Why no love for Caelum?

[Schmoe]

I was browsing through the games on Mosehansen's server, and I noticed that an inordinate number of them said "no Caelum." Now, I could understand if they said "no Ermor", given people's dislike of fighting against a ruined nation, but the choice of Caelum surprised me.

What is it about Caelum that people hate so much?

[The Panther]

Several people think it is too strong. And they don't like the usual Caelum flying attack which jump over provinces and can hit you out of the blue.

[Cheezeninja]

Its the flavour of the month.

[Cohen]

Personally I think Caelum and dead Ermor are too strong.

Caelum has A2W1 mages at 100 Gold, and A3W2?1 mages for 180 gold.
They fly and are cold immune.
They can trapeze, quickness, cast lightning that ignores armor, and such.

A Marignon F3S2?1 mage or an Abysya B3S2?1 mage, to compare magic paths numbers, costs 270 gold.
They don't fly, nor they paths are so powerful as the Caelumnian ones.
It is justified by devs that Caelum is a magocracy ... well, so on considering the game is most winned by magic, why not everyone wants a full magic nation (like Caelum, or Pythium, to say).

[The Panther]

In the next patch, I really hope that they increase the cost of Caelum mages to be more on par with the other races.

[Duncanish]

Caelum is actually very well balanced. Their troops are quite weak, and the beefier units are resource intensive. The only real draw for Caelum is it's mages, which is thematically appropriate, being a society ruled by it's mages. If the Seraph's were nerfed, Caelum would turn into a weak nation, and thus, unbalanced. Luckily, the devs agree. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

I doubt this will happen anytime in the future. Don't get your hopes up about Caelum and Ermor. The minor adjustment to Dead Ermors has made them a midrunner, which is right where they should be considered they were at one point, the weakest of nations.

[Schmoe]

Caelum has A2W1 mages at 100 Gold, and A3W2?1 mages for 180 gold.
They fly and are cold immune.
They can trapeze, quickness, cast lightning that ignores armor, and such.

A Marignon F3S2?1 mage or an Abysya B3S2?1 mage, to compare magic paths numbers, costs 270 gold.
They don't fly, nor they paths are so powerful as the Caelumnian ones.
It is justified by devs that Caelum is a magocracy ... well, so on considering the game is most winned by magic, why not everyone wants a full magic nation (like Caelum, or Pythium, to say).



True, Caelum has cheap(er) mages. But their troops are pretty much crap. Any nation with stealth units can make similar strikes deep into enemy territory. Plus, taking territory is easy, holding it is expensive. Even if Caelum is raiding your heartlands, a few smaller armies should be able to mop up behind them.

Cold resistance doesn't do much, IMHO. The only time I see cold having an effect is with SC's, and you don't want to melee SC's with your mages, anyway. I would much rather have fire resistance or electricity resistance. I would probably even prefer poison resistance over cold resistance.

Abysia has other strengths, such as blood. An army of devils led by a couple of demonbred has exactly the same flying capability as a Caelum army, and the troops are much, much, much better.

Marignon has inquisition, which is very effective at pushing dominion.

As another example, Machaka has 80 gold Witch Doctors. They also have Black Sorcerers, which, for 70 gold more than Caelum mages lose flying but turn into beefy hunter spiders when wounded.

I could go on, but the point is, I just don't see it.

Just for example, I would think Vanheim would have a pretty easy time against Caelum. The Vans can be on the Caelum troops so quickly that the mages don't have time to do much, and the Vanadrotts can make an entire army resistant to electricity. Plus, Vanheim's stealthy troops can wage the same hit-and-run war that Caelum can, plus they can dominion push or summon with blood from the Vanjarls.

I'll conclude by saying that I have less experience with Caelum than pretty much any other nation, so I could be very wrong, but I think it's a shame when people ban or "nerf" nations or strategies they find difficult to counter, rather than trying to figure out a counter.

[Sheap]

Personally I think Caelum and dead Ermor are too strong.

Caelum has A2W1 mages at 100 Gold, and A3W2?1 mages for 180 gold.
They fly and are cold immune.
They can trapeze, quickness, cast lightning that ignores armor, and such.



Trapeze, lightning and quickness are just what their magic paths do. You don't get to complain about their paths, and the spells they can cast with them, at the same time http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Caelum has tons of problems. Yes, they are strong if you play right into their strengths, but that's true of everyone. Here are just a few of the problems...

1) Caelum troops fly, but relying only on the flying troops results in extremely weak units. The only flying unit they have that is also a good fighter is the Iceclad. But the iceclads cost so much that without a productivity scale you can build only a very few. And if you DO take productivity, you lose many points as otherwise you could easily afford sloth.

2) Caelum has serious, serious problems in heat scale. Of course, this is only useful if you happen to have heat scale http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

3) Caelum flying units can strike behind lines, but if they do that, any of them that rout die instantly.

4) Poor forging ability. Insignificant ability in earth, death, and blood is going to give them a hard time making many of the better items.

5) One-dimensional magic. Caelum can't summon anything useful except Air Queens, unless they build a blood economy around their pretender.

6) Caelum has a hard time with SCs that resist cold and lighting. Other than phantasmal warriors and false horrors, they don't have a lot of stuff that can stop an SC. And those only really slow them down, not stop them.

7) Their mages are at cross-purposes with their units. The mages want storms to protect themselves against enemy fliers and improve their lightning; the units want no storms so they can fly and shoot arrows.

[The_Tauren13]

well, if caelum's strength is in its mages, and its weakness is its troops, how is that balanced? mages, as a general concept, are far more useful than troops.

[Sheap]

well, if caelum's strength is in its mages, and its weakness is its troops, how is that balanced?



There are really two kinds of magic in the game. Combat magic, and ritual magic (including summons and globals). Caelum's mages are very strong at combat magic, and very bad at ritual magic. Combined with their inherently bad troops, it gives Caelum real problems coming up with any powerful fighting units (or gems to make them) at all.

[Stormbinder]

Well, my personal largest grip with Caelum is that it is the only nation in the game, against which any number of PD are totally meaningless. Single 100gp seraphim with no troops can rout even 20+ PD of any nation with no problem. All it need to do is to cast Quickness + endless line of false horrors. Couped with Caelum's ability to strike anywhere anytime it force any nation who is fighing competent Caelum player to madcastle like crazy.

I think it would be good if either false Horror spell would be made harder to cast (even a little bit, like Fatigue 10 air 2/3), and/or their "fear" value should be sharply decreased, or the price of the seraphims should be slightly increased.

[The_Tauren13]

from my ( very limited ) experience, archers will kill the ol quickness + false horror trick because the archers target the mage instead of the horrors

[Zapmeister]

from my ( very limited ) experience, archers will kill the ol quickness + false horror trick because the archers target the mage instead of the horrors



Sure. But he was talking about local defense.

[The_Tauren13]

dont some nations get some kind of archer for PD? or am i more n00b then i thought. heh.

That is the absolute first time I've heard of Caelum being the 'province defense killers'. There are alot of problems with Province defense and it's feasibility/usability vs Castles, but Seraph are not top on the list. Any point after turn 20 in the game there are so many things that can kill high costing PD that Seraphs are the least of your worries.

Anything with Raise Skeletons, quickness/frozen heart, false horror, blade wind can clear most PD without much effort. The main problem with PD is that they are so vulnerable to even mini-combatants.

Caelum is more than likely Banned in most of those games, because of the new influx of Map Designers, and their tendancy to overterrain maps. Causing nearly all nations to be at a strategic disadvantage and Air being more overwhelming than it already is. In such instances of heavy terrain flagged maps, flying is king and Caelum is king of flying and Air Gems for summons that fly and flying boots.

[The_Tauren13]

that sounds very reasonable, zen.
perhaps thats why i like small, clear maps like inland or urgaia

[Sheap]

Ulm gets crossbowmen for defense. If they manage to hit the mage, that will take it out quite rapidly. But if the mage is far enough in the back that doesn't work.

Rlyeh gets an Illithid Lord commander who can whack the mage with a mind bLast - it's a question of whether the spell works before the false horrors scare all the chaff away.

Marignon gets crossbowmen too, but only with their "second stage" PD.

Other races get slingers but that is not useful against anything http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Kristoffer O]

Slingers are useful vs false horrors.

[Stormbinder]

That is the absolute first time I've heard of Caelum being the 'province defense killers'.



Everything happens for the first time Zen. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif Name any other national 100gp commander who can kill/rout any realistic number of PD without any items. Single Sauromancer with raise skeletons (or Dwarf with bladewind) would not even come close, despite costing 180gp. Unlike skeletons, flase horrors are flying, eterial, high defense, and they mostly rout, not kill. The effect is the same though.

[Stormbinder]

Ulm gets crossbowmen for defense. If they manage to hit the mage, that will take it out quite rapidly. But if the mage is far enough in the back that doesn't work.

Rlyeh gets an Illithid Lord commander who can whack the mage with a mind bLast - it's a question of whether the spell works before the false horrors scare all the chaff away.

Marignon gets crossbowmen too, but only with their "second stage" PD.

Other races get slingers but that is not useful against anything http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif



Yeap, and of course mage is located far in the back and in the corner - lesser horrors are flying.

If you want to be absolutely safe, you can also take 2-3 archers with you, and postion them in chessbaord mannerfar in the back, while your 100gp mage keep casting 2 fasle horrors per turn.

