Caelum vs. T'ien Ch'i

[The Panther]

The post where people were asked to rate the nations had a clear winner and a clear loser. Caelum came out on top and TC came out on bottom. So why is this?

I recently tested TC for the first time to find out why Caelum is so much better than TC. And the answer is crystal clear. It's the mages!

Mages are far and away the most important thing for any nation. They do research. Build artifacts. Summon troops. Lead troops. Fight battles. Search for sites. In fact, absolutely everything needed in this game starts with the mages.

So, lets examine the Caelum and TC mages:

1. Cheap mages:
A. Seraph - A2W1 - 100 gold - recruitable everywhere.
B. MotW - W1?1P2 - 100 gold - recruitable everywhere.

The MotW gets a random, which is nice. The 2 priest is not very useful other than to halve the upkeep cost plus build an occasional temple, and I for sure would rather have a second random.

The Seraph has no random, which is not so good. But, and this is the key, it does not need one! Any Caelum player will get quickness/lightning right away. Then quickness/false horrors a bit later. Who needs a random? These Seraphs have the ideal skills for their cheap price. They can research and are extremely powerful in battles. They can also build some cheap artifacts when needed, like boots of flying and quill pens. And eventually, water bracelets for clam hoarding.

I would give a slight edge to Caelum on this, especially since it's mage has one more research level. But the one MotW random means you can get a W2 clam building mage easily as TC and do more level 1 site searching because of that random, plus they are half the upkeep cost. This is why I gave Caelum only a slight edge.

2. High mages:
A. High Seraph - A3W2?1 - 175 gold - recruitable everywhere!!!
B. Celestial Master - F1A1W2S1?1P3 - 250 gold - capitol only!

The cost difference is astounding. OK, the three priest level is mildly useful, which is where the extra purchase price goes. But the S1 is horrid! Any astral race will kill these mages fast. And you don't have all that many anyway due to the capitol only problem. Plus, the ONLY level 2 they come with is water, arguably the single worst school. It means you can immediately build clams. Big deal! You will quickly get a W2 MotW soon anyway and he will build the clams. Plus the only school you can get immediate access up to level 3 is water. Caelum can get air 4 out of the box! Ugh.

This is not even remotely balanced. The better mage is MUCH cheaper and built anywhere! In fact, I would go as far as claiming that the Caelum power mages are twice as cost effective as the TC power mages. The ONLY benefit to the CM is the lower upkeep cost.

This is, imho, why T'ien Ch'i deserves the bottom spot and Caelum gets the top spot. Not the only reason, but perhaps the predominate one.

So, how to fix this? And can it be done in a patch?

My first cut:
1. Increase the cost of the Seraph slightly, perhaps to 120.
2. Make the High Seraph capitol only and/or increase the cost to maybe 200 or 225.
3. Remove the S1 from the CM and make it a second random or perhaps a second fire.
4. Change the A1W2 to A2W1 on the CM.

Is this enough to make T'ien Ch'i a vaible race? Is this punishment enough for Caelum? Opinions, anyone???

[Kel]

I wouldn't want to see every nation evened out in every area. Nations should be made special on their own merits and have their own strengths, rahter than making every nation have similar attributes.

In short, it is ok that some nations have better mages, some have better economy, some better paths, some better in early game, some better in late game, etc.

If you think TC should be stronger, I would rather see it be something new than just smudging the lines a bit between them and Caelum.

- Kel

[alexti]

Caelum mages have another very important advantage: they can fly. Another advantage of Caelum is their cold scales.

MotW is pretty good though, don't discount halved maintenance. Plus, priest levels are more valuable then it looks. With Caelum you have to buy both mages and priests, with TC you need much less priests.

The weakness of TC is somewhat more complex that just costs. As you said S1 is one of the problems. Another one is that TC doesn't have good battle mages worth of mass production. CM are too expensive for what they do (flexibility is nice, but not at that cost). First few CM are really valuable (for searching, forging, summoning etc). But more CMs don't bring much. MotW are more cost-efficient, but most of them won't have good spells to cast.

I dislike idea of increasing Caelum costs, I'd rather took random from high seraphs, making them A3W3. They'd still have their flavour, and good cheap mages, but they'd also get very specialized, but without any randoms and only 2 paths covered it would call for specific strategies.

[The Panther]

alexti said:
I dislike idea of increasing Caelum costs, I'd rather took random from high seraphs, making them A3W3. They'd still have their flavour, and good cheap mages, but they'd also get very specialized, but without any randoms and only 2 paths covered it would call for specific strategies.



If you do this, then Caelum has no random picks, just like Ulm (which could be the subject of another post http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif ) This might work, though, if you also change the Seraphs to A1W1?1.

The simple fact remains, both the Seraphs and the High Seraphs are simply too good for the cost, making Caelum the best race. And building High Seraphs everywhere is like piling on!

Of course, it is impossible to fully balance 17 different races. So we might as well continue to have Caelum picked in every game and TC picked rarely. Right?

Has anybody actually played an MP game with 10 or more players in which T'ien Ch'i won? Anybody?

Can you imangine the odds you would get in Las Vegas betting on T'ien Ch'i as compared to Caelum in a 10 player game with people of approximately equal skills?

[Cainehill]

Another way to weaken Caelum slightly would be to change their random to be random elemental only. Sure, it means they get more A4s, but it also makes it tougher for them to get nature, death, and astral, all of which are quite valuable. (This would seem to make some sense, since Caelum's mages are definately elemental based - it makes more sense, imo, than Arco's mystics only having elemental randoms.)

The priest side of TC's mages is definately something of a bonus - if your pretender dies, you easily bring him back. Caelum may well have to build a bunch of seraphine priests all of a sudden, which are of dubious value unless menaced by undead.

Giving CM's an extra random (and increased cost) might help, imo.

Thing is, T'ien C'hi has better troops than Caelum, but yes, it's mages are lacking (except Spring and Autumn).

Frankly, if Water was improved the way it should be then TC's mages would be a lot more viable. That's how I'd like to seem them fixed, especially rather than nerfing Caelum.

[Zen]

The Panther said:
Has anybody actually played an MP game with 10 or more players in which T'ien Ch'i won? Anybody?

Yes. I have.


Can you imangine the odds you would get in Las Vegas betting on T'ien Ch'i as compared to Caelum in a 10 player game with people of approximately equal skills?



Probably not very good, I wouldn't start betting until I saw the starting positions. Your nation and Pretender set the stage on which the game is played, and while certainly some nations have the upper hand on this dynamic it doesn't mean that TC 'can't' win, but that it has to have strength in the areas to circumvent their weaknesses (Diplomacy, Timing, etc).

[Arryn]

Zen said:

The Panther said:
Has anybody actually played an MP game with 10 or more players in which T'ien Ch'i won? Anybody?

Yes. I have.

Were you the TC player in that game? Another important consideration is whether the game was a blitz (VP) game or something more normal?

[Zen]

Arryn said:
Were you the TC player in that game?

Yes, but that hardly matters.
Another important consideration is whether the game was a blitz (VP) game or something more normal?

