Caelum and 2 changes to gameplay

utbiomedicaleng · #1 December 30th, 2006, 02:05 PM

Hey everyone, I am a longtime lurker that finally needs some help. I have been playing Dom 2 and 3 for a while now, and have finally decided to really learn Caelum.

Boy am I having trouble. Any general tips to playing Caelum early and mid game?

Onto my minor gameplay changes that would be great to have implemented.

First of all, fire and flee is still broken. It is only useful if you have one friendly province behind you so your guys don't scatter like chaff in the wind. You should be able to set a rally point for a guerrilla style offense. This rally point would only be useful for fire and flee; if you lost a battle, for example, your men would still scatter randomly to nearest provinces. Another option would be for the army to remain whole and attached to the commander but everybody scatters to a friendly random province.

Second are troop orders. I it would be nice to hold my flying guys (and troops for other nations) for more than 2 turns before they get thrown at the enemy lines. Perhaps a hold for 4 turns before attacking so that my ground troops and archers can work a little more.

Ok, so those are really my only gripes with the game. I think the game is amazing and is always one of those, one more turn and then I will go to bed games. Anyway, I really love the game even with those 2 flaws (which I don't even notice when playing non-Caelum coutnries).

Shovah32 · #2 December 30th, 2006, 02:11 PM

Well for hold and attack more than 2 turns, get a cheap flying commander, set all your melee troops to guard him and let him hold, hold, hold, hold attack rearmost for example. Fire and flee generally isnt a good idea, just raid enemy provinces with reasonably sized forces(including thunder striking mages if possible) and then fly away next turn(since movement to friendly provinces happens before movement to enemy provinces)

utbiomedicaleng · #3 December 30th, 2006, 02:14 PM

Shovah32

Hmm, very good idea. I will try that for the hold and attack. issue. Thanks to you, I only have a gripe with Fire and Flee now!

Shovah32 · #4 December 30th, 2006, 02:25 PM

Yea, fire and flee is a pain. One thing you could try is making sure theres only a single province they can retreat to although this obviously wont help much as the enemy can just walk there next turn.

utbiomedicaleng · #5 December 30th, 2006, 02:46 PM

Shovah32

Yeah, it only seems useful if you are the middle of a honeycome of indy provinces and you know that they won't attack you and steal your base of operations. Which doesn't it make it that useful.

PDF · #6 December 30th, 2006, 08:23 PM

Fire&Flee is useless.
With Caelum in early game I usually just have archers set to Fire on the wings, a pack of mammoths in the middle set to Attack, and some of the armored caelians as bodyguards for mages.
It's usually effective vs indies, even if sometimes you get a bloody nose when the mammoths fails their morale check !

Shovah32 · #7 December 30th, 2006, 10:03 PM

Another idea is:
A screen of archers and infantry. In the back mammoths and seraphs(2 mammoths per seraph). The seraphs get scripted to flight, flight, then cast what you want(lightning bolt ect). The mammoths get hold and attack rear/archers. Flying mammoths in the back of the enemies army are fun

PDF · #8 December 31st, 2006, 08:04 AM

Can be cool... if Flight works, what I'm not confident about

Shovah32 · #9 December 31st, 2006, 03:33 PM

Well it works for me so im happy

HoneyBadger · #10 January 2nd, 2007, 03:14 AM

I can sympathise, I've also had trouble with Caelum, but the more I play and learn about the game, the more strategies I find that can either be tailored to fit a nation or that will work for one nation over another. Caelum for instance-if I were to play it right now in MP it would be the weakest nation I could play, but it's considered to be one of the best for MP. Conversely, I'm most confident with R'lyeh, and it's considered really weak (even by me). I really like the flying mammoth idea though.