.com.unity Forums - Why no love for Caelum?

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Re: Why no love for Caelum?

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Thufir said:

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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.

Schmoe, I agree, but please don't be too hard on us "Caelum wusses". I promise next time I host a MP game to permit Caelum. And I'll even send you a PM prior to posting the game open message. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif Fair enough. The Last MP game I played, I was Machaka and I attacked Caelum on about turn 10. We ended up fighting to a stalemate, with my Black Hunters doing a number on his mammoths and my archers doing well against his flyers. From that experience, I certainly wouldn't say that they were overpowered. Strong, yes, but beatable.

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I don't have enough experience for these detailed balance discussions, but within those limits I'm inclined to believe those that are arguing that Caelum is not in need of a nerf. From my first SP games with Dom2 exploring various pretender/nation setups, I've never had the sense that Caelum was unbalanced. Instead, I had the sense that Caelum's units were weakened a bit to compensate for it's very important tactical advantage of flight. As far as I can tell, Caelum was designed well both aesthetically (or thematically, as people say around here) and from the balance point of view.

That said, Dom2 has got a very steep learning curve - IMO, it's kind of like the worst case between Chess (or better yet Go) and say Avalon Hill's Advanced Squad Leader (for those too young to remember that one - it had a fat 3 ring binder for rules that could take you weeks to read!). Usually, games as complex as ASL have a steep learning curve, but then once you learn a few key optimizations, your strategic options narrow dramatically. From that point the space in which you do your strategic planning is much smaller than in Go or Chess, and the game becomes considerably easier to play and improve in. Because Dom2 is so well balanced (IMHO), this narrowing of options doesn't seem to occur.

I suspect that there are many players out there, even at the intermediate level, that are still a bit overwhelmed by how much there is to learn in Dom2 play. From this perspective, it is very appealing (and possible) to chop out a good chunk of that learning curve by disallowing Caelum. Yes other nations are capable of inner province raiding, but no other nation depends on it. I can't imagine that a well played Caelum didn't include raiding as a key part of its strategy.

Of course, you could make a similar argument for Ermor, not in the sense of their depending on raiding, but that their unique abilities require them to be countered quite differently than most nations. However based on my initial SP play, I suspsect it's easier to learn how to counter Ermor, especially via SP play (I doubt the AI makes good use of Caelum's tactical advantage). Also, who can imagine an epic fantasy game that doesn't include undead?!

All in all, I look forward to playing MP games with/against Caelum, but I'm happy not to have had them in my first two MP games http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

I think you have some excellent points. The game offers a lot of very different strategies, and there is usually more than one counter to any particular threat. The trick is finding out what works, given your chosen nation. Considering that even a single-player game takes 2-3 days for me to reach the late stages, and I need to play several single-player games with a theme to get a passing familiarity with it, and there are more than 30 themes, I think that I will be discovering new tactics for a long, long time.

Or maybe I'm just a slow learner...

Either way, I'm definitely interested in hearing what other people have to say on balance issues - it is quite educational. However, I'm not going to pass judgement on it myself until I've had a chance to examine the issues and experience them first-hand.

Re: Why no love for Caelum?

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Schmoe said:Either way, I'm definitely interested in hearing what other people have to say on balance issues - it is quite educational. However, I'm not going to pass judgement on it myself until I've had a chance to examine the issues and experience them first-hand.

An excellent idea. Especially since some of those expressing opinions on "balance" tend to be very biased and/or not have a sufficiently broad background in playing various nations. I, for example, should never venture an opinion on blood issues since I don't play with blood magics. Similarly, if a player hasn't actually tried something for themselves they should refrain from passing unfounded opinions, without any basis in reality, as fact.

