caelum
 

caelum

1.practically all flying troops
great mages
can use sc pretender with:
tempest
boots of speed
spirit helm
dancing trident
wine sack
rime hauberk
these are great with the arch seraph(ine?) pretender,
60 clay men,
50 archers commander set to wind guide, and (tempest spell)
then attack rear most,
attacked ermor with this army, they had:
8 banes, 3 bane lords 1000 various undead (cannot be bothered to list them all) 5 undead mage thingies, 5 undead mammoth thingies

I stomped them flat!
all thier troops were at the front including the banes and lors and mages were spead out on the edges of the battle field

clay men were on hold and attack so all the enemies were three quaters of the way across the battle field before my god started moving! tampest spell wped out over 100 troops in one go, archers killed 30 and spirit helm killed 3
next turn god attacked the undead mages! killed them all with 4 attacks:
1 or 2 with dancing trident
2 with tempest
1 with spirit helm

clay men put up an inpenetrable barrier killing 50 people that turn archers failed to kill anything but injured several

put it this way the battle was over before turn 15
the score?
me:
lost 4 claymen
another 8 got battle afflictions(but not for long!)
al my archers ran out of arrows and killed thier bane lords! ha!
lost 10 archers

ermor:
864 undead... well errr... dead http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif
6 banes dead http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/Injured.gif
3 bane lords
all but 1 mage!
I love it! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/evil.gif

Re: caelum
 

And this isn't even the massively overkill Caelum of Dominions - PPP where lesser air elementals didn't cost gems to summon...

To give you an idea, just drop a dozen basic seraphs on some province with a screen of useless troops, have them cast quickness and then watch the battlefield completely overrun by air elementals. Now *that* was something to see...

Edi

Re: caelum
 

Those were they days, eh? Now they have to do it with False Horrors...

Re: caelum
 

yea:p gota love false horrors :p ghost wolves are also useful (but raise skeletons kinda puts ghost wolves to shame eh?)

Re: caelum
 

Roger that, that is why i rock most of the time with emor http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

My problem with caelum is:

I scrip the first 5 spells (Quickness, Lightning Bolt, Lightning Bolt, Lightning Bolt, Lightning Bolt, Lightning Bolt) and what happens then: charge Body, aim, phantastal warrior, airshield! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

Re: caelum
 

ah well arch seraph preyender with spirit helm and tempest... gotta love it!

Re: caelum
 

One small quibble about this build item-wise: Rime Hauberk vs. Ermor? Jade (more speed) or Rainbow (reinvigoration) or even Hydraskin (regeneration) Armor would have been a better choice as undead are immune to cold effects. Also the Bag of Wine likely should have been on a seraphine rather than the pretender-- replace with Stone Bird (4 attacks!)... hmm, multiple commanders with Spirit Helm, Dancing Trident, Stone Bird, Boots of Quickness, Jade Armor = a bulldozer, and hyper easy to build as Caelum (keep hiring High Seraphs until you get enough E picks for SB and JA)

Re: caelum
 

but for one commander... come on! anyway the bag of wine was to keep my troops feed as I already had 3 nature that was...
40 out of 51 people fed!
trying it out on man marignon and pangea soon....
(17 nations match!)

Re: caelum
 

Heh, last time I played Caleum, the first 7 mages had a random in Astral...but it was random!...LOL.

So, script on the three masters was (Quickness, Communion Master/slave, Thunder Strike, Thunder Strike, Thunder Strike, Thunder Strike). Serious fun, at least for a while. :-)

Re: caelum
 

just tried it and that rocks. used 5 basic seraphs with quickness and then just false horror spam and gave them 2 archers each scattered around ( to avoid rout ) and this took out lvl 7 indies and only lost 1 archer in 7 battles ( 1 vrs knights, 1 vrs longbows, and 1 vrs amazons.

Re: caelum
 

Jade Armor would be even worse than a Rime Hauberk, encumbrance-wise. This "SC" would keel over from exhaustion long before it could do any serious damage, particularly if it were to cast more than one spell before going into melee. Even if you fix the fatigue problem, this guy has low HP, low protection, low defense, no regeneration or lifedrain. Awfully fragile, for a god. Especially one carrying so much pricey equipment.

Re: caelum
 

am I the only one who doesn't design gods to go into battle? I mean the re-empowiring them after they die is just to costly

Re: caelum
 

I quess that the pretender would cast some spells like Quickness, Earth Power, Iron Skin etc which give protecion, defense and reinvigoration. Arch Seraph is still more of a mage, but while it isn't as effective as a Titan SC, it can still work well.

Re: caelum
 

who says and arch seraph cant kill a 1027 with less than a 100 people helping him!

