Why no love for Caelum?

[WraithLord]

currently in a big MP game I'm playing as pythium I'm losing badly to caelum in mid game phase. This is because I failed to counter their strengths- mobility, seraphs (quick+ lightning / quick + false horrorX4), and SC air queens. I think Caelum is very strong, but every battle I lose prompts me to some hard thinking. Not only what I could do differently in that battle, but also what I could do differently at previous turns to have been in an advantage.

I think Caelum is a very strong nation. But I really mislike the nerf direction. Mainly for two reasons.
First, in dominions I've learnt that for each good strat/nation/combo there is a counter. And secondly because Caelum is a unique flying nation ruled by mages. This is their theme and flavor, I do not want to see them nerfed.

Truth is, I have a very bad experience from other MP games in which the nerf this and nerf that cries have led the developers to equalize all races (see AOW-SM)

edit. typos.

[Arryn]

izaqyos said:
Truth is, I have a very bad experience from other MP games in which the nerf this and nerf that cries have led the developers to equalize all races (see AOW-SM)

My bad experiences with nerfing were in the MMORPGs E&B and SWG. It left a very bad taste in my craw for developers who are more concerned about silencing whiners than they are in providing rich content. You can never achieve "perfect" balance without destroying uniqueness and dragging everything down to the worst denominator. This applies to games, education, and just about everything else in real life.

Dom 2, to an extent, imitates life: lions are strong, gazelles are fast. The lion does not always get the gazelle. And gazelles breed faster, which offsets the fact that they do lose to lions most of the time. If we were gods designing such creatures, balance would not be in making them equally strong or fast. The balance is in how they interact with one another, and their environment. That the nations of Dom 2, on the whole, are as balanced as they are is an impressive achievement by IW. Especially since there are 17 of them, and 30+ themes.

[Kristoffer O]

The sermon of courage is not bugged, but it's effects are not comparable to the fear inducing effects of several horrors.

One sermon can probably counter one horror with good effects, but if you are attacked by dozens of horrors you will need a lot more than one priest casting sermons.

[Stormbinder]

Arryn said:
Okay, Stormy, I'll accept that this particular combo is presently an exploit. But it is so solely because Sermon of Courage and/or the AI is bugged. The solution is not nerfing the Horror spell, but fixing the Sermon spell so that it works as its description says it's supposed to. The game already has a mechanism in place for countering fear-based offensive tactics. But if that mechanism is broken ...

Aye Arryn, it would certanly help, I agree. Although lvl 3 priest does not come easy for many races.

I would still like to see Lesser Horror to be at least Air1 Fatique 20 spell. IMHO Fatique 10 air 1 is just too cheap for such powerful spell. But I agree with you that Sermon of Courage would reduce Fasle Horror power somewhat, if it would be changed to affect it.

[Stormbinder]

Kristoffer O said:
The sermon of courage is not bugged, but it's effects are not comparable to the fear inducing effects of several horrors.

One sermon can probably counter one horror with good effects, but if you are attacked by dozens of horrors you will need a lot more than one priest casting sermons.

Interesting. Thank you for clarification KristoferO.

BTW in the tests that I just run for Arryn 4-6 false horrors from that single 100gp seraph easely routed 20 Jotun's PD soldiers. Most other races would fare similar or worse. I wonder if perhaps you feel that Fear aura of False Horrors is a bit to strong atm? Or spell is too cheap (currently it is just 10 fatique, air 1). As of now, it makes all other nations PD defences totally useless against Caelum's single seraph, and that in addition to Caelum already great raiding abilities.

I mean, granted, PD are weak in general, but one would think that 20+ PD should be able to withstand 100gp none-capital not blessed commander with no items/gems? What do you think?

Regards,
Stormbinder

[Arryn]

Kristoffer O said:
The sermon of courage is not bugged, but it's effects are not comparable to the fear inducing effects of several horrors.

One sermon can probably counter one horror with good effects, but if you are attacked by dozens of horrors you will need a lot more than one priest casting sermons.

It *is* bugged if, as is being reported, priests never cast the spell at all. The AI should cast Sermon immediately once units take morale losses, regardless of why there was a morale loss. I've seen the AI cast Sermon repeatedly, as units take physical damage (and thus lose morale that way). If the AI is not recognizing morale loss from castings of Horror, then it's a bug. Perhaps someone should confirm this by having one casting of Horror per combat turn and seeing if the AI ever casts Sermon to counter those *single* horror castings. If the Horror spell drops morale by more than Sermon raises it, that's a seperate issue. The question, at present, is whether the AI even tries to counter the Horror spell at all.

