Opinions on Caelum (MA and other)

[HoneyBadger]

Ice strike is magical, Meglobob What I'm talking about would probably be as effective, or more so, cost a hell of a lot less, not require any magical training, gems, or resources that wouldn't be available on any significantly high mountaintop or cold enough environment, and carry with it a good possibility of blindness, poison damage, damage to feet, concussions, etc.

Oh I forgot-you could fill the ice with brightly colored dye, which would make the targets easier to track at height.

That's not even mentioning that Caelum has easy access to magical ice.

[Folket]

To fill the ice with dye would not work. Since you colour the ground as well. So if you miss the enemy army you would continue to bomb that spot on the ground. I guess there could be spoters that walked close to the enemy and throw dye to mark where they are for the flyers.

[Kuritza]

Anyway, as it stands now, Caelum barely utilises its flight capability. Archers dont stay out of harms way (vice versa - with shortbows they have to stand closer to the enemy than long- or composite bowmen), infantry is suicidal and weak despite rather decent stats and doesnt shield mages and archers as it should.
I am not sure about dropping caltrop-like junk from above, perhaps caelians just have weakish wings and cannot fly high enough (makes sense to me). But why dont they utilise longspears at least? Give some caelians longspears and 'teach' them to fly in tight formations instead of dispersing randomly all over the battlefield, and they will be an ok shock troop. Perhaps even a charge bonus for the first strike is warranted then - after all, when you fall from above you dont have to be very heavy to strike hard. Just point that spear at your enemy and make sure you dont miss. Most likely that will be a one-shot weapon; light spears are likely to break or get stuck after the charge.

[Endoperez]

There's one problem with that - lances' damage bonus is based on AP, and flight doesn't help that. In fact, the fliers' AP tells how they can manage WITHOUT their wings, and in the case of Caelum's troops, especially the armored ones, they won't do well.

[Micah]

It'd be easy to just give them a high base damage instead of modding based on AP, Endo. As long as it's a one-shot weapon it'd work fine. The only issue would be if there was a storm up that prevented flight, since that SHOULD prevent them from being used effectively, but perhaps you could limit the lances to stormflyers (thematic in that the training to use the lance in flight could come at the same time as the training to stay aloft in a storm...both complex aerial maneuvers)

[Sombre]

That sounds cool to me Micah. Maybe qm's mod hesalt could feature such lance fliers.

[Endoperez]

One-use items can't currently be modded. We have a command for AP bonus to damage, though.

I'm also considering a mod with melee-oriented fliers. I've got some thoughts for that, including one-use ranged weapons with short range, aoe and some fitting explosion sprite animation (Gifts from Heavens, brown Falling Frost, something like that) without flight animation. It should look like a big object thrown a short way.

[Wyatt Hebert]

Endo:

Yes, the Caelum Immolatis mod was quite interesting. My brother spent a lot of time working on that. The Caelian Legionnaire was _surprisingly_ effective.

I preferred to use them to attack, first, then, when the enemy broke, they would fire their javelins and stay back. Also, giving them the Tower Shields seriously cut down on the Friendly Fire issues Caelum normally has headaches with.

(For those unfamiliar with the mod, it changed MA Caelum into turbo-ginsu-undead-killers. They had a DW Sacred troop with 3x damage to undead weaponry, and flying Pythian/Ermorian style legionnaires. THOSE were good flying infantry.)

[Halancar]

This is going in quite a different direction, but how about giving Caelum an archer that can actually hold its own as infantry ? Something like giving the iron crow a shortbow, for instance.

Then that archer can be put on the front line (or at least in front of the other archers), where he will fire as an archer until the enemy's front line arrives, then hold his own as infantry for at least a few turns. He'll still be at best medium infantry, but the initial arrows he'll have fired should make it worth using, and give Caelum a decent alternative to the mammoth for serious combat.

I'm suggesting the iron crow because it has a reasonable resource cost and decent infantry stats, but the Caelian infantry and the iceclad are also possibilities.

If it works out, then the mammoth can be made capital-only, or given decreased morale in non-cold lands, or turned into a commander only... something to make it less available.

[sector24]

I found this thread interesting enough to try a game as MA Caelum and I must say my first game was absolutely awful. By the second game though, I had them pretty much figured out. They play out a lot like EA Pangaea, but with worse magic paths and better troops (Mammoths instead of Centaurs).

They don't seem terribly weak to me, but you definitely have to diversify earlier than other nations, which may require some luck with magic sites. It's also very important to get the scales right or you have already lost before you started.

As far as the high seraph being capital only, it's not a big deal either way. You have cloud trapeze so it's hardly an issue getting them to where they need to go. I do find that I only recruit mammoths and flying archers which is a little boring, but I think many nations are like that, or at least they are for me. EA Ulm comes to mind, I usually stick to shield maidens and archers even though there are tons of male infantry I care nothing about.