Caelum questions, both themes.

[fahdiz]

Originally posted by Zen:
There are lots of ways to go with Caelum, due to their variety of strengths.

With only summons availiable to make into decent combatants, one common way is to focus on blood (since ID's make such great combatants).

Since Caelum is one of the few nations with access to a Natarajah, they are a common SC (especially since you already have Air and Water items covered for forging).

An important factor for using Caelum is getting a Wizard's Tower, if you plan on using alot of Iceclads (why wouldn't you?). So you can throw up towers quick and effectively every few provinces in order to churn them out. They gather easy and are easy to reinforce.

Great, Zen - thanks for the advice. Now off to the testing board...

[fahdiz]

Originally posted by Zen:
With only summons availiable to make into decent combatants, one common way is to focus on blood (since ID's make such great combatants).

Zen, do you tend to go Blood with the Return of the Raptors theme as well, or just with base Caelum? The differences in theme are very subtle (but significant), and I would think that RotR would go more with battlefield summons (because of the Harab Seraphs' Death/Earth levels) than with ritual summons. But I'm not sure, since I'm still learning soooo much about this game on a daily basis (only had the full Version since mid-February)...how do you usually build an RotR pretender?

By the way, I again want to thank everybody who has posted in this thread so far...I started a little "test scenario" based on this information at lunchtime and was very impressed with the difference! Kudos to you all for helping out a newbie like me, who can stare something in the face and still not realize exactly what's going on.

[ March 02, 2004, 23:01: Message edited by: fahdiz ]

Originally posted by fahdiz:
Zen, do you tend to go Blood with the Return of the Raptors theme as well, or just with base Caelum? The differences in theme are very subtle (but significant), and I would think that RotR would go more with battlefield summons (because of the Harab Seraphs' Death/Earth levels) than with ritual summons.

To be quite honest, I dislike the RotR theme instensely. Other than losing the very powerful High Seraph, what you gain in the Harab Elder is little. You lose Seraphine but the Harab Elder isn't even standard able to cast Sermon of Courage. You have good forging paths, and can cast Summon Valkaries (with a Storm and Storm Power, or an item) but you don't have any sort of random pick so you're very locked into what you can do. You have access to alot of economically killing spells (blight and Hurricane) but they just don't feel good to me because of their heavy priest power loss.

The Raven Guard are good (especially if you plan on fighting outside your dominion, and cold) but I still rely on standard wingless/mammoth armies (now that temple guard are gone) and rely even more on indy HI and others with a little protection for land armies.

The basic strategy of having multiple raiding parties still stays the same; but you lose alot of magical power.

The pretender is even more important in RotR than in base Caelum, because of this. And I rely moreso on summons (especially mindless/high morale) than caleum has to, and this can leave you overall, weaker than base Caelum.

It doesn't change the playstyle of Caelum much, which in my opinion, makes for a less attractive theme since it doesn't change how you think about the nation.

For a Pretender I would look at either a VQ or a Son of Neifel for Blood type of situations, or something that would use Bane Lords, so something that can make Jade Armor and maybe astral.

[ March 03, 2004, 04:09: Message edited by: Zen ]

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by Chazar:
- If your dominion strength is high anyway, then use your scales as well as the effect of the scales depend on the dominion strength as well: Order 2, Prod 2, Cold -3, Growth 2, Luck 1, Magic -1. Maybe Prod or Growth 3. No theme.

A drain scale is a bad idea with Caelum. Mages are their strength, and they don't have access to communion.

I'm usually not sure who I am going to turn into my prophet. A mage who accompanies my front line troops? A seraphine for stealth? I think that having a prophet-strom general in raiding party is a bad idea, as my raiding parties usually wont return home...

There's no reason to make a mage your prophet, since they can only cast one spell at a time anyways.

[Endoperez]

Graeme has a good point, but I don't know how big of an effect drain 1 has to the fatique costs of spells. Can anyone give some advice? I think it is something like 10% more fatique per spell cast, but that is more of a guess than anything else.

If Seraphines still have holy-3 in DomII then you should make one of them a prophet. Fanaticism is just wonderful. And having a prophet in raiding party might help if you don't have other way to get a flying priest who can cast Sermon of Courage or Fanaticism, but it is risky. Because of that, you should not send a prophet unless that raiding party is very important.

BtW, would Return of the Raptors be more interesting if they *started* the game with Call of the Winds? Or, if possible, a new spell 'Murder of Crows' that would double CotW in every way except that the birds in it would be crows? I have always liked the sound of that, and it seems thematically fitting...

[Gandalf Parker]

- Caelum fights well in the cold, so having a very high dominion strength (8-9) and using your pretender and prophet on the front lines to spread it seems reasonable to me.

Pros and Cons. That would be using your dominion offensively. Which is a perfectly good tactic but it does lessen your ability to use independents. There is also using your dominion defensively. Not forcing it outward but using it as a circle of powerful cold around the inner part of your empire. Slightly different tactic which allows for more use of independents.

- If your dominion strength is high anyway, then use your scales as well as the effect of the scales depend on the dominion strength as well: Order 2, Prod 2, Cold -3, Growth 2, Luck 1, Magic -1. Maybe Prod or Growth 3. No theme.

Magic -1? I think Caelum is a decent magic nation. Personally I would find it hard to play in a neg-magic domain. But again that use can depend on whether you plan to push your dominion in front of you or have it follow along behind you.

