Caelum Battlefield Magic Broken

[Maltrease]

I find Caelums air magic very powerful. Thunderstrike is an immensely powerful spell.

The strike and retreat is also very useful to wearing down large armies. [nice idea on the gems meglobob].

I often script Eagle kings to Mistform (great for surviving arrow fire and normal chaff attacks), Aim, Thunder x3, retreat. With a little archer cover they will usually escape before getting killed.

Call of the winds is a great easy to research spell to use early game. Often times 2 calls will take out the PD and if you are scouting you can even take out an enemy site searching mage.

You can easily reach Evo4 at the end of the 6th or 7th turn (with a sage pretender) and still expand using archers (normal indies). Then 2 Eagle kings and an archer force can take on almost any tougher indy province your archers couldn't do.

Another great Evo4 spell is Huricane. Which despite what the manual says will target any province (not just coastal). The in-game description does not say anything about "coastal" so I don't know if its a game bug or manual error.

5 Huricanes on an enemy capital (125 unrest, 15% population death), followed by 2 a turn will pretty much shut them out of their troops and a big chunk of income.

It is true that air magic is much weaker then it was in Dom2, perhaps for Man or other less mobile nations it is not worth using.

[Ironhawk]

Thunderstrike is powerful... agaisnt 3 units. Which is all you can hit with AoE 1. And with 50 fatigue you wont be casting it that much.

Hurricane is a good spell and I will likely use it - but it has nothing to do with battlefield magic.

You make some good points, but none of it addresses the fact that air magic is weak in dom3. And particularly so for Caelum since it relies on it so heavily and its troops are on average worse than normal (supposedly a trade off for flying).

[Maltrease]

It also sends a shockwave to the surounding squares.. which can do 1-10 AN to each unit within them.

[Graeme Dice]

Maltrease said:
It also sends a shockwave to the surounding squares.. which can do 1-10 AN to each unit within them.

That's fatigue damage, not physical damage.

[alexti]

Ironhawk said:

Caelums greatest strength was, and still is, its magic (tho that magic power is sorely weakened now). Ability to raid is average at best. The best nations for raiding are Pan (centaurs + satyrs) or Van (Vans), no question.

I very much disagree. Ability to destroy enemy's economy (gold and gem) was always the critical point in any but very short game. Pans and Vans have stronger raiders but they just don't have sufficient mobility and number of raiding parties. While Caelum can easily field 15-20 raiding parties, other nations are still in single digits. True, in Dom2 Caelum also had stronger magic, but it wasn't their magic that was winning the games. I still remember losing the agme vs Caelum even though my armies were ruling the battlefields. I've defeated Caelumian opponent several times (and it must have hurted, he was losing air queens and ice devils in those battles), but eventuall he has worn me out with his raids, got better gold and gem income and pretty much decided the game.

[Mind Elemental]

Have some sympathy for Man. Crones are capital only, and Mothers can't do much in battle besides Eagle Eyes, Swarm, Poison/Sleep Cloud, and berserking. Oh, and lightning bolts, but 1 guy/turn is not going to make much difference.

[BigJMoney]

Ironhawk said:
Comparing this to another nation is irrelevant? Caelum's battlemagic still wont work, regardless of whatever problems any other nation still might have. Except perhaps that its more important here because Caelum's troops are garbage.

What in the world? M.A. Cold-3 Caelum has the heaviest infantry troops in the game, PLUS they can fly! They don't need anything else. If I remember correctly, they also have that same troop choice without wings, but the benefit of being sacred. What's not to love?

=$= Big J Money =$=

[PvK]

Having recently had one of my EA Vanheim armies smashed by an independent province with three A2 mages in it, and having played Caelum, I am hardly sympathetic. Boo hoo, only A2 flying mages... only Lightning Bolts... No double-speed casting like in Dom 2... waaa! geez...

[Meglobob]

Ironhawk said:

Basically you have proven my point: In order to get any bang for the buck out of air mages you need to bring a ridiculous amount of them to a battle.

20 A2 mages in Dom3 is not a ridiculous amount, now the 300+ mages I gathered in 1 game, was a ridiculous amount.

You have more money in Dom3, so the slight toning down of mages is more than made up for the effect you can afford more of them on the battlefield.

My only problem with it, is the increased mircro-management required to mange a large mage army.

[Meglobob]

Mind Elemental said:
Have some sympathy for Man. Crones are capital only, and Mothers can't do much in battle besides Eagle Eyes, Swarm, Poison/Sleep Cloud, and berserking. Oh, and lightning bolts, but 1 guy/turn is not going to make much difference.

Recruiting those crones, will give you a N5 crone and a A4 crone, eventually. When you consider what magic items/spells that gives you access too, its very powerful. Good job they are capital only.