Caelum strategies

[SeditiousCanary]

So here is an e-mail I sent my playing group. I'm posting it here because I'm just stumped.

"I've played a few games to 70 or just past and I have stopped because I wasn't going to win. I couldn't make troops fast enough and stopped earning money (less than 200 a turn anyway).

I think the thing that I find the most frustrating is I'm not learning anything new. I find that I always build the cheapest troops, the leaders with the most research and far too many buildings. It stands to reason I might learn more about the game if I changed my approach, but I can barely hang on as it is. If I made more expensive troops, I don't think I would make it past turn 15-20. I can't make money to save my live short of building clams for every commander I have and using them to make cash. Near as I can tell, the only good magic items are:

Clams
Anything that feeds troops
Anything that bumps your research up

Everything else seems to be a waste. Armor it pointless since my leaders cast spells. Weapons are the same."

What am I missing? I see no obvious way to improve my game. Are there combos that work well together of spells, troops, magic items?

Thanks

[Saber Cherry]

Have you only played Caelum? If so, I suggest you start with another nation, like Pythium, Marignon, or Abysia. Or any other nation except Mictlan, actually.

Here are some hints, though...

1) Pick a strong combat pretender, ideally immortal or regenerating (or able to cast regen / make a ring of regeneration), such as a Wyrm, Vampire Queen, Prince of Death, Earth Mother, or so forth. For a cold-based nation, avoid anything cold-blooded.

2) Expand rapidly into nearby indies starting at turn 1 or 2. Ideally your pretender can solo, allowing you to make a powerful priest, make it a prophet, and use it to lead a second army (scripted to cast fanatacism) that is also conquering indies by turn 3. This early head-start gives you a vital economic boost.

3) Don't simply build the cheapest troops; they are usually trash. Examine the stats and equipment, and make real choices. Build things that are useful, or save the money.

4) Troops without armor and shields are usually worthless - a waste of gold and food. Whether your mages cast spells is irrelevant to the armor of your troops, unless they cast "Army of Lead" or "Mass Protection", which they won't be doing at the beginning.

5) Everything recruited needs upkeep - 1/15 if build cost for all non-sacred units. So massing unarmored low-resource, high-gold troops puts a huge drain on the treasury even when they just sit around.

6) Never build high-research national mages to do research. That's what low-research national mages are for! Do a cost/benefit analysis: A 1-magic mage that costs 60g (+4g/turn) and puts out 3 research will go to 7 research at level 1 with an owl quill. A 5-magic mage that costs 250 gold (+17/turn) will do 7 research, or 11 with an experience level and an owl quill. Researching with expensive mages will drive you bankrupt.

7) Summons do NOT need upkeep, and are extremely powerful. Try some. Caelians are cold-immune so you might find summons with cold auras to be especially useful, as they don't freeze your own troops like normal...

8) Caelum units are the hungriest in the game, for their power - considering they eat twice as much as humans, have lower stats (in melee), and live in Cold+3. Other nations give less trouble with food.

9) Lastly, Caelum are archers, not fighters. Go for Wind Guide (and flaming arrows, if you can cast it) and clean up.

[quantum_mechani]

Saber Cherry said:

6) Never build high-research national mages to do research. That's what low-research national mages are for! Do a cost/benefit analysis: A 1-magic mage that costs 60g (+4g/turn) and puts out 3 research will go to 7 research at level 1 with an owl quill. A 5-magic mage that costs 250 gold (+17/turn) will do 7 research, or 11 with an experience level and an owl quill. Researching with expensive mages will drive you bankrupt.

Actually, it is quite common to build expensive mages for research for a variety of reasons. Most commonly for reserve battle mages (for instance base Marignon might want witch hunters rather than initiates, do to their vastly superior battlefield utility). You might also want to build lots of expensive mages to get the random paths to come out in different ways (for instance TC or Atlantis). Pan might build lots of pan researchers for maenads. Then there is often the factor of the cost to set up a new mage recruitment base.

That said, it is still of course a good idea to keep in mind the gold/research ratio when selecting mages. Particularly when you find sages...

[shovah]

caelum is one of the few nations where i would build the more expensive mages simply due to their low cost, rush up alteration and get quickness and false horror. a nice shield of something (like vine ogres) and 10 mages scripted to quickness and horror spam will anihilated nearly anything. for caelum a nice pretender is air 4-6, enough fire for flaming arrows and maybe 3 nature (for cauldrons of broth and such)
you really should consider items other than research/food/clams. have you ever used an sc like a banelord or air queen? if not i really suggest you do

[Chazar]

What kind of maps are you using? It's a different game with a different ratio #provinces/#nations. For a starter, I'd recommend to try smaller ones (i.e. < 100 provinces) with only 2-3 enemies.

BTW: Caelum rocks with good scales! Order+3 Cold+3 are a must, Magic+3 is sensible, everything else is up to you, with Sloth/Misfortune being acceptable if a need for design points arises: Mages are the power of Caelum, they can be recruited at every castle, so the more money you have, the more mages you can afford. I'd therefore even recommend an immobile pretender to achieve exceptionallly good scales...

[Vicious Love]

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... have you considered just hurling hot lightning death every which way?

[Endoperez]

I usually recruit a more expensive mage in the beginning, as the early fast research can potentially help a lot. Generally I find cheaper mages better, though.

With Jotunheim-Midg�rd Seithkona (90 gp, Astral/Death/Nature), I couple their research power with Magic scale and pretender able to cast some devastating Evocation. They research e.g. Falling Frost... and continue up to Nether Darts, making themselves a major military force!
Also, while it is expensive, Initiates can be very effective when summoning lots of Will'O'Wisps. And Atlantis' W1 mages become the death of anything alive when you reach the dreaded Quickness-Frozen Heart combo. With Man, both Bards and Daughters have their uses: Bards as spies and Daughters as Vine Men/Ogre summoners. I think it's not worth it to buy the cheap mages just for research. You've to come up with a use for them. They don't have to be as cost-effective at it, though, as their main use should be research.

[shovah]

stop using falling frost or i'll cry :C i agree with that atlantis part and they actually do well with a bunch of 180 gold falling frosters combined with alot of w1 frozen hearters to clean up, the only problem you meet is undead but you have troops (and perhaps a w9 big trident wielding god) to deal with them especially under water

[Endoperez]

Atlantis has W3 ?2 mages. And that is different from W3 ??. Atlantis WILL HAVE W3 mages with 2 on ANY and ALL other elements, given enough time. And that is enough to get them Earth, Water (x2), Nature (x2), Astral (+1) and Death (+2) boosters. Also, in combination with Water Atlantis gets lows of special spells, like Melting Bones (W3N2), Frozing Mist (W2A1) and Rust Mist (Earth and Water), Sailor's Death (W3 AoE death-effect!) etc. If Atlantis ever gets a booster for any element besides Earth, they automatically can do one of the two Staves of Elemental Mastery, which allows for the other one AND all the other elemental boosters as well!

It's a pity Water magic sucks underwater. I'd really like to use Water to thrash and crush and drown everyone. Especially underwater. But the few Water spells usable underwater aren't really worth much, especially against undead.

And shovah, Falling Frost is just one example. It just happens to easily work with Caelum, as well, and Caelumians are immune to it. Now, Ice Strike is useful versus a much bigger range of units.

[shovah]

you can boost magic power in combat right? and yes it works well with caelum but those mages can be put to better use (just realised that the cb mod kind of killed false horrors so stick with quickness + phantasmal/ ghost wolves if you have a staff of storms + storm power)