[tinkthank]

I think Sheap is dead on with his excellent summary of Caelum and its weaknesses, to which a large number can be added easily.

One could note that both Man (tuatha) and Van have very very easy access to what Stormbinder calls "PD-killers", only that they are more expensive and much much beefier (and with glamour, yikes). Tien Chi S&A comes to mind too, and standard Tien as well with a pair of super-cheap flying boots. Well tons of nations can fulfill the role of PD-killer with flying boots, actually, but whatever.
I find Caelum to be very strong -- but, like Ermor (which I dont find that strong in MP), fairly inflexible. Strong, but not crying for a nerf; strong, but not bannable from games.

[Endoperez]

Well tons of nations can fulfill the role of PD-killer with flying boots, actually, but whatever.




I am wondering why no one is saying Return of Raptors too weak (edit: meant strong http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/redface.gif). It does have the same pd-killers as Caelum, has Death magic to summon number of creatures and toughies and Earth magic to equip them, as well as strong Air magic to summon Queens of Air. Also, if they ever get anything that boosts Earth magic besides Earth Boots they will have lots of fun with Staves of Elemental Masteries...



I find Caelum to be very strong -- but, like Ermor (which I dont find that strong in MP), fairly inflexible. Strong, but not crying for a nerf; strong, but not bannable from games.



I totally agree with this.

[Cohen]

Because their best mage, the Harab Elder, costs far more than an Arch-Seraph, and is capitol only.

Meanwhile Caelum could recruit in every of his castle an Arch Seraph ...

I don't see Caelum inflexible at all.
It's like most nations, with his best mage with 1 random pick.

And I don't think their troops are weak.
Prec 12 Archers, with wind guide base spell, and a Seraph, are good enought to conquer no knightly provinces.
Even you can avoid knight provinces flying around and over.
You can avoid to get bottled and lost turns coming back into your provinces.

Caelum troops are expensive in resources too because:
A: Their armor raises protection in cold provinces.
B: Almost all their weapons are considered magic.(get rid of Etherealness, break mistform).

[Endoperez]

Because their best mage, the Harab Elder, costs far more than an Arch-Seraph, and is capitol only.




I know why Return of Raptors is considered weak, I just wondered why Caelum is over- and RoR underpowered. Harab Elders are, after all, Arch Seraphs with level 2 priestly magic instead of random and with correct price-tag (check this post (http://69.56.133.54:81/threads/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=UBB74&Number=273692&Forum= f74&Words=%2Bhow%20%2Bmuch%20%2Bshould%20%2Brandom %20%2Bmage%20%2Bcost&Searchpage=0&Limit=50&Main=27 3672&Search=true&where=sub&Name=&daterange=1&newer val=&newertype=w&olderval=1&oldertype=w&bodyprev=# Post273687) for hard numbers ).



Meanwhile Caelum could recruit in every of his castle an Arch Seraph ...




In fact, the post which I gave link to says that High Seraph costs 60% of the price modding price guide would give to a similar mage, giving it "real" price of ~290... Saying that Harab Elders are too expensive for what they are seems out-of-place in a thread which says that High Serpah's price should be higher, especially when Harab Elder costs about the amount of what High Seraph should but is sacred.



I don't see Caelum inflexible at all.
It's like most nations, with his best mage with 1 random pick.




I thought inflexible in this case meant that Caelum cannot do that many things with its mages. Sure, they are great in battle, but no that good outside it. Is there any non-unique summon you are looking forward as Caelum? Which one/s? What are you looking forward to as, say, Vanheim? Air and Water are not that good paths for items either, with Quickness-granting items as an exception for Water and some multipath items for Air...

Master's of the Way. Seithkona, Theurgs (At 150), Initiates of the Deep.

There are quite a few, they just don't happen to all fly as well. If you are so concerned with PD and their lack of fightability during any stage of the game, you are probably up the ganjies without a paddle.

[Boron]

hm i didn't play caelum much and have not an as long expierience in dominions as you zen and stormbinder but i think stormbinder is really right about caelum .

until turn 20-30 you have a very hard time to defend against a good caelum player i think .

that all their troops have magic weapons is brutal.
earlygame some caelum fliers can kill almost every sc pretender who needs to buff first and has little protection .

they can produce the most mages and everywhere .
earlygame the battle lightning spells like lightning / orbligthning are very brutal too because most nations can't protect their troops in this stage via lightning .

then just switch to stormbinders described battle tactic .
even for a seraph with 2a the false horror causes only about 9 fatigue( when i understand the sytem right perhaps a bit more or less) so he can masssummon horrorhordes .

20 mages doing this is would be 40 horrors each combat round and as caelum 20 mages are hard to get .

they have airqueens later as Uberscs and they can clamhoard .

from cold 3 you get +120 extrapretenderpoints and you can take sloth 3 too with them .


i think the main problem is that no other nation can earlygame attack 5-10 provinces in 1 turn with stormbinders described methods .

this way they easy can encircle others and then when they rout all is wiped out .
scs who need to buff do bad against them .

so i think stormbinder and cohen are really true claiming caelum is too strong .

[Boron]

it forces you to madcastle . so when you would need a expensive 40 admin castle where you can only castle chokepoints / special provinces for resources you look really bad against caelum ( and to a lesser extent against abysia with flying demon armies ).

perhaps i am unexpierienced but name me any other race who can earlygame with only mages + national troops attack 5+ provinces at once and wipe out pd + a small garrison easy .

and lategame thnx to their clamhoard abilities + many points in pretenderdesign they can either make a clamhoard industry or get lots of blood too with the B1 high seraphs / sages .

so caelum is probably really too strong .

[Kel]

until turn 20-30 you have a very hard time to defend against a good caelum player i think .

earlygame some caelum fliers can kill almost every sc pretender who needs to buff first and has little protection

they can produce the most mages and everywhere .
earlygame the battle lightning spells like lightning / orbligthning are very brutal too because most nations can't protect their troops in this stage via lightning .

then just switch to stormbinders described battle tactic .
even for a seraph with 2a the false horror causes only about 9 fatigue( when i understand the sytem right perhaps a bit more or less) so he can masssummon horrorhordes .

20 mages doing this is would be 40 horrors each combat round and as caelum 20 mages are hard to get .

i think the main problem is that no other nation can earlygame attack 5-10 provinces in 1 turn with stormbinders described methods .




I have little opinion on whether Caelum is over-powered or not (or at least over-powered enough to warrant a nerf).

However, I would like to point out that everyone seems to be talking about using false horror and orb lightning in the early game but these aren't level 1-3 spells. Orb lightning is what, level 5 in evo and false horror is alt-6, iirc ?

Yes, you can get to one of these levels fairly quickly but if we are still talking about early game, we are only talking about a fairly narrow time frame, after they have researched the spells but before it becomes mid game (the definition of mid game probably varies, anyway).

Don't get me wrong, I definitely think they are strong at that certain point in the game but you have to look at the whole game to determine balance, most races are stronger at certain points in the game. Again, I am not saying that they are or are not over-powered, I am just saying that being strong for a 10-15 turn timeframe is not, in and of itself, over-powering.

To compare them to Ermor, in terms of there ability to conquer indies, isn't fair as Ermor is much more effective at bulldozing indies in *all* of the early game, which is far more important, than just the latter portion of the early game.

- Kel

[Thufir]

I'll conclude by saying that I have less experience with Caelum than pretty much any other nation, so I could be very wrong, but I think it's a shame when people ban or "nerf" nations or strategies they find difficult to counter, rather than trying to figure out a counter.



Schmoe, I agree, but please don't be too hard on us "Caelum wusses". I promise next time I host a MP game to permit Caelum. And I'll even send you a PM prior to posting the game open message. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

I don't have enough experience for these detailed balance discussions, but within those limits I'm inclined to believe those that are arguing that Caelum is not in need of a nerf. From my first SP games with Dom2 exploring various pretender/nation setups, I've never had the sense that Caelum was unbalanced. Instead, I had the sense that Caelum's units were weakened a bit to compensate for it's very important tactical advantage of flight. As far as I can tell, Caelum was designed well both aesthetically (or thematically, as people say around here) and from the balance point of view.

That said, Dom2 has got a very steep learning curve - IMO, it's kind of like the worst case between Chess (or better yet Go) and say Avalon Hill's Advanced Squad Leader (for those too young to remember that one - it had a fat 3 ring binder for rules that could take you weeks to read!). Usually, games as complex as ASL have a steep learning curve, but then once you learn a few key optimizations, your strategic options narrow dramatically. From that point the space in which you do your strategic planning is much smaller than in Go or Chess, and the game becomes considerably easier to play and improve in. Because Dom2 is so well balanced (IMHO), this narrowing of options doesn't seem to occur.

I suspect that there are many players out there, even at the intermediate level, that are still a bit overwhelmed by how much there is to learn in Dom2 play. From this perspective, it is very appealing (and possible) to chop out a good chunk of that learning curve by disallowing Caelum. Yes other nations are capable of inner province raiding, but no other nation depends on it. I can't imagine that a well played Caelum didn't include raiding as a key part of its strategy.

Of course, you could make a similar argument for Ermor, not in the sense of their depending on raiding, but that their unique abilities require them to be countered quite differently than most nations. However based on my initial SP play, I suspsect it's easier to learn how to counter Ermor, especially via SP play (I doubt the AI makes good use of Caelum's tactical advantage). Also, who can imagine an epic fantasy game that doesn't include undead?!