It was a normal slugathon. No house rules and Lasted into turn 70something. How it was won, was exactly what I stated, a combination of Timing and Diplomacy. As well as cold-hearted unmerciful morale killing blitz attacks that would render an opponent stunned while not flipping my hand too early. I purposfully left terrain undefended so that neighboring smallish nations would gobble up useless provinces or commit forces that could then be targeted by my quickstrike brigades.

MoTW are great for stopping Ghost Riders even chained in high numbers.

[Chazar]

I think Caelum's main bonus is the possibility to fly: You can quickly respond to any threat that arises unforseen! This is a huge strategical advantage. I'd like to see a non-magic all-flying nation and see how that would work out...

[Peter Ebbesen]

Zen said:
MoTW are great for stopping Ghost Riders even chained in high numbers.


Ah, the Quickened Banishment brigade. It is always tough on undead. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

MotW is a favourite unit of mine:
It is cheap: 100 gold
Has a low upkeep due to being sacred
Can research: one of the best researchers in the game for its cost and upkeep.
Can call god
Can cast quickness
Can cast frozen heart
Can cast banishment
Is affected by blessings (E4 is always really nice on mages (and priests if facing the risen dead)[/i])
Sometimes comes with a useful random)

It is like having a sage-lite, who can also double as combat mage, holy inquisition, or banishment specialist when needed. You can never have too many MotWs.

I like Caelum's Seraph too - a very good unit and the quickness/lightning combination (or wrathful skies) can be deadly - but even with the added strength of strategic flight it comes up short compared to the MotW in overall usefulness because of low versatility.

But, then again, I am a player who prefers versatility over specialisation as I prefer to have a host of less powerful options available rather than one or two powerful ones, so I guess it is natural that I like T'ien C'hi despite their weaknesses. I much prefer to keep the opposition guessing as to what I will field next rather than having them know what it is through a strong, known, one or two-dimensional threat. Sometimes it pays off (the opposition tries to counter all your possible options thus diverting resources, the opposition fails to block one of the less obvious strategies), sometimes it does not (the opposition bulldozes me with its brute force approach).

Hmm. Began as an answer concerning the MotW and ended up a paean to versatility. These things happen.

[Boron]

If Tien Chi S&A wouldn't be forced turmoil 1 but could chase order/turmoil scale freely i think they would be a top 5 nation http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif .

Marignon Diabolic faith is similiar but there i fear if they would be able to chose turmoil/order scale freely then they would be probably the best bloodnation , better than Mictlan and Abysia . Tien Chi S&A has still the weakness of mind duel + their CMs are capitol only so there i think simply removing the forced turmoil 1 would make them a nice nation .


Cainehill said:
Thing is, T'ien C'hi has better troops than Caelum, but yes, it's mages are lacking (except Spring and Autumn).



How do you come to this conclusion ? Caelum has good archers + mammoths . So their troops are superior to Tien Chi S&A and about on par with base Tien Chi .

[Chazar]

Boron said:
Caelum has good archers + mammoths . So their troops are superior to Tien Chi S&A and about on par with base Tien Chi .



The mammoth is nice during earlier stages of the game, but it is useless once the game has progressed and your armies start to count substantial numbers of mages among their ranks: First the mammoth disables strategical flight
Second a trampling and routing mammoth will cause more losses among your mages than the enemy - and severely restricts the mages tactical placement. (and the high-moral but captial-only and hence limited and really-crappy-otherwise wingless do not change this for mid-game purposes)
So a mammoth isnt worth its high upkeep apart from initial expansion and early game blitzkriegs. The mammoth is just Caelums ticket to survive the early game stages.
(Maybe the mammoth could be made more useful if the seraphs would be allowed to target routing units http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/evil.gif - the Mammoths are used to friendly fire anyway... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif)

Well, and the Caelian Archers are nice, sure, but in later game stages their short bow becomes useless due to the constant storm produced by the obligatory staffs of storms (even despite of wind guide) and the increased protection of the enemies you are facing. Still they have their place in end game, since they are nice meatshields for the mages: They do allow strategical flight and they stay put in their tactical place thanks to the fire command. Give me the tactical 'hold only'-command and I will use any other size 3 flying troop. So they are just there to prevent the enemy to target my precious mages with "attack fliers" or "attack large" orders.

[Boron]

Sure but this is all true for Tien Chi too . I just wanted to point out that Caelum's troops aren't worse than Tien Chi's .

What you say is more or less true for all troops in lategame http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif .
Some like devils are a bit tougher but even they get wiped out by magic quite well .

[Cainehill]

Boron said:

Cainehill said:
Thing is, T'ien C'hi has better troops than Caelum, but yes, it's mages are lacking (except Spring and Autumn).



How do you come to this conclusion ? Caelum has good archers + mammoths . So their troops are superior to Tien Chi S&A and about on par with base Tien Chi .



Like some other people, I'm getting very tired of answering your questions when you're too lazy to look for yourself, since it's fairly obvious that, if you ever played T'ien C'hi, you didn't bother to use their troops.

How are their troops better?

Archers : Composite Bow (damage 12, range 35) instead of Short Bow (dam 10, range 30) does more meaningful damage and has slightly better range. The Imperial Archers have almost as good a precision (11 vice 12) as Caelum's, have better armor, and far better morale (12 vice 10). And TC also has Imperial Crossbows, to do armor piercing damage against high protection units. The only real edge Caelum has is - flying.

Infantry : Caelum's flying infantry mostly suck. They have a top damage of 14, from the troops with the Ice Blade. (Frankly, I suspect a bug - an "Ice Lance" should do more damage than an "Ice Blade", but it's 3 and 5 respectively.) They also have relatively poor morale (except for the Iceclad and Storm Guard, which are _very_ resource intensive).

TC's infantry have a very nice top base damage of 20, from both glaive-bearing troops. (Glaive - damage 10, length 4, a great weapon.) They also have pike wielders, for a length 6 weapon for repels. And spear wielders with tower shields, great against archers, better than the round shields most of Caelum's troops have (exception being the Iceclad / Storm Guards that, did I mention, are incredibly resource heavy?) And TC's Imperial Footmen have morale 12 - quite nice.

Then TC has the Imperial Guard, with very high morale (13), good protection, 15, decent attack (11) and good damage (17 with their falchions), combined with that nice tower shield.

And solid cavalry, including _great_ blessable heavy cavalry in the Red Guard.

On the other paw, Caelum's troops can affect vampires and such. This doesn't really have much of an effect until mid to late game, when flying infantry can take down some vampires or even swarm ethereal SCs before they cast their buff spells. And they fly.

But with the exception of two troops that are tough to acquire in any numbers, the bulk of Caelum's troops are flimsy and not terribly good against other mortal armies, like most independents.

That's why Caelum has great, cheap, mages. Because the bulk of their troops aren't very good at all, while TC has perfectly solid troops - it's only their mages that could use an upgrade.

[Alneyan]

My only problem with T'ien Ch'i is their capitol-only Mages, especially in Spring & Autumn. I can get the money to recruit two Celestial Masters/Master of the Five Elements every turn, but only have a single capitol (duh!). I am not sure if allowing either of them to be recruited everywhere is a good idea though.

