Caelum questions, both themes.

[fahdiz]

Thanks for the replies, folks!

I wasn't so much complaining (although it certainly could have appeared that way, now that I reread my initial post) as I was saying "what am I doing wrong?"

Clearly, my thought that I was supposed to use my flyers as my "main army" was incorrect, and thanks to everyone who pointed out that Wingless and Mammoths make a mighty nice combo. I had neglected to notice the Wingless' sky-high morale.

A question, given your strategies listed below - do you usually build SC pretenders for Caelum, or more research/forging/summoning-oriented pretenders? It sounds like you might be able to do either, based on the use of Wingless/Mammoths and fliers as raiders & harassment.

Thank you all again for the advice - keep it coming if you have other interesting ideas to share! I really do appreciate it.

There are lots of ways to go with Caelum, due to their variety of strengths.

With only summons availiable to make into decent combatants, one common way is to focus on blood (since ID's make such great combatants).

Since Caelum is one of the few nations with access to a Natarajah, they are a common SC (especially since you already have Air and Water items covered for forging).

An important factor for using Caelum is getting a Wizard's Tower, if you plan on using alot of Iceclads (why wouldn't you?). So you can throw up towers quick and effectively every few provinces in order to churn them out. They gather easy and are easy to reinforce.

[Norfleet]

If using a Nataraja SC, be warned that the Nataraja is not immune to the effects of your cold-3 dominion and will suffer large fatigue penalties when fighting in it, unless given a cold resistance item. Combined with his already mediocre base encumberance of 3, your own cold 3 dominion will quickly put him face down in the dirt without cold resist.

[fahdiz]

Originally posted by Norfleet:
If using a Nataraja SC, be warned that the Nataraja is not immune to the effects of your cold-3 dominion and will suffer large fatigue penalties when fighting in it, unless given a cold resistance item. Combined with his already mediocre base encumberance of 3, your own cold 3 dominion will quickly put him face down in the dirt without cold resist.

Good tip, thank you. Luckily I can get a Ring of Frost cranked out with my first mage.

[ March 02, 2004, 20:28: Message edited by: fahdiz ]

[fahdiz]

Originally posted by Zen:
There are lots of ways to go with Caelum, due to their variety of strengths.

With only summons availiable to make into decent combatants, one common way is to focus on blood (since ID's make such great combatants).

Since Caelum is one of the few nations with access to a Natarajah, they are a common SC (especially since you already have Air and Water items covered for forging).

An important factor for using Caelum is getting a Wizard's Tower, if you plan on using alot of Iceclads (why wouldn't you?). So you can throw up towers quick and effectively every few provinces in order to churn them out. They gather easy and are easy to reinforce.

Great, Zen - thanks for the advice. Now off to the testing board...

[fahdiz]

Originally posted by Zen:
With only summons availiable to make into decent combatants, one common way is to focus on blood (since ID's make such great combatants).

Zen, do you tend to go Blood with the Return of the Raptors theme as well, or just with base Caelum? The differences in theme are very subtle (but significant), and I would think that RotR would go more with battlefield summons (because of the Harab Seraphs' Death/Earth levels) than with ritual summons. But I'm not sure, since I'm still learning soooo much about this game on a daily basis (only had the full Version since mid-February)...how do you usually build an RotR pretender?

By the way, I again want to thank everybody who has posted in this thread so far...I started a little "test scenario" based on this information at lunchtime and was very impressed with the difference! Kudos to you all for helping out a newbie like me, who can stare something in the face and still not realize exactly what's going on.

[ March 02, 2004, 23:01: Message edited by: fahdiz ]

Originally posted by fahdiz:
Zen, do you tend to go Blood with the Return of the Raptors theme as well, or just with base Caelum? The differences in theme are very subtle (but significant), and I would think that RotR would go more with battlefield summons (because of the Harab Seraphs' Death/Earth levels) than with ritual summons.

To be quite honest, I dislike the RotR theme instensely. Other than losing the very powerful High Seraph, what you gain in the Harab Elder is little. You lose Seraphine but the Harab Elder isn't even standard able to cast Sermon of Courage. You have good forging paths, and can cast Summon Valkaries (with a Storm and Storm Power, or an item) but you don't have any sort of random pick so you're very locked into what you can do. You have access to alot of economically killing spells (blight and Hurricane) but they just don't feel good to me because of their heavy priest power loss.

The Raven Guard are good (especially if you plan on fighting outside your dominion, and cold) but I still rely on standard wingless/mammoth armies (now that temple guard are gone) and rely even more on indy HI and others with a little protection for land armies.

The basic strategy of having multiple raiding parties still stays the same; but you lose alot of magical power.

The pretender is even more important in RotR than in base Caelum, because of this. And I rely moreso on summons (especially mindless/high morale) than caleum has to, and this can leave you overall, weaker than base Caelum.

It doesn't change the playstyle of Caelum much, which in my opinion, makes for a less attractive theme since it doesn't change how you think about the nation.

For a Pretender I would look at either a VQ or a Son of Neifel for Blood type of situations, or something that would use Bane Lords, so something that can make Jade Armor and maybe astral.

[ March 03, 2004, 04:09: Message edited by: Zen ]