Why no love for Caelum?

[Stormbinder]

Ulm gets crossbowmen for defense. If they manage to hit the mage, that will take it out quite rapidly. But if the mage is far enough in the back that doesn't work.

Rlyeh gets an Illithid Lord commander who can whack the mage with a mind bLast - it's a question of whether the spell works before the false horrors scare all the chaff away.

Marignon gets crossbowmen too, but only with their "second stage" PD.

Other races get slingers but that is not useful against anything

Yeap, and of course mage is located far in the back and in the corner - lesser horrors are flying.

If you want to be absolutely safe, you can also take 2-3 archers with you, and postion them in chessbaord mannerfar in the back, while your 100gp mage keep casting 2 fasle horrors per turn.

[tinkthank]

I think Sheap is dead on with his excellent summary of Caelum and its weaknesses, to which a large number can be added easily.

One could note that both Man (tuatha) and Van have very very easy access to what Stormbinder calls "PD-killers", only that they are more expensive and much much beefier (and with glamour, yikes). Tien Chi S&A comes to mind too, and standard Tien as well with a pair of super-cheap flying boots. Well tons of nations can fulfill the role of PD-killer with flying boots, actually, but whatever.
I find Caelum to be very strong -- but, like Ermor (which I dont find that strong in MP), fairly inflexible. Strong, but not crying for a nerf; strong, but not bannable from games.

[Endoperez]

Well tons of nations can fulfill the role of PD-killer with flying boots, actually, but whatever.

I am wondering why no one is saying Return of Raptors too weak (edit: meant strong ). It does have the same pd-killers as Caelum, has Death magic to summon number of creatures and toughies and Earth magic to equip them, as well as strong Air magic to summon Queens of Air. Also, if they ever get anything that boosts Earth magic besides Earth Boots they will have lots of fun with Staves of Elemental Masteries...

I find Caelum to be very strong -- but, like Ermor (which I dont find that strong in MP), fairly inflexible. Strong, but not crying for a nerf; strong, but not bannable from games.

I totally agree with this.

[Cohen]

Because their best mage, the Harab Elder, costs far more than an Arch-Seraph, and is capitol only.

Meanwhile Caelum could recruit in every of his castle an Arch Seraph ...

I don't see Caelum inflexible at all.
It's like most nations, with his best mage with 1 random pick.

And I don't think their troops are weak.
Prec 12 Archers, with wind guide base spell, and a Seraph, are good enought to conquer no knightly provinces.
Even you can avoid knight provinces flying around and over.
You can avoid to get bottled and lost turns coming back into your provinces.

Caelum troops are expensive in resources too because:
A: Their armor raises protection in cold provinces.
B: Almost all their weapons are considered magic.(get rid of Etherealness, break mistform).

[Endoperez]

Because their best mage, the Harab Elder, costs far more than an Arch-Seraph, and is capitol only.

I know why Return of Raptors is considered weak, I just wondered why Caelum is over- and RoR underpowered. Harab Elders are, after all, Arch Seraphs with level 2 priestly magic instead of random and with correct price-tag (check this post for hard numbers ).

Meanwhile Caelum could recruit in every of his castle an Arch Seraph ...

In fact, the post which I gave link to says that High Seraph costs 60% of the price modding price guide would give to a similar mage, giving it "real" price of ~290... Saying that Harab Elders are too expensive for what they are seems out-of-place in a thread which says that High Serpah's price should be higher, especially when Harab Elder costs about the amount of what High Seraph should but is sacred.

I don't see Caelum inflexible at all.
It's like most nations, with his best mage with 1 random pick.

I thought inflexible in this case meant that Caelum cannot do that many things with its mages. Sure, they are great in battle, but no that good outside it. Is there any non-unique summon you are looking forward as Caelum? Which one/s? What are you looking forward to as, say, Vanheim? Air and Water are not that good paths for items either, with Quickness-granting items as an exception for Water and some multipath items for Air...

Master's of the Way. Seithkona, Theurgs (At 150), Initiates of the Deep.

There are quite a few, they just don't happen to all fly as well. If you are so concerned with PD and their lack of fightability during any stage of the game, you are probably up the ganjies without a paddle.

[Boron]

hm i didn't play caelum much and have not an as long expierience in dominions as you zen and stormbinder but i think stormbinder is really right about caelum .

until turn 20-30 you have a very hard time to defend against a good caelum player i think .

that all their troops have magic weapons is brutal.
earlygame some caelum fliers can kill almost every sc pretender who needs to buff first and has little protection .

they can produce the most mages and everywhere .
earlygame the battle lightning spells like lightning / orbligthning are very brutal too because most nations can't protect their troops in this stage via lightning .

then just switch to stormbinders described battle tactic .
even for a seraph with 2a the false horror causes only about 9 fatigue( when i understand the sytem right perhaps a bit more or less) so he can masssummon horrorhordes .