All in all, I look forward to playing MP games with/against Caelum, but I'm happy not to have had them in my first two MP games http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[JJ_Colorado]

Caelum has strengths but to say that they are too strong is just panic. Most nations have some strengths. It's how you play the nation that makes them strong. I have seen games where Caelum is destroyed in the early game, games where Caelum is destroyed in the mid-game, and hopefully soon a game where Caelum is about to be destroyed in the late-game (by me - LOL). http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Anyway, Abysia has great strengths as well. Some people think their blood magic is almost unstoppable if they survive to middle game. I know that's not true.

Some people think Ermor is unstoppable all the time. I know that's not true.

Some people think Arco is unstoppable in mid-late game. I disagree.

Some people think Vanheim is overpowered throughout the game. I disagree.

Some people think Jotunheim is too powerful early and mid-game in particular. I disagree.

Ulm is very very strong early in the game.

I could go on and on, but I do not believe Caelum is overpowered...it depends on how good the player is and whether the player plays to the nation's strengths...any nation can be powerful if played correctly.

Regds,
John

[Boron]

@ kel i said that earlygame either horrors or lighning / orb lightning .

lightning is only evo 2 so researching lighning against knights and the like and then alteration 6 doesn't take too long especially since the caelum mages are so cheap and you can build soon 2 / turn with your first castle/lab and take magic 3 scale easy (cold 3 pays that e.g. )

i doubt that ermor is better earlygame they have to decide whether to research or to expand .
and more important :
ermor can't fly and even earlygame has a hard time to overwhelm enemies with good priests , d1 mages ( dust to dust ) .

i think no other race can attack out of the sudden lots of provinces like caelum with good chances to succeed like caelum early-midgame .

caelum would win against ermor most likely too easy .
stealthpreach seraphines and the ermorian hordes get killed easy by the lighningspells etc.
the archers will kill lots of ermorian undeads quick too .

kel could you please share why you think ermor is perhaps overpowered . i personally find them weak though i like them .
furthermore i think lots of ermor is overpowered has to do with 2 reasons :
pre 2.12 : vq for ermor
norfleet often played ermor

[Boron]

hm perhaps a bit of fear for caelum and ermor comes really because norfleet played these 2 races very often right ?

[Cainehill]

hm i didn't play caelum much and have not an as long expierience in dominions as you zen and stormbinder but i think stormbinder is really right about caelum .

until turn 20-30 you have a very hard time to defend against a good caelum player i think .

that all their troops have magic weapons is brutal.
earlygame some caelum fliers can kill almost every sc pretender who needs to buff first and has little protection .

[...]

so i think stormbinder and cohen are really true claiming caelum is too strong .



And I think that anytime that Cohen and Stormbinder agree on something, they're 100% wrong. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

You talk about Caelum's magic weapons being a problem in the early game. How is that a problem? The only thing magic weapons do is allow a unit to hit ethereal units normally. How many ethereal independents are there? For that matter, how many ethereal pretenders? (Oh no! Caelum can give Vampire Queens a problem! Boo hoo!)

Okay - Caelum can give _some_ SCs and pretenders a hard time. But only if the SC / pretender is all on his lonesome, and even then most SCs or Pretenders will slaughter Caelum's flyers, causing them to rout PDQ. If they have troops with them, even quicker.

Similarly, Caelum's flyers aren't much good against indies, at least no more so than regular archers. The melee flyers rush up, get hit a few times, and rush right out, routing in a heart beat. They're frail and they don't have terribly good morale.

If you want to use the Storm Guards and Iceclads, you aren't going to be taking any Sloth 3 - those puppies cost almost 3 times as much for resources as gold, meaning that you probably want to take productivity if intending to use them much. Similarly, the sacred Temple Guard is very resource intensive, and it can't fly.

In addition, they're all size 3 except for the non-flyers - have too many of them in a province and they start starving, even picking up diseases the same turn they moved in sometimes.

Then if you use Mammoths, temple guards, wingless, you're not flying and not mobile.

And as other people have pointed out - False Horror and Orb Lightning aren't low level spells. Nations with death magic can do just about as well with small Groups of mages casting Raise Skeletons / Raise Dead, and they can get the spell much quicker - research level 3 instead of 6 / 5.

Vanheim and LoT Man can also take many indies with not much more than their mage commanders, and Vanheim doesn't even need to use their top-tier mage to do it.

Frankly, I think people are currently whining and complaining about Caelum because they've gotten smacked around by the nation, often when played by Norfleet. And if Norfleet was cheating in most of his games, then bloody hail, Caelum romping _then_ doesn't really signify much in real terms, does it?

Instead of going on about how Caelum is overpowered, try playing it a few times. It ain't that great for real early expansion, and has numerous weaknesses and issues. Probably half the nations are better / quicker for early expansion (first 10-20 turns), and some can get just as many or more pretender points from their scales - Vanheim, the aquatics, Jotunheim, Pangaea, and most definately Abysia.

[Cohen]

I'm in a game trying Caelum.
They're awesome in early expansion.

Far better than Pythium or Abysya.

[Kel]

lightning is only evo 2 so researching lighning against knights and the like and then alteration 6 doesn't take too long



You are entirely missing my point. I said, myself, it doesn't take that long. I also said that nonetheless it is a portion of the early game in which they are not 'over-powered' by your definition (early expansion). Thus, they are only powerful, in the way you describe, in the latter part of the early game. That doesn't seem so bad to me.

As for using lightning early on, are you really saying that in the first 10 turns, you are expanding faster than other nations by using lightning scripted seraphs ? Pfft, and you are still getting to level 6 research fast, too ?



kel could you please share why you think ermor is perhaps overpowered . i personally find them weak though i like them



I didn't say they were. I said they were good at early expansion against indies. I don't think that early expansion against indies is the only factor to consider in determining whether a nation is over-powered. In fact, that was the whole point of my post http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

And all this stuff about Norfleet and what he played is ridiculous. I only played with Norfleet a couple times, a long time ago, let's not use him as a basis for every single discussion of balance, please (and this is directed at everyone, not you).

- Kel

[Boron]

you missed my points too kel .

first with norfleet i said too that lots of fear for ermor / caelum may come because he played them a lot .

i never said that you use lighning / orb lightning / lesser horrors for early game indy expansion .
but you can research this in the first 10-20 turns easy and then overwhelm 1-2 of your neighbors with that because they have really problems to defend against that .

and earlygame you can expand good with e.g. archers + mammoths or mammoths + the wingless .

i agreed with stormbinder that they are most likely the scariest early-midgame opponent .
furthermore they are quick at expansion too with their mammoths etc. but there might be other nations even a bit more quick .
but they really shine at crushing their first opponents and then with the extra resources + clamhoarding can become the strongest fraction lategame too .

[Stormbinder]

Master's of the Way.




You can not beat PD up to 20 with W1 1? mage without items. (unless you are hoping to get 1 Air pick and cast the same Lesser Horrors that I mentioned. Which would not be as efficient as W1 A2 seraphs. Forzen Hearts will not stop large PD.)Also he is not flying, not stealthy, meaning he can only attack provinces next to him.



Seithkona,




Same as with Master of way. You can not beat PD up to 20 with S D N mage. Also not flying, not stealthy, meaning can attack only province next to him.




Theurgs (At 150),




This one the only mage from those you mentioned that can do it. (Which is not a surprise since they have exactly the same magic paths as seraph http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif ). However they cost 50% more than seraph. They can't fly, meaning can't attack anything other them province next to them, unless you are going to waste 3 air gems to send him on suicide mission deep into enemy back, which is not a good trade.



Initiates of the Deep.




You gotta be kidding Zen. W1 Initiate of the Deep beating 20 PD without items? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif Quickness and frozen hearts? Yeah, right.




There are quite a few, they just don't happen to all fly as well. If you are so concerned with PD and their lack of fightability during any stage of the game, you are probably up the ganjies without a paddle.



Zen, you are missing the point. You said "That is the absolute first time I've heard of Caelum being the 'province defense killers".

Than you have tried to bring some examples of other nation being as good PD killers as Caelum at the same cost (100 gp). As I showed above - they do not even come close. The fact that PD suck in general is well know to everybody and totally irrelivent to the discussion of either Caelum is the best PD killer or not.

[Kel]

you missed my points too kel .



Well, actually, no, I didn't. I may not have gone in depth but I clearly addressed them:

Boron:
first with norfleet i said too that lots of fear for ermor / caelum may come because he played them a lot .



Kel:
And all this stuff about Norfleet and what he played is ridiculous.



Kel:
let's not use him as a basis for every single discussion of balance, please




Boron:
@ kel i said that earlygame either horrors or lighning / orb lightning .

lightning is only evo 2 so researching lighning against knights and the like and then alteration 6 doesn't take too long especially since the caelum mages are so cheap and you can build soon 2 / turn with your first castle/lab and take magic 3 scale easy (cold 3 pays that e.g. )





Boron:
i never said that you use lighning / orb lightning / lesser horrors for early game indy expansion .




I am sorry if I misunderstood. I guess you could have been speaking about knights from nations. It seemed implied to me that you were talking about indie expansion for at least part of it. Especially since this whole conversation has been about the early game and a big portion of the early game is expansion against indies, usually. Are you saying that on turn 5, you are attacking other players with lightning scripted seraphs ? If your response is that no, not that early in the game, that comes later...than again, they are useful not in the whole early game but only part of it...which, again, was the point I was trying to make.


