Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

For the Lord of the Desert Sun you could just bump his Awe rating up to +4 or so. Should make him a *fine* early SC.

Oh wrt. the spell mod I was wondering why no change ( ie: nerf ) to mistform. It's considered to many to be the best early defensive spell in the game and it powers many of the early SCs. Bumping it up a few levels would put it out of reach of early SC's while keeping it for the people that want to protect their casters. Sadly this would eliminate yet another option from the early game. You could bump the path requirement by quite a bit making it only for Air SC's. Or you could do nothing!

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

Mistform isn't that spectacular. 25 damage will end it, or even less than that on low hitpoint units.

Body ethereal and personal luck are both quite a bit better than mistform.

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LOL!

<EOM>

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

well, together I'd say they're better.

trouble is, the lord of the desert sun also suffers from the "moloch" syndrome; without, to my eyes, the Moloch's compensatory qualities.

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Whoops I was thinking of the Son of the Sun. Yes the Lord of the Desert Sun is lacking I totally agree. So how do the allies work? Do he simply cast : Pride of Lions before the combat? Or is he hard coded to get some set number of a set monster number? In either case I would guess that the solution would be to bump the power ( substantially ) of his summons. If this also requires you to rework the cost ( and/or level ) for the spell which summons the troops then so be it. I guess. You may even have to rework the text ( since maybe now it summons something of the power of Kithaironic Lions ... if that's what you are looking for ).

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

The Lord of the Desert Sun has hard-coded great lions, like the Moloch has imps. Kithaironic lions would be too powerful by a lot, unless he had only one or two. I'm not sure if battle auto-summons can be modded (other than being removed) at this point. Boosting Great Lions is also problematic from another point of view, which is that they can be summoned with Summon Animals. True enough that you would also get useless chaff like wolves, black hawks and giant spiders, but if great lions become Kithaironic equivalents, it'll be worth it with the new lower cost for Summon Animals.

It'd be better to just remove the lons altogether, it's not as if they can actually accomplish anything, and the LotDS isn't that spectacular on its own (unlike the Moloch).

Edi

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

Well they would not have to be the full power of Kithaironic lions. They could be somewhere in between.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

Still think assassin ability works better. He gets normal lions as a meatshield. Fire and Nature magic are very potent spells for one on one battles. I tried this configuration out and it seems fairly interesting. A Pretender Assassin is powerful in the early game when he can fight inside his own dominion. Later this ability become more of a gamble since the lions provide little support against higher tier commanders with bodyguards.

Also gave the Moloch the assassin ability. I didn't try it out for any longer period but it seems imps are a lot more powerful in one on one combat.

Anyone got a clue on how to make the Mother of Lions useful? I haven't come up with a reason to select her as a pretender (and the graphics are odd. I can't make out her head). In the end I simply removed her from the Pretender pool together with other "hopeless cases".

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

Both the Moloch and the Lord of the Desert Sun have to be used differently from other pretenders, which to my mind is a *good* thing. I find both useful just as they are. If you must have a pretender who operates strictly solo, then choose something else by all means, but that those two come with auto-summons is interesting for variety's sake.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

This weekend will be a new release of the SpellMod as well as the initial Release of the ScaleMod. If you would like to try out a blitz with them try the IRC channel during the weekend.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

No preview of the mods so people can prepare (and thus possibly get a blitz started a little more quickly)? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

I think Zen is still putting the finishing touches on things, but we are planning a blitz using the mods at 3pm today at the usual place - irc.gamesurge.net #dominions

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

It sounds interesting... But 3pm in what timezone?

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

well, IRC isn't the most precise place anyways http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

but trupe's in the same time zone as you are...

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

Whoops. Yes, 3pm EST (GMT-5). Sorry not to have posted that in the 1st place...

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

Another balance topic : I've experienced in several PBEMs the power of flying armies - usually Caelum and Demon armies totally dominate strategically any landlubber nation.
The only "counter" to fliers is magic transportation, which is way more expensive.

