MA Caelum strategy questions

[DeadlyShoe]

I've been playing a 'co-op' game of sorts as MA Caelum, against RanDomized NoIndependents AIs... which makes them much tougher, since they have hax0r scales, SC pretenders and use mostly national troops. Well, long story short, Eriu is spamming infinite Fir Bolgs with domstr10 and production 3. The frost brand/storm guards/lightning evocation strategy has kinda run into a brick wall because the fir bolgs just eat the Spire Horn types and the evo spammers fatigue out before making enough of a dent. False Horrors don't work either, the fir bolgs have too much attack skill. And because the border provinces are firmly Eriu dominion I don't feel confident risking my pretender-SC.

After reviewing my options I've decided to mix things up with some archery armies. The first iteration of this will be 5 Ice Crafters with Bows of War and a couple Seraphines carrying Ice Pebble Staffs and Boots of Quickness, plus about 60 Blizzard Warriors. The idea is that a Spire Horn Seraph casts Wind Guide, Ice Crafters quickenself then everyone just spams infinite arrows. (Well, 200+ a turn, but yeah.) The Numbness spam should slow down the front runners. However, I'm not sure about my composition here, in part because I have some doubts about game mechanics. Namely, I've been operating on the vague assumption that if a commander has a rank in a magic path then item-casting that spell will fatigue him as if he tried to cast that spell magically. But is that true or not? Because if not, I can use Ice Crafters instead for the pebble staffs and have them Quicken Self. Then maybe use a High Seraph for leadership, wind guide and misc castings duty. (Arrow Fend?)

Secondly, I want to make the army tougher for minimal gem cost. I have doubts that four castings of numbness will significantly slow a horde of AI units. I guess I could just add Ice Pebble Staffs until I have enough to stop almost any conceivable army but there is the issue of cold immune units. A distraction that gives me some melee power would be nice. Bags of Air and Bottles of Living Water are ideal but... seem pretty costly. One Air elemental would probably suffice for 1-2 rounds of distraction, but I'd probably need several water/ice elementals given that they can't fly. Ideally I'd have both staffs and elementals but that's like 40-50 more gems on a force that right now only costs 53 gems.

Thirdly, is it worth it to mix in some Thunder Bows? Looking at my damage output, I have 9 billion arrows that do dmg10 and...numbness. The Thunder Bows only have 10 ammo which is **** (especially if quickened), but they would provide some anti-monster capability. The main downside is that well... any monster that fights caelum without lightning immunity is screwed anyway. So...Black Bows? or?

Finally is 60 Blizzard Warriors for ~8-10 commanders enough? Most of the army firepower is bows of war but I'd hate to lose geared commanders because I stinted on troops.

**

On a side note I'm having trouble thugging/SCing any heavier than the Storm Generals. My initial goal was to shoot for Amesh Spentas but that's pretty much boned - 20 provinces arcane probed and I have... +1 pearls a turn. Yay. I'm converting Nature and Death gems to get pearls for small numbers of Yazatas and, um, arcane probing. I'm at a loss for other thugging options... I do have a D2 mage empowered that has a skull staff, but given my lack of pearls for a Ring of Sorcery i'd probably have to empower again to be able to summon Bane Lords or Wraith Lords.

I did get the Eagle Knight hero early on, but um Bogus slapped him and there was a lot of crying and sulking in corners on my part.

I also want to diversify my damage a bit. My Daughter of the Dawn currently has a Frost Brand and a Weightless Tower Shield (and boots of quickness, and 0 enc, so she does pretty decently.) But I hate being dependent on cold/lightning. Should I just go physical? I should be able to get away without a shield, cuz she's high def/mistform/regenerating/ethereal. My current plan is 2x Swords of Swiftness, which will get her 10x attacks a turn total (counting her Owl.)

