Why no love for Caelum?

[Schmoe]

I was browsing through the games on Mosehansen's server, and I noticed that an inordinate number of them said "no Caelum." Now, I could understand if they said "no Ermor", given people's dislike of fighting against a ruined nation, but the choice of Caelum surprised me.

What is it about Caelum that people hate so much?

[The Panther]

Several people think it is too strong. And they don't like the usual Caelum flying attack which jump over provinces and can hit you out of the blue.

[Cheezeninja]

Its the flavour of the month.

[Cohen]

Personally I think Caelum and dead Ermor are too strong.

Caelum has A2W1 mages at 100 Gold, and A3W2?1 mages for 180 gold.
They fly and are cold immune.
They can trapeze, quickness, cast lightning that ignores armor, and such.

A Marignon F3S2?1 mage or an Abysya B3S2?1 mage, to compare magic paths numbers, costs 270 gold.
They don't fly, nor they paths are so powerful as the Caelumnian ones.
It is justified by devs that Caelum is a magocracy ... well, so on considering the game is most winned by magic, why not everyone wants a full magic nation (like Caelum, or Pythium, to say).

[The Panther]

In the next patch, I really hope that they increase the cost of Caelum mages to be more on par with the other races.

[Duncanish]

Caelum is actually very well balanced. Their troops are quite weak, and the beefier units are resource intensive. The only real draw for Caelum is it's mages, which is thematically appropriate, being a society ruled by it's mages. If the Seraph's were nerfed, Caelum would turn into a weak nation, and thus, unbalanced. Luckily, the devs agree.

I doubt this will happen anytime in the future. Don't get your hopes up about Caelum and Ermor. The minor adjustment to Dead Ermors has made them a midrunner, which is right where they should be considered they were at one point, the weakest of nations.

[Schmoe]

Caelum has A2W1 mages at 100 Gold, and A3W2?1 mages for 180 gold.
They fly and are cold immune.
They can trapeze, quickness, cast lightning that ignores armor, and such.

A Marignon F3S2?1 mage or an Abysya B3S2?1 mage, to compare magic paths numbers, costs 270 gold.
They don't fly, nor they paths are so powerful as the Caelumnian ones.
It is justified by devs that Caelum is a magocracy ... well, so on considering the game is most winned by magic, why not everyone wants a full magic nation (like Caelum, or Pythium, to say).

True, Caelum has cheap(er) mages. But their troops are pretty much crap. Any nation with stealth units can make similar strikes deep into enemy territory. Plus, taking territory is easy, holding it is expensive. Even if Caelum is raiding your heartlands, a few smaller armies should be able to mop up behind them.

Cold resistance doesn't do much, IMHO. The only time I see cold having an effect is with SC's, and you don't want to melee SC's with your mages, anyway. I would much rather have fire resistance or electricity resistance. I would probably even prefer poison resistance over cold resistance.

Abysia has other strengths, such as blood. An army of devils led by a couple of demonbred has exactly the same flying capability as a Caelum army, and the troops are much, much, much better.

Marignon has inquisition, which is very effective at pushing dominion.

As another example, Machaka has 80 gold Witch Doctors. They also have Black Sorcerers, which, for 70 gold more than Caelum mages lose flying but turn into beefy hunter spiders when wounded.

I could go on, but the point is, I just don't see it.

Just for example, I would think Vanheim would have a pretty easy time against Caelum. The Vans can be on the Caelum troops so quickly that the mages don't have time to do much, and the Vanadrotts can make an entire army resistant to electricity. Plus, Vanheim's stealthy troops can wage the same hit-and-run war that Caelum can, plus they can dominion push or summon with blood from the Vanjarls.

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.

[Sheap]

Personally I think Caelum and dead Ermor are too strong.

Caelum has A2W1 mages at 100 Gold, and A3W2?1 mages for 180 gold.
They fly and are cold immune.
They can trapeze, quickness, cast lightning that ignores armor, and such.

Trapeze, lightning and quickness are just what their magic paths do. You don't get to complain about their paths, and the spells they can cast with them, at the same time

Caelum has tons of problems. Yes, they are strong if you play right into their strengths, but that's true of everyone. Here are just a few of the problems...

1) Caelum troops fly, but relying only on the flying troops results in extremely weak units. The only flying unit they have that is also a good fighter is the Iceclad. But the iceclads cost so much that without a productivity scale you can build only a very few. And if you DO take productivity, you lose many points as otherwise you could easily afford sloth.

2) Caelum has serious, serious problems in heat scale. Of course, this is only useful if you happen to have heat scale

3) Caelum flying units can strike behind lines, but if they do that, any of them that rout die instantly.

4) Poor forging ability. Insignificant ability in earth, death, and blood is going to give them a hard time making many of the better items.

5) One-dimensional magic. Caelum can't summon anything useful except Air Queens, unless they build a blood economy around their pretender.

6) Caelum has a hard time with SCs that resist cold and lighting. Other than phantasmal warriors and false horrors, they don't have a lot of stuff that can stop an SC. And those only really slow them down, not stop them.

7) Their mages are at cross-purposes with their units. The mages want storms to protect themselves against enemy fliers and improve their lightning; the units want no storms so they can fly and shoot arrows.

[The_Tauren13]

well, if caelum's strength is in its mages, and its weakness is its troops, how is that balanced? mages, as a general concept, are far more useful than troops.