I think that reducing the strat move of fliers - let's say to 2 at most, and 1 for "heavy" troops, be they SG/IG or Gargoyles - will balance things a little.

After all this can even be rationalized by considering that fliers can't fly all day, they aren't usually birds (except hawks, but these ones are not too powerful lol).

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

What is the difference of an ordinary move of 1 and a flight-move of 1? Maybe PerpetualStorm should just be made a little bit more accessible if strategical flight is to be nerfed at all (which is a thing that I do not want to judge here).

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Reducing the strategic movement of flyers would have the very bad effect of allowing troops that move on foot to move as far or farther than flyers in some conditions (such as when the terrain is plains). I don't think that light infantry is supposed to "run like the wind", or that cavalry should be running faster than creatures can fly.

That strategic mobility is very nice, yes. But it's one of the main benefits of Caelum (who doesn't necessarily even bring armies along), and I'd disagree that the "only" counter was magic transportation (which is, barring artifacts, more expensive, but also goes further). There's also remote summons, remove evocations (murdering winter for devils, fires from the sky against Caelum), stealth units being used to surprise them, and otherwise strategically deducing where they're going next (ie, blind guessing) and attempting to move an army there.

And arguably PD ought to be more effective in warding off such things, but as I believe the devs want an offense oriented game, it seems unlikely that PD is going to be boosted much.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

Have you tried this? It does not work. I have casted 2 in one turn in a cold province. Nada. They have too many HP. Further there is no remote summon which is cost effective against them ( unless you are using Zen's mod ).

I don't know if they wanted one however it sure is played that way.

Hey it's hard to fly long distances when you weigh as much as a human. Perhaps you spend all of that time eating since your metabolism is so high? No idea. Anyway it's only bad thematically it is not bad wrt. game balance.

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To previous replies :
Flying has a *big* advantage over overland strat move, it allows to pass any terrain without having to have "xxx survival" ability.
So any Caelum/Devil player can use 1 army to as much effect as 3 or 5 landlubber armies, attacking the weakest one in turn without possible retaliation. And if the landlubbers regroup you can wreak havoc everywhere else and use mass damage spells against them !
And no, M Winter hasn't any noticeable effect on devils, nor against Caelum? Only FftS is effective and only against Caelians.

As 1 turn is 3 months long, I don't suppose strat move represent any unit running/flying for the whole season, but is rather an estimate of an army ability to move in an organized fashion, with supply train and so on. So "Flying" shouldn't be that much of an advantage .

Powerlessness of PDs is another balance issue indeed http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/eek.gif

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I assume you used it against a garrison of a castle. It doesn't kill more than about 10% of the troops there if they are in a castle.

That's obviously not a problem for these beings.

Except that it's not bad with respect to game balance.

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I thought 1 turn represented 1 month... (early/mid/late spring/summer/fall/winter = 3*4 =12)

Otherwise, I pretty much agree with you. For Caelum, I think buffing PD up a bit and making false horrors not spammable for a long time without severe fatique would be enough - it's not their military strength that people are worried about. If something needs to be done, maybe a magical net (NN, Hunter's net, supply bonus + 'lost wing' affliction for those hit, dmg 0 + entangle in AOE 1). http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

About devils, I think boosting up their classical counterpart, the angels, would deal with them quite nicely. If a small group of angels was able to devastate devils as well as small group of them is able to devastate independents...

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

The single biggest problem with strategic flying is the fact that it allows you to fly over a province or two and also attack in the same turn. This is the true problem with the game imbalance of flying, imho.

Even if land troops have the movement to go through your own farm land and move into the next neutral or enemy controlled province, it is not allowed. This should work for both walking and flying, or work for neither.

My opinion is that the only change needed to bring flying back into balance is to never allow a flying troop to attack an uncontrolled province unless the army startes the turn adjacent to the desired province, just like a walking army. You can still use flying to quickly bring reinforcements to the front lines through your owned territory, so it would still be a good ability to have.