- I choose the 60-point Castle. Caelum troops are quick, so a strong fortification allows me to bring in helping troops from the outside in case of sieges, without lossing the accopanying temple/lab. (But I have to think about that wizard tower again...good point!)

For some nations the units they get, particularly commanders, can be very important. For those nations I seriously consider the 2 cheapest castles. Sometimes I need more castles to build commanders in than I need the resources pulled to one castle (I choose those when armored troops are the important item to build)

- This leaves no design points for magic, and since I need a strong front-line pretender I decided to take the Blue Dragon with no additional magic. (I agree that cold resistance is a must have for the caelum pretender!)

I know all my variations are point-costing and not much in giving any back. But just a point to consider. If you give some magic to the blue dragon (3 I think?) then you will be able to enter the water with it and cast some low-level water spells. This can be handy for getting a quick handle on some water.

True, this renders blessing useless, but my sneaky preachers serve other purposes anyway and I dont like those temple guards anyway. I'd rather build more mammoths and wingless if I want a non flying army.

Good logic.

I'm usually not sure who I am going to turn into my prophet. A mage who accompanies my front line troops? A seraphine for stealth? I think that having a prophet-strom general in raiding party is a bad idea, as my raiding parties usually wont return home...

The only reason I make a mage into a prophet is to get a single person able to do most of the site-searching that I feel is absolutely necessary. If Im not going for bless-effects then I have a bad habit of moving my prophet beyond the dominion too fast which makes his prophetness more harmful to him than good.

I dont like building non-caelum troops. As long as I manage to fight in the cold, I feel fine. Why hire other archers? Money is rarely a problem, and caelum archers require only 4 resources and are quite effective, so I dont want to build other archers. Protecting my archers is done with thos spire horn warriors.

Ahhh that supports much of your other decisions. Your logic is good on everything you are doing. Not how I would play Caelum but thats one of the great things about this game.


So far I have only battled against normal AI's, but i intend to start a game with local friends soon. What do you think, how will they beat me up?

People who like Caelum think they need to consider fire nations like Abyssia or Marignon as being their biggest worry. I find that Jotunheim gives me much more of a problem. Giants that dont mind my cold domain? On the other hand, Jotun can be a great neighbor if you ally.

[fahdiz]

Originally posted by Endoperez:
BtW, would Return of the Raptors be more interesting if they *started* the game with Call of the Winds? Or, if possible, a new spell 'Murder of Crows' that would double CotW in every way except that the birds in it would be crows? I have always liked the sound of that, and it seems thematically fitting...

Again, my experience is very limited...but it seems to me that the best way to make RotR more interesting is, as Zen said, to give it something which makes it more unique from the base Caelum theme and which would give you an entirely different style of play. To that effect, I would perhaps consider making Raven Guards sacred (since they are both elite and unique, it makes sense that they would be held in the highest regard by Raptor society) and also making Wingless sacred (and costing a bit more gold). Why Wingless? Because they are outcastes - and the Raptors have just returned to power after centuries of the same treatment. So they might see in Wingless an analogy of their past situation, and idealize it (and the weak shall become strong, etc.)

This would give RotR the effect of being a strong nation for bless effects (raiding parties with Fire 9? Sounds good to me! ) - and I think everyone in this thread has agreed that base Caelum is not a nation one generally considers when thinking about bless strategies...so a modified RotR offers something substantially different and equally enjoyable. It would be somewhat like the flying Version of the Last of the Tuatha theme for Man.

On another note, I've tested out a number of scenarios Last night with base Caelum and have been very happy with the results. Thank you all again for your kind advice and help.

[RadiantFleet]

I'm a contrarian on Caleum. I typically play with
Dominion 7-8 Order 3 Prod 3 Growth 3 Drain 3 Cold 3
Fortified city and Vampire queen

Depending on my dominion I'll bump up the VQ to 4 death and 4 blood.

I find she does well getting you started, she's cold immune and immortal. Placing the vampires she attracts with mammoths and other caleum units really helps with the routing problems. I tend to aggressively push my dominion out using stealth preaching. I view my dominion as my most important weapon, with the cold enhancing my troops stats, keeping my pretender immortal, and hindering most other unit types. Jotheim can be a big problem, the cheap, fast, good priests tend to cancel out Ermor but Jotheim requires attacking in force to cut their supply lines. Frequently the AI chooses to place Jotheim as a retarded younger brother to Ermor, but when it chooses effect starting picks it can be quite competitive. Abysia is toast after the early game. I can kill its leaders, rendering summer lions ineffective. A mage attacking the rear, casting breath of winter can be devestating.

A big thing I find about Caleum is that you need to build, build, build. The units are cheap, you can amass huge nodal armies in your fortified cities (with give you the supplies to maintian them). An enemy attacks, you swarm him with every unit in range. Then you return to your supply base the next turn when your troops begin to starve. I usually expand my empire with an attack army composed of temple guards, ice clads for attacking the rear, and my pretender. I don't attack a province unless it has at least +1 dominion. Later in the game, I use an arch angel with the ark, and only temple guards set to hold and attack. The ark will destroy an army a hundred or more times bigger if you can stand your ground.

Anyway, some of my random ramblings on Caleum.

[Arryn]

Heh, an "Ark Angel" ...

[RadiantFleet]

Zot!