SuperVans!

[PvK]

I don't think magic scale is so vital to research... you can research in some corner without your dominion, and/or use items that overpower the drain - a simple quill will cancel even a drain-3 dominion for research purposes.

PvK

[Stormbinder]

Originally posted by PvK:
I don't think magic scale is so vital to research... you can research in some corner without your dominion, and/or use items that overpower the drain - a simple quill will cancel even a drain-3 dominion for research purposes.

PvK

Well you are going to need hell lot of quills to for all your researchers to compensate for you scales since it is worst reseach items out of 3 avalaible (3 reseach for 5 gems). You are going to have bunch of vans commanders doing nothing but forging new quills every turn. Also if you are going to make quell for all your reseachers, you can pretty much forget about other uses of airgems, which are so good for both forging and summons (Air Queens, Staff of Storm, bows of war, flying bots/carpets, displacement armor, etc. , etc)

[PvK]

Originally posted by Stormbinder:
...
Well you are going to need hell lot of quills

Well I never have...

to for all your researchers to compensate for you scales since it is worst reseach items out of 3 avalaible (3 reseach for 5 gems).

I mentioned quills because they are the easiest to get, as an example of how easy it is to overcome drain-3.

If you're doing serious Construction, then of course the other items are better, and utterly overpower drain scale, even more efficiently.

You are going to have bunch of vans commanders doing nothing but forging new quills every turn.

No I'm not.

Also if you are going to make quell for all your reseachers, you can pretty much forget about other uses of airgems, which are so good for both forging and summons (Air Queens, Staff of Storm, bows of war, flying bots/carpets, displacement armor, etc. , etc)

Ya, but I'm not making quills for all my researchers, except maybe early on. That was just an example that I hoped would illustrate my point that drain-3's effect on research can be overcome (though with effort and cost, of course).

PvK

[Stormbinder]

All right. I though you were suggesting using quells to overpower (meaning fully compensate) -3 reseach on my reseachers as a method to live in drain 3 for Vanheim.

But what other option do you have? As a standard Vanheim you can't have any death 2 mages for skull mentors, and very unlikely to have much death income or even more than few death 1 mages anyway, since you only have 1/7 chance to get a death 1 mage on your expansive national mages. And there are some must-have items on death scale that you will need for you SC if you are to compete in MP (wraithsword is a primary example, or your SC vans will just pass out, especially on water 9 blessing) (180 gp for none blessed reseach 6(3 on drain scale) gnome or 380gp on Van). And affordable ligthless latern (fire 1) is not available until you'll get at Con6, which is very long way to go for Vansheim on drain 3 scale. At the end it's almost like catch22 situation - "you need reseach to get reseach".

I think many other nations would do better than Vans on drain 3 scale, due to their better national reseachers and/or avlaibility of death magic, directly or through more than 1 random picks. Quills alone can only get you that far, as I think we both agreed.

[ May 18, 2004, 06:09: Message edited by: Stormbinder ]

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by Stormbinder:
since you only have 1/7 chance to get a death 1 mage on your expansive national mages. (180 gp for none blessed reseach 6(3 on drain scale) gnome or 380gp on Van).

Dwarfs are not expensive. They are only 180 gold, which is exactly the right price to buy one every single turn. You probably should do this as well, since they are very powerful and useful mages, and you can never have enough of them.

[Stormbinder]

Originally posted by Graeme Dice:

quote:

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Originally posted by Stormbinder:
since you only have 1/7 chance to get a death 1 mage on your expansive national mages. (180 gp for none blessed reseach 6(3 on drain scale) gnome or 380gp on Van).

Dwarfs are not expensive. They are only 180 gold, which is exactly the right price to buy one every single turn. You probably should do this as well, since they are very powerful and useful mages, and you can never have enough of them.

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I do in fact, almost every turn. But you only can recruit them in capital, which strongly limit their availabilty. And each would give you whooping 3 reseach on drain scale. So you would need to build tons of them to have meaningfull reseach, which means very high maintenence cost.

All I am saying is that Vanheim would be very painfull to play on drain 3, probably more so than most other nations, due to lack of cheap mages, very flexible magic pathes (1 random on capital only mages) and lack of death mages for skull mentors. Do you disagree?

[ May 18, 2004, 06:42: Message edited by: Stormbinder ]

[Cheezeninja]

I happen to be very fond of the earth 9/ water 9 blessing. Earth seems much preferable to fire to me... built in reinvigoration for mages, a crapload of protection. With earth and water it boosts both and defense and protection wonderfully, leaving you primarily vulnerable to arrows....which air is uniquely suited to deal with.

[ May 19, 2004, 03:05: Message edited by: Cheezeninja ]