Boron:
but they really shine at crushing their first opponents and then with the extra resources + clamhoarding can become the strongest fraction lategame too .



We agreed that they are strong for a limited period of time during the latter part of the early game and if that is when they have their first opponents, they are at their peak. My point, again, was that being the most powerful nation, for a limited portion of the game, does not, in and of itself, make them over-powered.

As far as their late game potential, this wasn't a previous point that you made in the post I responded to, are you now contending that they are generally stronger than, say, arco, late game, due to resources and clamhoarding ?

- Kel

Quickness + Frozen Heart will rout most PD indescriminately. I don't know what you are thinking, or of you've even tried it. Probably not, or you did against say Jotunheim, which isn't exactly the best choice in the world to try to Frozen Heart. The only ones that ever give you much problems are the ones with fliers (Harpies and such), and those give Seraphs just as many problems.

Re: Seithkona. Guess you've never really felt the effects of a truly devistating wave of Nether Darts.

I've done it quite a few times. Seraphs are not stealthy. Seraphim don't have 1A, so I don't know what your comment about stealth is.

Caelum is not the "PD killer" that you want to make it out to be for it's paths, rather because of it's ability to drop into the back row and take provinces that are not in the direct front line?

I imagine Stormbinder, that you are, once again, putting your vast inexperience to the masses. Otherwise you might be moaning about Theurgs, or any other low air unit, water unit, or death unit. It's amazing the amount of people who cry nerf for any other nation than Pythium, which is by and large an absolute beast.

Maybe you need to extend your nation choices to include other nations than Van and Caelum.

[Schmoe]

Thufir said:

I'll conclude by saying that I have less experience with Caelum than pretty much any other nation, so I could be very wrong, but I think it's a shame when people ban or "nerf" nations or strategies they find difficult to counter, rather than trying to figure out a counter.



Schmoe, I agree, but please don't be too hard on us "Caelum wusses". I promise next time I host a MP game to permit Caelum. And I'll even send you a PM prior to posting the game open message. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif



http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif Fair enough. The Last MP game I played, I was Machaka and I attacked Caelum on about turn 10. We ended up fighting to a stalemate, with my Black Hunters doing a number on his mammoths and my archers doing well against his flyers. From that experience, I certainly wouldn't say that they were overpowered. Strong, yes, but beatable.



I don't have enough experience for these detailed balance discussions, but within those limits I'm inclined to believe those that are arguing that Caelum is not in need of a nerf. From my first SP games with Dom2 exploring various pretender/nation setups, I've never had the sense that Caelum was unbalanced. Instead, I had the sense that Caelum's units were weakened a bit to compensate for it's very important tactical advantage of flight. As far as I can tell, Caelum was designed well both aesthetically (or thematically, as people say around here) and from the balance point of view.

That said, Dom2 has got a very steep learning curve - IMO, it's kind of like the worst case between Chess (or better yet Go) and say Avalon Hill's Advanced Squad Leader (for those too young to remember that one - it had a fat 3 ring binder for rules that could take you weeks to read!). Usually, games as complex as ASL have a steep learning curve, but then once you learn a few key optimizations, your strategic options narrow dramatically. From that point the space in which you do your strategic planning is much smaller than in Go or Chess, and the game becomes considerably easier to play and improve in. Because Dom2 is so well balanced (IMHO), this narrowing of options doesn't seem to occur.

I suspect that there are many players out there, even at the intermediate level, that are still a bit overwhelmed by how much there is to learn in Dom2 play. From this perspective, it is very appealing (and possible) to chop out a good chunk of that learning curve by disallowing Caelum. Yes other nations are capable of inner province raiding, but no other nation depends on it. I can't imagine that a well played Caelum didn't include raiding as a key part of its strategy.

Of course, you could make a similar argument for Ermor, not in the sense of their depending on raiding, but that their unique abilities require them to be countered quite differently than most nations. However based on my initial SP play, I suspsect it's easier to learn how to counter Ermor, especially via SP play (I doubt the AI makes good use of Caelum's tactical advantage). Also, who can imagine an epic fantasy game that doesn't include undead?!

All in all, I look forward to playing MP games with/against Caelum, but I'm happy not to have had them in my first two MP games http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif



I think you have some excellent points. The game offers a lot of very different strategies, and there is usually more than one counter to any particular threat. The trick is finding out what works, given your chosen nation. Considering that even a single-player game takes 2-3 days for me to reach the late stages, and I need to play several single-player games with a theme to get a passing familiarity with it, and there are more than 30 themes, I think that I will be discovering new tactics for a long, long time.

Or maybe I'm just a slow learner...

Either way, I'm definitely interested in hearing what other people have to say on balance issues - it is quite educational. However, I'm not going to pass judgement on it myself until I've had a chance to examine the issues and experience them first-hand.

[Arryn]

Schmoe said:Either way, I'm definitely interested in hearing what other people have to say on balance issues - it is quite educational. However, I'm not going to pass judgement on it myself until I've had a chance to examine the issues and experience them first-hand.

An excellent idea. Especially since some of those expressing opinions on "balance" tend to be very biased and/or not have a sufficiently broad background in playing various nations. I, for example, should never venture an opinion on blood issues since I don't play with blood magics. Similarly, if a player hasn't actually tried something for themselves they should refrain from passing unfounded opinions, without any basis in reality, as fact.

And judgements about particular units should and must be taken in the greater context of the entire theme that the unit is found in. Comparing a Caelumite mage against some other mage isn't appropriate unless you also take into account the strengths and weaknesses of the rest of the Caelum theme(s) versus whatever it's being compared to. All units must operate within the context of the rest of their theme's supporting units. Discussing one-on-one duels is one thing, but it bears little value towards answering a question like "is Caelum effective (magically) versus R'yleh (and which is the "stronger" nation)?" Only if you can prove that nation A is clearly superior to nation B, in such a way that A defeats B in a statistically significant percentage of encounters can you then discuss that nation A is *perhaps* unbalanced. Note I say "perhaps", because it depends on whether the devs intend for a nation's balance to be for 'average' or for 'expert'players. 'Expert' players will see different results than 'average' (or newbie) players. Also, what might be "balanced" for SP is rarely so for MP, and vice versa. Ermor is an excellent example of a nation whose "power" varies dramatically depending on whether it's opposed by humans or by AIs.

Good Arryn.

Listen to her, she's got giblets!

Also, she has had alot of time to look into the games, debates, and her own opinions about anything/everything within the game.

Besides, she likes big men, if you know what I mean!

[Arryn]

Zen said:Besides, she likes big men, if you know what I mean!

The only *real* men are Jotun men! Other men just don't ... um, measure up.

[Stormbinder]

Zen said:
Quickness + Frozen Heart will rout most PD indescriminately. I don't know what you are thinking, or of you've even tried it. Probably not, or you did against say Jotunheim, which isn't exactly the best choice in the world to try to Frozen Heart. The only ones that ever give you much problems are the ones with fliers (Harpies and such), and those give Seraphs just as many problems.

Re: Seithkona. Guess you've never really felt the effects of a truly devistating wave of Nether Darts.

I've done it quite a few times. Seraphs are not stealthy. Seraphim don't have 1A, so I don't know what your comment about stealth is.

Caelum is not the "PD killer" that you want to make it out to be for it's paths, rather because of it's ability to drop into the back row and take provinces that are not in the direct front line?

I imagine Stormbinder, that you are, once again, putting your vast inexperience to the masses. Otherwise you might be moaning about Theurgs, or any other low air unit, water unit, or death unit. It's amazing the amount of people who cry nerf for any other nation than Pythium, which is by and large an absolute beast.

Maybe you need to extend your nation choices to include other nations than Van and Caelum.



Ok, retyping my post briefly.


I've played most of the races and themes in Dom2, and I've been playing it very intensively for the Last 6 monthes.

Frozen Heart is water 1 fatique 20 spell. Your Initiate of the deep will be able to cast 1 quickness and 4 Frozen Hearts, before falling to the ground. That would kill 3-4 soldiers out of 20 of 40 soldiers in province with 20 PD. The rest will grind him into dust.


Nether Darts is a good sepell against most PD, but it takes reseach level 7 to cast.

National commanders must have ether flying or stealthy ability to be able to strike behind enemy back and escape. None of the commanders you mentioned can do it without items, unlike Caelum's seraphs. And no national commanders at the same cost(100 gp) are as efficient as Caelum's A2 W1 serpahs with False Horror (Air 1 fatique ten ) in reliable routing high PD.

Finally I never cried "Nerf Caelum!" as some other people wrote in thsi thread. I think Caelum is nice and unique nation. I just think combination of Caelum's 100gm Air2 W1 mage with False Horror spell is a bit too much.

IMHO the best solution would be to slightly nerf "False Gorror" spell. Remove (or strongly reduce) Fear aura of Fasle Horror, or make him Air 2 fatique 20, or whatever. I think it is much better that nerfing entire nation. The problem with False Horror is that it's just too cheap fatique-wise and easy to cast, and in combination with flying quickened 100gp Caelum seraphs is too efficent against PD of any nation. Caelum will still be a great nation even of False horro spell will be more balanced, but it'll not be able to reliably rout 20 PD of all other nation with just 100gp none-capital mage and lvl 6 spell, as it stands now.

Just my two cents.

