Caelum pretender design
 

I'm curious as to what sort of pretender design -- excluding the Vampire Queen -- the experienced players of (base) Caelum out there are using. Do you go for an SC chassis, or a research chassis? Do you give the pretender the same magic paths as the national mages, or something completely different?

Re: Caelum pretender design
 

you mean caelum is allowed to take a pretender other than the VQ?

:shock:

;P

I haven't played caelum, but it certainly has the points for a massive SC, and little reason not to go for one.

Re: Caelum pretender design
 

The Caelum design currently living on my machine is a Ghost King - 3A 2W 3E 3D. Standard research alteration and stomp indies tactics. Later on his earth and death will be useful for forging/summons.

I also like using a Son of Neifel with, say, 3W 4B. This is if I want to turn Caelum into a blood nation, and get the ice devils.

Both these pretenders attempt to leverage Caelum's cold - ghosts, winter wolves and ice devils love it.

Neither of them is maxed out - I'm more fond of good scales and strong dominion than many players.

Re: Caelum pretender design
 

Hehe, I wasn't going to say anything as I don't necessarily think I am experienced with Caelum but that GK is the exact same one I have been using lately http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

- Kel

Re: Caelum pretender design
 

It's interesting that you should pick a GK with 3A2W3E3D, as I've had good success with a very similar one (3A3W3E2D). Why do you prefer 2W3D over 3W2D? For the summons later on?

Does anyone play with a Sage (or other human) pretender?

How would you design a Nat? And does anyone prefer the Nat over the GK (and why)?

Re: Caelum pretender design
 

The Caelum build that I have had very good success with.

Oracle with Astral 4
Dominion 6 or 7
Cermonial Faith (take advantage of steathly preachers)
Order 3
Productivity 3
Cold 3
Growth 3
Magic 3

Castle - Castle.

Caelium's mages and begining troops are very capable of taking provenences by themselves. Usually from turn 2 on with this build. You get a ton of money (to buy all those cheap mages). And your income continues to improve as the game goes on thanks to growth.

The oracle can be used for Archiac record with the astrals you get from clamming your water gems. Later the oracle can forge sorcery rings so your arch seraphs can get to death 2, nature 2, where they can forge addional path boosters.

The oracle with equipment also has a good chance of catching a couple SC's with a mind hunt and forcing them to counter with higher MR items.

I have tried this build with Sloth 3 (for the extra 240 points). While Sloth would not be a problem in the late game it really slows the early expansion down, plus makes a significant dent in your income.

My current build (untested in MP) is to also take Misfortune 2 (and 1 less dominion I think). And give my oracle Astral 5, Earth 3. This allows the creation of golems, hammers, and crystal coins. It also give easier access to wish in the late game by using a sorc ring, wiz ring, crystal coin, and tome of high power.

Re: Caelum pretender design
 

3D for soul vortex

i love GK's, but here we see another indication that they really are a bit underpriced. even upping initial path costs to 30 would work, I think.

Nat's have fatigue problems, so you need to use a slot to give them cold resistance right away.

Re: Caelum pretender design
 

Right. 3D for soul vortex, and to be within range of things like Harvester of Sorrows and Ghost Riders with 1 booster, or Wraith Lords with 2. If the GK's paths were changed to 30, (which probably is needed - Ghost Kings are very common), I'd probably drop the water, forgo breath of winter, and get quickness from boots.

Lately I've been thinking that nations really need access to death more than any other path - for wraith swords, if nothing else. Life-draining has become a topic of frequent discussion in my Dom2 circle, with a general consensus developing that its too powerful.

Re: Caelum pretender design
 

weird, I've always found that Caelum's starting troops die off too fast against indies.. I've found that keeping the starting troops on patrol, getting double income on my capital, and clearing indies with a Wyrm loaded with A3W2D3E3 works better. The income boost from using your inital troops to patrol lets you build a fortification on the second turn, which lets you start recruiting more seraphs sooner.

Re: Caelum pretender design
 

i am not experienced but i saw in a brief overlook not mentioned one pretender :

the nataraja .

since caelum has quite a few points from cold 3 you can make a really cool nataraja .

if she gets wounded she is a bit screwed but lategame you can get fairy queens to heal her .

Re: Caelum pretender design
 

1. natarajas are male.
2. they suffer cold fatigue from caelum's dominion
3. due to their usual function as brawlers w/out massive paths, they tend to accumulate afflictions - hence their popularity w/ Arcos.

