DOOM

[Phobos]

OOC: I took luck on my nation and it paid off fairly quickly.  I got a couple of early bonus gold events and also some events that gave some bonus magic gems.  That allowed me to erect a second fort quickly and start summoning units quickly.  I also got lucky and received a Frost Giant hero on turn 3, he was the big guy that could turn into an eagle.  He came with air magic, which allowed me to search for air magic sites and summon those Spring Hawks.  He was the guy firing those magic arrows at your commanders in your fort, by the way, as I wanted to weaken your defences ASAP.

Reanimation is on the Enchantment path.  It requires a caster with 1 death and in this mod it costs 2 death gems for 10 longdead.  I was surprised to see that Jotunheim summoned Longdead Giants in addition to the normal, human sized longdead.

Pack of Wolves is a Jotunheim special spell, denoted by being highlighted blue.  For 12 nature gems, it summons 20 Dire Wolves, which are fast, moderately tough and surprisingly effective against light armour.

When our forces clashed during the first year, that was deliberate.  I happened to have a scout in the area (luck again) so I moved my own army to intercept yours.  2 reasons, I wanted to know how much trouble I was in and I also wanted to deplete your own armies if I could.

Due to my borders being fairly tight, I had to attack someone if I wanted the room to expand.  I had limited intelligence on my neighbours at that time, but I figured that Vanheim was my closest target that I had a chance of being able to take out quickly.

Your Valkyries were effective at tearing up my back lines, so I made sure I kept a squad in the rear to minimise damage.  In larger numbers, it would have been game over for me.  Your archers were a good counter to my wolves.  Your infantry was leagues better than my goblins, but mixing them in with giants allowed them to hold the line long enough to do some damage (they also drew attacks away from my giants).  If I had not sent reinforcements (Call of the Wild and Call of the Winds; summoned the normal wolves and black hawks respectively), things would have gone very differently.  My army was close to routing a couple of times due to the significant losses inflicted.

By blessing your Vanir, I meant a bless with your sacred units (denoted by the candles on the unit).  The bless is determined by the magic paths your pretender god has.  If your god has 4 ranks in a magic path, those sacred units get a bonus when the bless spell is cast.  The exact effect depends on the magic path.  Nature magic, for example provides regeneration, air magic provides defence against missile attacks.  If your pretender has 9 ranks in a magic path, the effect gains a powerful rider, such as flaming, armour piercing weapons, supernatural quickness or additional armour (fire, water and earth, respectively).  That would potentially make your Van commanders hard(er) to stop, especially if they cast a few other magic spells to buff themselves.  It could also make your Valkyries very hard to counter, even a small squad.

tl/dr:  I got lucky, in no small part due to some favourable events during my first few turns of this game.  Thank you for putting up a good fight.  I hope you have the chance to return the favour in a future game.   

[W8taminute]

You're welcome and thank you for the back story and explanations of the various spells.  I totally understand where you were coming from as my borders were as restricted as yours, maybe more.  Trouble with me was that I made friends with everyone around me except you.  The reason was our initial encounter.  Hence I never attempted to contact you diplomatically because I suspected that trouble was ahead.  Turns out I was right but I didn't realize how right I was at the time.   8)

That initial accident we had made me realize that something was not right.  I understand now what you did after you told me.  Well thought out and very Sun Tzu of you!  I admire your battle logic.  That accident indeed depleted that forces strength and caused me to postpone my invasion of the independents, which in turn bought you the time to grab most of them before I could. 

Ah and now I understand a little better what you mean about bless.  I need to re-create my Vanheim pretender now because he's not optimized as much as he could be if I am going to get bonuses from my bless spells. 

Thanks for the compliment about the fight.  I tried my best but I was limited in troop strength and location of my forces.  It took a while to assemble them into a good defense force, hence why I abandoned my provinces leading up to my capital. 

[alastair]

Yeah- I had a suspicion that there was no bless strategy going on with vanheim.  It's really their main effective strategy, and they expand quickly with a decent bless, so when I saw they weren't expanding, I figured they didn't have much of one.

Some nations are bless-focused, some aren't.   Pythium and Ulm, aren't.  Abysia and bandar can play with or without one.  Mictlan basically requires one. (no decent nonsacred units)

[Wingedflamez]

Shinyu, is sort of hit or miss, the problem is they ave really and priests, and most of their sacreds are summons.

[Phobos]

I think Vanheim can go either way with a bless.  Those Skinshifters of theirs are pretty boss, so if they were to focus on income and start a few werewolf factories, they have good odds to run over the top of anyone before they had the time to prepare.  As I said, I just got lucky.

Their sacred units are pretty good too, so I can see a big bless making them devastating.  Small squads of elite units might have a hard time breaking through fortifications, though I guess they could just camp on a fort until you could raise the numbers to break through.