Besides this, T'ien Ch'i has adequate troops (though I am not fond of cavalry, but that's more a personal feeling), and Spring & Autumn keeps better than average archers. Sure, Composite Bows are not Longbows, and they won't win the game, but they work well enough against the weaker independent provinces (on Independent Strength 6/7 at any rate; I have yet to try them with Independents 9). Cavalry provinces are another story though, especially with Spring & Autumn, at least with the national armies.

If you did want to bother Caelum, why not give them an enforced Astral path on their mages? Astral 1 is a curse, and Caelum does not strike me as a nation able to get much us from the low Astral spells (such as Body Ethereal and the like). It will, however, make Caelum closer to T'ien Ch'i, though only one of T'ien Ch'i mages have a mandatory Astral path.

[Boron]

Cainehill said:

Boron said:

Cainehill said:
Thing is, T'ien C'hi has better troops than Caelum, but yes, it's mages are lacking (except Spring and Autumn).



How do you come to this conclusion ? Caelum has good archers + mammoths . So their troops are superior to Tien Chi S&A and about on par with base Tien Chi .


Like some other people, I'm getting very tired of answering your questions when you're too lazy to look for yourself, since it's fairly obvious that, if you ever played T'ien C'hi, you didn't bother to use their troops.

How are their troops better?




Where did i say they are better ? I said only that caelums troops are better than those of Tien Chi S&A and not much worse than base Tien Chi's .
And in your long and otherwise good analysis you completely left out the mammoth .

It is expensive with 120 gold but with good placement it hits first and the first round is perhaps even enough to rout the enemy .

If caelum had no mammoth then you would be completely true .

The comparism of their troops only is though anyway not viable because caelum will aid their troops with battlemagic anyways .
Tien chi can do this too but not as good and finally caelum has +120 points from cold 3 .

[Thufir]

Alneyan said:
My only problem with T'ien Ch'i is their capitol-only Mages, especially in Spring & Autumn. I can get the money to recruit two Celestial Masters/Master of the Five Elements every turn, but only have a single capitol (duh!). I am not sure if allowing either of them to be recruited everywhere is a good idea though.




I'm a big fan of TC S&A, though I haven't figured out quite how to play them competitively in MP play (yet, that is!). I do think they are somewhat underpowered, but I don't think they're as pathetic as they're generally made out to be.

While I'm too much of a newbie to make claims about what tweaks should or should not be done, I will anyhow!

My suggested tweaks to S&A are:

1) Make summons for Demons of Heavenly Fire and River produce more than one demon per summons. The gem cost can be kept on a proportional basis, or perhaps at a slightly lower cost per demon.

2) Make MoT5E not capital only. When I've suggested this previously, it was said that this was "not thematic". I don't quite get that, but I find that when I'm playing S&A, I recruit very few MoT5E (which I use only for site searching), as it usually seems better to recruit Celestial Masters every turn in my capital. I don't think it's a good idea to make CMs non-capital only, but to the extent that my limited experience guides me, it would seem reasonable to make MoT5E non-capital only.

[Vynd]

Thufir said:

1) Make summons for Demons of Heavenly Fire and River produce more than one demon per summons. The gem cost can be kept on a proportional basis, or perhaps at a slightly lower cost per demon.





I think it is interesting that it took until well into this thread before anyone even mentioned T'ien Chi's unique summons. I think that it goes to show that aren't having much of an impact. So I agree that it would be nice for these to be made more cost effective and/or powerful.

[Cainehill]

Boron said:
And in your long and otherwise good analysis you completely left out the mammoth .




I left out the mammoth because I left out _all_ the non-flying troops, which are of limitted use to Caelum. Without Wingless and the sacred guard, the mammoths tend to rout and kill your mages; in any case they can't fly (unless you have the Flying Ship) and so aren't mobile enough to be terribly useful. And as the two high morale non-flyers are capital-only you can't easily get them to places where you might recruit mammoths (on the front lines).



The comparism of their troops only is though anyway not viable because caelum will aid their troops with battlemagic anyways .
Tien chi can do this too but not as good and finally caelum has +120 points from cold 3 .



What does this have to do with the comparison of the nation's troops? Someone else said that T'ien C'hi's troops were as bad (or worse) than Caelum's and it just isn't so.

And _YES_ Caelum will aid troops with battlemagic - they have to, because their troops are among the worst in the game. The mages are the _point_ of Caelum. Or have your forgotten, they're a bleeding magocracy?

"And finally" what has Caelum's cold three scale to do with any of this? It's an advantage when designing a pretender, but then your economy goes down when the cold scale goes down, your troops aren't as useful if it isn't cold 3, some of the mage's spells aren't as useful if it isn't cold 3, etc, etc.

Feh. *plonk*

[Cainehill]

Vynd said:

Thufir said:

1) Make summons for Demons of Heavenly Fire and River produce more than one demon per summons. The gem cost can be kept on a proportional basis, or perhaps at a slightly lower cost per demon.





I think it is interesting that it took until well into this thread before anyone even mentioned T'ien Chi's unique summons. I think that it goes to show that aren't having much of an impact. So I agree that it would be nice for these to be made more cost effective and/or powerful.



Just like people rarely speak of Marignon's Conquerors of the Sea getting a benefit from its starting spell of Holy Pyre.

The mages can rarely cast the spells, therefor the spells really don't do much for the nation. The paths on the mages ought to be adjusted in TC's case, or the spells changed (definately in CotS case, possibly TCs as well).

As things stand, I think TC can't get enough casters capable of summoning the demons until mid to late game, by which point it's too little too late to build up enough demons to be effective. True, the pretender can take up some of the slack - but it's a waste of the pretender's time to be doing low-to-medium level summonses.

[Cainehill]

Alneyan said:
If you did want to bother Caelum, why not give them an enforced Astral path on their mages? Astral 1 is a curse, and Caelum does not strike me as a nation able to get much us from the low Astral spells (such as Body Ethereal and the like). It will, however, make Caelum closer to T'ien Ch'i, though only one of T'ien Ch'i mages have a mandatory Astral path.



How would you adjust the current paths (A3W2?1) for the astral? I don't think you can reduce Air on them, and don't think you want to simply add the Astral. Deleting the random doesn't work for me, so the only viable alternative would be dropped 1 water.

But then - Caelum winds up with plenty of mages to cast Arcane Probing to find the astral gems, can get S2 without empowerment to forge Starshine Skullcaps, and can field hordes of mages with astral for communion, allowing the lead mage to easily get to A7 or W5 for some really nasty battle field clearing spells like Niefel Flames or Shimmering Fields.

Adding Astral seems like it would empower Caelum's mages more than weakening them.

[The Panther]

I find it interesting that a steadfast Abysia player (Cohen) wants his personal race beefed up and a confirmed Caelum player (Cainehill) wants the most powerful nation left alone so it can continue to be too strong! To each his own!