But the nearly unbeatable, cheesy flying strat of taking 10 provinces on one turn two deep into enemy territory would be nerfed, just as it needs to be. My only win in an MP game was accomplished as Caelum with a lot of thanks to using this cheap flying strategy.

It even causes people to take the cheap castle and spam them everywhere to try and stop this. Which is yet another cheesy strategy that works well.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

Ghost Riders tend to do quite a nice number against devils, and it's relatively cheap and easy to cast. You can also gateway an army in, again taking care of the devils fairly easily.

They've commented that they wanted it that way - if defense was as strong / stronger than offense, it'd lead to a boring stagnant gameplay. (Think mad castling made stronger.)

Obviously people disagree. Personally, I see it as quite easy for fliers to go that far in a month - after all, they're flying, and can easily see where to land and rest each day that'll be far away from enemy troops. And I don't think it's particularly unbalanced. It is one of those irritating things to deal with, and people tend to dislike things they find difficult / irritating to deal with (hence, people hating gem producing items, flying troops, cheap castles, wrathful skies, SCs, etc).

Just to help illustrate solutions to flying troops: the Mechanical Militia global spell. Yep, it's an expensive spell, only available to one nation at a time, but having the 10 or so MMs added to any province with a single point of PD wreaks havoc with a lot of fliers, stealth troops, and even most remote summonses.

Another way to go: station a mage in each province commanding some statues and mechanical men. Zero upkeep, if you use a summoned mage to command them.

Another possibility: get enough scouts out to see when someone is starting to grow devils, and see about disrupting their plans. It's easier to see if someone's building soul contracts (the usual way of generating large amounts of devils) than it is to see if someone is hoarding clams and fever fetishes.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

Indeed, Caelians spent most of their time eating because of their high metabolism: They are size3, thus they eat twice as much as humans do.

Supply is provided by a supply chain from the closest fortress (up to 4 squares), however not through hostile provinces!

The requirement for cold+3 reduces the available supply in non-cold climates dramatically.

This works out remarkably neatly: When I played Caelum and used my fliers to attack behind enemy lines, my Caelians usually starve badly. Of course, commanders never starve, so as the game progresses and when mages start to pull out entire armies out of their pockets (living clouds, etc.), food is not a concern. I think food balances flight pretty neatly. Maybe its enough to have WineSkins having 2N requirement for forging, so that Caelum cant do this. Do Devils eat? No? Oops!!!

(I rather think supply is sort of ridiculous with all those easy wine skins and need-not-eat summons, which can be stacked to huge armies...)

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

Just to be perverse and go back on topic : How'd the game go Satyrday with Zen's newest mods? I've been checking, but haven't seen even the beta Versions up on his webpage, so I'm reduced to mere curiousity what people thought of the latest spell mod and the scale mod.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

I think it hasn't happened.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

To Cainehill, back on the Flying balance :
I don't think the Flying issue is comparable to SCs, Hoarding or many other in that Flying is a nation-specific huge advantage right from the start (for Caelum) or relatively early in the game(for blood nations).
Mech Militia et al. are not an option before mid-game, and not an option at all for many nations.
To illustrate this, in a pbem game, I (as TC) allied with Marignon and Ermor (BE) vs Caelum on turn 30-some. My allies+me were overall much stronger (in terms of income, research, gems, provinces) an yet Caelum manages to hold for 10 turns and bLasted most of Marignon and my armies.
And the game is on Hard research !

In another I'm playing Caelum (turn 25), just eradicated Arco main army (with Pretender), and on the next turn I turn against Machaka with all of my armies...
This is a just an unfair and unbalancing advantage, Caelum opponents just have no effective counter.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

No effective counter against what? Masses of Caelian Archers backed up by few mages, masses of Caelian Infantry backed by some mages or lots of seraphs backed up by some archers/infantry?

Caelum's archers are quite good, but still die quickly if anything gets next to them. And they eat a lot. Fast Caelian infanty is quite bad, too. And the good ones are not only expensive but slightly slower as well. And the "lighter complexion" of Caelians that enables flight also makes them weaker than their human counterparts. I haven't tried them in MP, but I quess they will be quickly decimated if your enemy manages to surprise you in any way. And the mages are excellent, as they should.

