MA Caelum - Fear of Flying
 

Middle-Age Caelum. A nation of trampling mammoths, high precision flying archers, powerful make-anywhere flying mages, and speed bumps? The speed bumps I refer to are their less then optimal infantry. Notorious for their failure as an effective fighting force, I've heard all too many times why that is. Its clearly because they are size three. Yet, I've found that is not entirely true. Though that is the first conclusion that I myself came to, a closer investigation reveals even deeper deficiencies. Aside from the Caelian Infantry, Caelum's units generally fall into one of two categories. They either have a massive resource cost, or they don't have a helmet. Not having a helmet means that every once in a while your low hit point units will have no protection at all. That's not all. A national disadvantage is that all of Caelum's units have a base encumbrance of 4. Not so bad until you also observe that they take additional fatigue from flying. You know, that thing they do. This fatigue seems to ramp up with the encumbrance from armor. A storm guard will generally take 7 fatigue to get to an opponent and then another 8 to thrust his spear. A total of 15 fatigue in the first round is abysmal. By the third or forth round your high resource units might as well not wear armor at all thanks to critical hits. Now factor in the size three and the lower then average defense. Your best units can't hold a line because they get hit more often, have terrible defense from round one, and when they do get hit their armor will likely do nothing for them. Thus is the problem with these ill-fated soldiers. Throughout this guide I'll put forth a couple of infantry squads that do work for Caelum and that don't sacrifice Caelum's largest advantage, the ability to fly.

For our pretender design, I'll start by addressing the issue of a bless. Forget it!!! Choosing a bless as the focus of a Caelum strategy is virtually suicide. There sacred units aren't just sub-optimal, they are tragically the worse you could hope for. The temple guard have the two worse quality that a human-like capitol-only sacred can have, a massive resource cost and map-move 1. This not only makes it difficult to amass the large number of them to the right location, but it also runs counter to our goals during pretender design. Ideally we want our units to be low in resource so we can splurge on a high dominion and a strong bless, not on production. The alternative is for them to be strong enough to take out large armies in very small groups, which is just not going to happen. Caelum also doesn't have any commanders who really benefit from a bless. They do have summoned units that would dearly love to be blessed, but the weakest of these are far off in conjuration 6 land. Now, I'm not saying we shouldn't keep a small bless in mind. I'm just saying that Caelum is a magic and scales nation and so we should address such issues first.

Caelum needs money for expansion, castles, and mages. Order 3. Cealum has cold resistant units and gets normal cash flow with cold 3. Cold 3. Caelum's life blood is research. Magic 1. Things I believe that can suffer are production, growth, and luck. Having any of these would be nice, but that could be said of any nation. I think you could get away with some sloth and misfortune for the purpose of this strategy. There are three magic paths that are the most important for us to obtain. Astral, Earth, and Nature. Put 4 ranks of each on any mobile awake pretender and you have the bare minimum of what this strategy requires. I personally like an awake Mother of Rivers with W4E4A4N4, Order 3, Sloth 3, Cold 3, Misfortune 2, Magic 1, Dominion 6. I find that the extra starting water gem income goes a long way with this nation. Obviously, if I've added three magic paths to a titan pretender there is plenty of points for anyone to work with. I also can't deny that many advantages are to be found by obtaining some death and/or fire. Still, this is what I prefer at this point in time.

Mammoths will still be your best mode of expansion. Back your mammoths up with wingless to improve their moral and keep them from being swamped on all sides. Recruit indy commanders from all around so that you can move these armies without sacrificing your research. The horn spire seraph is the most cost effective for research, yet the ice crafters are more useful later on. Conserve your money so you can afford your first castle as soon as possible. Have your god go out and scrounge up as many gems as possible while spreading your good dominion. Create a high seraph or two and look for those elusive air gems. You'll want at least two more castles before your first war starts. The real bottle neck for making Caelum as effective as possible is going to be your access to flying commanders. Fewer castles will equal fewer commanders. Your third castle will want as many resources as possible and won't need a lab or temple. Have it shell out storm generals and bodyguards every round till the end of the game.