[Cheezeninja]

Even postulating that Caelum's 100gp wizards can take out extremely large amounts of pd with little to no danger, i fail to see how this should automatically equate to a nerf of Caelum or false horror. Caelum is a powerful raiding nation, false horror is a powerful spell, the simple fact that you have already won 2 of the 3 Caelum wars you have fought should do alot to assure you that the nations are balanced overral. And if you plan on arguing that you won because you had more skill than your opponents despite a national disadvantage, well what of it? The game would be boring if all Nations played the same and had no respective advantages/disadvantages. Until people playing Caelum start winning an inordinate percentage of the time (and this hasnt been my experience) how can there be any argument that they are overpowered? False horrors with Caelum IS a powerful strategy, but it is meant to be. You could make the same argument for Pythiums theurg's being underpriced. Because for all that they initially cost the right amount, the fact that they are sacred (reducing upkeep) and the easy availability of cheap communicants could be said to push their versatility through the roof. In fact, i believe the addition of astral magic is more than worth the extra gold.

In point of fact i just ran several tests in which i left 2-4 raptors from call of the winds in a province with 1 pd (man) and then proceeded to cloud trapeeze seraph after seraph into the province. The raptors were able to routinely win against the single seraph so long as there was at least 2. Occasionally a raptor would be killed by the seraph before the seraph died, allowing the next seraph to conquer the province (as 1 raptor was not enough). But nevertheless, with 4 raptors (1/5! of a call of the winds, not even counting the commander, an investment of 1!!! air gem per province) i was routinely able to defeat a single seraph set to cast quickness, false horror, FH, FH, FH. You can hardly argue that a single air gem is too big of an investment to counter seraphs now can you? Especially since it takes a mere 2 air to cast call of the winds, and conj 3 (which most people should be shooting for anyway). And once you start scaling it up and talking about multiple seraphs wielding perhaps SoS's.... well once a staff of storms is involved, or multiple national mages... NO PD stands a chance, or is supposed to.

Hardly overpowered to my mind.

[Arryn]

Nicely argued, Mr. Cheeze!

[Boron]

Arryn said:
Nicely argued, Mr. Cheeze!

yep true . and from zen too .

e.g. pan has several harpies as pd .

but that are the "only" exeptions . AND call of the wilds is AIR magic too so this is not such a good argument imho .

so stormbinder is still true :
harpies/black hawks win against a single seraph wow .
now if the seraph only takes with him 5 caelum troops on guard commander though i think he wins again against EVERY pd of about 20 and even some black hawks mixed in or something similiar don't beat him .


what makes this almost unique is that caelum can do this early midgame ( turn 20-30 ) to 5-10 of your provinces .

arryn your attack strat won't work .

you as any other nation can effectively attack 2-3 provinces , caelum can attack 5-10 low protected with the seraphs combo storm mentioned and attack 1-2 with their main army ( e.g. several high seraphs , staff of storms etc . , mammuts + archers , later air queens and lots of good other choices ) .

so you almost can't win in the late earlygame or in midgame against a good caelum player .

you can't castle your whole mainland earlygame and if you do you waste too much resources for this .
even if you castle it doesn't really help the caelumplayer just has to turn taxes to 200% and economically bleed you out .

furthermore caelum has stealth preachers + flying scouts .
so they always know where your anti raid army/armies is/are and can attack all the other provinces .
losing 1-2 seraphs is no big loss too .

so caelum can do 2 things better than ANY other nation from turn ~15-40 :

- prepare battles of encirclement and annihilation
- raid large


furthermore you can afford easy e.g. a vq which adds further strength to caelum . caelum is the only nation where even pd has a good chance to kill a vq all other nations have trouble earlygame vs vq .

vq is ideal for caelum too :
-cold 3 scale , additional free points , stronger breath of winter
-vq can be a good start for a blood economy , provides caelum death + blood magic to make them even stronger
-stealth preachers , together with raiding / temple killing this way you have good chances pushing your dominion into the enemy
-atleration 6 = false horror + invulnerability (alt5) and soul vortex for the vq

a pod should work almost as well too and save you 100-200 points but as caelum you can afford the vq too .

edit : typos

[Boron]

a big problem though is that when trying to say why one nation is so good you always overlook something because dominions 2 is so deep and has so many choices .

though e.g. abysians demonbreds are capitol only with 5-10 devils as troops they can do probalby the same but are even a bit stronger .
they can't do that earlygame in so big numbers but midgame abysia has vampire hordes then .

caelum though has the big advantage of staff of storms then to win time to cast more battlespawns ( lesser horrors ) .


i still think though if you play a 1on1 with 2 players of similiar experience game caelum is almost impossible to beat .
vanheim may come close but the vans are more expensive , can't fly + have no W for quickness .
pythium i think doesn't win too because there caelum can scout + seeking arrow some expensive theurgs/arch theurgs earlygame .
furthermore pythium doesn't have +120 freepoints through cold 3 and has slow movement .


if you want someone very expierienced (ZEN) could agree to play a urgaia blitz against a very good caelum player .

if he wins clearly then i will stop my claiming that stormbinder is true and perhaps stormbinder will too .

i really can't imagine though how he can do this .