Vanhiem - Looking for a little more help

[OG_Gleep]

I've read I think every post about this nation, and it seems the only way to play them is a bless based strategy. My only experience with this game is Ulm, and I am worried that I will foul everything up before the game even starts. This is for the MP game, but I don't really care who reads this. Is there any other course of action? No post I found really talked about scales, or they were limited in scope when they did. Any advice from Vet Van players on how to go about things, specifically pretender creation, scales and basically a general strategy.

[Truper]

You don't *need* a bless, but certainly Vans and Valkyries are worthy candidates for one.

I'll give you the setup I just used in a blitz today, for what its worth.

I took a Red Dragon, and gave him Fire 9. Fire 9 is a very nice blessing for Vans and Valks - they have quite good combat stats, and their built-in glamour makes them hard to hit - Fire 9 ensures that they themselves hit hard, and can also hit things which are etherial. A lot of pretenders and other sorts of SC count on buffing spells before going into combat. Nothing ruins such an SC's day quite like a number of Fire 9 Valkyries. The point is that the Valks fly, and can interrupt the buffing process.

Scales were as follows: Order 3, Sloth 2, Cold 1, Growth 0,
Misfortune 2, Magic 3, Dominion 6. The thinking here is that I was going to be concentrating mostly on Valkyries, which are expensive in gold, and not so expensive in resources. Therefore I maxed Order, which has the greatest influence on income, took Sloth to get points to spend elsewhere, since the troops I intended to use have a high gold/resource ratio, took the national preference for cold, took some misfortune for more points, since high order surpresses events, and took magic 3 for fast research.

My 1st research goal was Enchantment 1, for Fire Shield. Notice that if on turn 1 you put your starting Vanherse and your Dragon in his human form on research, you will have exactly 20 research points, enought to get ench. 1 in 1 turn. Nice eh? On turn 2, your Dragon is ready to go out conquering. Change his shape to Dragon, script him for Fire Shield, fire closest, and your average indy is toast. He'll use his breath weapon until it runs out of shots, then attack. Experiment a little with the placing, I like putting him a bit forward of center. Avoid heavy cav. and crossbows, most anything else is fair game.

On turn 1, recruit a Vanjarl. Turn 2, make him your prophet. You now have a commander capable of casting Divine Bless, which takes the hassle out of making sure your Vans and Valks get blessed, and who can also cast Fanaticism, something you couldn't do at all with Ulm. On turn 3, he can lead out whatever army you've decided to build. Since you're playing on a rich world, you'll have the cash to go straight for a Van or Valk army if you wish, or you can complement the starting army with some of the mundane troops. I tend to buy a mix of Shapeshifters and Huskarls. The Shapeshifters have low prot, but they regenerate, and are armed with Great Swords, which hit hard. The Huskarls are cheap, and have Javalins, which I find to be very effective in numbers.

After Enchantment 1, I like to get Construction 2. Once I have it, I will often forge a Dwarven Hammer, and use that to forge an Amulet of Missle Protection and some Bracers of Defence for my Dragon. Now even those Crossbow provinces are fair game. You can also forge a couple Owl Quills if you like, for faster research.

After that, I like to get evocation. One of the things that's very nice about Vanjarls is that they have excellent precision. Getting to Evoc. 2 means they can start tossing nice, precise lightning bolts - very nice for helping take out those nasty heavy cav. provinces.

After that, I'd suggest either Thaumaturgy for the site-searching spells, or perhaps Conjuration for Dark Knowledge, if you happen to have gotten a death random, and some province you've taken has a death scale In any case, its probably about time to start finding sites.

Dwarven Smiths are my favorite mages in the entire game. Great at making things, and fun on the battlefield. Blade Wind is wonderful against large masses of lightly armored things, like Skeletons or Vine Creatures. Earmark the smiths with their random in Nature for this role - cast Eagle Eyes, then Blade Wind. Smiths with their random in Fire can do Magma Bolts. Petrify is one of the best anti-SC spells in the game, and the smiths are perfect for it.

Vanjarls can be pretty good thugs. Build them some weapons and the like, have them cast Mistform, and attack. Throw in the occasional Shock Wave

You've also got great stealth if you find that you need it. Not many provinces can resist a Vanherse leading a handful of Vans.

If you're finding lots of Air sites, invest in a Vanadrott. He can forge the air boosters. Give him one of each, and he can summon Air Queens. Bags of Winds are good on the battlefield too, since the elemental is nice, and one turns a Vanjarl into a Thunderstrike-capable mage.

If you want, you can even get into Blood, although if you want to do that seriously, you probably want Blood on the pretender.

Hope this was helpful.

[archaeolept]

van's troops are strong enough that you do not need to play them w/ a bless; in this case, i think probably huskarls and skinshifters, as you can go for sloth then.

you could try a classic SC - say an almost over the top Allfather, 3f 4a 4e 4d
fire gives you fireshield, fire resist, phoenix pyre
air gives you airshield, resist lightning, mirror image, mistform
earth, summon earthpower, ironskin/invulnerability
death - soul vortex

Mix and match as the situation, and your research, demands.
first go for alteration 3 and enchantment 1

scales w/ that build are mausoleum, dominion 8, order 3 sloth 2 cold 2 death 2 misfortune 2 magic 3. They're not great scales, but they get the job done.

Another way to play them w/out any bless is to go for midheim, and etherealize your skinshifters w/ your volvas. a small force of these guys will make mincemeat of almost anything - the problem is one of organization (the volvas have only one strat move and no leadership, and you need to know how to organize some protective/picket arrow catchers).