As standard, evocation is one of our first research goals. Evocation 2 starts us off with Lightning Bolt, Colt Bolt, Arcane Probing, Slime, Rain, and a few others. Later on we'll want to get to evocation 5 for Storm, Thunder Strike, Falling Frost, and few other goodies. However, after evocation 2 I think it better to skip to construction 4. The reason being that we have these flying units and these forge bonuses and its about time we combined them into something viable. At construction 4 and W1 there isn't much our crafters can actually make. However, we only need one thing, Ice brands. If we've managed to scrounge together enough earth gems for Dwarven Hammers, we can make an Ice Brand for only 2 gems a piece. If not, we can still make them for only 3. Now take all of those storm generals from our extra castle and give each an Ice Brand and about five or more bodyguards each. Group several of the generals together and we now have a respectable raiding force. This force works because it has a lot more offensive power then our regular melee squads had before. Those AoE cold damage strikes will win you battles well before the fatigue sets in. The bodyguards are just there to absorb blows. Since most human sized units will vanish in front of the generals, their offensive power combined with their ~14 protection and 17 defense keeps them from dying first. Against a real army they are just a component of all the things you can use against the opposition. On their own they do quite well against indies and modest PD. That said, a reliable flying raiding force for very few gems, very little gold, and very little research makes Caelum more dangerous then they have ever been. Finally, don't be too concerned about losing a few brands. They are easily replaced and are not much of a threat to your cold resistant armies.

Lets talk about bodyguards. For straight up protection and defense, we want the iceclad. One problem though, they are hard to accumulate, especially if we took any sloth. They also have a map move of 2, which hinders the flexibility of our forces. Next on the list is the storm guard. They can fly in storms! This quality is important as you can use them to guard our Ice Brand wielding storm generals while giving them mage support. They are also resource intensive, though not as much as the iceclad. They also have a map move of 2. If mobility is what were after, we are going to want to use the caelian infantry. They are the only move 3 unit with a helmet. They're not that heavy on resources and is likely what you should use in the early part of the game. Don't overdo it on bodyguards. Too many and your generals won't get to their targets.

After construction 4 our research can deviate in several directions. Going to construction 6 yields us practically immortal size 6 tramplers within our own cold 3 dominion. The Bottles of Living Water can be forged for 5 gems each and the unit they yield can fly over enemy provinces along with our flying commanders. Hello raiding force Mark II! Getting an ice crafter to W2 is easy since each crafter can make their own water bracelet for 2 gems. The elementals have amazing moral and magic resistance, have a chill aura, keep your commanders safe from mundane assassinations, can be used under water, are immune to darkness, and don't take away from your gold income at all. Another research option is to go back to evocation for obvious reasons. A third consideration is the alteration tree for another use of our water gem income. A lot of the spells here can add survivability to our mages, improve their aim and the aim of our archers, and allow for lucky ethereal mammoths. All this for just alteration 4. At alteration 4 you also get Wolven Winter. This spell is a very important spell for the survivability of our raiders since their armor is dependent on the cold. If we want those Bottle of Living Water to produce tramplers while raiding, Wolven Winter will be needed for that as well.

Once you've accumulated 50 spare air gems you'll want to empower an ice crafter. Use a hammer to forge a Winged Helmet and Bag of Winds. Now you can boost the crafter to A3 and still have the slots to hold a hammer. Now you'll want to forge several things using this guy. Winged Shoes for your non-flying summoned SCs is nice. Perhaps a Spirit Helmet or Copper Plate or Chainmail of Displacement. If your research is suffering you can forge Owl Quills for 2 gems a piece. The real winner for me though is the Wall Shaker. For reasons I'll explain later, this will be a valuable part of our strategy. Now you might immediately argue that if I'm after a siege bonus, the Gate Cleaver is twice as effective for the same number of gems. I'll reply by saying that we are getting Wall Shakers at half cost. I would also argue that, since earth has to be boot-strapped to Caelum, you will likely not have the earth gems to splurge on such things as Gate Cleavers. If you do, great, don't let me stop you. You're still going to want Wall Shakers.

As soon as you can scrounge together 50 nature gems you'll likely want to empower an ice crafter. Hitting construction 6 allows us to turn the crafter into a W3N1 mage using boosters. It should be easy to figure out where I'm going with this. With a hammer you should now be able to produce clams for only 9 gems a piece. Only 2 of those gems are nature. The sooner you can accomplish this, the better. These astral pearls will power our late game and afford us most of our summons. After needing water gems for the Ice Brands, the Living Bottles, Wolven Winter, and now the Clams of Pearls, you can see why the awake mother of rivers looks more and more appealing as a pretender chassis.