As far as Spring and Autumn, I did not include that in my original comparison. Like me, most people get immediately turned off by the forced turmoil. And because Order (OK, maybe Magic too) is the single most important scale, S&A is heavily penalized by this.

Also, on the subject of summons, the base TC unique summons Celestial Soldiers are just too expensive in terms of air gem cost to be useful in bulk. I would rather save up air gems to try and get an air queen.

Really, TC just has nothing going for it. One of the best Posts above was Zen telling how he had to hide, appear weak, and cajole his opponents into leaving him mostly alone in order to win as T'ien Ch'i. Maybe this remains as the only known TC win on a big map. Certainly, not to take away anything from that incredible discussion of skill, since everybody knows TC is so weak and not a big threat, Zen could get away with this!

Also, the fact that you have to rely on a weak mage with W1?1P2 to do anything at all just confirms the problems with TC. I would much rather rely on a horror-spamming A2W1 Seraph to fight key battles.

The fact that the national troops of either race are very weak is close to meaningless. I mean, look at the race with the WORST national troops, Mictlan. Not many people consider Mictlan all that weak. Until they somehow eventually fix the problem of the national troops being pretty much useless other than fodder after turn 40 or so, this won't even be an issue in my mind.

[Alneyan]

I keep on forgetting Caelum gets more mages than most nations; thanks for reminding me that little, annoying detail (playing T'ien Ch'i or Man simply does not prepare me for the "recruitable everywhere" Caelum case).

On a not-so related matter, would Fire Vulnerability affect an unit when being attacked with Fires/Flames from Afar? If so, it might be something to add to these Caelum mages. They are quite connected to cold, and being vulnerable to fire because of this would seem a nice little addition. How bothering would this be?

Forgive me if I sound naïve, but I have very little experience with fighting Caelum, and so have yet to be involved in a major fight with them. Because of this, the above proposal is merely an odd idea, much like the Astral one, and does not claim to be the absolute truth, or even a good suggestion at all.

[Zen]

The Panther said:
Really, TC just has nothing going for it. One of the best Posts above was Zen telling how he had to hide, appear weak, and cajole his opponents into leaving him mostly alone in order to win as T'ien Ch'i. Maybe this remains as the only known TC win on a big map. Certainly, not to take away anything from that incredible discussion of skill, since everybody knows TC is so weak and not a big threat, Zen could get away with this!

I didn't say they didn't have anything going for it. Obviously in order to accomplish that win I had to have a significant gem income, which TC excels at searching multiple paths. A strong starting force with the appropriate combination (high numbers of early archers) and the ability to research significantly.


Also, the fact that you have to rely on a weak mage with W1?1P2 to do anything at all just confirms the problems with TC. I would much rather rely on a horror-spamming A2W1 Seraph to fight key battles.

Actually, the MoTW is not a weak mage by standard of efficency and usefulness or cost. Quickness, Frozen Heart, False Horror, Banishment, combined with the ability to blood hunt easily if you are utilizing them to their full effectiveness (by building them *everywhere*) make them adaptable to whatever role you happen to need as long as you provide the stopping power to actually use them instead of being devoured by SC's.

This is actually why I was able to do what I did because I was able to adapt my defense to the multitude of nations and tactics that I faced during the course of the game.

[Tuidjy]

I think Caelum is overrated as 'the' most powerful nation. Caelum is
extremely strong in early-mid game. Unfortunately for them, unless they
are lucky with independants, there comes a point where wimpy air/water
mages just do not cut it, and there are only three airqueens... Caelum
has no monopoly on these, no matter what Saint Cohen wants you to believe.

A Caelum player has to expand agressively, and has to get rid of Pythium,
Vanheim, and C'tis. If he fails to do so, after turn 30, he will lose.
Given that Caelum is the Gamebreaker-du-jour, I expect to see it gather
the unhealthy attention that Ermor did when it was in the spotlight.

As for T'ien Ch'i, I agree they need something. I would suggest a half
way decent mage that can be recruited anywhere.

[Cainehill]

The Panther said:
I find it interesting that a steadfast Abysia player (Cohen) wants his personal race beefed up and a confirmed Caelum player (Cainehill) wants the most powerful nation left alone so it can continue to be too strong! To each his own!




Confirmed Caelum player? Heh. My net Caelum experience is ... two MP games, both ongoing. More proper to say that I'm a confirmed Vanheim and CW Pangaea player. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

And I'm also arguing against a change that was proposed to weaken Caelum, because it (giving them forced astral) would IMO actually strengthen them.

Changes that I think _could_ be made would be tweaking the costs a little bit -- anything more than 10/20 more gold would be too much, or making the high seraph capital only.

[The Panther]

What???? Only two games as Caelum?

How did you manage to be playing BOTH those games against little 'ol me??? And recently too???

Probably bad luck on my part, darn it all.

[Arryn]

Cainehill said:
Confirmed Caelum player? Heh.

Get used to it. I got tarred by Zen months ago as a "confirmed Jotun player", only because I played it twice in MP games he was in, and I wrote an AAR based on Utgard. My preferred nation (at the moment) is actually R'leyh, though I also have some fondness for Caelum and Ulm.

If I was going to try to nerf Caelum, I'd consider making *both* seraph types capital-only, leave their costs alone, and make the random pick (or one of them in the case of the high seraph) elemental-only. To balance this and make the use of mammoths more viable beyond the early game, I'd make wingless recruitable at any fort.

[Cohen]

With BOTH seraph type capitol only their research and expansion will be totally screwed up since it's based on Mages.

IMO a cost raising is fine. But not of 10 or 20 gold ... well I've done this in my mod.

Answering Tujidi:
Being strong in EARLY-MID game means having a damn good basis of provinces, gem income and research for late game.
Caelum can clam too for late game...

I'm fully conveinced Caelum is uber strong.

[Cainehill]

Arryn said:

Cainehill said:
Confirmed Caelum player? Heh.

Get used to it. I got tarred by Zen months ago as a "confirmed Jotun player", only because I played it twice in MP games he was in, and I wrote an AAR based on Utgard. My preferred nation (at the moment) is actually R'leyh, though I also have some fondness for Caelum and Ulm.

If I was going to try to nerf Caelum, I'd consider making *both* seraph types capital-only, leave their costs alone, and make the random pick (or one of them in the case of the high seraph) elemental-only. To balance this and make the use of mammoths more viable beyond the early game, I'd make wingless recruitable at any fort.



I think you haven't played Caelum lately. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif The baby seraph doesn't have a random, the daddy seraph has a single random, and making them both capital only leaves Caelum with ... no mages recruitable outside the capital. That'd really put a crimp in their style, having to find independent mages to get any research going. "Ooooh! We have found illusionists, and the nation is rejoicing!" http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Making the high seraph's random elemental only would limit Caelum somewhat, although it'd also make getting A4 or W3 easier for them - probably a weakening overall, since getting death or nature on them is so handy.

[Arryn]

Caine,

I said *if* I was going to try to nerf Caelum. I'd think you'd know by now that I am *not* a proponent of nerfing *anything*. (You might want to recall that I'm on record as having said that I think Caelum is fine as is.) I was not-so-subtly trying to get a rise out of all of those rabid anti-Caelum pro-nerfers out there. I wanted to see who'd agree with such an absurd proposal, and what reasons they'd give ...

