Opinions on Caelum (MA and other)

[Wyatt Hebert]

Endo:

Yes, the Caelum Immolatis mod was quite interesting. My brother spent a lot of time working on that. The Caelian Legionnaire was _surprisingly_ effective.

I preferred to use them to attack, first, then, when the enemy broke, they would fire their javelins and stay back. Also, giving them the Tower Shields seriously cut down on the Friendly Fire issues Caelum normally has headaches with.

(For those unfamiliar with the mod, it changed MA Caelum into turbo-ginsu-undead-killers. They had a DW Sacred troop with 3x damage to undead weaponry, and flying Pythian/Ermorian style legionnaires. THOSE were good flying infantry.)

[Halancar]

This is going in quite a different direction, but how about giving Caelum an archer that can actually hold its own as infantry ? Something like giving the iron crow a shortbow, for instance.

Then that archer can be put on the front line (or at least in front of the other archers), where he will fire as an archer until the enemy's front line arrives, then hold his own as infantry for at least a few turns. He'll still be at best medium infantry, but the initial arrows he'll have fired should make it worth using, and give Caelum a decent alternative to the mammoth for serious combat.

I'm suggesting the iron crow because it has a reasonable resource cost and decent infantry stats, but the Caelian infantry and the iceclad are also possibilities.

If it works out, then the mammoth can be made capital-only, or given decreased morale in non-cold lands, or turned into a commander only... something to make it less available.

[sector24]

I found this thread interesting enough to try a game as MA Caelum and I must say my first game was absolutely awful. By the second game though, I had them pretty much figured out. They play out a lot like EA Pangaea, but with worse magic paths and better troops (Mammoths instead of Centaurs).

They don't seem terribly weak to me, but you definitely have to diversify earlier than other nations, which may require some luck with magic sites. It's also very important to get the scales right or you have already lost before you started.

As far as the high seraph being capital only, it's not a big deal either way. You have cloud trapeze so it's hardly an issue getting them to where they need to go. I do find that I only recruit mammoths and flying archers which is a little boring, but I think many nations are like that, or at least they are for me. EA Ulm comes to mind, I usually stick to shield maidens and archers even though there are tons of male infantry I care nothing about.