Why no love for Caelum?

[JJ_Colorado]

Caelum has strengths but to say that they are too strong is just panic. Most nations have some strengths. It's how you play the nation that makes them strong. I have seen games where Caelum is destroyed in the early game, games where Caelum is destroyed in the mid-game, and hopefully soon a game where Caelum is about to be destroyed in the late-game (by me - LOL).

Anyway, Abysia has great strengths as well. Some people think their blood magic is almost unstoppable if they survive to middle game. I know that's not true.

Some people think Ermor is unstoppable all the time. I know that's not true.

Some people think Arco is unstoppable in mid-late game. I disagree.

Some people think Vanheim is overpowered throughout the game. I disagree.

Some people think Jotunheim is too powerful early and mid-game in particular. I disagree.

Ulm is very very strong early in the game.

I could go on and on, but I do not believe Caelum is overpowered...it depends on how good the player is and whether the player plays to the nation's strengths...any nation can be powerful if played correctly.

Regds,
John

[Boron]

@ kel i said that earlygame either horrors or lighning / orb lightning .

lightning is only evo 2 so researching lighning against knights and the like and then alteration 6 doesn't take too long especially since the caelum mages are so cheap and you can build soon 2 / turn with your first castle/lab and take magic 3 scale easy (cold 3 pays that e.g. )

i doubt that ermor is better earlygame they have to decide whether to research or to expand .
and more important :
ermor can't fly and even earlygame has a hard time to overwhelm enemies with good priests , d1 mages ( dust to dust ) .

i think no other race can attack out of the sudden lots of provinces like caelum with good chances to succeed like caelum early-midgame .

caelum would win against ermor most likely too easy .
stealthpreach seraphines and the ermorian hordes get killed easy by the lighningspells etc.
the archers will kill lots of ermorian undeads quick too .

kel could you please share why you think ermor is perhaps overpowered . i personally find them weak though i like them .
furthermore i think lots of ermor is overpowered has to do with 2 reasons :
pre 2.12 : vq for ermor
norfleet often played ermor

[Boron]

hm perhaps a bit of fear for caelum and ermor comes really because norfleet played these 2 races very often right ?

[Cainehill]

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 .

[...]

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

And I think that anytime that Cohen and Stormbinder agree on something, they're 100% wrong.

You talk about Caelum's magic weapons being a problem in the early game. How is that a problem? The only thing magic weapons do is allow a unit to hit ethereal units normally. How many ethereal independents are there? For that matter, how many ethereal pretenders? (Oh no! Caelum can give Vampire Queens a problem! Boo hoo!)

Okay - Caelum can give _some_ SCs and pretenders a hard time. But only if the SC / pretender is all on his lonesome, and even then most SCs or Pretenders will slaughter Caelum's flyers, causing them to rout PDQ. If they have troops with them, even quicker.

Similarly, Caelum's flyers aren't much good against indies, at least no more so than regular archers. The melee flyers rush up, get hit a few times, and rush right out, routing in a heart beat. They're frail and they don't have terribly good morale.

If you want to use the Storm Guards and Iceclads, you aren't going to be taking any Sloth 3 - those puppies cost almost 3 times as much for resources as gold, meaning that you probably want to take productivity if intending to use them much. Similarly, the sacred Temple Guard is very resource intensive, and it can't fly.

In addition, they're all size 3 except for the non-flyers - have too many of them in a province and they start starving, even picking up diseases the same turn they moved in sometimes.

Then if you use Mammoths, temple guards, wingless, you're not flying and not mobile.

And as other people have pointed out - False Horror and Orb Lightning aren't low level spells. Nations with death magic can do just about as well with small Groups of mages casting Raise Skeletons / Raise Dead, and they can get the spell much quicker - research level 3 instead of 6 / 5.

Vanheim and LoT Man can also take many indies with not much more than their mage commanders, and Vanheim doesn't even need to use their top-tier mage to do it.

Frankly, I think people are currently whining and complaining about Caelum because they've gotten smacked around by the nation, often when played by Norfleet. And if Norfleet was cheating in most of his games, then bloody hail, Caelum romping _then_ doesn't really signify much in real terms, does it?

Instead of going on about how Caelum is overpowered, try playing it a few times. It ain't that great for real early expansion, and has numerous weaknesses and issues. Probably half the nations are better / quicker for early expansion (first 10-20 turns), and some can get just as many or more pretender points from their scales - Vanheim, the aquatics, Jotunheim, Pangaea, and most definately Abysia.

[Cohen]

I'm in a game trying Caelum.
They're awesome in early expansion.

Far better than Pythium or Abysya.

[Kel]

lightning is only evo 2 so researching lighning against knights and the like and then alteration 6 doesn't take too long

You are entirely missing my point. I said, myself, it doesn't take that long. I also said that nonetheless it is a portion of the early game in which they are not 'over-powered' by your definition (early expansion). Thus, they are only powerful, in the way you describe, in the latter part of the early game. That doesn't seem so bad to me.