And judgements about particular units should and must be taken in the greater context of the entire theme that the unit is found in. Comparing a Caelumite mage against some other mage isn't appropriate unless you also take into account the strengths and weaknesses of the rest of the Caelum theme(s) versus whatever it's being compared to. All units must operate within the context of the rest of their theme's supporting units. Discussing one-on-one duels is one thing, but it bears little value towards answering a question like "is Caelum effective (magically) versus R'yleh (and which is the "stronger" nation)?" Only if you can prove that nation A is clearly superior to nation B, in such a way that A defeats B in a statistically significant percentage of encounters can you then discuss that nation A is *perhaps* unbalanced. Note I say "perhaps", because it depends on whether the devs intend for a nation's balance to be for 'average' or for 'expert'players. 'Expert' players will see different results than 'average' (or newbie) players. Also, what might be "balanced" for SP is rarely so for MP, and vice versa. Ermor is an excellent example of a nation whose "power" varies dramatically depending on whether it's opposed by humans or by AIs.

Re: Why no love for Caelum?

Good Arryn.

Listen to her, she's got giblets!

Also, she has had alot of time to look into the games, debates, and her own opinions about anything/everything within the game.

Besides, she likes big men, if you know what I mean!

Re: Why no love for Caelum?

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Zen said:Besides, she likes big men, if you know what I mean!

The only *real* men are Jotun men! Other men just don't ... um, measure up.

Re: Why no love for Caelum?

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Zen said:
Quickness + Frozen Heart will rout most PD indescriminately. I don't know what you are thinking, or of you've even tried it. Probably not, or you did against say Jotunheim, which isn't exactly the best choice in the world to try to Frozen Heart. The only ones that ever give you much problems are the ones with fliers (Harpies and such), and those give Seraphs just as many problems.

Re: Seithkona. Guess you've never really felt the effects of a truly devistating wave of Nether Darts.

I've done it quite a few times. Seraphs are not stealthy. Seraphim don't have 1A, so I don't know what your comment about stealth is.

Caelum is not the "PD killer" that you want to make it out to be for it's paths, rather because of it's ability to drop into the back row and take provinces that are not in the direct front line?

I imagine Stormbinder, that you are, once again, putting your vast inexperience to the masses. Otherwise you might be moaning about Theurgs, or any other low air unit, water unit, or death unit. It's amazing the amount of people who cry nerf for any other nation than Pythium, which is by and large an absolute beast.

Maybe you need to extend your nation choices to include other nations than Van and Caelum.

Ok, retyping my post briefly.

I've played most of the races and themes in Dom2, and I've been playing it very intensively for the Last 6 monthes.

Frozen Heart is water 1 fatique 20 spell. Your Initiate of the deep will be able to cast 1 quickness and 4 Frozen Hearts, before falling to the ground. That would kill 3-4 soldiers out of 20 of 40 soldiers in province with 20 PD. The rest will grind him into dust.

Nether Darts is a good sepell against most PD, but it takes reseach level 7 to cast.

National commanders must have ether flying or stealthy ability to be able to strike behind enemy back and escape. None of the commanders you mentioned can do it without items, unlike Caelum's seraphs. And no national commanders at the same cost(100 gp) are as efficient as Caelum's A2 W1 serpahs with False Horror (Air 1 fatique ten ) in reliable routing high PD.

Finally I never cried "Nerf Caelum!" as some other people wrote in thsi thread. I think Caelum is nice and unique nation. I just think combination of Caelum's 100gm Air2 W1 mage with False Horror spell is a bit too much.

IMHO the best solution would be to slightly nerf "False Gorror" spell. Remove (or strongly reduce) Fear aura of Fasle Horror, or make him Air 2 fatique 20, or whatever. I think it is much better that nerfing entire nation. The problem with False Horror is that it's just too cheap fatique-wise and easy to cast, and in combination with flying quickened 100gp Caelum seraphs is too efficent against PD of any nation. Caelum will still be a great nation even of False horro spell will be more balanced, but it'll not be able to reliably rout 20 PD of all other nation with just 100gp none-capital mage and lvl 6 spell, as it stands now.

Just my two cents.

Re: Why no love for Caelum?