Re: caelum
 

i almost never use combat pretenders

Re: caelum
 

I rarely use them but air guves such a diversity!
tempest
cool shields
sprit helm
flying shoes
dancing trident
thunder bow
bow of war
eye of aiming
thunder spear and whip
there is just so much room for experimentation!
give about 10 storm genrals bows of war and 1 eye of aiming
and each one 25 archers and spirit helm, then maybe to round it off a dancing trident and stone bird each just in case they get to close!
you can probably never go wrong with air!
my arch seraph started with 16 presision now it has a presision of well over 25!(+10 air, +5 for DT and tempest)
I also found that on my game the DT gives you a small boost to presision as do practically all air weapons!
about 1 in 12 cold bolts missed and as forbow of war if I had given her that then practically every arrow would of done damage!
also
harab seraph with otkhars sceptre(some thing like that)
and that other death booster as well as the helmet and casting pale riders after he/she was standard level 10 death (with out any magic items) and was getting about 400+ riders!

Re: caelum
 

please explain, im confused

Re: caelum
 

He had national heroine with Death empowered to Death 10, using at least two boosters (+3 and +1) to getting 400+ units from every casting of Undead Horsemen.

Re: caelum
 

you HAD to make it simple didn't you http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

Re: caelum
 

Care to do the math? An arch seraph wearing a Rime Hauberk has a combat encumbrance of 6, and a spellcasting encumbrance of 8. Assuming you leap right into melee, casting neither Wind Guide nor Thunderstrike, you still gain 12 fatigue per round of quickened combat. That means you have 9 rounds in which to inflict casualties, before you lose consciousness, your defense drops to zero, and pretty much anything other than an Ermorian soulless kills your ~10HP pretender in one or two hits.

Now, in each such round of combat, you strike twice with the Tempest, twice with the Dancing Trident, and once with the Spirit Helmet. The hauberk is irrelevant, as the undead are cold-immune. Let's assume you're fighting a thoroughly defenseless Ermorian meat/bone shield, and take out one with each lightning bolt, one with each strike of the trident, and four with each swing of the Tempest. Unless I'm mistaken about the Tempest's area of effect, that's the maximal possible number of kills per round with this configuration. That's 11 kills per round, for 9 rounds before you pass out. Unless I've missed something, 99 is a far, far smaller number than 1027.

Conclusion: Not only could your pretender not have defeated the undead horde without those 100 supporting troops, those troops actually did just over 90% of the work. Not surprising, since a large squad of claymen can easily take out huge armies of longdead and soulless without forcing you to risk your pretender's life(let alone your pretender and a full load of equipment, including a unique artifact). One casting of Wrathful Skies and a few seraphines with Rings of Tamed Lightning would also have done the job nicely.

Conditional: I'm assuming your god never actually lost consciousness, then regained it, then lost it again, then regained it, etc. Any tactic which necessitates repeatedly turning your pretender into a sitting duck on the front lines is no tactic at all, particularly if said pretender is mortal.

Further remarks:
1) Is relying on archers really that good an idea when wielding the Tempest, which autocasts Storm and thereby wastes about half your shots and makes the other half inaccurate?
2) Thunderstrike has an area of effect of 1, meaning it kills a maximum of 4 targets for 8 fatigue. Factor that into the above equation, and you wind up doing even less damage before passing out.

Re: caelum
 

kill joy!
I won.. okay
and as for the storm:
that is why wind guide was cast!
and the undead horde hit me twice one for 8 and another for 4 (experience!)
had HP of...about 20-25
also storm genrals tried the exact same tactic again... but this time with 13 storm genrals with necklace of vengance?
this worked better as compact troops and a large commander in the middle of them... well I killed a few.. or more!

Re: caelum
 

And that was on turn 20 or so http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/redface.gif ?
Just kidding ... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/stupid.gif

Re: caelum
 

the MIQR has Pale Riders (d3) as 20+3/path; so if the mage had modified death level of 17 (the max), that would yield 62 undead horsemen per casting.

Re: caelum
 

wierd you say that yet I got way more...

Re: caelum
 

Perhaps the additional paths give geometric rather than arithmetic extra horsemen.

Re: caelum
 

Or perhaps Naresh just rounds up some numbers ... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/shock.gif

Re: caelum
 

I will sometimes use combat-orientated pretenders in a short game. I stay away from them in normal-sized or longer games, and I am always very careful with them. It is one thing to send them against a group of barbarians; it is quite another to face them off against a human opponent's main army.

Re: caelum
 

and with the amount of magic you can dump on human pretenders its no wonder (boots of callus then cast quickness and spam neifel flames or another mega spell)

Re: caelum
 

I know what you mean, arch mage with 4 lvl 8 paths! and 3 lvl 5 sure, this put a serious hurt in my scales but it was worth it! found some ultra cool magic sites and was getting maybe between 10-30 gems a turn around turn 15!
(roughly conquering 1 province a turn then after turn 8 two a turn)

Re: caelum
 

You know that no magic sites need more than four in a path to find?

Re: caelum
 

Sorry, but that's not possible : an Archmage with 4 * lvl 8 and 3 * lvl 5 (0 in the last path), with all scales at worst value possible, 0 pt castle and dom 1 would cost more than 800 points... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif
Perhaps you meant 4 * lvl 4 (not 8) and 3 * lvl 5 ?? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/confused.gif This is more reasonable http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smirk.gif

Re: caelum
 

yeah some thing like that we have a cat and it loves jumping on the keyboard so some time I make mistakes....
and as for the magic sites, I know that max is lvl 4
but still I found plenty of magic sites

Re: caelum
 

How much empowerment does that involve? I'm too lazy to check my math or actually run the game, but I think it costs 90 more points than you get, even with all scales at -3.

Another 366 points?

And the vast majority need only one or two levels.

Re: caelum
 

D'oh. Beaten. And by a wide margin. Had this window open for a long, long while while browsing unrelated stuff and taking an endless series of pointless phone calls. Apologies for the repetition.

Re: caelum
 

around 4 empowerments?

Re: caelum
 

The Smoking Mirror (Mictlan) can get four paths at level 8 (three of them are fixed, of course), with no modding involved, and 138 points left. All scales are at -3, of course, and Dominion is left at basic 2. The Celestial Emperor also enters that category, with a mere 118 points left, but Dominion 3.

The Baphomet does the same thing with Dominion 3 and 224 points left after the four paths, effectively allowing to get two more paths at level 4, so we're almost there. Sadly, the Baphomet cannot reach four level 9 paths; it is stuck at three of them, with the fourth one at 8.

So, you *can* get four paths at level 8, and some more magic on top of that. Of course, it's not because you *can* do it that you should use those designs.

Re: caelum
 

One non-dead nation build with all bad scales that is actually somewhat effective:

Sacred Statue, Pythium

Fire 9, Astral 9, Water 9

Air 4-6, dominion 7-10, depending on if you are using the concept pretender mod.

Of course using this you will at first barley have the gold for a full production run of battle vestals and priests to bless them. But considering 7-10 vestals and a priest have very good chance of taking most independent provinces, you should have reasonable income fairly quickly. In addition, your pretender is an absolutely scary rock that can research like crazy for buff spells and then teleport on problematic enemy armies.

Re: caelum
 

That sort of thing can work indeed: a Mictlanese Smoke Mirror with Dominion 2 and Fire, Death, Blood 9 won't work so well, so I gave a generic disclaimer.

Of course, Mictlan can perfectly well use a triple level 9 bless (*Waves at Yellow Cactus*), but it'd better not involved Death and Blood.

Re: caelum
 

wow, you can teleport immobile pretenders!? I could have been using my blood fountain much more efficiently; there are about 30 blood spells I never even used http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

Re: caelum
 

All but the sphinx.

Re: caelum
 

And you can only use Teleport on those other Pretenders: Cloud Trapeze will NOT work, and other teleporting spells... well, they may work, but I seem to recall they don't.

So, I guess you could say all other immobile Pretenders can Teleport, but they can't teleport.

Re: caelum
 

hmm, are you sure the mictlan giant head can teleport?

Re: caelum
 

Yes.

Re: caelum
 

Absolutely. But not with the arch-mage. And even if this were possible, it simply doesn't pay to raise more than one path from zero to seven or above, even if one has some sort of rainbow bless stratagem in mind. Six is reasonably cost effective, affords a good blessing, and can usually be boosted to nine or more by the midgame.

Re: caelum
 

isnt this thread suppposed to be about caelum???

Re: caelum
 

I tried some single player games where I tried to teleport the mictlan stone head on enemy home provinces real soon. Didn't work too well ashamely http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif.

Re: caelum
 

Teleporting Sphinx was a killer strategy on Dom:PPP. There is a reason Sphinx is REALLY immobile in DomII... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif


And while this thread started as a Caelum thread, I have enjoyed reading these super-bless posts. I like good discussion, whereever I find it.

Re: caelum
 

I have tried teleporting an oracle, and 5 mages into an enemies home province... and I also had some magic carpets with some commanders eg: storm genrals castellans and gave them the most beefiest sacred troops I could buy and whupped them big!
(PD of 50, 50 troops guarding, pretender 4 mages) worked really well

Re: caelum
 

PD of 50 ?? Darn bad use of funds ...What kind of game do you play ? Solo marathons of 100+ turns ?
About Magic Carpet the funniest I've done is to put Tarrasques on them http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif .

Re: caelum
 

yeah solo play,
tarrasques heh! wish I'd thought of that!