[alexti]

The Panther said:
What???? Only two games as Caelum?

How did you manage to be playing BOTH those games against little 'ol me??? And recently too???

Probably bad luck on my part, hehe.


Probably so. I am/was in 3 MP with Cainehill and he isn't playing Caelum in any of those (Pangaea, Arco and Machaka).

[Cainehill]

The Panther said:
What???? Only two games as Caelum?

How did you manage to be playing BOTH those games against little 'ol me??? And recently too???

Probably bad luck on my part, darn it all.



Heh. Could be worse - you're Vanheim in one, with no quarrel with me. In the other, you did in fact attack me, I retaliated (and retaliated, and ...) but it all worked out in the end, as you got to feast on Marignon's AI corpse, which I didn't even nibble on.

At least I'm not too bad a neighbor - no ice beer bottles getting thrown over into your backyard, I'm not playing Vanilla Ice too loud, heck, I'm a nIce neighbor compared to some. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

And yep - only these two games as Caelum. I get bored and like to try new nations, and avoid having more than 2 with the same nation at the same time.

And I'm arguably doing better in one of my first two R'lyeh games than I'm doing with Caelum. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Guess you're just lucky, eh? Could talk diplomacy over a beer sometime if you wanted.

[The Panther]

How about Jack's Step In Lounge at Central and Juan Tabo? The owner Jack is a golfing buddy of mine.


Cainehill said:
but it all worked out in the end, as you got to feast on Marignon's AI corpse, which I didn't even nibble on.




Well, I did get the capitol, but Pythium got much more of the spoils than me.

[PDF]

Back to the TC vs Caelum debate :
I mostly agree with the fact that TC mages aren't good, whereas Caelum ones are.
How to rebalance it ?
I think nerfing Caelum should be avoided, *but* A4W2 mages recruitable everywhere is damn too good ! What about putting their random in Sorcery only ? It's just the opposite of what Cainehill suggested, but it would make HS weaker indeed.
It's more complicated for TC : ok on having A2W1..etc rather than A1W2.. (which is just awfully ineffective) , but the S1 problem remains...

[Graeme Dice]

PDF said:
I think nerfing Caelum should be avoided, *but* A4W2 mages recruitable everywhere is damn too good!



So should C'Tis be nerfed as well? They have D4N1 mages recruitable everywhere, which is certainly more powerful than A4W2.

[Nagot Gick Fel]

PDF said:
It's more complicated for TC : ok on having A2W1..etc rather than A1W2.. (which is just awfully ineffective) , but the S1 problem remains...



I've pondered this for a while. Yet the only satisfying solution I've found so far would be to use the Magic Duel mod rather than mod the Celestial Masters.

[Zen]

Nagot Gick Fel said:
I've pondered this for a while. Yet the only satisfying solution I've found so far would be to use the Magic Duel mod rather than mod the Celestial Masters.



This doesn't unfortunately change the end result. Instead of having everyone with their sages killing them whenever they want, people will have to equip a pearl on their Sage to kill a Master.

I don't think an equitable soultion to TC is to have it cost 3 Pearl (at bad odds) for 250 Gold with a high chance of the first shot killing the Master. Not to mention that TC doesn't have the benefit of cheap national communion slaves (1/8) in order to try to circumvent some of that Astral weakness.

I don't think there is a good soultion while Magic Duel exists and is based off of pure Astral, unless you totally remove Astral from the CM or give them a significant amount.

[PDF]

Zen said:

Nagot Gick Fel said:
I've pondered this for a while. Yet the only satisfying solution I've found so far would be to use the Magic Duel mod rather than mod the Celestial Masters.



This doesn't unfortunately change the end result. Instead of having everyone with their sages killing them whenever they want, people will have to equip a pearl on their Sage to kill a Master.

I don't think an equitable soultion to TC is to have it cost 3 Pearl (at bad odds) for 250 Gold with a high chance of the first shot killing the Master. Not to mention that TC doesn't have the benefit of cheap national communion slaves (1/8) in order to try to circumvent some of that Astral weakness.

I don't think there is a good soultion while Magic Duel exists and is based off of pure Astral, unless you totally remove Astral from the CM or give them a significant amount.



I agree, even "harder" Magic Duel will still kill CMs ...
What about giving TC a cheapo communiant - let's say some "Diviner", S1, Holy, cost ca 70-80 gold ?
This will put TC in a much better position when confronting Marignon, Arco and even Pythium, no ?

[deccan]

I've been fighting an AI Caelum in SP, and I just want to point out that Temple Guards are a damn good troop even if it is capitol only. In a cold environment, they have armor comparable to the best Ulmish troops. However, Ulmish pay for their high armor with atrocious defense, while Temple Guards do not, and they are sacred to boot.

I know that THE way to play Caelum is to make good use of their excellent combat mages, but I'm wondering if Caelum can actually out-Ulm Ulm if you want to play it that way. After all, Caelum has good, if resource intensive, heavy infantry in the form of Temple Guards and Iceclads, excellent missile support with "Wind Guide" as a starting spell, and Mammoths to mow down stuff.

[Endoperez]

Ah, I am still sorry that I didn't have time to multiplay Caelum in Dom:PPP, using Temple Guards as my armies... In Dom:PPP, they weren't restrited to the capitol, and although there were no blessing effects priests could cast spell giving sacreds +3Att +3Str, worth two sixes of DomII!

If Return of Raptors had some king of non-sacred, non-restricted but weaker and/or more expensive Temple Guard they would be much more interesting... Unfortunately, that won't happen unless the raptors punish caelumians by cutting their wings and somehow manage to still get them to fight on their sides...

[Vicious Love]

For once, haven't read the entire thread, so apologies if any of this has already been suggested. Haven't thought this through, either, so further apologies if any of this is... stupid. I'm not even convinced a nerf/buff is in order.

Base T'ien Ch'i is a model of centralization, and I really can't imagine them getting Celestial Masters anywhere save in their capitol. However, they're immensely big on the whole heavenly motif, and so it strikes me as odd that their CMs have only one astral. Even if the elements are fundamental components of divinity, you'd still assume a Celestial Master would have at least two points of the Celestial Path. They'd still be slightly less susceptible to dueling(Although still very vulnerable), and would have more firepower in a perfectly thematic way. If this is still underpowered, we could always throw in some'a them awesome multi-javelin ballistae, as a cost-efficient, high-resource bit of artillery to give T'ien Ch'i's army both added style and added clout.

In contrast to base T'ien Ch'i, I see little sense in S&A's Celestial Masters being capitol only. I mean, sacred bamboo grove aside, S&A is a time of magicians and nobles of immense power popping out of nowhere to do battle with their peers. Everything in S&A is a dime a dozen, and everyone knows kung fu. Besides, you've gotta give players some incentive to recruit Masters of the Five Elements.

Any of that any good?

[Vicious Love]

OOh! Ooh! And S&A's Celestial Masters should have the stats to reflect said kung fu. Might make for a more distinct kind of battlemage, especially with their mojo mix.