Now that you have a healthy supply of astral gems, you'll want to look to Caelum's first national summon, Summon Yazatas. The yazatas are Caelum's flying sacred troops. For three astral gems a piece, they aren't that cheap for what they are. However, you shouldn't overlook them, yet not because they are sacred. The part that interests us is their awe +1. This quality makes them viable front-liners in my opinion. In order to truly take advantage of it, we are going to need alteration 6 and construction 4. For the fun of it I'll paint the entire picture with evocation 5 included. First, you light up a Storm and Storm Power a bunch of caelian seraphs. Have the yazatas hold and then attack. Cast Mists so we can worry less about arrow fire and enemy evocations. Have several ice crafter cast Quicken Self. For round two your caelian seraphs will now cast False Horror of all things. Now have your ice crafters cast Panic twice each. How you say? With those Wall Shakers you made earlier. If you brought some extra ice crafters you can have them spam Frozen Heart. It has 100 precision and will ignore all those precision penalties we just stacked. The yazatas should still be holding. Interesting, false horrors can fly in storms! Round three gives us more False Horror and more Panic spam. Now the Yazatas go in. Oh look, they can fly in a storm as well! Now you see how the false horrors help us. Aside from absorbing blows meant for our real solders they also produce fear. Their damage output means nothing and isn't really the point. Between the horrors and the panic, your yazatas are now untouchable by any regular unit, and we haven't even scripted a bless yet. Continue casting False Horrors, Panic, and Frozen Heart until you can't script no more. Since the yazatas are immune to shock damage, and since you should be able to produce Copper Plate or Rings of Tamed Lightning for 2 gems each, throwing in Wrathful Skies and Wind Guided Thunder Strikes is synergistic with this strategy.

The combination of False Horror and 2x Panic a round from Wall Shakers makes air magic a rival in the fear department. You could even cast Dark Skies using a high seraph if you think it won't get dispelled or if it will achieve victory in a crucially important round. As an added bonus, Caelum also has D1 randoms. That should be enough to get you thinking about all the other fear effects you can throw out there, provided you can get a little boost of course. Fear is one of Caelum's handiest weapons considering they have both summons with awe and the ability to fly armies behind enemy provinces. Use those raiding forces we talked about. If you can't win in a straight fight, cheat and force an enemy to run away to provinces they no longer control.

Now lets talk about Call Amesha Spenta, your other national summon. You can summon up to six commanders with this spell. Each one is unique in the same way the elemental royalty are unique. Physically the strongest of them is comparable to the weaker royalty. What they lack in strength they make up for with several unique advantages. First, they all fly, have full body slots, are sacred, have full shock resistance, and have awe +4. On top of that they each have differences from each other. Let's start with the three strongest. Spenta of animals has animal awe +7 on top of the regular awe and is N5H3. Spenta of sky and metals has A4E3H4. Spenta of Fire has full fire resist and is F5H3. Now for the three weaker ones. (Note that they are only weaker due to fewer hit points and one point of strength.) Spenta of waters has recuperation, is a full healer, and is W4H3. Spenta of the earth is simply E4N2H4. Finally, the spenta of plants is E2N3H3 and immortal. Barring any conjuration bonus, it would take you 360 astral pearls to gather all of them. That said, you will likely find a use for all of them, though all of them you may not get. I appreciate them as additional magical diversity for my flying armies. Though they have all the makings of a super combatant.

Once you start combining everything it starts to become rather nasty. Replenishable ice elementals thumping forward, storms and mists lowing precision, flying squads of awe units backed by false horrors taking the lead while ice brand squads rip apart the rear ranks. What doesn't die from an AoE weapon strike or a random lightning bolt from Wrathful Skies runs away in utter terror. If they go to hide in their precious castles your forces can easily break down their walls thanks to Wall Shakers and the natural bonus that all fliers have. Caelum is fast a furious. I haven't even mentioned the huge number of battlefield spells available in just the air department alone. Fog Warriors, Arrow Fend, and Mists of Deception are just a few. Use your god to snag ivy kings and golems who can start battles with N5 and S4 (higher with crystal shields) thanks to the boosters you can now make. Or just focus on the spenta, which are also brought to you by your handy awake pretender. Last thing I would say is to never forget the basics of what Caelum has. There will be times where high precision short bows and standard evocations are going to be the most effecient. There will also be instances where a momoth or two will save your better units by being natural targets for spells or supply the extra trampling you might need against hordes of undead. All-in-all, I think Middle-Age Caelum might be the best Caelum of all.

That's all for now. Good luck.

