[TheDemon]

Not sure why you guys didn't go for more cap shutdown than you did. Had you shut down the Caelum cap for more than 5 turns it would have put me out of the game. I was pretty much exclusively using EKs and summons, next to zero troops and very few non-cap mages. That also meant that my expenses were basically a static 400/turn. I mean, I'd spend extra if I had it, but raiding me wasn't going to accomplish much I'm afraid. Niefel, Hinnom and Helheim are all somewhat cap-vulnerable too, but they have good troops they can recruit in their other forts. Not so with Caelum.

Once I realized I wasn't an immediate target I wasn't too worried as I had beelined it to Enchant 4 pretty early and from there it's only a few RP to level 5 and Dome of Solid Air.

On PD - it has its uses, but more than 10 is the exception not the rule, and divining what those uses are is pretty tricky. Often, too much PD in a defensive battle can be a liability rather than an asset as when they get mowed down they can accidentally cause a rout, or they can get caught in your AoE spells and effects (like Hydras, for example). One of the big reasons why I stuck with between 5 to 10 PD for all my lands was because if I ever had to deploy an EK group defensively, I would end up killing all my PD by accident, and they would cause a premature rout even if all that killed them was my own thunder strike spam.