[Arryn]

Stormbinder said:I just think combination of Caelum's 100gm Air2 W1 mage with False Horror spell is a bit too much.

And I counter that you're suffering from being way too fixated on just this one unit and losing sight of the overall picture that is Caelum. Step away from the tree and see the forest.

I also must take exception to your assertion that the mage/spell combo can defeat *any* nation's PD. I doubt it'll work against 20+ Jotun PD, unless you have something other than just that mage to stick into the path of those oncoming giants preparing to squish the fragile Caelum units into so much meat paste.

Besides, if a player is relying solely on PD units for defense, they deserve to lose. It's bad strategy. I try to keep L3 priests in support of my PD (Sermon of Courage) along battle fronts. So what if Caelum units can fly and bypass your front line? You take that into consideration and build defense in depth, or better yet, a strong mobile attack force of your own to counter their mobile attack force. They hit you, you hit them back somewhere else. Plan on being attacked, it'll happen. What you do need to do is figure out *where* they'll strike, and just let them do it. Don't worry about preventing it. That's playing into the enemy's plan. What you do is eat the attack and don't let it disrupt *your* attack against them. If you hit them hard enough, their attack won't matter (since you've prepared for it) and they'll have problems of their own (which you've given them) to worry about. (Think Rommel's offensive in Spring of '42, which disrupted the Brit's own offensive, despite the Brit's having ground and air superiority.)

[Stormbinder]

Arryn said:

Stormbinder said:I just think combination of Caelum's 100gm Air2 W1 mage with False Horror spell is a bit too much.

And I counter that you're suffering from being way too fixated on just this one unit and losing sight of the overall picture that is Caelum. Step away from the tree and see the forest.

I also must take exception to your assertion that the mage/spell combo can defeat *any* nation's PD. I doubt it'll work against 20+ Jotun PD, unless you have something other than just that mage to stick into the path of those oncoming giants preparing to squish the fragile Caelum units into so much meat paste.




Sorry, but you are mistaken Arryn. You see, I happen to play my Last 3 large MP games against Caelum as my main opponent. (won two, still playing 3rd) In fact, I am on turn 80 or something in the duel as Jotun vs Caelum. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif Jotun's PD run with the best of them, trust me. In fact, Jotuns are much worse than some other nations PD against False horrors. Giant's hitpoints and strength does not matter at all vs horrors, since they do not kill, have zero protection and only 1 hitpoint.


Just for your sake though, I've specificaly run a test with seraph casting Quickness and lesser horrors against 20 PD Jotun province. I run this test twice on two 20 PD provinces.

As expected both times single Seraph with no troops routed 20 PD giants and conquered provinces without any problem.


Finally according to Zen and according to my own observations, Sermon of Courage is prety much useless against False Horrors. They don't kill and seldom wound people, you see - they just scare soldiers ****less until they run. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif I've tried several times to back my militia with lvl 3 priests. It didn't help militia at all and priest would often just refuse cast sermon courage despite specific orders, since there was no morale loss due to wounds/deaths.

I suggest you ask Maltrease (he loves Caelum and he controled 2 out of 3 these Caelum games that I've mention) how effective Lesser Horrors are with Caelum, he will tell you. Or play against good Caelum player who uses False Horrors strategy yourself. You'll be surprised. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[Arryn]

Finally according to Zen and according to my own observations, Sermon of Courage is prety much useless against False Horrors. They don't kill and seldom wound people, you see - they just scare them ****less until they run. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif I've tried several times back my militia with lvl 3 priests, it didn't help militia at all and priest would often just refuce cast sermon courage, since there was no morale loss due to wounds/deaths.

Then the AI spellcasting is bugged, since Sermon, according to its description, relies upon *any* morale loss (regardless of reason) and not just morale loss due to getting hurt. (Page 131 of the manual.)

[Stormbinder]

Arryn said:

Finally according to Zen and according to my own observations, Sermon of Courage is prety much useless against False Horrors. They don't kill and seldom wound people, you see - they just scare them ****less until they run. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif I've tried several times back my militia with lvl 3 priests, it didn't help militia at all and priest would often just refuce cast sermon courage, since there was no morale loss due to wounds/deaths.

Then the AI spellcasting is bugged, since Sermon, according to its description, relies upon *any* morale loss (regardless of reason) and not just morale loss due to getting hurt. (Page 131 of the manual.)



Perhaps. That's what Zen said, and that's concur with my own experience. Although I agree that something like Sermon Of Courage should help your units when facing scary opponents. In mean, that's what the Courage is all about after all... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

As I suggested, try playing vs good Caelum opponent who uses False Horrors, or play Caelum yourself. You'll be very surprised how effective this little spell is in the hands of Caelum. I know I was. /threads/images/Graemlins/crazy.gif

[Arryn]

Okay, Stormy, I'll accept that this particular combo is presently an exploit. But it is so solely because Sermon of Courage and/or the AI is bugged. The solution is not nerfing the Horror spell, but fixing the Sermon spell so that it works as its description says it's supposed to. The game already has a mechanism in place for countering fear-based offensive tactics. But if that mechanism is broken ...

[WraithLord]

currently in a big MP game I'm playing as pythium I'm losing badly to caelum in mid game phase. This is because I failed to counter their strengths- mobility, seraphs (quick+ lightning / quick + false horrorX4), and SC air queens. I think Caelum is very strong, but every battle I lose prompts me to some hard thinking. Not only what I could do differently in that battle, but also what I could do differently at previous turns to have been in an advantage.

I think Caelum is a very strong nation. But I really mislike the nerf direction. Mainly for two reasons.
First, in dominions I've learnt that for each good strat/nation/combo there is a counter. And secondly because Caelum is a unique flying nation ruled by mages. This is their theme and flavor, I do not want to see them nerfed.

Truth is, I have a very bad experience from other MP games in which the nerf this and nerf that cries have led the developers to equalize all races (see AOW-SM) http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

edit. typos.

[Arryn]

izaqyos said:
Truth is, I have a very bad experience from other MP games in which the nerf this and nerf that cries have led the developers to equalize all races (see AOW-SM)

My bad experiences with nerfing were in the MMORPGs E&B and SWG. It left a very bad taste in my craw for developers who are more concerned about silencing whiners than they are in providing rich content. You can never achieve "perfect" balance without destroying uniqueness and dragging everything down to the worst denominator. This applies to games, education, and just about everything else in real life.

Dom 2, to an extent, imitates life: lions are strong, gazelles are fast. The lion does not always get the gazelle. And gazelles breed faster, which offsets the fact that they do lose to lions most of the time. If we were gods designing such creatures, balance would not be in making them equally strong or fast. The balance is in how they interact with one another, and their environment. That the nations of Dom 2, on the whole, are as balanced as they are is an impressive achievement by IW. Especially since there are 17 of them, and 30+ themes.

[Kristoffer O]

The sermon of courage is not bugged, but it's effects are not comparable to the fear inducing effects of several horrors.

One sermon can probably counter one horror with good effects, but if you are attacked by dozens of horrors you will need a lot more than one priest casting sermons.

[Stormbinder]

Arryn said:
Okay, Stormy, I'll accept that this particular combo is presently an exploit. But it is so solely because Sermon of Courage and/or the AI is bugged. The solution is not nerfing the Horror spell, but fixing the Sermon spell so that it works as its description says it's supposed to. The game already has a mechanism in place for countering fear-based offensive tactics. But if that mechanism is broken ...



Aye Arryn, it would certanly help, I agree. Although lvl 3 priest does not come easy for many races.

I would still like to see Lesser Horror to be at least Air1 Fatique 20 spell. IMHO Fatique 10 air 1 is just too cheap for such powerful spell. But I agree with you that Sermon of Courage would reduce Fasle Horror power somewhat, if it would be changed to affect it.

[Stormbinder]

Kristoffer O said:
The sermon of courage is not bugged, but it's effects are not comparable to the fear inducing effects of several horrors.

One sermon can probably counter one horror with good effects, but if you are attacked by dozens of horrors you will need a lot more than one priest casting sermons.



Interesting. Thank you for clarification KristoferO.

BTW in the tests that I just run for Arryn 4-6 false horrors from that single 100gp seraph easely routed 20 Jotun's PD soldiers. Most other races would fare similar or worse. I wonder if perhaps you feel that Fear aura of False Horrors is a bit to strong atm? Or spell is too cheap (currently it is just 10 fatique, air 1). As of now, it makes all other nations PD defences totally useless against Caelum's single seraph, and that in addition to Caelum already great raiding abilities.

I mean, granted, PD are weak in general, but one would think that 20+ PD should be able to withstand 100gp none-capital not blessed commander with no items/gems? What do you think?

Regards,
Stormbinder

[Arryn]

Kristoffer O said:
The sermon of courage is not bugged, but it's effects are not comparable to the fear inducing effects of several horrors.

One sermon can probably counter one horror with good effects, but if you are attacked by dozens of horrors you will need a lot more than one priest casting sermons.

It *is* bugged if, as is being reported, priests never cast the spell at all. The AI should cast Sermon immediately once units take morale losses, regardless of why there was a morale loss. I've seen the AI cast Sermon repeatedly, as units take physical damage (and thus lose morale that way). If the AI is not recognizing morale loss from castings of Horror, then it's a bug. Perhaps someone should confirm this by having one casting of Horror per combat turn and seeing if the AI ever casts Sermon to counter those *single* horror castings. If the Horror spell drops morale by more than Sermon raises it, that's a seperate issue. The question, at present, is whether the AI even tries to counter the Horror spell at all.