I can see mountains blocking flyers, but I don't think swamps or forests would be much of a hinderance to them. Maybe in Dom3...

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

The real problem is that once Caelum gets false horrors, which is not all that far into the game for the fastest researching nation, it gives that race a supreme advantage. A single Seraph can kill up to 10 PD reliably, except perhaps for Ulm or Jontunheim. And a Seraph with 2 archers can take those two nations too, losing maybe one archer in the first volley to Ulm and losing nothing to Jontun. Even if you lose one raiding force and take only 9 of 10 desired provinces, so what?

In what is still early game, Caelum can therefore take pretty much any province against ANYBODY that can be reached. Want three enemy provinces? No problem! How about 6? Getting harder, but sure. Ten? Yup, I have done that and more in a single turn in an MP game. It cannot be stopped without having a castle in every province.

As long as fliers can jump over provinces AND attack in the same move, flying will be an unbalanced ability. Thus making Caelum the best race for the early game and deep into the middle game. As for the end game, it may no longer be best, but will still be in the top 5 because of the early game advantages.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

This is when you take your armies ans smash down his undefended watchtowers.

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Of course you can always strike back. But the fliers can strike three deep into enemy territory and the stronger land army can strike only one deep back.

I was getting 5-10 provinces and losing 0-8 each turn for like 15 turns against three opponents. I was also taxing many of those at 200% for multiple turns and using the money to get even more Seraphs and plenty more cheap archers to keep reloading. Everything I lost was easily replaced and then some. Everything my opponents lost was gone for good.

It was surprisingly easy to overrun my opponents with about 10-20 separate armies composed of one Seraph spamming false horrors plus 5 archers. I lost many of those sacrificial strike forces, but it simply made no difference in the long run.

And EVERY SINGLE TIME any one of my three opponents seiged one of my towers, I simply hit him back with a real army composed of my flying pretender, AQs as needed, draconians, hawks, and up to about 20 seraphs and maybe 40-60 archers from many strike forces, which I could fly in from every conceivable direction over amazingly far distances. I never once lost any of my own towers. Even better, it was typically easy to cut off the retreat path with my annoying fliers and poof any enemy who might have survived the battle.

Strategic flying is definitely overpowered. I have been on the receiving end of this strategy more than once and the dishing end but this one time. It is far more pleasant to be doing it than having it done to you.

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I'd completely agree with Panther.

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You must not have been facing a very competent opponent then, since there are plenty of spells he could have used to destroy all of your seraphs and normal troops, thus leaving only your tougher troops to deal with. It's very easy to make units that Seraphs can't hurt, and that can also deal quite well with air queens and the like.

I've yet to see any kind of convincing argument for this.

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You're expected to lose all your seraphs and archers to a competent player in such a battle though...

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Amazingly enough, that does not make Panther completely wrong.

It's phases like 'fastest researching nation', 'draconians, hawks, and up to
about 20 seraphs and maybe 40-60 archers', 'supreme advantage' that do. Whom
was he plaing against? Someone with neither a clue, a long term plan, nor
even superficial knowledge of Caelum's tricks.

One thing's for sure. I have never had a problem with fighting Caelum when I
have played Pythium, Vanheim or C'tis. I hate Jotunheim, but I think that they
would also easily deal with Caelum. Yes, Caelum is among the top nations,
especially if diplomacy is forbidden, but I stopped played them when I
realized how limited they are in the late game. The one time I have fought
a strong Caelum nation with Vanheim, I was winning only one battle in three,
but six turns after the war started, he did not have a castle that could
produce anything... and he had not killed a single mage of mine. Afterward,
a few cold immune Vanadrotts trapezed on top of his province-taking squads,
and he went AI.

