Re: Caelum vs. T\'ien Ch\'i
 

My bad. I guess we're all in agreement, and all is in harmony. Can I get a round of Kumbaya?

Re: Caelum vs. T\'ien Ch\'i
 

I have always assumed that Celestial Masters being 2W1S as opposed
to 1W2S was a 'feature' like Conquerors of the Sea having 'Holy Pyre'
as their starting spell.

Re: Caelum vs. T\'ien Ch\'i
 

It surely is, but the thing is that eventually they suck ... [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/Cold.gif[/img]

Re: Caelum vs. T\'ien Ch\'i
 

By 'feature' I beleive he means 'bug'... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Caelum vs. T\'ien Ch\'i
 

Okay, this is another "Caelum is dreadfully overpowered" post, so I fully expect to elicit some harsh comments in response. But I think that my points are valid, so please correct me where I'm wrong:

1) Caelum has cheap, very, very effective, clamhoard capable, recruit anywhere mages. Okay, Caelum is a "magocracy" so we'll skip this.

2) Caelum has a cheap for its price 3H priest. I mean 90 gp for a 3H priest is a really good buy. The closest thing I can think of is TC's "Minister of Rituals" at 100 gp. But the Caelum Version flies, is cold immnune, is stealthya and comes with a magic weapon (though admittedly that's not likely to be used much). Granted, Caelum has no 2H priest to recruit, but indy 2H priests can be recruited just about anywhere with just a temple for the standard price of 50 gp.

3) Caelum has what must be one of the best scouts in the game. It flies, resists cold, and costs exactly the same as the standard indy scout! It even has better armor than the standard scout!

4) Caelum has what I think is a decidedly above average sacred troop for a very reasonable price in the form of the "Temple Guard". It even comes with a built-in magic weapon to break mistformed SCs and kill ethereal stuff, so you won't need a fire 9 blessing with them. They have a pretty good defense so it might be interesting to do a water 9 blessing with them. Sure, their defense is not in a league with Vans but then they are a long way from being as expensive as Vans and Vans sure don't have their armor.

Okay, their armor breaks down in hot lands, but they get better in cold lands too. Besides, Abysian Lava Warriors have disadvantages in cold lands too and most people think they are a pretty good sacred troop.

Okay, they are resource intensive, but just because people usually take Sloth 3 as Caelum doesn't mean that they HAVE to.

5) Caelum does not have bad national troops. I think their national troops are actually rather good. They have good archers (especially with Wind Guide as a free starting spell). Their archers have 12 precision, same as longbowmen though of course they use shorter ranged and less damaging shorbows.

Their infantry actually has pretty good stats and are reasonably priced. The complaint that most people have is not that their infantry is bad at fighting. It's that because of their flying ability, they don't tank for archers in the way that they are supposed to. In fact, what Caelum wants is strategic flight, but they don't want tactical flight. Without tactical flight, Caelum infantry can hold and attack just like normal infantry and tank for archers. There are workarounds to this, for example, setting the infantry to guard commander to a carefully placed seraphine who is herself set to only cast spells for example.

6) Caelum because of cold 3 has spare points to play with.

So what disadvantages does Caelum have? I can only think of two:

1) Caelum has crappy PD. There's nothing redeeming to be said about infantry that flies straight up to be killed fairly quickly, though I wonder if the free magic weapons and free seraphine might be good against SG Ermor.

2) Caelum has supply problems and has no easy access to nature magic to alleviate that. I have no answer to that.

When all's said and done, Caelum's advantages are immense. People say that Caelum's one big advantage is their cheap mages, but it seems to me that Caelum has above average everything else AND cheap, good mages to boot. A while back, Cohen was complaining about how Abysia was terribly underpowered because all their stuff is so expensive. I don't agree with him by the way, and other people have pointed out that Abysia's stuff is more expensive to pay for more hit points and fire immunity. Well, Caelum has flying, built-in magic weapons, and cold immunity, but unless I'm very much mistaken, it doesn't seem to me that Caelum is paying anything for all this.