The attraction of the uber-bless is that incredibly small forces of F9W9 vans can deal w/ most indies, and they are the game's most fearsome recruitable raiders. However, due to how bad the scales have to be, i'm not sure they're quite economical anymore w/ the balance mod.

[PDF]

BTW, regarding Vanheim sacred units, I never had much success with Valkyries. OTOH I've no problem with Vans, that are quite good.
What's a good use of Valkyries ?

[OG_Gleep]

Here's my question about F9 though. Even though the bless is awesome, which from what I have read it is, don't you put a lot of chips in one hand and hope that it comes out okay?

After your pretender is done romping, which I assume there comes a point where you can't continue to have him in the front line up, aren't you SOL with Fire?

Also, with this race, your only lvl 4 priest is going to be your prophet, so essentially the only way to guarentee the right troops get blessed is with him.

Fire has to be the worst school in the summons department, and one of the worst for smithing. The best is going to be king of elemental fire, which is great, but you won't get access to any other schools.

Guess the question is, is Fire 9 worth everything you give up, like say going for Nature/Death 4 Water 2. With that build you can summon a whole lot of stuff, and get death high enough to summon all the neat little things they bring to the table.

Is the strategy with Fire 9 to have one big romping army, as your main hammer, and Auxillary armies to hold the territory you gain?

Arch - Wouldn't those scales be prohibitive of Van though? Death seems to hurt you badly in the long run, as population is the key to taxes? Sloth also takes a toll on taxes. Even though the big guns aren't key to the strategy, and I would assume it would be important to get indies to supplement your forces, which most are heavy on gold as well?

Edit: Just wanted to say thanks for the replies, all 3 have made me adjust my thinking and have helped a great deal trying to sort out what I'm going to do.

PS. I have noticed a lot of comments like yours PDF. Very different feedback from a lot of people concerning Vans and Valks. Is there a reason for this? Some people have had terrible results with both, some with one or the other, and many swear by them. Do they need to be deployed/ordered/blessed/supported in a specific way for them to be effective?

[Tom_Scudder]

With the van's native magicians, you have a 3 earth and a 3 air mage immediately available with 1 random each so you have a shot at 4 earth and 4 air. Even without the random air-boost, you can still summon an air queen with the hat and bag boosters. You need a bit of luck (or empowerment) to get your earth guy up to elemental king levels, but you can still cast a lot with 4 earth, which is easy to build up to.

(And air can summon a 2-N caster (draconians) if you fail to find either druids or jade amazons. Though you need a 3-N caster to really self-boostrap properly. (thistle mace ->4n, treelord staff ->5N) Or a lizard shaman and level 7? conjuration for coatls. Yes, I've been thinking about this a bit too much.)

I agree about fire being a bit low in the summonable-caster department. With abysia and marignon both in the game, you could easily end up with no summonable fire casters at all available.

You COULD split the difference and run, say, a golden naga pretender (or a little weenie rainbow dude) and throw on 3N and/or 2D for pretty cheap - either of which is boostrappable to a pretty high degree, though boostrapping from 2D requires getting to the sceptre of dark regency first, which might be a challenge against human players.

Bear in mind that I'm a total newbie at multiplayer, so I don't know how much of an issue the race for artifacts and unique summons is.

[archaeolept]

golden naga doesn't work for van - they're cold blooded, so almost useless if they ever have to fight in cold dominion...

[Tom_Scudder]

And checking my math in the actual game, I find that it's a false economy to use a weenie rainbow dude to splash a couple paths - those last couple points to get to 9 are expensive. Moloch 9 fire, 3 nature, 2 death leaves 60 points before spending on dominion (starting with dom 3) - a hag similarly appointed also leaves 60 points, before buying up her dominion of 1. In other words, ignore anything I have to say =).

[Truper]

Valkyries are essentially slightly lesser Vans that fly. Use them to get the tactical flexibility flying offers. If you can't think of a use for that flexibility, recruit Vans instead.

Fire is still useful even if your Dragon has retired to the lab. He can at the very least forge fire items, and other nations are going to be employing fire on the battlefield - meaning that things like Red Dragon Scale might be appealing... He's also going to be able to find Fire sites, and you can always alchemize

Every strategy gives up something, and the one I presented is only one among many. In this case you give up some magical flexibility in order to get a very good bless for the best blessable troops in the game, and a pretender who is capable of going out conquering on turn 2.

Blessing outside the prophet's army does take a bit of managing, but isn't that hard.

If you're worried about the nature and death summons, there are a few answers. First off, as Tom pointed out, Druids and Jade Amazons aren't terribly uncommon. Second, you're in a very good position for trade, in order to get boosters you can't make yourself. Dwarven Hammers are one of the best trade baits in the game. Thirdly, in a game with 65% sites, and with a nation that could be taking two provinces a turn from turn 3 on, empowerment is certainly not out of the question.

I find that Death scales do hurt, and I avoid them. On the other hand, Arch always takes them, and he wins all the games I'm in with him

If I'm using Valks instead of Vans, I tend to give them hold and attack orders. They are expensive enough that you won't have many, and not quite tough enough to take on a whole indy province or enemy army themselves. Allow a little time for the engagement to develop, then send in the flying cavalry to deliver the coup de gras.

[Tom_Scudder]

By the way, for some serious fun-with-sailing, try playing Vanheim with both water nations and a couple others on the Urgaia map in single-player. Talk about some serious mobility!