Do not get me wrong. On a small map, or with clear teams, I would like to play
Caelum. But on a decent sized map with ten players, I would pick a race with
no glaring weaknesses, and that excludes Caelum.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

I fail to see how a competent Caelum player will lose any seraphs. 40 false horrors on the second move, then 80 on the third. Too much fear for anything but perhaps undead. Even enemy fliers can only kill a few of the archers who are close by.

In particular, Ulm had no chance. His smiths always targeted his own troops once the horrors appeared. His best strategy was scripting fire shield on his commanders where he could.

Jontunheim did quite a bit better, simply due to the sheer Lasting power of the infantry plus bane lords. Surprisingly enough, the seraphs frequently switched to frozen heart against the bane lords and Jontun infantry once the script ran out, which was very good.

Arco was a rookie in his second MP game, that much was true. He could have beat me with the astral mind spells which ignore the horrors. But he had too many priests and not enough astrologers.

Still, at most, I can see losing some archers in a big battle. Certainly not 20 seraphs. Especially since Caelum can get false horrors so very quick if they want. Most specific counters take a lot longer to research than Caelum going straight to Alt 6. Also, the seraphs are so incredibly cheap for their power that Caelum will always have more fighting mages than any other race.

I will agree that Caelum becomes somewhat limited late game, but I have not played past about turn 70 in any MP game as yet.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

Not sure, I've played Caelum vs Jotunheim and Jotunheim vs Caelum and every time it was Caelum's advantage. I think there're few contributing factors. Jotunheim's usually decent PD is nearly useless vs Caelum. Those giants have well-developed self-preservation instincts, so they quickly retreat when face false horrors - who knows, one of those horrors may roll triple-6 and hurt somebody. Jotuns don't have cheap mages capable to deal with Caelum's raiders either (except, maybe Utgard). Lighting is bad news for Jotuns, because even when it doesn't kill their giants it cripples them. (For other nations, life expectancy of the troops is not that high and they're easier to replace). Jotuns can't counter Caelum's dominion push either. Despite all said, it's not hopeless to fight Caelum playing Jotunheim, but some other nations could be better. For example, Pangaea. Or Ermor. Or Atlantis.


Strength of Caelum in the late game significantly depends on initial planning, with the right plan and pretender Caelum can be pretty good in the late game. But the same probably apply to the most nations. And it comes at the price of somewhat less efficient mid-game.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

Just to chime in - on the one paw, I'm not sure Caelum is all that overpowered. But on the other, I'm not sure that it's all that limited in the late game, given a well designed pretender. I suspect it's a top-5 nation if not top 3.

False Horror : Overrated, imo - Seraphs using lightning bolt and/or frozen heart are about as effective.

Wrathful Skies - in my first two Caelum games, I haven't used it a single time. Both games I've one of the top two nations, without _ever_ using WS, and both games are post turn-50 now. I even had my pretender killed fairly early in one by a blitch (a B of a glitch http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif ) which he is still crippled from, and in that game, turn 70ish, I haven't even found any good sites - enchantresses are the only recruitable non-nation mages I have. ( Spectres, Lamia Queens, etc, compensate quite well and don't require any luck in finding sites. )

If I hadn't used my somewhat limited charm and tact to manage some diplomacy, I wouldn't be a prime challenger in either game, despite the "huge" benefit of Caelum, and the decent benefit of being a strong intermediate player.

So - given that the game is meant primarily for MP, if all nations are supposed to be 100% equal, Caelum might get tweaked down. Then again, stronger players might let ... newer players have the nations like Caelum, Pythium, Arco, Atlantis and R'lyeh; maybe the Jotuns too and Vanheim. This lets the fresh blood experiment with the mightier nations, and allows the old dogs to prove that nation doesn't count for all that much by crushing them with Ulm and T'ien C'hi. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Something that might be nice, though, would be a game setting tweak that could be used to give a bonus / hindrance to a particular player. Say I get a 10% penalty to research and upkeep, while Cohen gets 20% extra gold, gems and research. Something like that might make mixed games with newbies and pros more interesting.