[peasant]

Don't forget base T'ien Ch'i stealth economy destroyers/ scouts. Pretty efficient in causing unrest... but negated often by aggressive patroling http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

[Tuna]

Endoperez said:
Ah, I am still sorry that I didn't have time to multiplay Caelum in Dom:PPP, using Temple Guards as my armies... In Dom:PPP, they weren't restrited to the capitol, and although there were no blessing effects priests could cast spell giving sacreds +3Att +3Str, worth two sixes of DomII!




heh, but why would you need them, considering just how effective lesser air elementals were in the game...

[Endoperez]

Why do you think I didn't use them? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[PvK]

In my second MP Dominions game, which is still ongoing, I played my first game (SP or MP) as T'ien Ch'i. For what it's worth, and to poo poo the "TC will die in all MP games!" comments, I have been in the top 1-3 positions on practically all metrics throughout the game. I'd also mention that human troops are still an important element in armies.

I tend to partly agree that they can seem weak... but I also think they are also strong in many ways... even if none of those ways is by itself particularly impressive in an obvious way.

I.e., I think they are fairly strong, but in subtle ways. For example, they have many paths, which can with work and luck be put to many different uses. But it can take a lot of work and thought, very unlike nations which are very strong in a couple of very visible ways.

The Astral-1 on Celestial Masters is troubling... if you have to fight an opponent with much cheaper astral-1 mages or a strong astral king. If you don't, then it may not be a problem. I sort of think it would be nice if they had astral-2, or astral-0 with 2 random picks instead of one. I won't pretend enough expertise, experience, or knowledge of the dev's intentions to say that should be done, but if I had the option to recruit ones with 2? or 2S1? instead of 1S1?, I would use it and feel a lot less weak.

There sure are a lot of things they can do, though.

I also find it ironic, at least when considering Kung Fu et al, that TC units don't have particularly good fighting skills overall, except for the Prince Generals. TC mages with good fighting skills would certainly be different... of course they can become competant already with Quickness plus Blessings, but if they started out with skill... that would be something to think about.

I have found some neat things they can do, and some non-obvious strengths, and their casters sure have many possibilities... I think that a clever and patient player with strong knowledge of spells could probably be strong with them, but if you try to just use brute strength or techniques learned with other nations, they can seem weak.

One of their strengths is already massed bows, so I don't know that a repeating crossbow is going to change their nature much at all, except to give them another toy along the lines of what they already have.

The conscription effect is lame. Hardly ever happens except for very low levels which are worth almost no gold, and may just cause a problem due to the weird routing logic (strong unit tries to be alone but oops there is one conscript who dies, so strong unit routs...).

I think it'd be thematic to have the imperial theme have stronger conscription - say steady rise up to 5, and frequent up to 10, then levels above 10 be like they are now above 0.

Maybe also give them 1.5 to 2.0 footment per point of PD... though just to be thematic - I don't think that's needed for balance.

The Jade Emperor is I think a bit overpriced for his abilities, which is too bad.

PvK

[deccan]

PvK said:
I also find it ironic, at least when considering Kung Fu et al, that TC units don't have particularly good fighting skills overall, except for the Prince Generals. TC mages with good fighting skills would certainly be different... of course they can become competant already with Quickness plus Blessings, but if they started out with skill... that would be something to think about.




That's a neat idea, and it would be thematic too I think. Chinese philosophy is keen on the strong body = strong mind idea, and I would envision Chinese philosopher / mages to be outdoorsy, well-travelled, independent types, not the D&D mage who spends his time studying scrolls at the cost of atrophied muscles.

Perhaps give them something like 10 attack and 12 defence, to reflect the likely emphasis of "soft", i.e. water-like martial arts training?

Heh, playing these CM with fire and water blessings would be quite cool indeed...


PvK said:
I have found some neat things they can do, and some non-obvious strengths, and their casters sure have many possibilities...




Some suggestions perhaps? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif


PvK said:
Maybe also give them 1.5 to 2.0 footment per point of PD... though just to be thematic - I don't think that's needed for balance.




Chinese hordes indeed. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

[Vicious Love]

PvK said:
I sort of think it would be nice if they had astral-2, or astral-0 with 2 random picks instead of one.



While I heartily second the former(Hence my suggesting it myself, though I'm certain it's been suggested numerous times before) the latter just makes no thematic sense at all. I mean, even with an elemental scheme of divinity/enlightenment, one simply cannot overlook T'ien Ch'i's obssession with astronomy, transcendence, fortune, and so on. I mean, no one'll buy a Celestial Master with no celestial magic. Which is to say, they'll buy him en masse, especially if he's not capitol-only, but they won't find him very believable.


I also find it ironic, at least when considering Kung Fu et al, that TC units don't have particularly good fighting skills overall, except for the Prince Generals.



Seems to me like this'd only be relevant if there were kung fu oriented units. Which there aren't, probably as Johan O's way of avoiding cliches like herpes simplex B, regardless of said cliches role in actual history, to say nothing of folklore.


TC mages with good fighting skills would certainly be different... of course they can become competant already with Quickness plus Blessings, but if they started out with skill... that would be something to think about.



And a needlessly complex weapon. Like a segmented staff. Or a sword with tassels. Sweet.


One of their strengths is already massed bows, so I don't know that a repeating crossbow is going to change their nature much at all, except to give them another toy along the lines of what they already have.



Observe.
Bow: }

Ballista: http://www.roemercohorte.de/ballista3.jpg

Note the size difference and adorable SCA people. Consider the tactical implications thereof.

[PvK]

Good point about CELESTIAL masters really wanting astral skill to live up to their names... also underlines the question of why they have higher water skill than astral, taking us back to your suggestion of making them W1S2.

As for ballistas being larger than bows, yes... however I was responding to the suggestion of adding the Cho Ku No repeating crossbow, which may have been deployed in large Versions, but my recollection is the individual bolts weren't the size of ballista shots. So I wasn't thinking of a seige weapon like a ballista.

PvK

[Vicious Love]

My bad. I guess we're all in agreement, and all is in harmony. Can I get a round of Kumbaya?

[Tuidjy]

I have always assumed that Celestial Masters being 2W1S as opposed
to 1W2S was a 'feature' like Conquerors of the Sea having 'Holy Pyre'
as their starting spell.

[PDF]

Tuidjy said:
I have always assumed that Celestial Masters being 2W1S as opposed
to 1W2S was a 'feature' like Conquerors of the Sea having 'Holy Pyre'
as their starting spell.


It surely is, but the thing is that eventually they suck ... /threads/images/Graemlins/Cold.gif

[Soapyfrog]

By 'feature' I beleive he means 'bug'... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[deccan]

Okay, this is another "Caelum is dreadfully overpowered" post, so I fully expect to elicit some harsh comments in response. But I think that my points are valid, so please correct me where I'm wrong:

1) Caelum has cheap, very, very effective, clamhoard capable, recruit anywhere mages. Okay, Caelum is a "magocracy" so we'll skip this.