Re: MA Caelum - Fear of Flying
 

My apologies to Jim. This guide has been in the making for quite a while and once completed I couldn't keep my ideas to myself.

Re: MA Caelum - Fear of Flying
 

Thanks, that sounds like a fun strategy!

One thing you might add is that in CBM, Wailing Winds is only Evo 4 and D3A1 to cast, so a D1 High Seraph with a Skull Staff can cast it with 2 gems.


nitpiks: Thunderstrike is only Evo 4, and you wrote "Bottles of Living Bottle." :)

Re: MA Caelum - Fear of Flying
 

Nice guide.

I too have found bottles of living water a great investment.
Here's a trick how you can use them on the defensive.
Get two flying commanders, one of them a cheap mage (or an expensive mage depending on what you're expecting/wanting to do).
Give two Bottles of Living Water to the one commander, and fly/cloud trapeze him and the mage into a province that is going to be attacked.
Put the guy with the Bottles at the very front and script him to retreat.
The mage should stay and cast whatever spells he can.
The commander with the bottles gets to retreat before the enemy can do anything about it - so he is virtually immortal in battle. But the elementals or going to stay as long as the mage is in.

Re: MA Caelum - Fear of Flying
 

Thunderstrike is between Evo 2 and Evo 5, which is why it is listed. In regards to the typo, thanks and fixed. :)

Re: MA Caelum - Fear of Flying
 

What a terrifying image. O_O! Sounds like an unique artifact to me.

Re: MA Caelum - Fear of Flying
 

So you haven't met the bottle woman?

Re: MA Caelum - Fear of Flying
 

Nice guide, AoE. But, what you think to do with early ice and lightning immune sc?

Re: MA Caelum - Fear of Flying
 

I totally agree with this. :D

And no apologies needed, of course! This strategy (not exactly a guide, per se), highlights what is so great about Dominions..... it is a beautiful way to use the strengths that Caelum has, and yet, is strikingly, and globally very different from what I'm putting together. If I wasn't so invested in exploring other directions, I would be itching to try this out, looks like a fun way to play them!

Re: MA Caelum - Fear of Flying
 

Very useful thing in early wars is flying mammoths. 3 mammoths with "hold and attack archers" script and seraph witth "gift of flight*3" script. 3-4 such squads together can be devastating.

Re: MA Caelum - Fear of Flying
 

That's a good point. Aside from gaining access to Call Spenta, the astral on your god, combined with a little earth magic and clam income, can go a long way to solve this problem. Lucky for Caelum, they have astral randoms on their make-anywhere high seraphs. You can improve their astral with Starstine Skullcaps, Crystal Coins, Crystal Shields, and Banners of the Norther Star. You can probably gather up more astral magic from lizard shamans. Paralyze, Soul Slay, and Enslave Mind work great for those instances where MR has been neglected. Horror Mark and Stellar Cascades for tougher targets.

A death random is all you need to cast Dust to Dust for those troublesome undead SCs. Mix in the high presicion from aim, a race bonus, and air magic and every casting is a guarenteed hit.

Water magic also isn't all cold damage. Ice strike is a great spell when you get around to it. Not so great against an SC though since they will likely have more then enough protection.

Re: MA Caelum - Fear of Flying
 

Beautiful guide, lots of useful and even thematic tips! I enjoyed it a lot (and usually don't play cold nations, hey, I'm Italian :cool: ). I'm still more an EA guy, I'll see the difference of the mages and see how much of this is viable for early Caelum :)

You are very proficient lately AoE. Is this a race against Baalz for who takes more nations in one month? :D

Re: MA Caelum - Fear of Flying
 

First, thanks.

Not in the slightest. As I said, this guide has been in the making for some time. I'll work with a nation until I get inspired. Its easier to make a guide when the ideas are clicking in your mind. It may also have to do with the season.

Re: MA Caelum - Fear of Flying
 

Hmm, a bunch of interesting strategies here, but I think a lot of them somewhat miss the point. Caelum can do the raiding thing pretty well without burning gems into it, so I'm not sure that spamming bottles and frost brands is the best use of gems. The frost-brand-wielding storm general could just as easily be a high seraph spamming thunderstrike for the amount of damage it'll do, and has a much lower chance of getting killed or taking attrition damage to his guards. It's more gold, but less gems, which is usually a deal I'm alright taking.