If I were going to play them, I would probably split the difference and go for income + a couple of minor blesses.  That way I could have both sacred units and lots of skinshifters to play with.  When I played a game as Fomoria (they have air magic too), I noticed that the nature bless (regeneration) works pretty well with the spell Mistform.  To be honest, I read a comment on another forum, by a player named Baalz that explained the synergy between Mistform and regeneration.  Mistform is a low level alteration path spell that greatly reduces the damage from attacks. The Van hardly ever get hit in melee, so when they do get hit, the damage is reduced, then they heal it almost immediately due to the bless.  I might try that out in a single player game to see how effective it is with Vanheim. 

[Faux]

It is with sad regret that I must inform you of Vanheim's demise.  We can not salvage our situation even with economic or military aid.  I've gone ai.  Good gaming with you all and enjoy!  I have resided myself to retire to SP gaming until I am more proficient with Dom3. 

One day I will return to MP gaming in Dom3.   ;D

You should take a look at this high-level spectator game over at Desura: http://www.desura.com/games/dominions-3-the-awakening/forum/thread/the-spectacle-of-perspicuity. Some of the players are even making videos explaining their thoughts turn by turn. Austen in particular has some pretty awesome vids and he's playing Helheim so you could pick up some nice tips for any Heim nation by watching those. You can also download all the turn files if you really want to see how they play. Here's a link to Austen's videos: http://www.youtube.com/user/dmitchell214/videos.

[parone]

a bit of history!!!

Balz was THE premier guide writer back in the heyday of vanilla(non cbm) dominions.  for whatever reason, he left the community, but his guides are great, and he comes up with some really unorthodox ideas.  keep in mind they are not cbm, but you can often get good ideas from his guides, and at the very least, they are fun to read.

Austen and I played in both of our first MP games!!  I should have killed him, but he beat me by cheating(read: we were both newbs, but he was a MUCH better player than I ;))

since then he has gone on to glorious things in the dominions world.  I, on the other hand, took a long hiatus, came back, and basically have not improved. :-[

the point, the point, what was the point????

oh, I remember!  he was a Vanheim specialist in those days.  By far his best nation.  so if anyone has any questions,(especially on Van/Helheim) PM him.  very helpful dude, and I bet he would get back to you.

also, if you are watching Austen's or Maerland's video(ryleh) take the time to leave a comment on the thread.  those videos take a long time to do, so give em a thanks and an attaboy!

[Wingedflamez]

Ballz guides are awesome. He goes into great detail about stuff without putting so much information it doesn't make sense. Which is nice.

So nobody knows why he left. He probably got burned out after all those strategy guides and moved on to somhing else.

I'm watching the R'lyeh videos now, probably gonna watch the heim ones later. I really like R'lyeh, want to play them in a game sometime.

[Phobos]

So nobody knows why he left. He probably got burned out after all those strategy guides and moved on to somhing else.

5 minutes on google and I found an answer.  He felt there was a bullying campaign directed toward him and others.  Players going by the name of Maerlande and Calahan make an appearance.  Feel free to check out their attitude towards Baalz and other players by doing a search of your own if you are interested.

[gp1628]

Quite a few active developers were chased off by that group. Finally one was banned from Shrapnel and others followed. They formed their own forum where they felt the true developers resided. They felt that Shrapnel had shot itself in the foot.

I used to argue the point. But it seems the developers of Dominions might be on board with it. That same group is now the moderators of the new official forums putting their concepts into hard rules. And they are the beta testers of Dom4.

[Wingedflamez]

Yeah. The forums that they jumped to when banned from shrapnel were the first forums I actually joined. Then I redirected here hen this game fired up. They all seemed like pretty decent peoples. Maybe slightly elitist prices, but that happens, and it sounds like they have the knowledge, and experience to back it up.

If half of what they said about Baalz is true, that is sad, but it further justifies his guides, his guides are all about maximizing the strengths of you nation mostly in early game. At least that's what I got out of it.

The key is, and this I definitely agree with Callahan on, is that you have to understand that guides are describing perfect situations, and those are rare. But the key is that the guides can show you what a nation is capable of, it's strengths, weaknesses, and then you have to go from there. Which imo Baalz guides do very well.

[Huw the Poo]

Players going by the name of Maerlande and Calahan make an appearance.

Colour me surprised...

[parone]

what key words did you use phobos? 

Callahan's version of why Baalz left was quite different...

[gp1628]

The thing I liked about Baalz guides (and others) is that they tried to have fun with the nation. Often in a way that matched the nations theme.

That did tend to draw comments from spreadsheet players focused on winning and deciding the worth of one unit against another down to a single gold. Altho I understand the concept of their favorite guides, I tended to find them boring.

Maybe its because Im more of an RPGer instead of a Strategy gamer. I like the creative games or solo play so any fun strategies were enjoyable for me to read.

[Wingedflamez]

http://z7.invisionfree.com/Dom3mods/index.php?showtopic=421

That's the page I found where Callahan goes on his rant.