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Rain of stones for Arco and Vanheim. Raise skeletons for C'tis. Howl for Man and Pangaea. Machaka can use all three of these at once. Growing fury if you really are short on mages and need to keep your troops from routing. Acid rain for T'ien C'Hi and Atlantis. Vanadrott's and the like for Vanheim or Tuatha. Devils, devils and more devils for Abysia or Mictlan. Add in fireshielded lightning immune Archdevils and falling fires to clear away false horrows. Astral tempset for anyone with golems.

Or vine ogres or mechanical men or living statues.

You didn't bring storms? Devils will kill your archers on the first turns, then quickly move on your seraphs and other troops. They won't rout either.

Ulm versus the air nations is always uneven. This isn't a particularly good comparison point.

No, they certainly didn't switch to frozen heart, since bane lords and Jotuns are both immune to cold.

He brought priests to a battle with Caelum. That tells you that the Arco player didn't really have a good grasp of how to defeat Caelum. He'd have been better off throwing around the elemental battlefield magic that arco is good at.

How are you planning to defend them against a spell like rain of stones, which is especially devastating against physically weak mages? Or howl, that brings wolves up behind your troops?

They certainly won't research much faster or have more mages than C'Tis, nor Utgard, nor Machaka.

Late game is about turn 20-40 onwards, depending on when people have developed magical paths other than what their nation easily provides.

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How many seraphs are going to live through turn 1? It's pretty hard to defend them. If you're attacking the army that siege your fort, the opponents move first, so you have no chance to defend seraphs at all. Pretty much any mass-destruction will decimate them. If you're defender you have better chances because you can cast some protection spells on your mages first. Though most of them are difficult for Caelum, so pretender needs to be constructed to keep this scenario in mind. Even with that there're few problems. Do you cast global protection or local area? Global protection is costly and harder to cast and enemy's attack may be a fake. If you cast on local area you need to put mages close together which will make them more vulnerable to opponent's local area damage spells. Even if you get it right, enemy may cast some global damage spells, which may not kill seraphs right away, but it may hurt them overtime while killing false horrors en-masse. And if the opponent brings some determined troops (undead, vine men/ogres etc), false horrors don't do any good. Lighting is not very good either vs cheap undead/vine men. Particularly nasty opponent will cast few swarms as well. And opponent has an option of lifting the siege and raining some nasties on your concentrated forces next turn.

So this idea of concentrating all seraphs together seems quite risky. Besides, to be a defender one have to sit with this force in the fortress (which makes it vulnerable to remote mass-destruction spells) and contradicts with raiding plans.

While being one of the top nations, Caelum is not straight-forward to play. They need to branch out their development to have some capable armies that don't rely on seraphs too much. Some kind of balance between defenses and raiding is needed.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

Exactly - same with Pythium and Arco, etc. The top tier nations (for anything but a tiny map blitz, where simple nations like Ulm or New Era Pangaea shine) tend to be complicated and require more thought and strategy.

A little bit of a boost for defense (PD, etc) might be nice to see, likewise a little bit of a nerf for raiders, so that they can't _always_ move before being counterattacked. (Vanheim was a huge PITA in one of my Caelum games; took 10-15 turns to deal with his raiders. Only another 5 or 10 to finish his nation after that though. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif )

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

Hmm, I was the Jotunheim player Panther referred to. Howl is a good idea. I wish I had thought of it.

I tried some things which I detailed in the Newbie Slugfest thread. Mostly, I've found that having mindless tanks doesn't work too well unless you have good mages able to kill the false horrors / mages. The mindless stuff (vine ogres, skeletons) can actually be killed by false horrors fairly reliably because of the horrors' very good combat stats and ethereality. Making chaff to tank horrors costs gems too while making false horrors doesn't cost any. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif And I've had my mages get scared away by false horrors (even without any horrors attacking them), thus causing the mindless chaff to dissolve.

I also watched some of Ulm's battles. I expected "Blade Wind" to work against the horrors, but they missed most of the time.

