Caelum questions, both themes.

[Gandalf Parker]

- Caelum fights well in the cold, so having a very high dominion strength (8-9) and using your pretender and prophet on the front lines to spread it seems reasonable to me.

Pros and Cons. That would be using your dominion offensively. Which is a perfectly good tactic but it does lessen your ability to use independents. There is also using your dominion defensively. Not forcing it outward but using it as a circle of powerful cold around the inner part of your empire. Slightly different tactic which allows for more use of independents.

- If your dominion strength is high anyway, then use your scales as well as the effect of the scales depend on the dominion strength as well: Order 2, Prod 2, Cold -3, Growth 2, Luck 1, Magic -1. Maybe Prod or Growth 3. No theme.

Magic -1? I think Caelum is a decent magic nation. Personally I would find it hard to play in a neg-magic domain. But again that use can depend on whether you plan to push your dominion in front of you or have it follow along behind you.

- I choose the 60-point Castle. Caelum troops are quick, so a strong fortification allows me to bring in helping troops from the outside in case of sieges, without lossing the accopanying temple/lab. (But I have to think about that wizard tower again...good point!)

For some nations the units they get, particularly commanders, can be very important. For those nations I seriously consider the 2 cheapest castles. Sometimes I need more castles to build commanders in than I need the resources pulled to one castle (I choose those when armored troops are the important item to build)

- This leaves no design points for magic, and since I need a strong front-line pretender I decided to take the Blue Dragon with no additional magic. (I agree that cold resistance is a must have for the caelum pretender!)

I know all my variations are point-costing and not much in giving any back. But just a point to consider. If you give some magic to the blue dragon (3 I think?) then you will be able to enter the water with it and cast some low-level water spells. This can be handy for getting a quick handle on some water.

True, this renders blessing useless, but my sneaky preachers serve other purposes anyway and I dont like those temple guards anyway. I'd rather build more mammoths and wingless if I want a non flying army.

Good logic.

I'm usually not sure who I am going to turn into my prophet. A mage who accompanies my front line troops? A seraphine for stealth? I think that having a prophet-strom general in raiding party is a bad idea, as my raiding parties usually wont return home...

The only reason I make a mage into a prophet is to get a single person able to do most of the site-searching that I feel is absolutely necessary. If Im not going for bless-effects then I have a bad habit of moving my prophet beyond the dominion too fast which makes his prophetness more harmful to him than good.

I dont like building non-caelum troops. As long as I manage to fight in the cold, I feel fine. Why hire other archers? Money is rarely a problem, and caelum archers require only 4 resources and are quite effective, so I dont want to build other archers. Protecting my archers is done with thos spire horn warriors.

Ahhh that supports much of your other decisions. Your logic is good on everything you are doing. Not how I would play Caelum but thats one of the great things about this game.


So far I have only battled against normal AI's, but i intend to start a game with local friends soon. What do you think, how will they beat me up?

People who like Caelum think they need to consider fire nations like Abyssia or Marignon as being their biggest worry. I find that Jotunheim gives me much more of a problem. Giants that dont mind my cold domain? On the other hand, Jotun can be a great neighbor if you ally.