Is it just me or is Hellheim troops way to strong?

[Teraswaerto]

I think something people will often overlook is that Helheim and Vanheim don't just have very powerful units, but they also have the best stealth abilities in the game. Better than Pangaea, which is supposed to be the great stealth nation.

It's not necessary to use that power when you can dominate the battlefield, but it's there, and having some extra special strategy cooked up that can beat an army of Vanir will help only if they all gather up into a nice bunch for you to kill.

[KissBlade]

Only their sacreds really. Come early mid game, a good Helheim player at war with you will literally be all over your empire except where your main army is. Standard anti raiding squads won't work because Helheim raiders crushes them. You can tell you're fighting a good helheim when your chokepoints simply don't work. Between flying Dis + Valk raiders with stealthy helherdlings, it's a toughie for most nations. Especially if research is kept at standard pace. Evocation spells DO work, but as the above poster, the harder part is actually catching them in the act. Caelum is actually pretty strong, lightning bolt => thunder strike is a legitimate counter against Helheim as well as your standard mammoth/wingless group to hold them off.

Judging from your dismissal of magic though, that is probably why you're having trouble. As numerous people pointed out in this thread, magic plays a very large part of this game. In fact, the reason you're probably having a tough time is because you're dismissing it so easily. Especially because Caelum is a magic nation!

[lch]

General_Jah said:
Perhaps casters are only good late game and I just rushed to them real early.. i dont know... my strategy was to crank out non stop my eagle kings so i could cruise around nuking armies but it didn't work out when I started running into these huge 200-300 unit armies, especially when they were controlled by Hellheim and Vanheim

A-Ha! Please don't forget that the AI gets more money and resources in higher AI levels than normal. If you're fighting a hard or impossible AI, then no wonder that he can spam Helhirdings and Vans and run you over with those. A MP gamer would not be able to do that. Recruiting Helhirdings is the only option for Helheim, though, as all the other units are merely chaff...

KissBlade said:
Between flying Dis + Valk raiders with sailing helherdlings, it's a toughie for most nations.

Helheim doesn't sail!?

[mathusalem]

Helheim doesn't sail

[KissBlade]

Oops, yes I meant STEALTHY XD. Mind bargled.

[Sombre]

Aren't these overpowered nations somewhat toned down in the Conceptual Balance Mod?

[Morkilus]

Their cost was increased. The veteran players don't seem to think it's a problem. In my Helheim MP game, I was able to expand pretty quickly, but the Helhirdings are quite the liability because of their cost when having to face the right kind of army: in this case, a huge number of Wind Guided Warrior Maidens. The hail of arrows is usually enough to pop the glamour, and then the Helhirdings fall as fast as any other heavy cavalry. I've pretty much decided they aren't that great as a regular troop; you're better off just using them against indies and as raiders as KissBlade suggested.

[General_Jah]

DrPraetorious said:
200-300 units? That's a lot of vanir.

Air spells are not great for damage output. Thunderstrike is nice, but yeah, it isn't going to be decisive. If you want decisive impact from zaps, you want fire or water.

If you want good use out of your air magic - go into alteration. Wind Guide makes a *huge* difference in the effectiveness of your archers - they hit roughly twice as often, in my experience. Of course, you only need that once per army.

Phantasmal Army is also a great spell. If you can get ten guys to cast that (which you should, if you're facing up against 200-300 helhirdlings), that's a whopping 250 guys. They're not great units individually, but they can pin the helhirdlings down (especially with no fire bless) while your real units pepper them with wind-guided arrows.

Other than that, the evocation that really shines against glamour armies is freezing mist. You don't care much about the damage that it deals, but it pops their glamour. You may need to put water-boosting items on your guys before they can cast it, though.

Magic has to be used situationally - if you're not familiar with the magic list, it can seem pretty useless. Unlike in dom2, you don't just grab a bunch of guys and tell them to hurl lightning bolt - you can still do that, but in dom3 it generally isn't cost effective (but it depends on who you are fighting.)

If you can get science fiction levels of magic, note that many of your units are lightning immune. If you switch to an entire army of Storm Guard, and give a few of your eagle kings a stack of air gems each, they can shoot shimmering fields, which is a spell that really will kill an entire army of Vanir all by itself.

thanks for the advice with the archers, I will try that... BUT in my experience archers just dont do much damage due to the fact heavily armored troops can shrug off their arrows with ease... Almost all of Hellheims troops have pretty good armor

Do you find archers are useful even against more heavily armored foes?

[Maltrease]

Thunderstrike should be very effective. You just need lots of chaff. Try something like Aim (or better windguide) then Thunderstrike x 3 and retreat. Spread enough chaff around to delay his troops. If you are blasting Helherding ranks you are popping 100 gold per thunderstrike hit. As long as your Eagle Kings survive you can throw away 20-30-40 archers (2-400 gold) you will do far more damage.

[KissBlade]

I should point out another reason Helheim was considered overpowered before was because of the recruitment bug.