So far what nations look strong... and weak?

[Saber Cherry]

You know what would make Ulm a LOT stronger, and make perfect sense? Their heavy arbalests are currently semi-worthless, since they take massive resources to produce and are one of the few units capable of easily damaging Ulm units. To make matters worse, they only fire every 3 rounds.

But Ulm is weak against magic... so what if heavy arbalests got the "Air Shield Piercing" ability? A gust of wind is much more likely to knock down a light, feathered, aerodynamic arrow than a dense arbalest bolt. With this, Ulm would have some reason to build its crossbowmen, and a good defense against pesky armor-negating air mages.

"Air Shield Piercing" should half the Air Shield effect, by the way, not negate it.

-Cherry

[geo981010]

AP's got a lot of good info in there - thanks for that Alex! But I gotta dissent on the Miasma - not only is it a lot of fun, but it seems to be pretty useful in MP.

The +% income is nice - it cancels out the heat scale gold loss, and a slightly warmer is better with C'tis anyway. Especially with the season's shifting the weather around some anyway, at least +2 heat for C'tis is most likely the real sweet spot for them lizards.

Sure Marshmasters are -1 death then the Sauromancer, but the +1 nature +1 water gives them so many more uses. Can't reanimate the dead as effortlessly, but they will get quickness guaranteed, any of them can cast Foul Vapours with an extra gem (and now C'tis is 50% posion immune, so this is usable right away in large battles), and you start with the Summon Bog Beasts spell (as soon as you get a +2 water MM, start cranking them out - only 5 nature gems for 3 of them with only 1 mage turn used). MMs with 3 nature are excellent for Relief/Charm etc without items, so mid game your potential for never-tiring magic Users is really high. And better site searching to boot, so I really prefer MMs over SMs.

The disease effect is not going to wipe out whole armies in a turn, but it will hurt quickly and make them think about it twice right away If you have the choice of attacking C'tis knowing that your troops are going to get diseased or moving against someone else, I imagine most will go for the other. Couple Miasma with a nice defence castle, and sitting on top of an enemy castle is suicidal so any stall will be extra costly. Just the risk of a supercombatant pretender getting diseased early will likely stop some unwanted visits...

Also, the disease effect is pretty potent against the indies - in a province in your dominion, by turn 10 they will be significantly weakened, and mages/priests with lesser HP are the first to go. The softening up of any underwater defences is very handy - even the Amber clan will disease and die and then you can take them with minor losses. By turn 20 any unclaimed indies nearby will likely be decimated by the disease, and you can take them with a token force. In a strong indie game with a good starting dominion, the disease effect will probably be killing off troops faster than you are, and Miasma would be a huge edge in sparsely populated, low resource, high indy games.

Not being able to use most indies is a big drawback, but you don't need too many anyway. With your increased Nature site finding, you should be one of the big contenders for Gift of Health, so that will largely make the disease effect moot. The only real indies C'tis needs are mages (which are rare anyway) and scouts (which are cheap and mainly used outside your dominion), so it isn't too bad.

I need to try it more in larger MP games, but it seems all good to me!

I have to say, I thought Caelum would be weaker than it was stated (at least all races using an elemental rush) in Dom 1, but I have found it not to be so. They are just less cheesy and require a little more thought to play them out.

They definitely shine with the low cost of Staff of Storms.

[Gandalf Parker]

Originally posted by Zen:
I have to say, I thought Caelum would be weaker than it was stated (at least all races using an elemental rush) in Dom 1, but I have found it not to be so. They are just less cheesy and require a little more thought to play them out.

One of the great things about Caelum is being able to play "checkers" with the provinces. Jump over the difficult ones to take a weak one. There are pros and cons to the tactic. But it lets you spread fast and makes it hard for people to battle their way to your castle. The "sneak" races have this also but cant provide support-troops as fast. Too many new players try to play everyone as if they were Ulm.

[ November 18, 2003, 18:02: Message edited by: Gandalf Parker ]

Yes I like that aspect as well; of course, being able to reinforce and split your armies to do massive multi-pronged attacks is great.

One thing I didn't particularly like is when your Iceclads attack the rear and someone routs, they clog it up and get their panzy asses whacked since the routing army runs right through them and if they are in the way they get hit.

Just have to find a way to change that behavior.

[ November 18, 2003, 18:07: Message edited by: Zen ]

[licker]

A problem with the checkerboard approach though is supply. Without the connections to your depots and the increased consumption of the fliers it will start to hamper you once your armies begin to get sizeable. (and it doesn't take many fliers for that to happen...)

Its still a good approach though, especially when your opponent really isn't prepared for it. You can also use it to wreck your opponents supply lines...

[apoger]

Just to show how fluid things are right now...

I'm upgrading Ermor [Soul Gate] and Ermor [Broken Empire] to "potent". BE due to the availability of nether dart mages. SG due to a better appreciation of the summons. I like both these themes much more than the Ashen Empire theme.

I still don't like C'tis [Misama]. The extra nature/water doesn't make up for the loss of death specialty IMHO. Furthermore, the incompatibility with indy mages/troops and most pretenders is brutal. On the other hand, if it makes you happy... don't let me stop you from having fun.