Re: Caelum pretender design
 

1. correct . the name sounds feminine though http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smirk.gif
so i continue saying her http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/yawn.gif
2. sure . i never said though that i use her as an earlygame sc http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
nataraja is 0 points +3 dominion so giving her a bit fire + air magic ( for travel ) and a bit earth for forging + invulnerability since caelum lacks earth is not too expensive .
2 death is an almost must to summon spectres finally .

but thats all in all not so expensive so i can go quite good scales http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

when i use her lategame i fight often outside my own dominin anyways so until i have an undead pretender i will always suffer some fatigue against either heat or cold opponents anyway .

3. i use her only fully equipped as mid-lategame sc .
if i get afflictions then it should be not too difficult with my astral income which is quite nice as caelum if needed to summon first a coatl and then a fairy queen with coatl + treelords staff .
cause 1 of my spectres should be able to summon a coatl sooner or later http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif


so nataraja is relative useless earlygame ( but a good sitesearcher ) but mid-lategame she is better than a ghostking or a vq as sc and she is cheaper than a vq and about as expensive as a ghostking .

Re: Caelum pretender design
 

First turn buy 1 seraph and as many of the low resource (4) archers as you can afford.

Second turn. Equip seraph with air gem and script to wind guide. Take seraph and storm general maxed out with archers to indy province. SG has 21 archer in one unit, 1 archer in the other 4 units. The units with only one archer are spread across the front of the battlefield. Seraph has 6 archers in one unit, and 4 units with 1 archer. Again spread the single unit archers around the front of the battlefield.

The scattered archers does two things. First any missile file will target them, likely missing entirely, or killing 1. Second the ground units will zig zag around targeting your scattered archers before they advance towards your main force.

This gives your main wind guided archer force many turns to attack and hopefully route the enemy.

Anything with low armor or only a few HI is fair game.

Each turn you can bring another seraph with an air gem and another 10 archers. Once you have reached a critical mass you can have the storm general carry excess gems for wind guide. Then your mages can stay at home to research, site search, or form another conquering party.

The real key is researching Evo2. Once you have lighting then nearly any Indy province is available to you (including knights). Wind guide, combined with naturally high precision, and the precision bonus from lighting make almost every bolt hit. 4 seraphs and 50 archers (with as many scattered as possible) can take almost any province with a lost of 6 or 7 archers.

Once I hit Evo2 I generally go toward con2 for clams, and then conjuration to 5 or even 7 (for queens). It helps to avoid alteration so your seraphs stay focused on casting lighting instead of phantom warriors.

Anyways... this works well for me. And its fun to not depending on SC pretender for expansion. Or choosing the GK like most other nations end up doing.

Re: Caelum pretender design
 

I've rather enjoyed using a PoD with Caelum, adding on several magic paths on top of death - typically fire, earth, and some nature, to complement Caelum's national mages for site searching, forging, and summoning.

While not immune to cold, being undead means that it doesn't suffer increased fatigue from Caelum's cold weather, and it doesn't require use of boots for flight, meaning that it can keep up with all the flying mages and troops.

Re: Caelum pretender design
 

Too powerful because "everyone" is using it (ie: nerf-bait), or because it's "too cheap"? These are the two most-frequently cited opinions on the subject, from what I've seen. I'm curious as to your opinion and reason (especially since I know you're one of Zen's "disciples", as I am).

Re: Caelum pretender design
 

"We thank you for not offending ancient religions."
"But why? I haven't stopped doing so yet."

Re: Caelum pretender design
 

as "raja" means "king", I admit that i'm perplexed by the supposed femininity of it.

Re: Caelum pretender design
 

it is a language thing .

but in german you have not only the but 3 different words :
der ( normally for male )
die ( normally for female )
das ( normally for things )

but you say e.g. :
der mensch = the human
a human can be male and female . but here you chose the male variant der .
die see = the lake
you chose the femine variant die though a lake is of no gender .


in german das nataraja sounds stupid .
der nataraja and die nataraja sound both stupid too but die nataraja is probably the best chose for the 3 lol

Re: Caelum pretender design
 

I think "rani" is the feminine of "raja" (based on "Flashman & the Great Game"). It is an Indian word but I do not know what language.


Pickles

Re: Caelum pretender design
 

Sorry, it's not. It's a thing of education.

So you're one of the reasons of the Pisa-results. "Die See" = the sea. The lake = "der See". There's a difference in there, and the right pronoun is rather important.

Please consider yourself a Christian for a moment. Now imagine some noob in some forum goes calling Jesus Christ "daughter of god", because her name sounds stupid for a male in his native language.



I'm german, and the arrogance and lack of respect for other cultures and Languages shown by some germans (among others) always tics me off.

Add edit:_ /rant off. Back to topic.