As Natpy points out CR/SR thugs and SCs are a nightmare for Caelum to deal with, and I'm not convinced about the astral strat. Piling boosters on base S1 mages that also cost 270g a pop is a horrible idea against any nation that can get astral mages, and I'm including stuff you would normally never put into combat like sages and lizard shammies. The pretender chassis you have laid out can at least cloud trapeze and lay some smackdown if need be though once it gets geared.

The False Horror spam idea is also probably pretty good for anything without perfect morale.

Back to the idea of using TS-casting seraphs over storm general thugs: One of the huge perks of MA caelum is that they have excellent battle mages that are non-cap-only and non-sacred. Yes, I just used non-sacred as a positive thing. The reason that this is a "good" thing is that they have normal upkeep costs, and thus 15 turns after one dies you've saved enough money to buy a new one. Now 15 turns isn't exactly short, and you shouldn't go around throwing them away on ill-considered attacks, but it does mean that if a raiding force dies it's hardly the end of the world. Especially if the one raiding force that died was only 1 of 4 raiding forces...if the other 3 of them got 100g worth of provinces between them you'll have your money back in no time, and since your general upkeep costs should pretty rapidly mean you have extra commander slots at your forts it's pretty easy to "recycle" your mages. Gems, on the other hand, once gone, are gone forever.

I would also head straight up Evo til I hit thunderstrike, pretty much without exception. Lightning bolt just doesn't measure up, especially since the absurd encumbrance on high seraphs means that the fatigue costs even out startlingly well...3 lightning bolts from an A3 is 21 encumbrance + 15 spell fatigue, for a total of 36, vs a thunder strike costing 57, which means you get front-loaded damage with AoE. An A4 caster has 32 fatigue TS casts vs 3 lightning bolts at 30. The numbers for TS get even better with magic scales.

Re: MA Caelum - Fear of Flying
 

I think one thing worth mentioning is that high seraphs who get the astral magic random are really good buffers. They can cast quickness, luck, body ethereal, flying. A storm general with a frost brand and a seraph to buff him up can be nasty. Bringing along a high seraph with your raiding forces also protects them from mind hunt.

Re: MA Caelum - Fear of Flying
 

I've seen people suggest decking out a single mage from head to toe with no comment. Yet 2 gems a piece on five guys costing 35 gold each, that's crazy. I like the storm general squads for two essential reasons. First, their is a much smaller chance of epic failure. A failed raid from a high seraph generally means the seraph is dead. You will likely never lose all of your generals in a single fight. Gold is just as much a limited resource as gems. At least water gems are amoung the more accessable kind for Caelum. The second reason is that generals round out your forces much better.

Thunderstrike always wants to deal the most damage and for that reason you can't direct it at any particular thing. In fact, because the spell can strike anywhere on the field, your opponent has more control over your spell then you do. However, you can direct generals to attack specific unit types, or direct them to attack the rear. I'm not saying that one is actually better, I'm just saying that having only one of these tools is less effective then having both. Also, I suggest you just try out the squads. Five generals plus guards have a lot more sustainability against indies and PD then you might think.

I will agree that cold and shock resist units are harder for Caelum to deal with. I don't seriously suggest you place all that gear on just one unit with a random. I was just cataloging what you have at your disposal. I personally find that lizard shamans and Light of the Norther Star is the more efficient way to cast most of those astral spells. You start with a rather good scout, so you should be able to identify a lizard province and gun for it early with mammoths. If your dying for a broader solution, then you've been told what the bare minimum for the strategy is. There are plenty of points available for devising that solution.

Re: MA Caelum - Fear of Flying
 

I just gave it a test run, and I can safely say that I remain unimpressed with Caelum's melee prowess.

Re: MA Caelum - Fear of Flying
 

Word to the wise: this is faulty logic. The idea appears to be, "because their upkeep is higher, their death is less worrisome." However, that is purely psychological; there is no actual advantage. The "extra savings" are the difference between sacred and profane* upkeep- which you would never pay in the first place if they'd been sacred.

Sacreds are certainly more cost-effective in the long run, which makes profanes seem like they should be more cost-effective in the short run. But you cannot create a situation where you have more money because you made profanes- their actual cost is always greater (or equal).


*: A strong-sounding word, but it's much less clunky than "nonsacred", and technically correct!

Re: MA Caelum - Fear of Flying
 

Ewierl,

There is an advantage, in the sense that you pay higher up-front cost for sacred units. If they're going to die anyway, why pay the front-loaded sacred cost?