[Cheezeninja]

Even postulating that Caelum's 100gp wizards can take out extremely large amounts of pd with little to no danger, i fail to see how this should automatically equate to a nerf of Caelum or false horror. Caelum is a powerful raiding nation, false horror is a powerful spell, the simple fact that you have already won 2 of the 3 Caelum wars you have fought should do alot to assure you that the nations are balanced overral. And if you plan on arguing that you won because you had more skill than your opponents despite a national disadvantage, well what of it? The game would be boring if all Nations played the same and had no respective advantages/disadvantages. Until people playing Caelum start winning an inordinate percentage of the time (and this hasnt been my experience) how can there be any argument that they are overpowered? False horrors with Caelum IS a powerful strategy, but it is meant to be. You could make the same argument for Pythiums theurg's being underpriced. Because for all that they initially cost the right amount, the fact that they are sacred (reducing upkeep) and the easy availability of cheap communicants could be said to push their versatility through the roof. In fact, i believe the addition of astral magic is more than worth the extra gold.

In point of fact i just ran several tests in which i left 2-4 raptors from call of the winds in a province with 1 pd (man) and then proceeded to cloud trapeeze seraph after seraph into the province. The raptors were able to routinely win against the single seraph so long as there was at least 2. Occasionally a raptor would be killed by the seraph before the seraph died, allowing the next seraph to conquer the province (as 1 raptor was not enough). But nevertheless, with 4 raptors (1/5! of a call of the winds, not even counting the commander, an investment of 1!!! air gem per province) i was routinely able to defeat a single seraph set to cast quickness, false horror, FH, FH, FH. You can hardly argue that a single air gem is too big of an investment to counter seraphs now can you? Especially since it takes a mere 2 air to cast call of the winds, and conj 3 (which most people should be shooting for anyway). And once you start scaling it up and talking about multiple seraphs wielding perhaps SoS's.... well once a staff of storms is involved, or multiple national mages... NO PD stands a chance, or is supposed to.

Hardly overpowered to my mind.

[Arryn]

Nicely argued, Mr. Cheeze!

[Boron]

Arryn said:
Nicely argued, Mr. Cheeze!


yep true . and from zen too .

e.g. pan has several harpies as pd .

but that are the "only" exeptions . AND call of the wilds is AIR magic too so this is not such a good argument imho .

so stormbinder is still true :
harpies/black hawks win against a single seraph wow .
now if the seraph only takes with him 5 caelum troops on guard commander though i think he wins again against EVERY pd of about 20 and even some black hawks mixed in or something similiar don't beat him .


what makes this almost unique is that caelum can do this early midgame ( turn 20-30 ) to 5-10 of your provinces .

arryn your attack strat won't work .

you as any other nation can effectively attack 2-3 provinces , caelum can attack 5-10 low protected with the seraphs combo storm mentioned and attack 1-2 with their main army ( e.g. several high seraphs , staff of storms etc . , mammuts + archers , later air queens and lots of good other choices ) .

so you almost can't win in the late earlygame or in midgame against a good caelum player .

you can't castle your whole mainland earlygame and if you do you waste too much resources for this .
even if you castle it doesn't really help the caelumplayer just has to turn taxes to 200% and economically bleed you out .

furthermore caelum has stealth preachers + flying scouts .
so they always know where your anti raid army/armies is/are and can attack all the other provinces .
losing 1-2 seraphs is no big loss too .

so caelum can do 2 things better than ANY other nation from turn ~15-40 :

- prepare battles of encirclement and annihilation
- raid large


furthermore you can afford easy e.g. a vq which adds further strength to caelum . caelum is the only nation where even pd has a good chance to kill a vq all other nations have trouble earlygame vs vq .

vq is ideal for caelum too :
-cold 3 scale , additional free points , stronger breath of winter
-vq can be a good start for a blood economy , provides caelum death + blood magic to make them even stronger
-stealth preachers , together with raiding / temple killing this way you have good chances pushing your dominion into the enemy
-atleration 6 = false horror + invulnerability (alt5) and soul vortex for the vq

a pod should work almost as well too and save you 100-200 points but as caelum you can afford the vq too .

edit : typos http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

[Boron]

a big problem though is that when trying to say why one nation is so good you always overlook something because dominions 2 is so deep and has so many choices .

though e.g. abysians demonbreds are capitol only with 5-10 devils as troops they can do probalby the same but are even a bit stronger .
they can't do that earlygame in so big numbers but midgame abysia has vampire hordes then .

caelum though has the big advantage of staff of storms then to win time to cast more battlespawns ( lesser horrors ) .


i still think though if you play a 1on1 with 2 players of similiar experience game caelum is almost impossible to beat .
vanheim may come close but the vans are more expensive , can't fly + have no W for quickness .
pythium i think doesn't win too because there caelum can scout + seeking arrow some expensive theurgs/arch theurgs earlygame .
furthermore pythium doesn't have +120 freepoints through cold 3 and has slow movement .


if you want someone very expierienced (ZEN) could agree to play a urgaia blitz against a very good caelum player .

if he wins clearly then i will stop my claiming that stormbinder is true and perhaps stormbinder will too .

i really can't imagine though how he can do this .

[Cainehill]

In addition, the nerfers have been totally ignoring one thing : if Caelum (or another flying / stealthy army) raids behind enemy lines, what happens when they rout? Every single mage and troop is lost : they don't get to retreat to safe territory that's within easy flying range, they don't get to sneak into the neighboring province with their stealth.

Caelum's raiders, similar to Pan's stealth marauders, take a lot of casualties because of routing. A couple of roving bands of defenders can easily cause the routing.

Yes, Caelum's flying scouts (and Pan's harpies) can more easily keep track of armies than many nations. But even if they can blanket every enemy province, they still don't know which way the roving defenders are going to move, so raiding via normal means gives a good chance of running into the rovers, if there are enough roving bands - say archers / xbows, some 50-morale magic troops, and a mage or two.

Air Trapeze does allow them to airdrop in before the defenders can move. But then Caelum is spending gems to attack, can't bring any screening troops, and can still be busted if people reinforced the PD with a handful of other troops (archers, priests, fast moving cavalry, etc) and nailed even worse by hidden defenders with glamour - Vanheim and LoT Man can easily manage this, and both Vans and LoT infantry can sometimes be recruited via magic sites.

Apparently the AI / Sermon of Courage does need to be fixed. But Caelum doesn't need to have its advantages nerfed. First False Horror, then, oh my - two seraphs can route 20 PD all by themselves with Quickness and Lightning, so Lightning has to cost more fatigue too!

[Boron]

and what is lost when routing ?
100/175 gold for 1 seraph / high seraph .

the economic damage you do on your enemy when attacking 5-10 provinces midgame this way at once , perhaps destroying some temples , putting taxes to 200% , killing pd is much greater .

you surely lose 2-3 seraphs , so -200-300 gold .
your enemy needs to keep lots of troops at home , loses all money invested for pd , is forced to castle , loses pop / money through 200% taxes etc.

all with extremely little effort.

man Last of tuatha / vanheim has to put in much more effort . AND their best mages are capitol only and much more expensive so they are not worth being risked this way.

but a caelum with watchtower as castle has quick his second and third castle to start producing 2 then 3 seraphs / high seraphs each turn .

togehter with the too strong battle summons like the false horrors this gives them a big advantage .


i guess even i could win a 1on1 game on urgaia with caelum though i never played them against almost any opponent expect the experts like storm and zen because their expierience is much greater than mine ( only 5 mp games so far , most still running only 1 finished ) .

[Ygorl]

Another disadvantage of Caelum that I don't think anyone's mentioned, and that makes them somewhat weaker until later in the game, is that their large size prevents more than a few of them from attacking a given target. Most nations can overwhelm a high-defense baddie by swarming it. Not so Caelum. Conversely, they are easily swarmed by hordes of junk.

[Boron]

Ygorl said:
Another disadvantage of Caelum that I don't think anyone's mentioned, and that makes them somewhat weaker until later in the game, is that their large size prevents more than a few of them from attacking a given target. Most nations can overwhelm a high-defense baddie by swarming it. Not so Caelum. Conversely, they are easily swarmed by hordes of junk.


caelum has little need for normal troops . i think some archers are enough to prevent routing . most work do the mages .
since caelum has the only earlygame fliers ( pan harpies , the expensive vanheim valkieries are the only others that come to my mind ) and can easy get a staff of storms to cancel midgame abysian devil flying armies etc. i think thats really enough or they can use a normal army with wingless + mammoths which should hold out long enough until caelum mages finish the work .

[Kel]

Cainehill said:
In addition, the nerfers have been totally ignoring one thing : if Caelum (or another flying / stealthy army) raids behind enemy lines, what happens when they rout?



Given there ability to cut off retreat with flyers, they will do a lot more damage with rout than they will suffer from it.

I am not saying they are over-powered as I rarely think of PD as being anything more than spy catchers anyway...but rout is often more of their advantage than their disadvantage.

- Kel

[alexti]

izaqyos said:
currently in a big MP game I'm playing as pythium I'm losing badly to caelum in mid game phase. This is because I failed to counter their strengths- mobility, seraphs (quick+ lightning / quick + false horrorX4), and SC air queens. I think Caelum is very strong, but every battle I lose prompts me to some hard thinking. Not only what I could do differently in that battle, but also what I could do differently at previous turns to have been in an advantage.


