Re: Why no love for Caelum?
 

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) http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

edit. typos.

Re: Why no love for Caelum?
 

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.

Re: Why no love for Caelum?
 

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.

Re: Why no love for Caelum?
 

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.

Re: Why no love for Caelum?
 

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

Re: Why no love for Caelum?
 

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.

Re: Why no love for Caelum?
 

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.

Re: Why no love for Caelum?
 

Nicely argued, Mr. Cheeze!

Re: Why no love for Caelum?
 

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 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

Re: Why no love for Caelum?
 

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 .

Re: Why no love for Caelum?
 

In addition, the nerfers have been totally ignoring one thing : if Caelum (or another flying / stealthy army) raids behind enemy lines, what happens when they rout? Every single mage and troop is lost : they don't get to retreat to safe territory that's within easy flying range, they don't get to sneak into the neighboring province with their stealth.

Caelum's raiders, similar to Pan's stealth marauders, take a lot of casualties because of routing. A couple of roving bands of defenders can easily cause the routing.

Yes, Caelum's flying scouts (and Pan's harpies) can more easily keep track of armies than many nations. But even if they can blanket every enemy province, they still don't know which way the roving defenders are going to move, so raiding via normal means gives a good chance of running into the rovers, if there are enough roving bands - say archers / xbows, some 50-morale magic troops, and a mage or two.

Air Trapeze does allow them to airdrop in before the defenders can move. But then Caelum is spending gems to attack, can't bring any screening troops, and can still be busted if people reinforced the PD with a handful of other troops (archers, priests, fast moving cavalry, etc) and nailed even worse by hidden defenders with glamour - Vanheim and LoT Man can easily manage this, and both Vans and LoT infantry can sometimes be recruited via magic sites.

Apparently the AI / Sermon of Courage does need to be fixed. But Caelum doesn't need to have its advantages nerfed. First False Horror, then, oh my - two seraphs can route 20 PD all by themselves with Quickness and Lightning, so Lightning has to cost more fatigue too!

Re: Why no love for Caelum?
 

and what is lost when routing ?
100/175 gold for 1 seraph / high seraph .

the economic damage you do on your enemy when attacking 5-10 provinces midgame this way at once , perhaps destroying some temples , putting taxes to 200% , killing pd is much greater .

you surely lose 2-3 seraphs , so -200-300 gold .
your enemy needs to keep lots of troops at home , loses all money invested for pd , is forced to castle , loses pop / money through 200% taxes etc.

all with extremely little effort.

man Last of tuatha / vanheim has to put in much more effort . AND their best mages are capitol only and much more expensive so they are not worth being risked this way.

but a caelum with watchtower as castle has quick his second and third castle to start producing 2 then 3 seraphs / high seraphs each turn .

togehter with the too strong battle summons like the false horrors this gives them a big advantage .


i guess even i could win a 1on1 game on urgaia with caelum though i never played them against almost any opponent expect the experts like storm and zen because their expierience is much greater than mine ( only 5 mp games so far , most still running only 1 finished ) .

Re: Why no love for Caelum?
 

Another disadvantage of Caelum that I don't think anyone's mentioned, and that makes them somewhat weaker until later in the game, is that their large size prevents more than a few of them from attacking a given target. Most nations can overwhelm a high-defense baddie by swarming it. Not so Caelum. Conversely, they are easily swarmed by hordes of junk.

Re: Why no love for Caelum?
 

caelum has little need for normal troops . i think some archers are enough to prevent routing . most work do the mages .
since caelum has the only earlygame fliers ( pan harpies , the expensive vanheim valkieries are the only others that come to my mind ) and can easy get a staff of storms to cancel midgame abysian devil flying armies etc. i think thats really enough or they can use a normal army with wingless + mammoths which should hold out long enough until caelum mages finish the work .

Re: Why no love for Caelum?
 

Given there ability to cut off retreat with flyers, they will do a lot more damage with rout than they will suffer from it.

I am not saying they are over-powered as I rarely think of PD as being anything more than spy catchers anyway...but rout is often more of their advantage than their disadvantage.

- Kel

Re: Why no love for Caelum?
 

That game has very difficult research, which apparently makes the time-frame where Caelum has many advantages quite long. And from what I could see your problem wasn't that much because of Seraph's raids, but rather from the big losses in major battles.

In another game I'm losing to Caelum myself, but again, that's not because of Seraph's raiders (though his Ghost raiders are nasty). It's long long war which I'm slowly losing and it is mostly due to the skills of the Caelum player than to anything else.

Aside of that I agree with your position on nerfing. So far I haven't seen Caelum winning too often in MP and while it has some strengths, other nations have advantages in other areas too.

Re: Why no love for Caelum?
 

Couldn't you wait with your analysis for a few days? Now my strategy is goind down the drain http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Why no love for Caelum?
 

Just thought I'd point out Rl'yeh's PD can often take out a sereph or two.

Re: Why no love for Caelum?
 

Very interesting information indeed, might be I'd find some use for it http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Re: Why no love for Caelum?
 