I don't know precisely what the formula is (something like +50% IIRC), and KO probably breaks it on occasion, but examine the units and you'll see a pattern. Micah's point could have been stated merely by observing that Caelian seraphs are relatively cheap for their stats/paths (which also factor into unit cost).

-Max

Re: MA Caelum - Fear of Flying
 

It's not faulty logic at all. Having higher proportional upkeep does, in fact, mean that them dying is less worrisome.

To take the extreme cases, if a unit's upkeep were equal to its purchase cost I think it's pretty obvious that if you have free resources (fort-commander slots, in this case) to re-recruit a unit it really doesn't matter much if they die. Likewise, a 0-upkeep unit is not replaceable once dead over any length of time. Obviously 15 turns is not instant, but it's a lot closer than 30.

Because MA Caelum doesn't have any sacreds they are likely to have those fort slots available before too long, since they get hit with much higher upkeep than nations with sacred researchers, so their forts are likely to become idle before too long.

That being said I suppose you could try for the low-end mages for research instead, since they're much more efficient than the high seraphs, but I don't much like that idea for Caelum. They have mobility, mammoths, and blstering evocation ability out of the gate, and I think that should be leveraged early, not traded in for a bean-counting strategy of minimized upkeep by using spire horns for research. Those can be added in later on once the upkeep starts stinging and you've got a solid corps of battle mages.

Re: MA Caelum - Fear of Flying
 

hmmm I can follow Ewierl's post, I can follow MAxWilsons post, but I can't follow the logic of Micah's last post. I think the word relative needs to be put in there somewhere and then it would be obvious that Ewierl is right. That is of course unless you take the higher upfront cost in the equation like Max says.

Re: MA Caelum - Fear of Flying
 

What Micah is saying makes perfect sense to me. Say you have a 150 gold non sacred and a 200 gold sacred commander. They are identical apart from the sacred status. Losing the 150 gold mage in battle is less painful than losing the 200 gold mage in battle. Maybe the sacred has already paid for its extra up front cost with lower upkeep for many turns - it still makes no difference to the fact the 150 is more easily replaced.

Re: MA Caelum - Fear of Flying
 

I just thought he meant it's because you don't need yet another frigging temple to make your mages.

Re: MA Caelum - Fear of Flying
 

Ultimately, I do not see anything close to a +50% cost correlation on sacred commanders, especially not high end mages, most of the time. On units it can easily be upwards of +100% cost, but mages vary so widely in cost/power between different sources, that I am not even sure that one can draw a direct correlation at all. What it comes down to, is some nations have weak mages, and some nations have powerful nations..... but the sacred mages are not always the most expensive for the amount of power that they possess.

As an example compare:

High Seraph - 6.1 paths, 280 cost, mundane
Celestial Master - 6.1 paths, 250 cost, sacred
Starspawn (blue) - 6.1 paths, 280 cost, mundane
Bakemono Sorceror - 8.1 paths, 300 cost, sacred

All of these mages are MA, all are recruitable anywhere (save the Celestial Master), and both of the sacred mages are better cost/power ratio than the mundanes.

Re: MA Caelum - Fear of Flying
 

Going big is a perfectly reasonable strategy for Caelum. From what I've seen of Micah's play style, he tends to field only the biggest and the baddest. I haven't seen him field any summon that wasn't a straight up SC, aside from demon knight hordes that is. Its a play style for Timmy. I'm more of a Johnny.

Though you may not follow the logic, you can't simply ignore the advice of someone who wins as often as Micah does.

Re: MA Caelum - Fear of Flying
 

'Bottles of living bottles' ha ha :)

Re: MA Caelum - Fear of Flying
 

Paths mess up the correlation because they ALSO affect cost, just like sacredness and stats. Compare Mounted Hirdmen to Helhirdings, though, or EA Sauromancers to LA Sauromancers. And I'm not at all sure that KO applies the rules across-the-board. I do note that the Bakemono Sorceror is probably cheap partly because it has lots of oldage (although IIRC good hitpoints), and the Celestial Master is cap-only (as you noted), and the the High Seraph has Flying. So while I agree with Sombre's and Micah's gist, that sacreds are more expensive, I also think it's easiest to put the "advantage" of profaneness in concrete terms of power-per-gold.

I think anyone would agree that if it were a choice between 150 gold sacreds and 150 gold non-sacreds with identical stats, the sacreds would be better except in really weird situations (i.e. facing lots of MA Ermorian Heresy spam or MA Ulmish Guardians). You don't ever have that choice, though.