Okay, this is a bit of rant and I admit that I'm being beaten to a pulp by Caelum in an ongoing MP game (thanks Panther. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif ), but I'd still like to hear what others have to say to my points.

Re: Caelum vs. T\'ien Ch\'i
 

You missed the biggest one. Any unit that is both cold immune and lightning immune is untouchable by their mages.

Re: Caelum vs. T\'ien Ch\'i
 

Almost true. There is "IceStrike" however which does normal damage and is quite nice against weaklings like longdead...

Oh, and as a Caelum-lover, the PD is quite nice due to that Seraphine...

While TempleGuards suck, since they do not come in huge numbers and I cannot see how Caelum could be played effectively with a Bless-effect, but I uess a magocracy isnt supposed to be overly religious...

Size 3 units is a pain though: water breathing, sparse battle formations, food...

Re: Caelum vs. T\'ien Ch\'i
 

The 90 GP 3H priest isn't that great a deal. Consider the following:

Abysia:
2F3H, 200GP (over 50% more HPs, fire immune)
2F2B3H, 240 GP (90% more HPs, flying, fire immune)

Atlantis:
4H, 230 GP (300% HPs, amphibian, goo stats)

Pythium:
1A1W2S3H, 150 GP (same HPs, + great magic)

C'tis:
3H, 120GP or
2N1W1?3H, 190 GP (poison immune)

Arcoscephale:
1N3H, 110 GP (Magic andhealing)

Marignon:
1F3H, 110 GP (Magic and preaching bonus)

Pangaea:
1N3H, 110 GP (Magic, Awe, stealth, recuperation)

Vanheim:
2A1B3H, 280 GP (good magic, stealth, glamour, sailing, greatstats)

Jotun:
3H, 200 GP (350% HPs, cold immune, high-STR thug)

R'lyeh:
1S1?3H, 150 GP (300+% HPs, amphib, life drain, mindbLast)

Mictlan:
2B2?3H, 230-250 GP (variety of great magic)

Machaka:
3H, 90 GP

Looking at those priests, Caelum's doesn't look like it's particularly underpriced - its special abilities aren't that great, its stats aren't that great, etc. Other nations have Priest-3s that are more expensive, but cheap when you consider the magic or stats they get, and I'd _far_ rather have P3 mages than vanilla P3s, since you quickly build a stock of researchers who can call your pretender back in 1 turn if need be. With vanilla P3s, your pretender dies and _then_ you start buying them.

None of which, except the flying, really means anything. A scout isn't going to be involved in fighting often, and while sneaking is immune to murdering winter anyway. It also requires enough resources that some fortified provinces might not be able to recruit one in a single turn, or won't be able to recruit any troops at the same time.

Not resource intensive - incredibly resource intensive, as you can buy about 2.8 Vans for the same resources. And the Van isn't capital only, meaning that you can buy 10-20 a turn if desired and you have the gold. And the Vans have a strategic movement of 3, compared to the Temple Guard's _1_. You can't build Temple Guards in numbers, and if you do, you find it almost impossible to get them where they're needed.


Caelum's troops tend to have lower strength, lower HPs, and lower damage weapons than other nations infantry. (Ice Lance - damage 3, Ice Blade, D5, + 9 strength.) The magic weapons _only_ help against ethereal opponents, preferably low protection ones. Their troops are not above average, their priest isn't above average, their sacred troop is almost useless except on tiny maps.

The mages are above average, and their strategic movement is as well. (I think the flight might well be undervalued in their prices, but I don't think you can raise the prices much.) That's about it, imo.

Re: Caelum vs. T\'ien Ch\'i
 

Longdead aren't lightning immune, but a bane lord with a ring of tamed lightning is.

Re: Caelum vs. T\'ien Ch\'i
 

The fact is that Indies aren't lightning immune.
Caelum could take over indies faster than many other indipendents, and keep the research run.
This will provide more gold income for them as basis for the subsequent wars against active nations.

Re: Caelum vs. T\'ien Ch\'i
 

Indies are also not cold or fire immune.

Re: Caelum vs. T\'ien Ch\'i
 

Indies are also not immune to skeletons, nor are they immune to mind burn.

