Caelum Battlefield Magic Broken

[Ironhawk]

I've been playing around with Caelum for a few days now and I have come to the conclusion that thier use of air magic in combat just doesnt work. The once-feared battlefield magic of Caelum is now broken! Issues that are causing it to break are the following:

1) Air spells strike few targets
2) Quickness no longer effects spellcasting
3) Dom3 produces larger armies (more targets)

These things together mean that an air mage just cannot kill enough troops in a battle to make him worth his own cost! Couple this already poor situation with the fact that its even harder to produce mages in dom3 (caelum in particular cost 1500gp for its cheapest fort+lab) and you are left with the conclusion that Caelum just cant fight on the battlefield.

Now - Everyone is probably chomping at the bit to say "but they can still cast Wrathful Skies!!@#$". And that is true, but that is a specialty attack that requires tons of gold and gems in order to do correctly. Battlefield magic, the kind that makes your armies really feared, should be easy to deploy, reliable, and powerful. As it stands, Caelum has none of the above...

[KissBlade]

Heh, play ME TC, then go back to Caelum. You'll not find caelum battlemagic so bad ...

[Ironhawk]

Comparing this to another nation is irrelevant? Caelum's battlemagic still wont work, regardless of whatever problems any other nation still might have. Except perhaps that its more important here because Caelum's troops are garbage. Without thier battlefield magic, how can they possibly compete?

[alexti]

Caelum still has their raiding ability which was always their greatest strength.

[Sheap]

Well, I agree with Ironhawk to some extent. In dom2 the high-precision, few-target spells were better because armies were smaller. Now in dom3 the low-precision, many-target spells are better. And Caelum suffers more from quickness because they had water magic on all their mages. Of course, they are not the only ones that are hurt by that, lots of nations have water mages.

I'm not sure I agree that an air mage is no longer worth his own cost, though. After all mages are supposed to live a long time and fight in many battles, especially Caelum mages which are so hard to catch if they rout. And they still kill almost as many troops as they did before since they should still be limited by fatigue rather than # of rounds, most of the time. Their magic is just less dominant and develops a little more slowly in battle.

[KissBlade]

Ironhawk said:
Comparing this to another nation is irrelevant? Caelum's battlemagic still wont work, regardless of whatever problems any other nation still might have. Except perhaps that its more important here because Caelum's troops are garbage. Without thier battlefield magic, how can they possibly compete?

Haha I was just having a quip at your posts expense. I haven't payed Caelum to a significant enough degree yet to judge.

[Meglobob]

I don't agree, air magic still rocks, I have effectively destroyed Ermor with 20 or so A2 mages. Give each a air gem, bang 20 thunderstrikes, then 4 lightning bolts each, for 80 lightning bolts then retreat. Gather the lot again, rinse repeat.

For added fun put cloud trapzing in the mix...

[Ironhawk]

alexti said:
Caelum still has their raiding ability which was always their greatest strength.

Caelums greatest strength was, and still is, its magic (tho that magic power is sorely weakened now). Ability to raid is average at best. The best nations for raiding are Pan (centaurs + satyrs) or Van (Vans), no question.

[Ironhawk]

Meglobob said:
I don't agree, air magic still rocks, I have effectively destroyed Ermor with 20 or so A2 mages.

Basically you have proven my point: In order to get any bang for the buck out of air mages you need to bring a ridiculous amount of them to a battle.

[Endoperez]

Ironhawk said:

Basically you have proven my point: In order to get any bang for the buck out of air mages you need to bring a ridiculous amount of them to a battle.

That 20 Air mages with gems is enough doesn't mean that fewer wouldn't be.