-Max

Re: MA Caelum - Fear of Flying
 

AoE, you seem to be playing the same nations as I do. I have just recently finished a game with LA Man and I am playing another one with MA Caelum now. If you make a guide for Kailasa next, that will be creepy.
Anyway I wanted to give some praise, some critique and some of my thoughts. Not too much though, as my opponents could be reading this.

I disagree with taking a titan pretender. I believe that the rainbow pretender is the way to go with this nation. You lack magic diversity and are not vulnerable early on with the mammoths. The mammoths are also great for early expansion. If you fear early rush, you can always go for evoc4 and thunderstrikes as your first research goal. If you take the titan pretender just for the extra water gems, I think that's faulty. You'd be better off taking some fire and death. With all the archers you'll be recruiting (since the infantry is terrible), why not have the opportunity to cast flaming arrows. And death is death, you always need it. Also, I don't see the reason for water on pretender, your mages cover that.

No sacred mages is a problem with research, as you will pay big upkeep for your mages and thus have less of them researching. Also, since all your troops except mammoths are total crap, as soon as your opponent finds a solution for mammoths, you will have to start fielding your mages a lot, which translates to falling back in research.
Generally I wouldn't recommend owl quills as I don't find them effective for their cost, but this is one nation where I would make an exception. Compared to skull mentors you get the same amount of research for 2 gems more and you need three times more mages to spend their time forging. With Caelum you will have plenty of air gems for all your needs, so no need to worry about the first thing. Caelum also has cheap A1 mages for making quills, so you won't lose too much research by their forging. Those A1 mages are also MA Cealums most cost effective researchers, so you will want to recruit some of them. Not too many though, as there is not much else they can do.

Empowering with 50 nature gems with a nation that has no nature income and no nature mages can be problematic. Yes, it will pay off in the long run, but it will be very hard to scrape the initial investment. I guess you could summon naiads for more clamming, after the first empowerment, but that will use up lots of water gems.

I liked the idea about fear and yazatas. That's new for me. I always compared yazatas to gandvharas, they cost the same but are much weaker, so I decided I won't be summoning any of them. But this synergy you presented sounds nice. Spentas give you magic diversity, but IMO are too expensive at 60 astral pearls. It will cost you 360 astral pearls to get them all, not 300, at least in vanilla. Also, I never noticed about storm flying abilities of storm generals and storm guards, although their name suggests it. That's nice to know.

Wingless are nice to mix in with mammoths to boost their moral, but even better are longdead. You can use a high seraph with a death pick to summon a mound king and make him your prophet.
All spire horn warriors have 50% shock resistance. The storm warriors battlefield spell gives them 100% shock resistance, so you can safely use them with air evocations - thunderstrikes, wrathful skies, etc.
Flying mammoths can be nasty into the later game as well. Imagine mass flight + fog warriors + quickening + will of the fates combo.

In the end, although I think this is a nice guide, my mind hasn't changed. I still think that MA Caelum is the weakest of all three.

Re: MA Caelum - Fear of Flying
 

Thanks Psycho for address that typo. Fixed it.

I can understand that the titan pretender with water magic seems wasteful, and really it is. Though its only one of my silly ideas about getting more water gems. I also figure that since your god starts out site searching, having that water 4 could really make the difference for executing the strategy to its fullest. In short its the extreme. I know that if I really wanted the most effective Caelum, I would pick death and/or fire as well. Maybe go with the great enchantress. Why use water gems to get pearls when you can go straight to the source. It still sounded fun though...

I didn't mention flying mammoths because there are several other Caelum guides and all of them mention it. Besides, this guide is thematically focused on what you can use with fliers. Mammoths don't fly on the map without a lot of construction.

Re: MA Caelum - Fear of Flying
 

Nations of living bottles!! :eek:

And while I agree that you cannot discount Micah's PoV, through sheer virtue of his demonstrated proficiency, I do think that there are numerous ways to play most nations, and for some of them, in fact, riding them hard and fast may not be the best solution - and/or other options have the potential to lead to equal success.

All I know, is with my own playstyles and preferences, Caelum is -all- about finesse. Other than using mammoths for your early expansion (and first early war since you may have dozens left over), Caelum has vast potential to segue into something fluid, amorphous, and so supple that there is no one point that you can break, yet it possesses the tensile strength to flay the flesh from your nation with deceptive ease.

