[Schmoe]

Thufir said:

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.

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.

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

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.