As for using lightning early on, are you really saying that in the first 10 turns, you are expanding faster than other nations by using lightning scripted seraphs ? Pfft, and you are still getting to level 6 research fast, too ?

kel could you please share why you think ermor is perhaps overpowered . i personally find them weak though i like them

I didn't say they were. I said they were good at early expansion against indies. I don't think that early expansion against indies is the only factor to consider in determining whether a nation is over-powered. In fact, that was the whole point of my post

And all this stuff about Norfleet and what he played is ridiculous. I only played with Norfleet a couple times, a long time ago, let's not use him as a basis for every single discussion of balance, please (and this is directed at everyone, not you).

- Kel

[Boron]

you missed my points too kel .

first with norfleet i said too that lots of fear for ermor / caelum may come because he played them a lot .

i never said that you use lighning / orb lightning / lesser horrors for early game indy expansion .
but you can research this in the first 10-20 turns easy and then overwhelm 1-2 of your neighbors with that because they have really problems to defend against that .

and earlygame you can expand good with e.g. archers + mammoths or mammoths + the wingless .

i agreed with stormbinder that they are most likely the scariest early-midgame opponent .
furthermore they are quick at expansion too with their mammoths etc. but there might be other nations even a bit more quick .
but they really shine at crushing their first opponents and then with the extra resources + clamhoarding can become the strongest fraction lategame too .

[Stormbinder]

Master's of the Way.

You can not beat PD up to 20 with W1 1? mage without items. (unless you are hoping to get 1 Air pick and cast the same Lesser Horrors that I mentioned. Which would not be as efficient as W1 A2 seraphs. Forzen Hearts will not stop large PD.)Also he is not flying, not stealthy, meaning he can only attack provinces next to him.

Seithkona,

Same as with Master of way. You can not beat PD up to 20 with S D N mage. Also not flying, not stealthy, meaning can attack only province next to him.

Theurgs (At 150),

This one the only mage from those you mentioned that can do it. (Which is not a surprise since they have exactly the same magic paths as seraph ). However they cost 50% more than seraph. They can't fly, meaning can't attack anything other them province next to them, unless you are going to waste 3 air gems to send him on suicide mission deep into enemy back, which is not a good trade.

Initiates of the Deep.

You gotta be kidding Zen. W1 Initiate of the Deep beating 20 PD without items? Quickness and frozen hearts? Yeah, right.

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.

Zen, you are missing the point. You said "That is the absolute first time I've heard of Caelum being the 'province defense killers".

Than you have tried to bring some examples of other nation being as good PD killers as Caelum at the same cost (100 gp). As I showed above - they do not even come close. The fact that PD suck in general is well know to everybody and totally irrelivent to the discussion of either Caelum is the best PD killer or not.

[Kel]

you missed my points too kel .

Well, actually, no, I didn't. I may not have gone in depth but I clearly addressed them:

Boron:
first with norfleet i said too that lots of fear for ermor / caelum may come because he played them a lot .

Kel:
And all this stuff about Norfleet and what he played is ridiculous.

Kel:
let's not use him as a basis for every single discussion of balance, please

Boron:
@ kel i said that earlygame either horrors or lighning / orb lightning .

lightning is only evo 2 so researching lighning against knights and the like and then alteration 6 doesn't take too long especially since the caelum mages are so cheap and you can build soon 2 / turn with your first castle/lab and take magic 3 scale easy (cold 3 pays that e.g. )

Boron:
i never said that you use lighning / orb lightning / lesser horrors for early game indy expansion .

I am sorry if I misunderstood. I guess you could have been speaking about knights from nations. It seemed implied to me that you were talking about indie expansion for at least part of it. Especially since this whole conversation has been about the early game and a big portion of the early game is expansion against indies, usually. Are you saying that on turn 5, you are attacking other players with lightning scripted seraphs ? If your response is that no, not that early in the game, that comes later...than again, they are useful not in the whole early game but only part of it...which, again, was the point I was trying to make.

Boron:
but they really shine at crushing their first opponents and then with the extra resources + clamhoarding can become the strongest fraction lategame too .

We agreed that they are strong for a limited period of time during the latter part of the early game and if that is when they have their first opponents, they are at their peak. My point, again, was that being the most powerful nation, for a limited portion of the game, does not, in and of itself, make them over-powered.

As far as their late game potential, this wasn't a previous point that you made in the post I responded to, are you now contending that they are generally stronger than, say, arco, late game, due to resources and clamhoarding ?

- Kel

Quickness + Frozen Heart will rout most PD indescriminately. I don't know what you are thinking, or of you've even tried it. Probably not, or you did against say Jotunheim, which isn't exactly the best choice in the world to try to Frozen Heart. The only ones that ever give you much problems are the ones with fliers (Harpies and such), and those give Seraphs just as many problems.

Re: Seithkona. Guess you've never really felt the effects of a truly devistating wave of Nether Darts.

I've done it quite a few times. Seraphs are not stealthy. Seraphim don't have 1A, so I don't know what your comment about stealth is.

Caelum is not the "PD killer" that you want to make it out to be for it's paths, rather because of it's ability to drop into the back row and take provinces that are not in the direct front line?

I imagine Stormbinder, that you are, once again, putting your vast inexperience to the masses. Otherwise you might be moaning about Theurgs, or any other low air unit, water unit, or death unit. It's amazing the amount of people who cry nerf for any other nation than Pythium, which is by and large an absolute beast.

Maybe you need to extend your nation choices to include other nations than Van and Caelum.