Fortunately, it won't work that well vs Air Queens or Bane Lords http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Why no love for Caelum?
 

Anyone who can build a blood economy and cast Bind Fiends can raise an army of flying stealthy things that can not only raid as well as Caelum, but are rock solid in battle (and cost NO gold or maintenance). Both BF Ulm and Abysia can put together the same sort of raiding/surrounding conquest strategy in the same time-frame that you're talking about for Caelum. Probably Mictlan can as well, though I'm less clear what they'd use to lead the sneaky flying armies (Abysia uses Demondbred and BF Ulm uses Vampire Counts).

Dusk Elders are sneaky, ethereal and can beat most PD by spamming Raise Skeletons/Raise Dead. Give them boots of flying and they too can be super raiders. Again, no gold and no upkeep.

I don't think Caelum has any claim to uniqueness in this area.

What's more, the ability to raid behind the "front line" is very nice, but it's no way to conquer and hold territory permanently. If your opponent has a solid army, you are going to have to beat it at some point or he will take all that territory back very quickly.

Mark

Re: Why no love for Caelum?
 

nice attempt .
and who leads the fiends of darkness and is stealthy ?
there is no item to make a leader stealthy .
mictlan + abysia don't have stealthy leaders who can fly .
furthermore the mictlan scout has 0 ldrship
the abysian slayer has 0 stealth too .

of course abysia has flying armies with the demonbred .
but they are not stealthy http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

that is true of course for caelum too but they have stealthy flying scouts + stealthy preachers so this is a big advantage .

the main difference between abysia + caelum :
caelums mages are not capitol only .

furthermore summoning fiends with blood earlygame is time consuming : only 1 per mage summonable .
so your research suffers and you can only use your capitolonly mages for that as abysia .

so abysia has to spend a demonbred per flying army + use blood for this

caelum has only to spend a cheap mage who is not capitol only .

so who can do this easier earlygame ?


abysia can field midgame 2 or 3 scary devil flying armies but only 2 or 3 .

caelum can midgame attack every low protected province with stormbinders mentioned combo .


sure the 1 mage attack doesn't hold the territory . but that is not his purpose .
as long as that forces your opponent to keep significant amounts of garrison/countertroops at home it is a big success already .
furthermore you just need to tax every this way captured province to 200%.

repeat that a few times and your enemy is economically broken http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif
prevents recruiting , taxing and bloodhunting .
so only the gemincome is left http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

and the knowlegde that caelum can do this forces caelums neighbors to madcastle + keep significant defense forces at home .


the only other races which can do similiar things are the ones with spies so ulm + marignon + tien chi with the unrest command .

the caelum way to do this is though better because as long as you build up your mageforce you can use them for research/forging .

Re: Why no love for Caelum?
 

A single attacking seraph is vulnerable to magical counter attacks. seeking arrows, assinations spells, call of the winds etc.
of course not all the counters are trivial or accessible to all nations.

Also player's shouldn't count on PD to hold their territories.

Re: Why no love for Caelum?
 

Which many Caelum players have complained about, because the flyers land in the path of the routing units, which causes them to attack the flyers, which in Caelum's case often causes high casualties, sometimes high enough to cause Caelum to rout before the non-flying defenders escape the field of battle, allowing the 'losers' to win and continue to own the province.

Re: Why no love for Caelum?
 

seeking arrow is A3 so not easy to reach with most nations http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif . i think man Last of tuatha and caelum mages are the only ones who can cast it without lucky random picks or a +1air item http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.
call of the winds is 5 air gems needed so this is a "success" too i would say if you waste 1 turn magetime +5 airgems http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

furthermore the call of the winds hawks can be easily countered i think by assigning the seraph 5 bodyguards http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.


while caelums own pd is very bad they have at least always the chance to luckily kill a lowprotection sc ( mainly vq ) or kill luckily 1-2 mages in their initial defense attack so they aren't so bad all in all http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Why no love for Caelum?
 

You are going to spend 10-25 gems to stop a 100 gold seraph ? Which side are you arguing ? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

- Kel

Re: Why no love for Caelum?
 

The true problem is that Caelum get province raider (as Vanheim and Man thuata, but they don't fly, but are stelthy) with only gold!

Even more Caelum and Vanheim have them non capitol only.

Even more Caelum has his mages costing far low than everyone else (and pythium too has good mages for 150 gold, but they cannot compete with 175 gold Arch Seraph).

Boron already told about Abysya, or Mictlan, even if you can give to a scout/assassin a Sceptre of Leadership or such (well I once tried with a marignonite spy, to lead some Sidhe troops recruitable by the Glowing Hill site), and Flying Boots, you always require gem income, and proper mage to forge the item.

Caelum doesn't need that.
However the real problem IMO are:

False Horror, to review
Pricing of Mages, to raise.
Make at least Arch Seraph capitol only.

Seraphs are still good but if their price will go at least at 150 I believe they could be fine.
Arch Seraph should be 270 or 300, considering too their paths are from the best ones (Air at least, and water 2 means quickness and clams and boots of quickness).