Re: Caelum pretender design
 

Not much different than similar behavior by all too many of my fellow Americans. However, what's particularly egregious about Boron's Last post, and something that especially annoys me, is that after he was corrected on the subject of gender, he continues to do things his way (regardless of being wrong). What that shows me, as apparently it does to you, is that he's willfully dismissive of all things that do not fit into his rather narrow worldview. Whether such things be proper language use, game rules he finds inconvenient, people's opinions, or even historical events.

Thanks for trying, Karacan. But I'm afraid you're wasting your efforts with him. And do not worry about the image he presents of your countrymen, as he's not representative of the average or majority (at least not in my own experience with Germans). Though I do sympathize with the bad taste he leaves you. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/Sick.gif

Re: Caelum pretender design
 

Hindi, IIRC.

Re: Caelum pretender design
 

If we call someone who speaks two Languages
bi-lingual

And we call someone who speaks three Languages
tri-lingual

What do you call someone who speaks one language?
(american)

Its a joke. Really. Might not be one told in your circles but its a fairly common joke Im told. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
Want to hear a good "white guy" joke?

Re: Caelum pretender design
 

A sad, but too true one.

Top 5 most arrogant nations, more or less in order from worst down:

1. United States
2. France
3. Japan
4. UK
5. China

I won't endeavor to actually attempt to score any of these. They just happen to be the most guilty. I (briefly) debated Germany in place of China, but China really deserves to be on the short list for a number of reasons, including lengthy historical ones.

Excuse me, so much for staying on my own topic. [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/icon04.gif[/img]

Re: Caelum pretender design
 

A little less nation bashing, please. Even if it is your own nation, 'flaming' a whole nation, off topic, on a public forum is not likely to provoke anything but another flame.

- Kel

Re: Caelum pretender design
 

Actually, this isn't a public forum. It's a private forum (open to the public) owned and operated by a corporation. A public forum wouldn't have censorship, and public ones in the true spirit of the term 'public' don't have moderation, either.

But I do get your point.

Re: Caelum pretender design
 

oh with der see and die see you are right karacan http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

i am not bad educated though . at least i made my abitur without much effort http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
i just never showed liking for the subject DEUTSCH .
and in the internet i don't care too much about capitalization and punctuation .

i am a christian and believe in god but i would see someone foreign calling jesus die jesus not too bad he just doesn't know better .
and humorous films about religion like southpark , dogma and life of brian i like very much too .


i find it rather funny though that nobody seems to have interest in the main part of my message that the nataraja is a good pretender too and instead just almost flaming me because i gave it a female pronoun instead of a male one half because i found it funny and half because i didn't care and didn't think someone might care if i use him or her for a few pixels anyway .


in german der and die nataraja sound both ****ty though .


but to judge ones education only with his ability to speak his mother language perfect is a bit too one-sided .
hey i am no second Wolfgang von Goethe .

i guess you are better in Deutsch as me karacan but probably i would beat you in history knowlegde e.g. i guess http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Caelum pretender design
 

wow thats interesting http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

and i really wonder why you didn't put germany on a high position like 2 or 3 at least .
first we have our history . germany was probably the most arrogant nation from 1870-1945 .
second we are known as very unpopular tourists .
mallorca + ballermann are just 2 catchwords .
the italian president berlusconi has said that even in public .
he has a point there .

in most european countries we germans fight with the brits for the "honor" of being the most disliked tourists http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/fear.gif

with china i wonder what historic issues you mean .
if you wrote soviet russia because of the cold war i would understand http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif
so plz enlighten me for entertainment http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

japan surprises me too .
i love japanese + chinese food . the chinese / japanese in the german japanese/chinese restaurants are all very friendly , much more friendly than in a restaurant owned by germans .
japan is just cool imo . probably the most techliking nation in the whole world http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif
oh and i love chinese/japanese action movie films .

japanese rpgs are very cool like final fantasy series or grandia 2 . the characters look so cute and the gameplay behind it is as good as e.g. baldurs gate http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Re: Caelum pretender design
 

In other words, you don't have enough respect for the people you're communicating with to make an effort. When someone writes sloppily, readers tend to equate the content with the form - ie, both are viewed as sloppy.

Perhaps because no one found that surprising or noteworthy? The nataraja has been viewed as _such_ a good pretender that there was a campaign to nerf it not all that long ago, on the premise that the nataraja was _the_ ultimate pretender and none of the others were competitive.

When all the people _have_ is your written words, what else are they supposed to judge you on?

Re: Caelum pretender design
 

Would you say "der Tanzkönig" or "die Tanzkönig"?