How about some more concrete advice? Panther never did need to go there far, but it seems to me that if I ever did build a significant force of mindless stuff, mages, etc., Caelum could just pop in a seraph to cast Wrathful Skies and blow things up. And just how could one defend against an air queen set to cast Wrathful Skies before attacking? *Sigh*

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

Looks like the thread degenerated into Yet Another "Caelum overpowered" thread http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smirk.gif
From my experience Caelum is unbalanced from turn 6 to at least 50, because of :
- Good cheap mages everywhere
- Mammoths against indies
- Lightning spells quite early, then effective Ghost/False summons
- And ability to shift front in one wing buffet - The same army can take out an enemy army, then fly to another point, make a raid, come back, giving Caelum a power multiplied bu its number of enemies eventually http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

A typical Caelian army is my games is like 12 Seraphs, 30-40 archers, and 20-25 infantry. Archers can take out light troops using Wind Guide (BTW, main use of WG is indeed to give +5 prec to the Seraphs, an exploit IMO), Inf main use is to buy time when the enemy try to get to contact and/or disrupt the archers.
Supply is not a real issue, a simple couple Bags done by Nature A Seraphs, Sage, Druid etc solve it even if fighting in deserts.
A Storm+WS+Air blessing strategy give different layout, but is rarer.
Such an army uses only national standard troop end is possible from turn 15 on, quite before summons become common, and no comparably priced army stands much of a chance against. I've seen TC, Marignon, Ermor, Arco, Machaka all been beaten neatly, even when allied...

There are surely ways to counter Caelum, but the only effective one I've seen is to gangup against in MP. Sure it rebalances things, but not from a design standpoint ! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/redface.gif

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

Cool! And I always thought people complained about the uselessness of national troops! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

Still early game armies have to use national troops http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/redface.gif, and anyway you got to use national mages for all the game.
The trick with Caelum is that this combo is effective, but mostly due to the mages; the main usefullness of the troops is to have chaff, but this on eis flying along the mages ! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/evil.gif

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

You're making good points why Caelum is very powerful early on (I may only disagree about Mammoths - too expensive and not reusable), but that advantage won't Last until turn 50. I think it's more like until turn 25-30 (standard research). Nothing good will happen to such army if it gets into the rain of stones http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif Effectively, enemy's pretender alone can stop this kind of army. And with cloud trapeze available it will mean that such army can not be used in the open anymore. Caelum will still have their superior raiding ability (with lone seraphs), but it brings back the defense problem).

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

Alexti,
I agree with you, things change when global battlefields spells come into play - in my experience it's rather after turn 40 (but I'm in peaceful Old Europe, so maybe .. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smirk.gif ).
But when this happens Caelum gets no special drawback - their mages won't survive RoS (does Mistform not protect ?), but neither will most other mages and troops : if Caelians have SG/IC/TC they won't be scratched.
Same goes for most global BF spells, once they're in summons are needed.

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

I did not intend for this to be a nerf Caelum post. Sorry about that. Everybody seems happy with Caelum being one of the most powerful races, as I found out in my nerf-Caelum post. So be it.

What I did intend is for the devs (or the folks doing the mods?) to hopefully fix the flying imbalance. Because land troops cannot go over even one friendly province to attack an enemy, flying troops should also be prohibited from doing this too. Ergo - flying is far superior to walking by a much too wide of a margin. Especially the flying SCs, which is a huge problem for nearly all races.

For the Dice man: you are correct. My frozen heart was how I killed the Ulm Black Knights, not the giants. I remember this now, watching the knights frozen in place while they died. It sure all runs together after a while!

Re: Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)
 

well, look - technically this thread is about Zen's conceptual balance mod http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

now, the mod does not address flying, whether or not flying is overpowered. But the caelum problem resides in a combination of synergistic effects: flying + false horrors + wrath, for the most part (exceptionally cheap mages, able to easily get by w/ the watchtowers and sloth-3, also). Zen's mod at least cuts out false horror spam and makes wrathful skies more difficult to cast. both of these, in and of themselves, help balance out the problems. (the scale mod should also end up making caelum pay a bit more for taking sloth -3 as well).