[13lackGu4rd]

you're MA Caelum, which means you got a ton of air mages. befriend whichever lightning god is your favorite, I'd go for Zeus myself, and use it! no monster can be made immune to lightning from scratch IIRC. max resistance from spells is 50% and they don't stack, so the only way would be Storm Warriors(or similar spell) combined with A9 bless, which of course requires an A9 bless as well as the troops to be sacred. now, with that in mind, you don't need to spend many gems at all. you need 1 staff of storms, a few rings of lightning and a few gems to cast Wrathful skies. bring a few mages with you, as many as you can afford to make lightning immune, equip them all with the lightning immune equipment, and give 1 a staff of storms. turn 1, summon storm power for everyone, turn 2 Thunderstrike for your A3+ mages(so 4+ with summon storm power) other spells for the others. just make sure you got 1 mage to cast Wrathful skies first, before Thunderstrike spamming. you need your own lightning immune troops as blockers, so they won't suffer from the Wrathful Skies and the inevitable collateral damage from the Thunderstrikes. I'd certainly mix in a few thugs as blockers against large AI armies, so even if your regular troops fall too quickly, your thugs will continue to hold the lines long enough for the combination of Thunderstrikes, Wrathful Skies, etc to finish off the entire AI army.

another option, which is much cheaper and easier, is to use false horrors, but on on their own as you've tried, but as part of a mass fear strategy. summon Yazatas for their awe, get your casters to spam fear inducing spells, such as your False Horrors, Wailing Winds, Panic, Terror, Blood Rain, etc. as many of those as you can get your hands on pretty much. mix in a few thugs with Horror Helmets for good measure if you want. the key to this strategy is to use thugs or whatever to take the surrounding provinces simultaneously, so when the AI army retreats it won't have anywhere to run and will vanish.

[ExHeretic]

Black Guard pretty much nailed your guestion already but here are my two cents to add. Using bows against units with shields is usually not the best stategy. Atleast not whitout flaming arrows. Thunderstrike has huge fatigue cost. Even A4 mage gets 25 + spellcasting encumbarance fatigue thats 4 casts before sleepy time. Orblightining is only 3-4 + enc fatigue so that should give you more than 10 casts (in perfect world). Range for that spell is only 15 so you need to keep it in mind. Falling frost is other good option if you have constraction for the bracers.

And then there is always mammoths

[13lackGu4rd]

yeah, Orb Lightning would have been ideal if it wasn't for the 15 range. Fallen Frost doesn't synergize with the Storm+Storm Power but it can certainly work with high enough W mages, though I generally dislike to send mages with boosters to the battlefield, too risky. but yeah, it's the AI, so it's much safer to do so than in MP.

Mammoths vs hordes of AI is not that great as they'll get swarmed and die despite their trampling. even with Fog Warriors they're bound to lose, as the mistform will pop very quickly when being swarmed by a ton of units.

[rdonj]

Have you considered water elemental spam? Either as bottles of living water or summoned with gems on the battlefield.

[Finalgenesis]

Agree bow of war isn't too effective on massive shield hordes. Also don't work well with storm. Lightning options aside (It's been well covered)...

Sounds like you have good D/N income, I'd guess an okay W/A income too at least. Probably N access via pretender. Using CBM 1.6 assuming? Guessing no EDM.

Taking into account of the above and that your specific problem is massive chaff horde, econ thug chasis Banes aren't bad. Though if you want to incorp them into lightning strat you'd have to shell out +3A for each... Otherwise 2x frost brand banes cost 4D 4W apiece.

All you need is a S variant of your mage + 3x bane in a stack equipped with dual brand. stick the mage adjacent to the bane stack, cast Luck, ethereal, quickness, xxx(retreat if you like). Your bane stack on hold,hold, attack closest. cost: 24 gems, it should demolish infinite amount of chaff. It's almost exploiting the poor AI as it's very easy to counter for a human, though AI doesn't actively deploy them. You can pile on the LR ring, AMA ...etc if you feel like splurging for anti-banishment and integrating them into your thunder strat. For enemy mages just bring along chaff screens and the like to draw fire. When integrating into army, try to set the doom stacks more then 15 squares away from anything else, to guarantee your mage will cast quickness on the bane stack.

Since you have reliable access to skull staff, a D pick mage with skull staff can cast wailing winds with 2D gems. Yazatas' awe (or anything else with awe, though you can;t forge gleaming shields) should work wonderfully against chaffs with emotions after the wind works on enemy for a few turns.

Edit: Oh if you do plan to use mammoths, do luck/ethereal them to extend their rampaging duration. If you use water elemental, make sure to use it in cold prov (not sure if cold 2 is enough or only cold 3) for amplified effectiveness against chaff (turns into ice elemental, which tramples). Carriers for bottles can retreat turn 1 and the water (or ice) elemental stays in the battle as long as you have a magic leader (anything with mage path) remaining. Since AI don't know how to cut off retreats you can abuse bottles with 2x bottle scouts bring in free elementals to any battle every turn.