[Fantomen]

I don't want to people to think the guide is made obselete by CBM 1.7, so decided to take the time for a little addendum. Note that the original guide has been thouroghly playtested with CBM 1.6 in several MP games, both blitzes and normal games, so I can safely claim it is competitive. Contrary to that, the following is theory based on general experience, and yet to be tested.

CBM 1.7 addendum

CBM 1.7 nerfs the forge lord and removes hammers, at first glance invalidating the strategy, but after some analysis I don't think these changes reduces LA Caelums relative power.

First of all, the relative advantage of a national smith is greatly increased! So it makes sense to invest a bit more heavily in the iron crafters. Make more peircers, as well as consider what advantages, both military and diplomatic, you can squeeze out in being the best forger of earth trinkets in LA. The relative cost of empowering decreases, as ability to forge discounted items of other paths increases in value, so I'd be much more willing to empower smiths in new paths like air, blood, water etc. A special mention of fire here, you have nothing to do with any fire gems except empowering smiths to eventually spam some lanterns, if you're lucky you could have them replace the mentors.

As wraithlord mentions, you will have less mentors. I'd still make a few to free up battle mages, but no longer as a central part of the plan.

So we need another way to compensate for drain or change the scales, a replacement for the liberal use of expensive boosters in battle, and bring in some more flying summons to compensate for less flying carpets.

To beef up raiding I want to bring in some yazatas, and to leverage heavy battle magic I want matrixes to make artificial communions, of course this will require more astral empowered smiths. So all in all, the need for astral gems increases greatly.

I'd probably take an awake enchantress. That will give me the tool to start off an astral economy quicker, and allow me to make sure I have the paths for the still cruical air, death, earth and astral boosters. As well as keep my supercharged economy and give me a different way to compensate for drain. (tests may reveal you have to take magic, but I'd like to test that in some real games first), She could also do some site searching perhaps, but beware of the opportunity cost for that.

It might be worth it to take a little blood on the enchantress. Allowing us to start off a small blood economy to add to our smiths versatility with blood trinkets and to build up some access to vampires and storm demons. No idea if that would be worth it though, I did it as a side strat (through scouts hunting) in one of my games for the original guide but it ended before I could evaluate it properly.

Gargoyles may find a new niche in our raiding groups as damage sinks, you have national access and hopefully a freed up pile of earth gems not spent on hammers.

So in conclusion:

Take an awake rainbow instead of forge lord. Still make the boosters, just not as many, and use them to unlock your empowered smiths rather than handing them out to elders. Get more astral going. Shift focus slightly from forging to summons. Replace supercharged Elders with artificial communions. Keep the general focus on aggressive raiding with raven guards and strong economic scales. EDM is now incorporated, start spamming wendigos early to prepare for late game