anyway. 75% or so of nation designs will have no good counter to Vanheim for 20-30 turns or so and many for considerably longer than that. And that's *without* double-bless strategies. With double bless - (shudder)

And what's wrong with nerfing Vanheim? God knows it doesn't need to be uber in the first few years to be playable. It has good magic, thuggable leaders (a rarity), and even if moderately nerfed those units would be excellent.

[NTJedi]

BigJMoney said:
I can't find any chinks in the Vanheim armor.

Could they possibly be nerfed some time? Please? I really like them, but I don't want an easy game, nor do I want to upset people in MP by choosing them.
=$= Big J Money =$=

The nation can be modded to suit your needs following the instructions inside the modding manual or you can choose another nation. Plenty of fun nations to play for each era. If all nations were perfectly balanced then it would limit game options for SP gamers.

[Edi]

NTJedi said:Some nations should be much more powerful for SP games and MP games. The powerful nations are needed in MP because gamers new to Dominions_3 should be allowed to compete playing the strongest nations. And with SP gamers the stronger nations are needed to provide a greater challenge as the game becomes easier and easier.

Bull****. A newbie player who jumps into a big game with very experienced players will get what's coming and that's probably a sound stomping. At least he'll learn from it. The obvious solution is to play with people more in your own league until you get the hang of it before you try slugging it out against the big boys. My first MP was against a fairly experienced bunch of people and I actually managed to finish fourth out of eight, but that was due to a lot of things, luck as well. My second, I got stomped.

Lamest excuse ever for not tweaking something obviously too strong down a notch or two so that it will only be strong instead of ridiculously strong.

Edi

[NTJedi]

Edi said:
Bull****. A newbie player who jumps into a big game with very experienced players will get what's coming and that's probably a sound stomping.

Yeah lets stomp and pound the newbie player by turn_12 in the blitz game... oh gosh... he never returned... wonder WHY !!

Edi said:
At least he'll learn from it. The obvious solution is to play with people more in your own league until you get the hang of it before you try slugging it out against the big boys.

Based on the type of games available, the type of players in the game and the time available for the newbie player... gamers must choose what works for them.
And even if they do move into a game for newbies, there's no stopping an experienced player from logging in unrecognized and dominating.

Edi said:
My first MP was against a fairly experienced bunch of people and I actually managed to finish fourth out of eight, but that was due to a lot of things, luck as well. My second, I got stomped.

Not everyone has your personality, thus many gamers new to multiplayer gaming will only stomach getting stomped a few times before just flat out quitting. The powerful nations provide the newbie a stronger sense of security when moving into the multiplayer arena.

Edi said:
Lamest excuse ever for not tweaking something obviously too strong down a notch or two so that it will only be strong instead of ridiculously strong.

Edi

There's LOTS of nations for every age and more coming... there's no reason for the game not to have a few very powerful nations which provide more variety into the game. If you want something completely balanced all the way around go play rock, paper, scissors.
If the developers wanted something completely balanced they would not have Vanheim and Helium designed the way they do now. You don't like it... then go develop a mod.

[Zebion]

I got stomped once,about to get stomped twice,learned some new strategies in the process with two nations.


Also learned starting with nearly Pure swamplands nearby usually spells doom for gold reserves , but one does have to press on to learn , whether through victory (To find processes that work) or defeat (to find what plain out doesn't work)