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Stormbinder said:I just think combination of Caelum's 100gm Air2 W1 mage with False Horror spell is a bit too much.

And I counter that you're suffering from being way too fixated on just this one unit and losing sight of the overall picture that is Caelum. Step away from the tree and see the forest.

I also must take exception to your assertion that the mage/spell combo can defeat *any* nation's PD. I doubt it'll work against 20+ Jotun PD, unless you have something other than just that mage to stick into the path of those oncoming giants preparing to squish the fragile Caelum units into so much meat paste.

Besides, if a player is relying solely on PD units for defense, they deserve to lose. It's bad strategy. I try to keep L3 priests in support of my PD (Sermon of Courage) along battle fronts. So what if Caelum units can fly and bypass your front line? You take that into consideration and build defense in depth, or better yet, a strong mobile attack force of your own to counter their mobile attack force. They hit you, you hit them back somewhere else. Plan on being attacked, it'll happen. What you do need to do is figure out *where* they'll strike, and just let them do it. Don't worry about preventing it. That's playing into the enemy's plan. What you do is eat the attack and don't let it disrupt *your* attack against them. If you hit them hard enough, their attack won't matter (since you've prepared for it) and they'll have problems of their own (which you've given them) to worry about. (Think Rommel's offensive in Spring of '42, which disrupted the Brit's own offensive, despite the Brit's having ground and air superiority.)

Re: Why no love for Caelum?

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Arryn said:

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Stormbinder said:I just think combination of Caelum's 100gm Air2 W1 mage with False Horror spell is a bit too much.

Sorry, but you are mistaken Arryn. You see, I happen to play my Last 3 large MP games against Caelum as my main opponent. (won two, still playing 3rd) In fact, I am on turn 80 or something in the duel as Jotun vs Caelum. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif Jotun's PD run with the best of them, trust me. In fact, Jotuns are much worse than some other nations PD against False horrors. Giant's hitpoints and strength does not matter at all vs horrors, since they do not kill, have zero protection and only 1 hitpoint.

Just for your sake though, I've specificaly run a test with seraph casting Quickness and lesser horrors against 20 PD Jotun province. I run this test twice on two 20 PD provinces.

As expected both times single Seraph with no troops routed 20 PD giants and conquered provinces without any problem.

Finally according to Zen and according to my own observations, Sermon of Courage is prety much useless against False Horrors. They don't kill and seldom wound people, you see - they just scare soldiers ****less until they run. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif I've tried several times to back my militia with lvl 3 priests. It didn't help militia at all and priest would often just refuse cast sermon courage despite specific orders, since there was no morale loss due to wounds/deaths.

I suggest you ask Maltrease (he loves Caelum and he controled 2 out of 3 these Caelum games that I've mention) how effective Lesser Horrors are with Caelum, he will tell you. Or play against good Caelum player who uses False Horrors strategy yourself. You'll be surprised. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Why no love for Caelum?

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Finally according to Zen and according to my own observations, Sermon of Courage is prety much useless against False Horrors. They don't kill and seldom wound people, you see - they just scare them ****less until they run. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif I've tried several times back my militia with lvl 3 priests, it didn't help militia at all and priest would often just refuce cast sermon courage, since there was no morale loss due to wounds/deaths.

Then the AI spellcasting is bugged, since Sermon, according to its description, relies upon *any* morale loss (regardless of reason) and not just morale loss due to getting hurt. (Page 131 of the manual.)

Re: Why no love for Caelum?

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Arryn said:

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Perhaps. That's what Zen said, and that's concur with my own experience. Although I agree that something like Sermon Of Courage should help your units when facing scary opponents. In mean, that's what the Courage is all about after all... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

As I suggested, try playing vs good Caelum opponent who uses False Horrors, or play Caelum yourself. You'll be very surprised how effective this little spell is in the hands of Caelum. I know I was. [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/crazy.gif[/img]

Re: Why no love for Caelum?

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 ...