2) Caelum has a cheap for its price 3H priest. I mean 90 gp for a 3H priest is a really good buy. The closest thing I can think of is TC's "Minister of Rituals" at 100 gp. But the Caelum Version flies, is cold immnune, is stealthya and comes with a magic weapon (though admittedly that's not likely to be used much). Granted, Caelum has no 2H priest to recruit, but indy 2H priests can be recruited just about anywhere with just a temple for the standard price of 50 gp.

3) Caelum has what must be one of the best scouts in the game. It flies, resists cold, and costs exactly the same as the standard indy scout! It even has better armor than the standard scout!

4) Caelum has what I think is a decidedly above average sacred troop for a very reasonable price in the form of the "Temple Guard". It even comes with a built-in magic weapon to break mistformed SCs and kill ethereal stuff, so you won't need a fire 9 blessing with them. They have a pretty good defense so it might be interesting to do a water 9 blessing with them. Sure, their defense is not in a league with Vans but then they are a long way from being as expensive as Vans and Vans sure don't have their armor.

Okay, their armor breaks down in hot lands, but they get better in cold lands too. Besides, Abysian Lava Warriors have disadvantages in cold lands too and most people think they are a pretty good sacred troop.

Okay, they are resource intensive, but just because people usually take Sloth 3 as Caelum doesn't mean that they HAVE to.

5) Caelum does not have bad national troops. I think their national troops are actually rather good. They have good archers (especially with Wind Guide as a free starting spell). Their archers have 12 precision, same as longbowmen though of course they use shorter ranged and less damaging shorbows.

Their infantry actually has pretty good stats and are reasonably priced. The complaint that most people have is not that their infantry is bad at fighting. It's that because of their flying ability, they don't tank for archers in the way that they are supposed to. In fact, what Caelum wants is strategic flight, but they don't want tactical flight. Without tactical flight, Caelum infantry can hold and attack just like normal infantry and tank for archers. There are workarounds to this, for example, setting the infantry to guard commander to a carefully placed seraphine who is herself set to only cast spells for example.

6) Caelum because of cold 3 has spare points to play with.

So what disadvantages does Caelum have? I can only think of two:

1) Caelum has crappy PD. There's nothing redeeming to be said about infantry that flies straight up to be killed fairly quickly, though I wonder if the free magic weapons and free seraphine might be good against SG Ermor.

2) Caelum has supply problems and has no easy access to nature magic to alleviate that. I have no answer to that.

When all's said and done, Caelum's advantages are immense. People say that Caelum's one big advantage is their cheap mages, but it seems to me that Caelum has above average everything else AND cheap, good mages to boot. A while back, Cohen was complaining about how Abysia was terribly underpowered because all their stuff is so expensive. I don't agree with him by the way, and other people have pointed out that Abysia's stuff is more expensive to pay for more hit points and fire immunity. Well, Caelum has flying, built-in magic weapons, and cold immunity, but unless I'm very much mistaken, it doesn't seem to me that Caelum is paying anything for all this.

Okay, this is a bit of rant and I admit that I'm being beaten to a pulp by Caelum in an ongoing MP game (thanks Panther. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif ), but I'd still like to hear what others have to say to my points.

[Graeme Dice]

deccan said:
So what disadvantages does Caelum have? I can only think of two:



You missed the biggest one. Any unit that is both cold immune and lightning immune is untouchable by their mages.

[Chazar]

Graeme Dice said:
You missed the biggest one. Any unit that is both cold immune and lightning immune is untouchable by their mages.


Almost true. There is "IceStrike" however which does normal damage and is quite nice against weaklings like longdead...

Oh, and as a Caelum-lover, the PD is quite nice due to that Seraphine...

While TempleGuards suck, since they do not come in huge numbers and I cannot see how Caelum could be played effectively with a Bless-effect, but I uess a magocracy isnt supposed to be overly religious...

Size 3 units is a pain though: water breathing, sparse battle formations, food...

[Cainehill]

deccan said:
2) Caelum has a cheap for its price 3H priest. I mean 90 gp for a 3H priest is a really good buy. The closest thing I can think of is TC's "Minister of Rituals" at 100 gp. But the Caelum Version flies, is cold immnune, is stealthya and comes with a magic weapon (though admittedly that's not likely to be used much). Granted, Caelum has no 2H priest to recruit, but indy 2H priests can be recruited just about anywhere with just a temple for the standard price of 50 gp.




The 90 GP 3H priest isn't that great a deal. Consider the following:

Abysia:
2F3H, 200GP (over 50% more HPs, fire immune)
2F2B3H, 240 GP (90% more HPs, flying, fire immune)

Atlantis:
4H, 230 GP (300% HPs, amphibian, goo stats)

Pythium:
1A1W2S3H, 150 GP (same HPs, + great magic)

C'tis:
3H, 120GP or
2N1W1?3H, 190 GP (poison immune)

Arcoscephale:
1N3H, 110 GP (Magic andhealing)

Marignon:
1F3H, 110 GP (Magic and preaching bonus)

Pangaea:
1N3H, 110 GP (Magic, Awe, stealth, recuperation)

Vanheim:
2A1B3H, 280 GP (good magic, stealth, glamour, sailing, greatstats)

Jotun:
3H, 200 GP (350% HPs, cold immune, high-STR thug)

R'lyeh:
1S1?3H, 150 GP (300+% HPs, amphib, life drain, mindbLast)

Mictlan:
2B2?3H, 230-250 GP (variety of great magic)

Machaka:
3H, 90 GP

Looking at those priests, Caelum's doesn't look like it's particularly underpriced - its special abilities aren't that great, its stats aren't that great, etc. Other nations have Priest-3s that are more expensive, but cheap when you consider the magic or stats they get, and I'd _far_ rather have P3 mages than vanilla P3s, since you quickly build a stock of researchers who can call your pretender back in 1 turn if need be. With vanilla P3s, your pretender dies and _then_ you start buying them.



3) Caelum has what must be one of the best scouts in the game. It flies, resists cold, and costs exactly the same as the standard indy scout! It even has better armor than the standard scout!




None of which, except the flying, really means anything. A scout isn't going to be involved in fighting often, and while sneaking is immune to murdering winter anyway. It also requires enough resources that some fortified provinces might not be able to recruit one in a single turn, or won't be able to recruit any troops at the same time.



4) Caelum has what I think is a decidedly above average sacred troop for a very reasonable price in the form of the "Temple Guard". It even comes with a built-in magic weapon to break mistformed SCs and kill ethereal stuff, so you won't need a fire 9 blessing with them. They have a pretty good defense so it might be interesting to do a water 9 blessing with them. Sure, their defense is not in a league with Vans but then they are a long way from being as expensive as Vans and Vans sure don't have their armor.

Okay, they are resource intensive, but just because people usually take Sloth 3 as Caelum doesn't mean that they HAVE to.




Not resource intensive - incredibly resource intensive, as you can buy about 2.8 Vans for the same resources. And the Van isn't capital only, meaning that you can buy 10-20 a turn if desired and you have the gold. And the Vans have a strategic movement of 3, compared to the Temple Guard's _1_. You can't build Temple Guards in numbers, and if you do, you find it almost impossible to get them where they're needed.