Anyway, I'd REALLY like to win a game with Caelum before I unveil the details of my own strat, so it'll be a few months, I suppose. :p Til then, you will all have to do with this strat, which again is quite gorgeous, and has a grace all its own, but is totally different from my own approach, or Micah's approach. There, three totally different ways to look at the nation already, and still most people disagree with AoE and myself about their potential for greatness. ;)

Re: MA Caelum - Fear of Flying
 

Like I said, the correlation in cost for sacred units is much stronger, probably due to the fact that most blesses do most of their work in numbers, and that blessed troops make a far greater impact in the early game, etc.

Comparing across ages though I do not think is applicable, as there are additional considerations, which is why I only compared MA mages in my short list. There are special factors in play, such as age, abilities like healing or flying, and a nation's particular proclivity for magic. But my point was that High Seraphs are pretty in line in cost/power with most of the most potent MA mages, and considering that Caelum is a powerfully (though not especially diverse) magical nation, that I doubt High Seraphs would be more than 300 (320 at the most) if sacred, meaning that you would still be at a net profit after 4-5 turns at the most, over mundane versions such as we get now.

At any rate, I fairly cry every single time a High Seraph dies, especially if it's one of my coveted A4's. I don't smile and say "yay, now with less upkeep, I can afford another in a year or so". :p

So while I think it's fair to say that you are more rewarded for the continued survival of a sacred mage, I don't think you are ever in any way rewarded for the death of one who is not sacred.

Re: MA Caelum - Fear of Flying
 

Whaa???!! I BEG TO DIFFER GOOD SIR. Assuming we're talking about MA, I would trade that Celestial Master for the ability to even have cap only Starspawns. EASILY. As for EA, it seems unfair to compare the EA CM to MA mages as their effectiveness is scaled differently.

Re: MA Caelum - Fear of Flying
 

I believe undead morale doesn't mesh anymore with regular morale. (it did in dom 2 but fixed now I believ e) Edit: NM on mammoth flight, the spell used to just not work.

Re: MA Caelum - Fear of Flying
 

don't know why people keep saying that.
Undead work just fine as morale boosters. I do it all the time with EA-Lanka.

Want those machaka to *never* retreat? Just mix in a few undead.

Re: MA Caelum - Fear of Flying
 

Well I guess we need a test with documented results before people will believe anything either way.

It was /said/ that that tactic of mixing in undead to boost morale had been fixed.

Re: MA Caelum - Fear of Flying
 

KissBlade: Just a small thing, but I do believe that Jim was referring to MA Celestial Masters, not EA Celestial Masters.

On the more general topic of sacred/non-sacred commander costs (particularly mage costs), there was a definite correlation in Dom2, though that did not extend to the oft-believed +50%. While I have not done any extensive analysis on Dom3, I believe the correlation is even less.

I can understand Micah's point, provided he was simply discussing how an early death can disturb the break-even point between a Sacred and Non-Sacred mage.

Since a Sacred/Secular break-even point is at 15 turns (assuming +50% cost and equivalent abilities (thus meaning an equivalent base cost)), and that each turn the Sacred commander's total cost improves vs. the Secular Commander's cost by an amount equal to the Sacred commander's upkeep, it is easily shown that there is no time horizon short enough such that a Secular Commander's death would 'save' enough money to purchase another such Commander.

However, Micah's point is valid in principle, if not to the extent that he states. If you expect a commander to live less than 15 turns, then for equal economic utility, you should purchase the non-sacred commander. (As stated below, this analysis ignores the cost of the temple. Adding that as another fixed cost could validate Micah's point in full, though I have not seen where Micah makes that explicit connection.)

Note that this conclusion ignores non-economic considerations (particularly, the effect of your bless on the commander), and it assumes the +50% cost rule of thumb. It also ignores the cost of the temple required to hire sacred commanders. However, the formula can be modified so that a more general solution for the number of turns for the time horizon can be found for any given pair of commanders.

Re: MA Caelum - Fear of Flying
 

?

Assuming 50% cost increase. 200 goldcost secular, 300 goldcost sacred. 15 turns later, 200 gold upkeep paid for secular, 150 for sacred. 200 - 150 = 50, 200 + 50 = 250. I don't see how that's a break even point. If the sacred dies in the next couple of turns, it was a worse investment (ignoring temple cost, bless etc).

Re: MA Caelum - Fear of Flying
 

Wow! This post really makes me think about the possibilities. I never considered the idea of Leader/Thug squads doing all the fighting. I wonder if a similar strategy would work with MA Oceania?