Re: Caelum pretender design
 

your second point is somewhat true .
but normally when posting something in the internet almost nobody cares about punctuation and capitalization .
in germany we get drilled long enough with this [censored] in school .
since i get no marks if i care too much about capitalization/punctuation etc. when i post something in the internet and since you can post faster with leaving this rules away without damaging the content of your post so why should i care about capitalization etc. ?

as long as i don't study linguistics in university even the professors don't care too much about orthography too .

hey i don't try to write a novel but just a discussion lol


most of you have the blessing being americans . but now in german we decide about a new orthography reform and still nobody is sure if they should do it or not .
so since we were really overdrilled with this crap in school at least i am perhaps especially sloppy there .


but einstein e.g. didn't win his nobelprize for writing perfect orthography but for his discoveries .
not that i am einstein i just wanted to give a good example how unimportant "overperfect" language is as long as you are no politician or a talkmaster .

Re: Caelum pretender design
 

Boron,

Writing easy-to-read Messages serves several purposes:

1. It helps to give others the impression that you have some sort of education. Perhaps you don't care if you appear uncultured?

2. It engenders appreciation by those that don't have to strain their eyes trying to read and interpret the stuff you write. Perhaps you don't care about how much effort others have to go through to read your stuff?

3. It's polite. Perhaps you don't mind being thoughtless and inconsiderate?

If you make it needlessly hard for others to read what you write, just because you are lazy and/or indifferent, people will stop trying to do so. Then who will you argue with? I'm just about at this point myself. Reading your Posts is more trouble than the content is worth.

Re: Caelum pretender design
 

Hey boron, could you take your turn in hard_slog instead of arguing about punctuation?

Re: Caelum pretender design
 

did .
thought 1500 minutes left oh well i am surely not the Last surprisingly i was http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/eek.gif

Re: Caelum pretender design
 

Yay! I killed Vanheim's vampire queen, in my dominion. That was the battle I was really interested in. Thanks for taking your turn promptly.

Re: Caelum pretender design
 

sweet

omg i didn't change her buff list. I was sure i did.

oh well http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Caelum pretender design
 

so you are man ?
poor archaeolept http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/fear.gif
this makes my poor belkelel probably the only vq which still wasn't killed in hard slog .
hopefully this won't change soon http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

Re: Caelum pretender design
 

Ozy', 'lept, et. al.: isn't there a thread dedicated to your MP game? (hint)

Matters of punctuation aside, and a (hopefully) brief interlude re: some MP game, weren't we discussing Caelumite pretenders?

Re: Caelum pretender design
 

actually, on the bright side it confirms my dislike for the VQ

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

Re: Caelum pretender design
 

First thought after the reading Posts in a random order:
Cast Wish -> "Flame Pythium". There go those damned communicants! And my troops are fire resistant http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Caelum pretender design
 

heh.. made me laugh anyway http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif



the way i see it, the point of language is to communicate. most people dont have any problem with reading lower case. if not capitalizing letters makes it really hard for you to read, maybe you need new glasses... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif
i guess it comes from playing so much CS and other real time games where if you take the time to spell things out perfectly and capitalize everything, you die.
and who cares if someone thinks youre uncivilized and uneducated when you already know they hate you. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/redface.gif

Re: Caelum pretender design
 

Most people do actually. That's why capitalization was invented in the first place back in the 900's.

Capitalization tells people where new sentences begin.

Re: Caelum pretender design
 

hmm... i wonder what a period is for?

Re: Caelum pretender design
 

Graeme, don't bother trying to educate Tauren & Boron, it's a waste of time. I solved my problem with their Posts by using the ignore user functionality of the new forum software. Cleans things up rather nicely. [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/icon45.gif[/img]

Re: Caelum pretender design
 

A period tells people where a sentence ends.

Basically, it comes down to the fact that your message is only written once, but is read many times. This means that it's up to you to make your message easy to read so that other people aren't being inconvenienced.

Re: Caelum pretender design
 

Somehow, I am not certain whether that was sarcasm or you were asking an honest question http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

- Kel

Re: Caelum pretender design
 

most people, eh? that doesnt even seem to include you. you dont have any problem reading it; you are just whining about it because you want another reason for me to be wrong.
ive never seen anyone truly unable to comprehend text due to lack of punctuation

Re: Caelum pretender design
 

Are you not aware that there's a difference between writing that's comprehendable and writing that's easy to read? As I've already explained, your message is only being written once, and read many times, so your laziness is no excuse.

Re: Caelum pretender design
 

Gotta agree with Graeme's drift here, if not with his spelling of "comprehensible" http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Caelum pretender design
 

From a personal experience, since English isn't a native language for me, I sometimes have big problems understanding even typoed text (hard to figure which word it might be), not to mention a text which looks like something that's hit with a big hammer.

The way some people write just gives a bad first impression and ultimately leads to ignoring their texts as it's harder to read than what it's worth for. It's easier just to spot interesting flammable parts from other people's replies. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif