Caelum and 2 changes to gameplay
 

Hey everyone, I am a longtime lurker that finally needs some help. I have been playing Dom 2 and 3 for a while now, and have finally decided to really learn Caelum.

Boy am I having trouble. Any general tips to playing Caelum early and mid game?

Onto my minor gameplay changes that would be great to have implemented.

First of all, fire and flee is still broken. It is only useful if you have one friendly province behind you so your guys don't scatter like chaff in the wind. You should be able to set a rally point for a guerrilla style offense. This rally point would only be useful for fire and flee; if you lost a battle, for example, your men would still scatter randomly to nearest provinces. Another option would be for the army to remain whole and attached to the commander but everybody scatters to a friendly random province.

Second are troop orders. I it would be nice to hold my flying guys (and troops for other nations) for more than 2 turns before they get thrown at the enemy lines. Perhaps a hold for 4 turns before attacking so that my ground troops and archers can work a little more.

Ok, so those are really my only gripes with the game. I think the game is amazing and is always one of those, one more turn and then I will go to bed games. Anyway, I really love the game even with those 2 flaws (which I don't even notice when playing non-Caelum coutnries).

Re: Caelum and 2 changes to gameplay
 

Well for hold and attack more than 2 turns, get a cheap flying commander, set all your melee troops to guard him and let him hold, hold, hold, hold attack rearmost for example. Fire and flee generally isnt a good idea, just raid enemy provinces with reasonably sized forces(including thunder striking mages if possible) and then fly away next turn(since movement to friendly provinces happens before movement to enemy provinces)

Re: Caelum and 2 changes to gameplay
 

Shovah32

Hmm, very good idea. I will try that for the hold and attack. issue. Thanks to you, I only have a gripe with Fire and Flee now! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Caelum and 2 changes to gameplay
 

Yea, fire and flee is a pain. One thing you could try is making sure theres only a single province they can retreat to although this obviously wont help much as the enemy can just walk there next turn.

Re: Caelum and 2 changes to gameplay
 

Shovah32

Yeah, it only seems useful if you are the middle of a honeycome of indy provinces and you know that they won't attack you and steal your base of operations. Which doesn't it make it that useful.

Re: Caelum and 2 changes to gameplay
 

Fire&Flee is useless.
With Caelum in early game I usually just have archers set to Fire on the wings, a pack of mammoths in the middle set to Attack, and some of the armored caelians as bodyguards for mages.
It's usually effective vs indies, even if sometimes you get a bloody nose when the mammoths fails their morale check !

Re: Caelum and 2 changes to gameplay
 

Another idea is:
A screen of archers and infantry. In the back mammoths and seraphs(2 mammoths per seraph). The seraphs get scripted to flight, flight, then cast what you want(lightning bolt ect). The mammoths get hold and attack rear/archers. Flying mammoths in the back of the enemies army are fun http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Caelum and 2 changes to gameplay
 

Can be cool... if Flight works, what I'm not confident about http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Caelum and 2 changes to gameplay
 

Well it works for me so im happy http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Caelum and 2 changes to gameplay
 

I can sympathise, I've also had trouble with Caelum, but the more I play and learn about the game, the more strategies I find that can either be tailored to fit a nation or that will work for one nation over another. Caelum for instance-if I were to play it right now in MP it would be the weakest nation I could play, but it's considered to be one of the best for MP. Conversely, I'm most confident with R'lyeh, and it's considered really weak (even by me). I really like the flying mammoth idea though.

Re: Caelum and 2 changes to gameplay
 

Which rlyeh are we talking about here? Both MA and LA are considered strong and, although EA has trouble getting on land, its massed mind blasters and evil mindlords in the water should give anyone confidence.

Re: Caelum and 2 changes to gameplay
 

Caelum is my favorite nation. An effective early expansion strategy is to only buy archers (production scale helps) and use your initial infantry for guard duty. Then spread 4 archers across the front to act as decoys for arrow fire and infantry. This will almost ensure that enemy archers are not a problem and will give you another 2 rounds of shooting (and smiting) on most ground troops.

This will usually allow you to take barbarians, tribes, archer cavalry and light troops (basically anything with low protection). If you combine your profit you can even take on a little heaver stuff (in small numbers) with smiting. 40+ archers are very effective and lets your mages stay in the lab early on. With your mobility and some scouting you can pick out the missile vulnerable provinces.

This works good with getting an awake sage pretender and researching to evo4 (thunder strike) . You can reach this fairly easily on turn 8 or 9. Then with a few eagle kings and archer cover any indy province is yours for the taking. And with your mobility you will rapidly be able to take advantage of this.

So imagine spreading out sucking up weaker province and rapidly “claiming” territory. Then once you have thunder strike you rapidly consume all of the tougher provinces sprinkled in your territory (or leave a couple for defense if the income is not high).

Re: Caelum and 2 changes to gameplay
 

and what's about pretendant design ?

What do you think of a master Lich
3 sloths = 2 wing of wizardry (+1 in all) and 1 ring of sorcery (+1 NDBS)

F3 (astral fire, bane fire and fire arrow)
E2 (Hammer & earth boots)
S5 (He is immortal, so no real pb with magic duel)
D5 (good evocation, conjuration, etc.)
N4 (gift of health, Relief, supply, vine ogre)

Dom 8 (frost !)
Order 3 (max money),
Solth 3 (not need, unless in the first turn for the firsts mammouths),
Cold 3 (no comment),
Growth 3 (supply, money and old mages),
misfortune 2 (to get some points),
Magic 1 (for research and more thunder strike / falling frost)

Re: Caelum and 2 changes to gameplay
 

Whoa mathusalem, you're a master necromancer! The thread had been dead for over eleven months!

Re: Caelum and 2 changes to gameplay
 

I found it in the strategy index :$

Re: Caelum and 2 changes to gameplay
 

I'll update my index sometime this weekend. I've got a long weekend after all.