Nations with weakest troops

[llamabeast]

Why does using guard commander with Caelum help Meglobob?

[chrispedersen]

A. Because you don't want your troops engaging. Your commanders will be spamming lighting, orb lightning, storm, etc.
If your troops engage, you might flee due to morale lost a fight that would otherwise be won.

B. On the first turn, if you are not immune to missiles, there is a chance a body guard will catch a missile that otherwise might have had your commanders name on it.

[llamabeast]

No, but chris, in Meglobob's post he suggests putting the troops on guard commander and then setting the commanders to attack (which will result in the troops attacking too).

[Tifone]

Maybe to have more time for buffs? (totally hypothetical answer )

[AreaOfEffect]

He might be under the impression that it somehow avoids the accumulation of fatigue gained from flying. This is not the case however. Though, if the units move in small increments, probably the distance equal to their AP, the unit does not suffer the flying penalty. Therefore, if the commander was perhaps an indy commander, his suggestion might make more sense.

[Micah]

Bogarus is Marignon on suck. Everyone sees the nice big RP number on the starets and forgets to actually calculate their gold/RP ratio, which is actually worse than a lot of other nations. True, they have a good shot at getting to one of the level 8 research milestones first if no one is bothering them, but invariably after that when I've seen them in a game they're overtaken in research because their upkeep starts getting prohibitive, and it's nigh-impossible to win an early war with them so they can expand enough to keep the gold flowing. At that point the only thing they have going for them is some CR and nether darts on their occultists.

[Amhazair]

One of the big problems of caelums flying melee troops is that if you just give them attack orders they spread out attacking all over the place and loose cohesion. Keeping them on hold commander should keep them nicely clumped together so they can support each other.

Think the tactic works best for smaller raiding groups though, not sure what the effect would be with really large lumps of troops.

[Wrana]

I'd still say that you overemphasize weaknesses of Bogarus. While their infantry IS bad and sacreds are worse, cavalry can actually hold their own. As for late game - they have good enough unique summons.
I also see that the idea of Patala as the worst-troops nation have been deservefly buried. As for EA Agartha - their Troglodites are excellent rushers in their own right, needing less support than Elephants do.

[Micah]

Yeah, Bogarus' top of the line cavalry is functional in melee, but suffers from the usual problem when you pack 50 gold into 13 HP: they're incredibly vulnerable to magic.

I have no clue what you're talking about WRT their late game unique summons. Their summons have good value serving as magic diversity aids, but outside of that they're just terrible. (Plus they're incredibly overpriced outside of CBM)

[Meglobob]

Originally Posted by llamabeast

Why does using guard commander with Caelum help Meglobob?

It stops the troops from spreading out and being picked off one by one. Guard commander helps keep Caelums flyers in a tighter formation around the commander and they perform better as a result. Also you can do attack rear/attack archers and use hold, hold etc and decide the battle round you attack on.

Sadly, its not much good at the start of the game with only one castle, mammoths mixed with higher morale, slower infantry rule the day when taking indies.

However, with Ma Caelum I enjoyed alot of success around the midgame with storm generals with iceclad bodyguards (protection 20 in cold-3) as raiders. I usually equipped the storm general with a frost brand, only 2w for Ma Caelum. Wolven winter any tougher provinces obviously.

Chrispedersen is correct, bodyguards (iceclads) on Caelums mages are very useful too. They protect the mage, so he can wipe stuff out with shock wave/orb lightning. A bottle of water works really well also for Ma Caelum leaders/mages, only 5w gems as well.

You might wonder, why recruit a storm general instead of a mage? Well, there comes a point where you have a number of castles, lots of mages and its simply more cost effective to start recruiting storm generals, as well as mages when you can afford them.