Will Vanheim Ever Become Spayed?

SelfishGene · #1 December 14th, 2006, 01:05 PM

Glamour should be seen less as a combat skill and more a reflection of their pending dissapearance from the world.

In other words, during the early days, the Elven peoples did not need to hide from the prying eyes of the mortal races, but as time goes on and their numbers reduce they become more and more hidden and reclusive.

If you felt the need to compensate them, you could add STR or HP, so that during the "early" days they are more straightfowardly strong, but as the later ages progress they must turn their strength to stealth, or whatever.

SelfishGene · #2 December 14th, 2006, 01:10 PM

Also like i argued in another forum, Vans are too powerful for their cost according to the very balance logic of Dominions . 70 gold? For a 25 stealth, sacred 12 armor, high defense, good attack, fastest cavalry in the game, unit? That's a silly thing

.

Remember, what changed between the games was the concepts of Ages. What passed for a mediocre unit before - like Myrmiddon - suddenly becomes much more powerful in the early eras before there are crossbows or other high armor units.

Vans in Dominions 2 had to go against the full gamut of high-armor/defence units. In the EA, Hellhirdrings have almost as high armor values as any other high end unit. Hellhirdrings and to some extent, Vans, are proportionately much more powerful now than they were in Dom2. The increase cost in research also slowed down magical countersteps.

Edi · #3 December 14th, 2006, 01:11 PM

Of all the ideas in this thread, the suggestion to take away glamour is far and away the stupidest one.

It's one of the defining characteristics of the Vanir, so taking it away will just break things even worse. Increased gold and resource cost, possibly a reduction of defense and perhaps increased strength, giving them less of a stealth bonus and other such could be good solutions. Afaik stealth isn't tied to glamour. It was not in Dom2, glamour units were just given stealth +25 as a matter of thematics, but e.g. the Mother of Tuathas which had glamour only had stealth 0.

Edi

SelfishGene · #4 December 14th, 2006, 01:18 PM

Quote:

Edi said:
Of all the ideas in this thread, the suggestion to take away glamour is far and away the stupidest one.

You're welcome!

Baalz · #5 December 14th, 2006, 02:36 PM

I like PDF's suggestion about removing the van's sacredness, but I'd take it a step further and suggest that you just wipe out the sacredness altogether. You've still got a really good unit, but it's the bless effects that put them over the top. This seems like a good way to ballance them and isn't anti-thematic. They should definately cost more resources to...

SelfishGene · #6 December 14th, 2006, 03:02 PM

There is some love for LA Midgard. I don't know why it's any less prone to spamming then other nations in the early game.

If the Van (under all it's various names) is imbalanced, it's imbalanced in LA as well.

Corwin · #7 December 14th, 2006, 03:31 PM

Quote:

SelfishGene said:
There is some love for LA Midgard. I don't know why it's any less prone to spamming then other nations in the early game.

If the Van (under all it's various names) is imbalanced, it's imbalanced in LA as well.

Not really. Have you played Midgard in MP?
Read the earlier posts by me and Inigo, it states several reasons for it. You have to consider the nation as a whole when making any changes to its untis, or you will end up with broken and unbalanced nations.

BigJMoney · #8 December 14th, 2006, 05:37 PM

Quote:

Baalz said:
I like PDF's suggestion about removing the van's sacredness, but I'd take it a step further and suggest that you just wipe out the sacredness altogether. You've still got a really good unit, but it's the bless effects that put them over the top. This seems like a good way to ballance them and isn't anti-thematic. They should definately cost more resources to...

This is exactly the solution I proposed many pages ago, but my posts are so long that little details like these are hard to extrapolate.

I think this is a fair and thematic difference. "Vans move forth into the world, but lose their holiness by making a pact with men." All while the Valkyries remain faithful and become the only sacred unit available to MA Vanheim.

I think this would work. If this seems too unbearable to the devs and most others in the community, then consider simply giving Vanheim an inherent weakness, and make it thematic. One minor thing would be to take away their Cold1 nature, but that doesn't seem like quite enough to me.

=$=

Reverend Zombie · #9 December 14th, 2006, 06:24 PM

Quote:

BigJMoney said:
If this seems too unbearable to the devs and most others in the community, then consider simply giving Vanheim an inherent weakness, and make it thematic. One minor thing would be to take away their Cold1 nature, but that doesn't seem like quite enough to me.

=$=

Heat vulnerability?

PDF · #10 December 14th, 2006, 07:14 PM

Quote:

Baalz said:
I like PDF's suggestion about removing the van's sacredness, but I'd take it a step further and suggest that you just wipe out the sacredness altogether. You've still got a really good unit, but it's the bless effects that put them over the top. This seems like a good way to ballance them and isn't anti-thematic. They should definately cost more resources to...

I support this idea, in fact it's just a plain better idea than mine, and solves elegantly the issue IMHO