That game has very difficult research, which apparently makes the time-frame where Caelum has many advantages quite long. And from what I could see your problem wasn't that much because of Seraph's raids, but rather from the big losses in major battles.

In another game I'm losing to Caelum myself, but again, that's not because of Seraph's raiders (though his Ghost raiders are nasty). It's long long war which I'm slowly losing and it is mostly due to the skills of the Caelum player than to anything else.

Aside of that I agree with your position on nerfing. So far I haven't seen Caelum winning too often in MP and while it has some strengths, other nations have advantages in other areas too.

[alexti]

Cheezeninja said:
In point of fact i just ran several tests in which i left 2-4 raptors from call of the winds in a province with 1 pd (man) and then proceeded to cloud trapeeze seraph after seraph into the province. The raptors were able to routinely win against the single seraph so long as there was at least 2.



Couldn't you wait with your analysis for a few days? Now my strategy is goind down the drain http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[quantum_mechani]

Just thought I'd point out Rl'yeh's PD can often take out a sereph or two.

[WraithLord]

alexti said:

Cheezeninja said:
In point of fact i just ran several tests in which i left 2-4 raptors from call of the winds in a province with 1 pd (man) and then proceeded to cloud trapeeze seraph after seraph into the province. The raptors were able to routinely win against the single seraph so long as there was at least 2.



Couldn't you wait with your analysis for a few days? Now my strategy is goind down the drain http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif



Very interesting information indeed, might be I'd find some use for it http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

[alexti]

izaqyos said:

alexti said:

Cheezeninja said:
In point of fact i just ran several tests in which i left 2-4 raptors from call of the winds in a province with 1 pd (man) and then proceeded to cloud trapeeze seraph after seraph into the province. The raptors were able to routinely win against the single seraph so long as there was at least 2.



Couldn't you wait with your analysis for a few days? Now my strategy is goind down the drain http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif



Very interesting information indeed, might be I'd find some use for it http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif


Fortunately, it won't work that well vs Air Queens or Bane Lords http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[Mark the Merciful]

Boron said:

but that are the "only" exeptions . AND call of the wilds is AIR magic too so this is not such a good argument imho .

so stormbinder is still true :
harpies/black hawks win against a single seraph wow .
now if the seraph only takes with him 5 caelum troops on guard commander though i think he wins again against EVERY pd of about 20 and even some black hawks mixed in or something similiar don't beat him .

what makes this almost unique is that caelum can do this early midgame ( turn 20-30 ) to 5-10 of your provinces .

arryn your attack strat won't work .

you as any other nation can effectively attack 2-3 provinces , caelum can attack 5-10 low protected with the seraphs combo storm mentioned and attack 1-2 with their main army ( e.g. several high seraphs , staff of storms etc . , mammuts + archers , later air queens and lots of good other choices ) .

so you almost can't win in the late earlygame or in midgame against a good caelum player .

you can't castle your whole mainland earlygame and if you do you waste too much resources for this .
even if you castle it doesn't really help the caelumplayer just has to turn taxes to 200% and economically bleed you out .

furthermore caelum has stealth preachers + flying scouts .
so they always know where your anti raid army/armies is/are and can attack all the other provinces .
losing 1-2 seraphs is no big loss too .

so caelum can do 2 things better than ANY other nation from turn ~15-40 :

- prepare battles of encirclement and annihilation
- raid large




Anyone who can build a blood economy and cast Bind Fiends can raise an army of flying stealthy things that can not only raid as well as Caelum, but are rock solid in battle (and cost NO gold or maintenance). Both BF Ulm and Abysia can put together the same sort of raiding/surrounding conquest strategy in the same time-frame that you're talking about for Caelum. Probably Mictlan can as well, though I'm less clear what they'd use to lead the sneaky flying armies (Abysia uses Demondbred and BF Ulm uses Vampire Counts).

Dusk Elders are sneaky, ethereal and can beat most PD by spamming Raise Skeletons/Raise Dead. Give them boots of flying and they too can be super raiders. Again, no gold and no upkeep.

I don't think Caelum has any claim to uniqueness in this area.

What's more, the ability to raid behind the "front line" is very nice, but it's no way to conquer and hold territory permanently. If your opponent has a solid army, you are going to have to beat it at some point or he will take all that territory back very quickly.

Mark

[Boron]

Mark the Merciful said:

Boron said:

but that are the "only" exeptions . AND call of the wilds is AIR magic too so this is not such a good argument imho .

so stormbinder is still true :
harpies/black hawks win against a single seraph wow .
now if the seraph only takes with him 5 caelum troops on guard commander though i think he wins again against EVERY pd of about 20 and even some black hawks mixed in or something similiar don't beat him .

what makes this almost unique is that caelum can do this early midgame ( turn 20-30 ) to 5-10 of your provinces .

arryn your attack strat won't work .

you as any other nation can effectively attack 2-3 provinces , caelum can attack 5-10 low protected with the seraphs combo storm mentioned and attack 1-2 with their main army ( e.g. several high seraphs , staff of storms etc . , mammuts + archers , later air queens and lots of good other choices ) .

so you almost can't win in the late earlygame or in midgame against a good caelum player .

you can't castle your whole mainland earlygame and if you do you waste too much resources for this .
even if you castle it doesn't really help the caelumplayer just has to turn taxes to 200% and economically bleed you out .

furthermore caelum has stealth preachers + flying scouts .
so they always know where your anti raid army/armies is/are and can attack all the other provinces .
losing 1-2 seraphs is no big loss too .

so caelum can do 2 things better than ANY other nation from turn ~15-40 :

- prepare battles of encirclement and annihilation
- raid large


furthermore you can afford easy e.g. a vq which adds further strength to caelum . caelum is the only nation where even pd has a good chance to kill a vq all other nations have trouble earlygame vs vq .

vq is ideal for caelum too :
-cold 3 scale , additional free points , stronger breath of winter
-vq can be a good start for a blood economy , provides caelum death + blood magic to make them even stronger
-stealth preachers , together with raiding / temple killing this way you have good chances pushing your dominion into the enemy
-atleration 6 = false horror + invulnerability (alt5) and soul vortex for the vq

a pod should work almost as well too and save you 100-200 points but as caelum you can afford the vq too .

edit : typos http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif



Anyone who can build a blood economy and cast Bind Fiends can raise an army of flying stealthy things that can not only raid as well as Caelum, but are rock solid in battle (and cost NO gold or maintenance). Both BF Ulm and Abysia can put together the same sort of raiding/surrounding conquest strategy in the same time-frame that you're talking about for Caelum. Probably Mictlan can as well, though I'm less clear what they'd use to lead the sneaky flying armies (Abysia uses Demondbred and BF Ulm uses Vampire Counts).

Dusk Elders are sneaky, ethereal and can beat most PD by spamming Raise Skeletons/Raise Dead. Give them boots of flying and they too can be super raiders. Again, no gold and no upkeep.

I don't think Caelum has any claim to uniqueness in this area.

What's more, the ability to raid behind the "front line" is very nice, but it's no way to conquer and hold territory permanently. If your opponent has a solid army, you are going to have to beat it at some point or he will take all that territory back very quickly.

Mark



nice attempt .
and who leads the fiends of darkness and is stealthy ?
there is no item to make a leader stealthy .
mictlan + abysia don't have stealthy leaders who can fly .
furthermore the mictlan scout has 0 ldrship
the abysian slayer has 0 stealth too .

of course abysia has flying armies with the demonbred .
but they are not stealthy http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

that is true of course for caelum too but they have stealthy flying scouts + stealthy preachers so this is a big advantage .

the main difference between abysia + caelum :
caelums mages are not capitol only .

furthermore summoning fiends with blood earlygame is time consuming : only 1 per mage summonable .
so your research suffers and you can only use your capitolonly mages for that as abysia .

so abysia has to spend a demonbred per flying army + use blood for this

caelum has only to spend a cheap mage who is not capitol only .

so who can do this easier earlygame ?


abysia can field midgame 2 or 3 scary devil flying armies but only 2 or 3 .

caelum can midgame attack every low protected province with stormbinders mentioned combo .


sure the 1 mage attack doesn't hold the territory . but that is not his purpose .
as long as that forces your opponent to keep significant amounts of garrison/countertroops at home it is a big success already .
furthermore you just need to tax every this way captured province to 200%.

repeat that a few times and your enemy is economically broken http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif
prevents recruiting , taxing and bloodhunting .
so only the gemincome is left http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

and the knowlegde that caelum can do this forces caelums neighbors to madcastle + keep significant defense forces at home .


the only other races which can do similiar things are the ones with spies so ulm + marignon + tien chi with the unrest command .

the caelum way to do this is though better because as long as you build up your mageforce you can use them for research/forging .

[WraithLord]

A single attacking seraph is vulnerable to magical counter attacks. seeking arrows, assinations spells, call of the winds etc.
of course not all the counters are trivial or accessible to all nations.

Also player's shouldn't count on PD to hold their territories.

[Cainehill]

Kel said:

Cainehill said:
In addition, the nerfers have been totally ignoring one thing : if Caelum (or another flying / stealthy army) raids behind enemy lines, what happens when they rout?