Ps: Quantum, Ryleh PD could kill even an SC with some luck, I got in a game some Banelords killed by Ryleh PD because they get paralized, but the Illith need some luck to paralize the Banelords. Even if the Banelord wins, but get paralized for some turns, he risks afflictions.

Re: Why no love for Caelum?
 

There's the - Black Heart? - blood item that turns a leader into an assassin.
I don't know Abysia so well, and was under the impression that Demonbred was stealthy. But I speak from experience when it comes to BF Ulm, who can launch massive stealth raids using Vampire Counts leading Fiends in the air, and Rangers on the ground.
Only if the victim sits there and passively accepts that sort of attack. As Arryn pointed out, he will - or should - be hitting back in ways that suit HIS strengths, not playing to Caelum's
You're stating theory as though it's happening in real games. In practice I don't see this happening, and would see it as precisely the wrong reaction to the Caelum threat.
Apart from the ones that I mentioned and you ignored http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

BF Ulm
Ermor (Dusk ELders & raise skeletons)

The Caelum player also has to worry about defending his own territory if he wants to be able to afford to maintain all these Seraphs. More to the point he needs a strategy that's a bit more complex than relying on a single tactic for defeating PD. It's not that I don't think it sounds strong; it's just that it isn't the whole story, and anyway doesn't seem to me to be grounded in much real MP experience.

Re: Why no love for Caelum?
 

COW gems are not wasted. the summoned raptors stay and can be of further use.

Re: Why no love for Caelum?
 

Quoting Mark the merciful
It turns a stealthy leader into an assassin
well put - a tendency of the pregame analyser as opposed to the experienced player http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

"Ermor (Dusk Elders & raise skeletons)"

Ctis empoisoners D1

Any flying or stealthy wizard who can spam stuff.
Or someone with spammer items - infernal protection maybe or bottle of water not sure how strong these are in practice.
Given boots this is quite a choice

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Money on PD is a dubious investment anyway IMO as it gets knocked over too easily - just in routine battles. I might have already mentioned that I am reluctant to spend on anything other than field forces though.
Still I lack much MP experience particularly against good military players in even fights. People who make you think rather than just choosing power strat #3 or whatever.

Pickles

Re: Why no love for Caelum?
 

I think the real reason that Caelum was Banned from some games is because Norfleet was primarily using Caelum after they took the VQ away from Ermor. Some people didn't want to play against him, and they were probably hoping this would keep him away.

Re: Why no love for Caelum?
 

Not in my current game (Throne of Heavens) http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif You see, it Banned both Norfleet and Caelum nation, but for absolutely unrelated reasons. (it is played on Zen's modification of Cradle Of Dominion map)

I general I would not want to see Caelum nerfed, although it may very well be most powerful nation in MP atm. Still all races are not equal, it's a a life.

But I would certanly like to see some changes to False Horror spell, currently 10 fatique Air1 spell. The situation where just 4-6 false horrors from 1 100gp quickened seraph commander can rout 20+ PD of other nations just doesn't seem right to me, in combination with Caelum's ability to strike anywhere. IMHO changes to False Horror's fear aura or to spell cost would be very good. And Caelum would still be terrific raider even with reduced Fasle Horror's efficiency.

Re: Why no love for Caelum?
 

ALL i've seen so far is speculation and observations from an outside point of reference, many of the people arguing for the nerf have even admitted that they have played Caelum either infrequently or not at all. How can you be arguing for the nerfing of a nation, or even a spell, that you havn't even used in depth? All your seeing is the strengths without seeing the weakness's. Until someone can put forward hard evidence that Caelum is winning too many of its games i believe a nerf would not only be premature, but downright stupid.

note: I agreed with the VQ nerf, and i still do. Because if you looked at the games going on at the time a very large percentage of people were taking the VQ, even for nations that should not be thematically taking them. Once you get to the point when everyone is gravitating towards a single strategy because of its effectivness, then it might be time to impose a nerf to maintain balance and diversity. Frankly this is not the case with Caelum. In the starting game Posts i see, rarely if ever is Caelum the first nation selected, and i most definetly do not see everyone gravitating towards a false horror strategy during the playing of the game.

Re: Why no love for Caelum?
 

I too haven't heard anything that would make me afraid of Caelum per se. I will admit I have not had extensive experience with them, but I will also say that all of the experience I have had with them, has seen them getting pretty well steamrollered. Once I saw a Caelum AI lead in battle by a Manticore beat a Pangaea AI after a while, but that's not saying much. Incidentally, it then headed straight for my home Mictlan province with two armies, which looked scary at first, but my Mictlan had no problem dealing with them quite quickly. In MP I have seen Caelum troops fire ineffectively at a smaller force of armored troops and then rush in and die to (and fly from) them in close combat.

I can see how raiding fliers are useful and a threat, but not that threatening a one. In general I'm not afraid of Caelum, especially if I have good forces with lightning protection.

PvK