Re: Caelum vs. T\'ien Ch\'i
 

Well, there's always "False Horror". And I've seen fully-equipped ice devils get killed by mass ghost wolves tanking for Caelum priests casting "Smite Demon".

Re: Caelum vs. T\'ien Ch\'i
 

Hm would you rate Pythium or Caelum higher as "best" magocracy ? Or maybe a different nation like C'tis ?

Pythium hasn't the high strategic movement of Caelum but Pythium has communion therefore and with Astral magic not the best but sufficient spells against SCs as well . I can't say atm if i would rate Pythium or Caelum higher .

Re: Caelum vs. T\'ien Ch\'i
 

Cainehill's points are all valid and I admit that I have a tendency to value skill (which Caelum has) more than HPs and strength, which may be wrong. However, even if I downgrade Caelum's troops and priests to merely "average and competent" instead of "above average", it still seems to me that Caelum has no obvious, glaring weakness. For example, I would still say that Caelum's troops are still better than, say, Tien Chi's mediocre ones, and isn't the mediocrity of Tien Chi's national troops supposed to compensate for their versatile mages?

Furthermore, Caelum has interesting specialist troops in the form of its Mammoths and the things that fly in storms. Those are not useful things in a general way, but they could be useful in the right kind of situation, and gives them an added versatility and ability to surprise, which I think should be considered quite valuable.

One Last point: I think that we shouldn't underestimate cold immunity + built-in magic weapons. The reason why so many national troops do so poorly against SCs even in large numbers is IMHO at least partly because of "Breath of Winter" + "Etherealness" + "Mistform". This makes Caelum's troops quite useful I think over the whole course of the game. Personally, I would value quite highly the ability to break mistform reliably. For example, in some previous tests I've run with AQs, I find that once an AQ's mistform is broken, it can be very easily killed by lifeless things.

Heh, so you take Production 3, and pay for it by, er, not taking Order 3 since Caelum has no super-expensive stuff anyway unless you want to mass Mammoths or something, or is that blasphemous? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

Re: Caelum vs. T\'ien Ch\'i
 

C'tis researches as fast. Expands faster via Terror early and Raise Skeletons later, has powerful Priests and their first army can expand on turn 2, City Guard and always affordable Elite Lizards.

Re: Caelum vs. T\'ien Ch\'i
 

I wouldn't know so don't ask me.

But I just wanted to add that I haven't been able to make Pythium communion work very well for me in SP play. I guess it's just a huge pain. You need to assemble Theurgs / Communicants in the right proportions. You need a screening force to tank for them. You need to replace communicants as they die. You need to estimate how long battles are going to take, play around with scripts a lot etc. That's just a lot of bother, and having a big, elegantly crafted army that depends on all of its pieces being there in order to work just makes me nervous.

Re: Caelum vs. T\'ien Ch\'i
 

No, Tien Chi's Astral-1 mediocre mages counter-compensate for good troops in the default theme, and forced turmoil and lesser troops compensates for powerful mediocre flying mages in Spring and Autumn, who still have Astral-1 and tend to be gunned down by magic duel. Base T'ien C'hi has _GOOD_ troops - I've already written one post about this in the first section of this thread, I'm not going to repeat myself here.

And Production-3 still only lets them get maybe ... 3 or 4 Temple Guards a turn, max, and still no way of getting them to where they'd be useful. It would let them get Iceclads everywhere, but Iceclads tend to be useless against anything 14 protection or higher, not to mention that they keel over from exhaustion too quick.

Re: Caelum vs. T\'ien Ch\'i
 

Breath of winter will kill all illusionary troops that approach the SC, a fire shield will do the same.

Re: Caelum vs. T\'ien Ch\'i
 

One could always go with order 3, prod 2, cold 3, misfortune 2, magic 2, wizard's tower with a Nataraja with air 1 (empower quickly), water 2, nature 3. Or something along similar lines.

Re: Caelum vs. T\'ien Ch\'i
 

True and I admit I don't remember if those ice devils actually cast Breath of Winter. But those seraphs spammed a whole lot of ghost wolves and the ice devils couldn't effectively life drain off of them and finally died.