20 mages doing this is would be 40 horrors each combat round and as caelum 20 mages are hard to get .

they have airqueens later as Uberscs and they can clamhoard .

from cold 3 you get +120 extrapretenderpoints and you can take sloth 3 too with them .


i think the main problem is that no other nation can earlygame attack 5-10 provinces in 1 turn with stormbinders described methods .

this way they easy can encircle others and then when they rout all is wiped out .
scs who need to buff do bad against them .

so i think stormbinder and cohen are really true claiming caelum is too strong .

[Boron]

it forces you to madcastle . so when you would need a expensive 40 admin castle where you can only castle chokepoints / special provinces for resources you look really bad against caelum ( and to a lesser extent against abysia with flying demon armies ).

perhaps i am unexpierienced but name me any other race who can earlygame with only mages + national troops attack 5+ provinces at once and wipe out pd + a small garrison easy .

and lategame thnx to their clamhoard abilities + many points in pretenderdesign they can either make a clamhoard industry or get lots of blood too with the B1 high seraphs / sages .

so caelum is probably really too strong .

[Kel]

until turn 20-30 you have a very hard time to defend against a good caelum player i think .

earlygame some caelum fliers can kill almost every sc pretender who needs to buff first and has little protection

they can produce the most mages and everywhere .
earlygame the battle lightning spells like lightning / orbligthning are very brutal too because most nations can't protect their troops in this stage via lightning .

then just switch to stormbinders described battle tactic .
even for a seraph with 2a the false horror causes only about 9 fatigue( when i understand the sytem right perhaps a bit more or less) so he can masssummon horrorhordes .

20 mages doing this is would be 40 horrors each combat round and as caelum 20 mages are hard to get .

i think the main problem is that no other nation can earlygame attack 5-10 provinces in 1 turn with stormbinders described methods .

I have little opinion on whether Caelum is over-powered or not (or at least over-powered enough to warrant a nerf).

However, I would like to point out that everyone seems to be talking about using false horror and orb lightning in the early game but these aren't level 1-3 spells. Orb lightning is what, level 5 in evo and false horror is alt-6, iirc ?

Yes, you can get to one of these levels fairly quickly but if we are still talking about early game, we are only talking about a fairly narrow time frame, after they have researched the spells but before it becomes mid game (the definition of mid game probably varies, anyway).

Don't get me wrong, I definitely think they are strong at that certain point in the game but you have to look at the whole game to determine balance, most races are stronger at certain points in the game. Again, I am not saying that they are or are not over-powered, I am just saying that being strong for a 10-15 turn timeframe is not, in and of itself, over-powering.

To compare them to Ermor, in terms of there ability to conquer indies, isn't fair as Ermor is much more effective at bulldozing indies in *all* of the early game, which is far more important, than just the latter portion of the early game.

- Kel

[Thufir]

I'll conclude by saying that I have less experience with Caelum than pretty much any other nation, so I could be very wrong, but I think it's a shame when people ban or "nerf" nations or strategies they find difficult to counter, rather than trying to figure out a counter.

Schmoe, I agree, but please don't be too hard on us "Caelum wusses". I promise next time I host a MP game to permit Caelum. And I'll even send you a PM prior to posting the game open message.

I don't have enough experience for these detailed balance discussions, but within those limits I'm inclined to believe those that are arguing that Caelum is not in need of a nerf. From my first SP games with Dom2 exploring various pretender/nation setups, I've never had the sense that Caelum was unbalanced. Instead, I had the sense that Caelum's units were weakened a bit to compensate for it's very important tactical advantage of flight. As far as I can tell, Caelum was designed well both aesthetically (or thematically, as people say around here) and from the balance point of view.

That said, Dom2 has got a very steep learning curve - IMO, it's kind of like the worst case between Chess (or better yet Go) and say Avalon Hill's Advanced Squad Leader (for those too young to remember that one - it had a fat 3 ring binder for rules that could take you weeks to read!). Usually, games as complex as ASL have a steep learning curve, but then once you learn a few key optimizations, your strategic options narrow dramatically. From that point the space in which you do your strategic planning is much smaller than in Go or Chess, and the game becomes considerably easier to play and improve in. Because Dom2 is so well balanced (IMHO), this narrowing of options doesn't seem to occur.

I suspect that there are many players out there, even at the intermediate level, that are still a bit overwhelmed by how much there is to learn in Dom2 play. From this perspective, it is very appealing (and possible) to chop out a good chunk of that learning curve by disallowing Caelum. Yes other nations are capable of inner province raiding, but no other nation depends on it. I can't imagine that a well played Caelum didn't include raiding as a key part of its strategy.

Of course, you could make a similar argument for Ermor, not in the sense of their depending on raiding, but that their unique abilities require them to be countered quite differently than most nations. However based on my initial SP play, I suspsect it's easier to learn how to counter Ermor, especially via SP play (I doubt the AI makes good use of Caelum's tactical advantage). Also, who can imagine an epic fantasy game that doesn't include undead?!

All in all, I look forward to playing MP games with/against Caelum, but I'm happy not to have had them in my first two MP games