Lady of Fortune Caelum

[DeathDaemon]

What are you building that you run into supply problems?

Since lightning bolt is so deadly to everything but giants, I usually go with 15+ seraphs with 2-3 storm guards/iceclads on guard commander for each of the seraphs. This makes a pretty scary battle line - (20-24 protection troops in front of massive amounts of lightning bolts, orb lightning, and thunder strikes. Cold spells are only used when I muster up enough flyers to actually send them to the rear. Flying is scary to me due to the routing enemies forced to fight your troops in the way, and like you said the cheaper flyers don't Last long enough.

I also like wind-guide with the blizzard archers, so add 25-50 of them too.

[ May 03, 2004, 03:32: Message edited by: DeathDaemon ]

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by Blitz:
How then, do I deal with Burden of Time and other nonsense?

Give astral gems to an ally that has easy access to astral 3 most likely. You are just asking to be mind dueled extremely easily when you take astral 3. Or you can just take an astral 1 high seraph and empower them to 2, then build a skullcap. Burden of Time isn't that likely to be cast with multiple gems anyways, since Ermor has many other uses for death gems.

And what will I do with all my water gems except make them into clams? Wyverns? Cold-blooded fliers I do not need.

Wyverns are an air summon, not water. Do whatever you want with your water gems.

Losing astral means my clams aren't as good, I can't dispel, I can't forge many of the best items, and my clams aren't anywhere near as good.

You still have easy access to astral 1, which is where the most useful astral items are. I would seriously dump both astral and fire magic, to get magic 3, order 3, prod 3, and probably lose the water 9 as well.

[Blitz]

Wow thanks for the quick replies

Okay fire is gone. After doublechecking the only really useful things I would have used it for were the staff of elemental mastry and a few artifacts. I really kinda wanted to try out The Ark. I figured Ark + Bless troops was a natural synergy, but not for 90 points obviously.

Everytime I play Caelum I'm always fighting supply problems. Cold 3 takes time to achieve in nearby provinces (not to mention farther ones away that are reachable by flight). Cold 3 drops supplies big time. I usually go with heart of winter, growth +3 for this reason. And I still end up with everyone of my commanders carrying a bag of wine.

Yeah this sucks bigtime. I couldn't find a random seraph, druid, shaman or anything to find nature sites and it crippled me in my second game. Plus your hasted lightning bolts are just screaming for rejuvination items. My Marignion pretenders always had a touch of green for this reason, but it seems even more critical for Caelum. I want to find those nature sites fast and get that green flowing.

And if you can part with the W9, your mages can cast quickness on themselves, making lightning even more dominating. I really haven't used bless effects, even A9 with air shield and lightning resist doesnt save the mages enough due to their low HP. Plus the seraphs are so cheap that you really dont care too much if you loose a couple here and there

Caelum Seraphs aren't sacred, just the Seraphines, so the blessing is basicly for the temple guards. I see a lot of earthreal troops in the games I play, so Caelum is a natural counter. I certianly don't anticipate much trouble with Emor. With hasted banishings and ice blades, I'm probably good there. Does a group of 20+ Temple Guards take out a well-equipped VQ? In theory the weapons will help, but I guess only time will tell.

A nice bonus of having Order +3 is that you can easily afford to take Misfortune -1; you rarely get random events, so misfortune doesn't hurt much. I've found that Misfortune -2 can be really painful, though.

We play with "fixed" scales unfortunately. Order and luck aren't paired in my games. It's a good idea though, might try it in a different setting.

Mammoths are really expensive cash-wise, and I've found them invaluable when fighting heavily armored troops. Pair up mammoths with wingless (in a 1:4 ratio, approximately) and they're good to go. I agree with you about the meatshield thing though.... even after combining mammoths with wingless, they're a pretty "meh" meatshield.

Mammoths seem to pile up the afflictions pretty quickly too! That low def/ac, plus the way they always get surrounded. Bah. Another reason to have a ton of nature gems lying around. I sure do miss those Arco priestesses. They do get a LOT better with experience though. In my Arco games I had a herd of 4+ star elephants that NEVER routed after their third star. I mixed in a few herald lances and those guys kicked *** for me. W9 temple guards are REALLY nice shields though... in cold 3 I had a few 22 armor 19 defense veterans lying around. The hero one had 5 stars in no time with all his kills. Was lucky enough to get the standard heroic with him. I think he had around 225 leadership and +30 standard with his lance Last game. He got smooshed by a Behemoth though. I was sad.

[Blitz]

You still have easy access to astral 1, which is where the most useful astral items are. I would seriously dump both astral and fire magic, to get magic 3, order 3, prod 3, and probably lose the water 9 as well.

Taking your suggestion to heart... The best I could do was a E6 Cyclops. With scales like that you are pretty much limited to a SC or immobile pretender. Even if your suggestion were the optimal way to play Caelum, it's so contrary to my playstyle that it would never work for me. Thanks for the suggestion though.

[Graeme Dice]

Originally posted by Blitz:
Taking your suggestion to heart... The best I could do was a E6 Cyclops. With scales like that you are pretty much limited to a SC or immobile pretender.

The lady of fortune makes a very competent SC, as long as you can get her a life draining weapon. Water gives you breath of winter and quickness, while nature gives you personal regeneration and elemental fortitude. You can also drop productivity to +1 or +2 if you pick a wizard's tower, and magic can probably be left at +2 as it has diminishing returns.

[Blitz]

The lady of fortune makes a very competent SC, as long as you can get her a life draining weapon. Water gives you breath of winter and quickness, while nature gives you personal regeneration and elemental fortitude. You can also drop productivity to +1 or +2 if you pick a wizard's tower, and magic can probably be left at +2 as it has diminishing returns.

Maybe I'll give it a shot. Can't take too much Nature though, else my Seraphines go berserk which sucks

[ May 03, 2004, 03:48: Message edited by: Blitz ]

[Slygar]

Not that this has anything to do with the original question or anything, but arent Caelum troops supposed to get better supplies in Cold 3? Or am I just crazy?