Given there ability to cut off retreat with flyers, they will do a lot more damage with rout than they will suffer from it.
- Kel



Which many Caelum players have complained about, because the flyers land in the path of the routing units, which causes them to attack the flyers, which in Caelum's case often causes high casualties, sometimes high enough to cause Caelum to rout before the non-flying defenders escape the field of battle, allowing the 'losers' to win and continue to own the province.

[Boron]

izaqyos said:
A single attacking seraph is vulnerable to magical counter attacks. seeking arrows, assinations spells, call of the winds etc.
of course not all the counters are trivial or accessible to all nations.

Also player's shouldn't count on PD to hold their territories.



seeking arrow is A3 so not easy to reach with most nations http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif . i think man Last of tuatha and caelum mages are the only ones who can cast it without lucky random picks or a +1air item http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.
call of the winds is 5 air gems needed so this is a "success" too i would say if you waste 1 turn magetime +5 airgems http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

furthermore the call of the winds hawks can be easily countered i think by assigning the seraph 5 bodyguards http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.


while caelums own pd is very bad they have at least always the chance to luckily kill a lowprotection sc ( mainly vq ) or kill luckily 1-2 mages in their initial defense attack so they aren't so bad all in all http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Kel]

izaqyos said:
A single attacking seraph is vulnerable to magical counter attacks. seeking arrows, assinations spells, call of the winds etc.
of course not all the counters are trivial or accessible to all nations.



You are going to spend 10-25 gems to stop a 100 gold seraph ? Which side are you arguing ? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

- Kel

[Cohen]

The true problem is that Caelum get province raider (as Vanheim and Man thuata, but they don't fly, but are stelthy) with only gold!

Even more Caelum and Vanheim have them non capitol only.

Even more Caelum has his mages costing far low than everyone else (and pythium too has good mages for 150 gold, but they cannot compete with 175 gold Arch Seraph).

Boron already told about Abysya, or Mictlan, even if you can give to a scout/assassin a Sceptre of Leadership or such (well I once tried with a marignonite spy, to lead some Sidhe troops recruitable by the Glowing Hill site), and Flying Boots, you always require gem income, and proper mage to forge the item.

Caelum doesn't need that.
However the real problem IMO are:

False Horror, to review
Pricing of Mages, to raise.
Make at least Arch Seraph capitol only.

Seraphs are still good but if their price will go at least at 150 I believe they could be fine.
Arch Seraph should be 270 or 300, considering too their paths are from the best ones (Air at least, and water 2 means quickness and clams and boots of quickness).

Ps: Quantum, Ryleh PD could kill even an SC with some luck, I got in a game some Banelords killed by Ryleh PD because they get paralized, but the Illith need some luck to paralize the Banelords. Even if the Banelord wins, but get paralized for some turns, he risks afflictions.

[Mark the Merciful]

Boron said:
nice attempt .
and who leads the fiends of darkness and is stealthy ?
there is no item to make a leader stealthy .


There's the - Black Heart? - blood item that turns a leader into an assassin.


mictlan + abysia don't have stealthy leaders who can fly .
furthermore the mictlan scout has 0 ldrship
the abysian slayer has 0 stealth too .

of course abysia has flying armies with the demonbred .
but they are not stealthy http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif


I don't know Abysia so well, and was under the impression that Demonbred was stealthy. But I speak from experience when it comes to BF Ulm, who can launch massive stealth raids using Vampire Counts leading Fiends in the air, and Rangers on the ground.


that is true of course for caelum too but they have stealthy flying scouts + stealthy preachers so this is a big advantage .

the main difference between abysia + caelum :
caelums mages are not capitol only .

furthermore summoning fiends with blood earlygame is time consuming : only 1 per mage summonable .
so your research suffers and you can only use your capitolonly mages for that as abysia .

so abysia has to spend a demonbred per flying army + use blood for this

caelum has only to spend a cheap mage who is not capitol only .

so who can do this easier earlygame ?

abysia can field midgame 2 or 3 scary devil flying armies but only 2 or 3 .

caelum can midgame attack every low protected province with stormbinders mentioned combo .

sure the 1 mage attack doesn't hold the territory . but that is not his purpose .
as long as that forces your opponent to keep significant amounts of garrison/countertroops at home it is a big success already .
furthermore you just need to tax every this way captured province to 200%.

repeat that a few times and your enemy is economically broken http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif
prevents recruiting , taxing and bloodhunting .
so only the gemincome is left http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif


Only if the victim sits there and passively accepts that sort of attack. As Arryn pointed out, he will - or should - be hitting back in ways that suit HIS strengths, not playing to Caelum's


and the knowlegde that caelum can do this forces caelums neighbors to madcastle + keep significant defense forces at home .


You're stating theory as though it's happening in real games. In practice I don't see this happening, and would see it as precisely the wrong reaction to the Caelum threat.


the only other races which can do similiar things are the ones with spies so ulm + marignon + tien chi with the unrest command .


Apart from the ones that I mentioned and you ignored http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

BF Ulm
Ermor (Dusk ELders & raise skeletons)

The Caelum player also has to worry about defending his own territory if he wants to be able to afford to maintain all these Seraphs. More to the point he needs a strategy that's a bit more complex than relying on a single tactic for defeating PD. It's not that I don't think it sounds strong; it's just that it isn't the whole story, and anyway doesn't seem to me to be grounded in much real MP experience.

[WraithLord]

Kel said:

izaqyos said:
A single attacking seraph is vulnerable to magical counter attacks. seeking arrows, assinations spells, call of the winds etc.
of course not all the counters are trivial or accessible to all nations.



You are going to spend 10-25 gems to stop a 100 gold seraph ? Which side are you arguing ? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

- Kel



COW gems are not wasted. the summoned raptors stay and can be of further use.

[Pickles]

Quoting Mark the merciful


There's the - Black Heart? - blood item that turns a leader into an assassin.




It turns a stealthy leader into an assassin


You're stating theory as though it's happening in real games. In practice I don't see this happening, and would see it as precisely the wrong reaction to the Caelum threat.



well put - a tendency of the pregame analyser as opposed to the experienced player http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

"Ermor (Dusk Elders & raise skeletons)"

Ctis empoisoners D1

Any flying or stealthy wizard who can spam stuff.
Or someone with spammer items - infernal protection maybe or bottle of water not sure how strong these are in practice.
Given boots this is quite a choice


It's not that I don't think it sounds strong; it's just that it isn't the whole story, and anyway doesn't seem to me to be grounded in much real MP experience.


http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Money on PD is a dubious investment anyway IMO as it gets knocked over too easily - just in routine battles. I might have already mentioned that I am reluctant to spend on anything other than field forces though.
Still I lack much MP experience particularly against good military players in even fights. People who make you think rather than just choosing power strat #3 or whatever.

Pickles

[Vynd]

I think the real reason that Caelum was Banned from some games is because Norfleet was primarily using Caelum after they took the VQ away from Ermor. Some people didn't want to play against him, and they were probably hoping this would keep him away.

[Stormbinder]

Vynd said:
I think the real reason that Caelum was Banned from some games is because Norfleet was primarily using Caelum after they took the VQ away from Ermor. Some people didn't want to play against him, and they were probably hoping this would keep him away.



Not in my current game (Throne of Heavens) http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif You see, it Banned both Norfleet and Caelum nation, but for absolutely unrelated reasons. (it is played on Zen's modification of Cradle Of Dominion map)

I general I would not want to see Caelum nerfed, although it may very well be most powerful nation in MP atm. Still all races are not equal, it's a a life.

But I would certanly like to see some changes to False Horror spell, currently 10 fatique Air1 spell. The situation where just 4-6 false horrors from 1 100gp quickened seraph commander can rout 20+ PD of other nations just doesn't seem right to me, in combination with Caelum's ability to strike anywhere. IMHO changes to False Horror's fear aura or to spell cost would be very good. And Caelum would still be terrific raider even with reduced Fasle Horror's efficiency.

[Cheezeninja]

ALL i've seen so far is speculation and observations from an outside point of reference, many of the people arguing for the nerf have even admitted that they have played Caelum either infrequently or not at all. How can you be arguing for the nerfing of a nation, or even a spell, that you havn't even used in depth? All your seeing is the strengths without seeing the weakness's. Until someone can put forward hard evidence that Caelum is winning too many of its games i believe a nerf would not only be premature, but downright stupid.

note: I agreed with the VQ nerf, and i still do. Because if you looked at the games going on at the time a very large percentage of people were taking the VQ, even for nations that should not be thematically taking them. Once you get to the point when everyone is gravitating towards a single strategy because of its effectivness, then it might be time to impose a nerf to maintain balance and diversity. Frankly this is not the case with Caelum. In the starting game Posts i see, rarely if ever is Caelum the first nation selected, and i most definetly do not see everyone gravitating towards a false horror strategy during the playing of the game.

[PvK]

I too haven't heard anything that would make me afraid of Caelum per se. I will admit I have not had extensive experience with them, but I will also say that all of the experience I have had with them, has seen them getting pretty well steamrollered. Once I saw a Caelum AI lead in battle by a Manticore beat a Pangaea AI after a while, but that's not saying much. Incidentally, it then headed straight for my home Mictlan province with two armies, which looked scary at first, but my Mictlan had no problem dealing with them quite quickly. In MP I have seen Caelum troops fire ineffectively at a smaller force of armored troops and then rush in and die to (and fly from) them in close combat.

I can see how raiding fliers are useful and a threat, but not that threatening a one. In general I'm not afraid of Caelum, especially if I have good forces with lightning protection.

PvK