When all's said and done, Caelum's advantages are immense. People say that Caelum's one big advantage is their cheap mages, but it seems to me that Caelum has above average everything else AND cheap, good mages to boot. A while back, Cohen was complaining about how Abysia was terribly underpowered because all their stuff is so expensive. I don't agree with him by the way, and other people have pointed out that Abysia's stuff is more expensive to pay for more hit points and fire immunity. Well, Caelum has flying, built-in magic weapons, and cold immunity, but unless I'm very much mistaken, it doesn't seem to me that Caelum is paying anything for all this.




Caelum's troops tend to have lower strength, lower HPs, and lower damage weapons than other nations infantry. (Ice Lance - damage 3, Ice Blade, D5, + 9 strength.) The magic weapons _only_ help against ethereal opponents, preferably low protection ones. Their troops are not above average, their priest isn't above average, their sacred troop is almost useless except on tiny maps.

The mages are above average, and their strategic movement is as well. (I think the flight might well be undervalued in their prices, but I don't think you can raise the prices much.) That's about it, imo.

[Graeme Dice]

Chazar said:
Almost true. There is "IceStrike" however which does normal damage and is quite nice against weaklings like longdead...



Longdead aren't lightning immune, but a bane lord with a ring of tamed lightning is.

[Cohen]

The fact is that Indies aren't lightning immune.
Caelum could take over indies faster than many other indipendents, and keep the research run.
This will provide more gold income for them as basis for the subsequent wars against active nations.

[Zen]

Indies are also not cold or fire immune.

[Graeme Dice]

Indies are also not immune to skeletons, nor are they immune to mind burn.

[deccan]

Graeme Dice said:

deccan said:
So what disadvantages does Caelum have? I can only think of two:



You missed the biggest one. Any unit that is both cold immune and lightning immune is untouchable by their mages.



Well, there's always "False Horror". And I've seen fully-equipped ice devils get killed by mass ghost wolves tanking for Caelum priests casting "Smite Demon".

[Boron]

Hm would you rate Pythium or Caelum higher as "best" magocracy ? Or maybe a different nation like C'tis ?

Pythium hasn't the high strategic movement of Caelum but Pythium has communion therefore and with Astral magic not the best but sufficient spells against SCs as well . I can't say atm if i would rate Pythium or Caelum higher .

[deccan]

Cainehill's points are all valid and I admit that I have a tendency to value skill (which Caelum has) more than HPs and strength, which may be wrong. However, even if I downgrade Caelum's troops and priests to merely "average and competent" instead of "above average", it still seems to me that Caelum has no obvious, glaring weakness. For example, I would still say that Caelum's troops are still better than, say, Tien Chi's mediocre ones, and isn't the mediocrity of Tien Chi's national troops supposed to compensate for their versatile mages?

Furthermore, Caelum has interesting specialist troops in the form of its Mammoths and the things that fly in storms. Those are not useful things in a general way, but they could be useful in the right kind of situation, and gives them an added versatility and ability to surprise, which I think should be considered quite valuable.

One Last point: I think that we shouldn't underestimate cold immunity + built-in magic weapons. The reason why so many national troops do so poorly against SCs even in large numbers is IMHO at least partly because of "Breath of Winter" + "Etherealness" + "Mistform". This makes Caelum's troops quite useful I think over the whole course of the game. Personally, I would value quite highly the ability to break mistform reliably. For example, in some previous tests I've run with AQs, I find that once an AQ's mistform is broken, it can be very easily killed by lifeless things.


Cainehill said:
Not resource intensive - incredibly resource intensive, as you can buy about 2.8 Vans for the same resources.



Heh, so you take Production 3, and pay for it by, er, not taking Order 3 since Caelum has no super-expensive stuff anyway unless you want to mass Mammoths or something, or is that blasphemous? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

[Zen]

C'tis researches as fast. Expands faster via Terror early and Raise Skeletons later, has powerful Priests and their first army can expand on turn 2, City Guard and always affordable Elite Lizards.

[deccan]

Boron said:
Hm would you rate Pythium or Caelum higher as "best" magocracy ? Or maybe a different nation like C'tis ?




I wouldn't know so don't ask me.

But I just wanted to add that I haven't been able to make Pythium communion work very well for me in SP play. I guess it's just a huge pain. You need to assemble Theurgs / Communicants in the right proportions. You need a screening force to tank for them. You need to replace communicants as they die. You need to estimate how long battles are going to take, play around with scripts a lot etc. That's just a lot of bother, and having a big, elegantly crafted army that depends on all of its pieces being there in order to work just makes me nervous.

[Cainehill]

deccan said:
Cainehill's points are all valid and I admit that I have a tendency to value skill (which Caelum has) more than HPs and strength, which may be wrong. However, even if I downgrade Caelum's troops and priests to merely "average and competent" instead of "above average", it still seems to me that Caelum has no obvious, glaring weakness. For example, I would still say that Caelum's troops are still better than, say, Tien Chi's mediocre ones, and isn't the mediocrity of Tien Chi's national troops supposed to compensate for their versatile mages?




No, Tien Chi's Astral-1 mediocre mages counter-compensate for good troops in the default theme, and forced turmoil and lesser troops compensates for powerful mediocre flying mages in Spring and Autumn, who still have Astral-1 and tend to be gunned down by magic duel. Base T'ien C'hi has _GOOD_ troops - I've already written one post about this in the first section of this thread, I'm not going to repeat myself here.




Cainehill said:
Not resource intensive - incredibly resource intensive, as you can buy about 2.8 Vans for the same resources.



Heh, so you take Production 3, and pay for it by, er, not taking Order 3 since Caelum has no super-expensive stuff anyway unless you want to mass Mammoths or something, or is that blasphemous? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif



And Production-3 still only lets them get maybe ... 3 or 4 Temple Guards a turn, max, and still no way of getting them to where they'd be useful. It would let them get Iceclads everywhere, but Iceclads tend to be useless against anything 14 protection or higher, not to mention that they keel over from exhaustion too quick.

[Graeme Dice]

deccan said:
Well, there's always "False Horror". And I've seen fully-equipped ice devils get killed by mass ghost wolves tanking for Caelum priests casting "Smite Demon".



Breath of winter will kill all illusionary troops that approach the SC, a fire shield will do the same.

[Graeme Dice]

deccan said:
Heh, so you take Production 3, and pay for it by, er, not taking Order 3 since Caelum has no super-expensive stuff anyway unless you want to mass Mammoths or something, or is that blasphemous?



One could always go with order 3, prod 2, cold 3, misfortune 2, magic 2, wizard's tower with a Nataraja with air 1 (empower quickly), water 2, nature 3. Or something along similar lines.

[deccan]

Graeme Dice said:
Breath of winter will kill all illusionary troops that approach the SC, a fire shield will do the same.



True and I admit I don't remember if those ice devils actually cast Breath of Winter. But those seraphs spammed a whole lot of ghost wolves and the ice devils couldn't effectively life drain off of them and finally died.