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.

[Maltrease]

Graeme Dice said:

That's fatigue damage, not physical damage.

I know that is what the manual says, but I am pretty sure it is doing real damage. It isn't hitting every surrounding square but almost always more then targeted square.

The in game description says "Even if it misses, the shock wave is powerful enough to severely stun and damage anyone nearby."

[Meglobob]

Maltrease said:

I know that is what the manual says, but I am pretty sure it is doing real damage. It isn't hitting every surrounding square but almost always more then targeted square.

The in game description says "Even if it misses, the shock wave is powerful enough to severely stun and damage anyone nearby."

Yep, I think its doing physical damage as well, units go 'pop' anyway, with a slight crackle.

[Maltrease]

Caelums troops are really not that bad. Cheap mobile archers make early expansion easy (without using mages) and later they become great shields to protect your mages and help destroy cheap massed troops. It is true that many nations with cheap troops can build an equivalent cost army that will defeat an army of Eagle Kings, Seraphs and Caelum troops. However with Caelum’s mobility the goal is to never fight a battle like that.

Instead you split your army up into 5 parts and take five provinces for every one of yours they take. If they split their army into 2 or 3 pieces to counter this then you attack one of their split up divisions with all 5 of your mini armies (using your superior mobility) and eliminate it. Your Eagle kings can get off 3-4 good thunder strikes per battle… if that is enough to destroy most of the enemy forces you win. Five eagle kings x4 thunder strikes will kill about 80-100 normal troops. So 2000 gold of elite capital mages could kill 800 gold worth of chaff or 1000’s of gold if they are using premium units.

If they are heading to your capital with their giant army then just start taking all of their land... possibly even occupying their capital. Your mountain fortress has 750 defense and 750 supply so you have lots of time before they can storm it. And here is the real key... at any time you can cast call of winds to bring in 21 hawks for defense. You can easily cast this 5 or more times in one turn. So let them hack away at your walls for 4-5 turns, then bring 100 new defenders and let them see your walls being repaired (or let them damage it 10 a round so they have no idea they are not making “real” progress).

During the 5 (or more) turns they are futilely sieging your fortress you have conquered 20 of their provinces (possibly their capital) crippling their income and increasing yours. With hawks and eventually a few supply items (nature 1 is easy with indies) you can hold out forever.

Caelum is fun!