Why no love for Caelum?

[Sheap]

Personally I think Caelum and dead Ermor are too strong.

Caelum has A2W1 mages at 100 Gold, and A3W2?1 mages for 180 gold.
They fly and are cold immune.
They can trapeze, quickness, cast lightning that ignores armor, and such.

Trapeze, lightning and quickness are just what their magic paths do. You don't get to complain about their paths, and the spells they can cast with them, at the same time

Caelum has tons of problems. Yes, they are strong if you play right into their strengths, but that's true of everyone. Here are just a few of the problems...

1) Caelum troops fly, but relying only on the flying troops results in extremely weak units. The only flying unit they have that is also a good fighter is the Iceclad. But the iceclads cost so much that without a productivity scale you can build only a very few. And if you DO take productivity, you lose many points as otherwise you could easily afford sloth.

2) Caelum has serious, serious problems in heat scale. Of course, this is only useful if you happen to have heat scale

3) Caelum flying units can strike behind lines, but if they do that, any of them that rout die instantly.

4) Poor forging ability. Insignificant ability in earth, death, and blood is going to give them a hard time making many of the better items.

5) One-dimensional magic. Caelum can't summon anything useful except Air Queens, unless they build a blood economy around their pretender.

6) Caelum has a hard time with SCs that resist cold and lighting. Other than phantasmal warriors and false horrors, they don't have a lot of stuff that can stop an SC. And those only really slow them down, not stop them.

7) Their mages are at cross-purposes with their units. The mages want storms to protect themselves against enemy fliers and improve their lightning; the units want no storms so they can fly and shoot arrows.

[tinkthank]

I think Sheap is dead on with his excellent summary of Caelum and its weaknesses, to which a large number can be added easily.

One could note that both Man (tuatha) and Van have very very easy access to what Stormbinder calls "PD-killers", only that they are more expensive and much much beefier (and with glamour, yikes). Tien Chi S&A comes to mind too, and standard Tien as well with a pair of super-cheap flying boots. Well tons of nations can fulfill the role of PD-killer with flying boots, actually, but whatever.
I find Caelum to be very strong -- but, like Ermor (which I dont find that strong in MP), fairly inflexible. Strong, but not crying for a nerf; strong, but not bannable from games.

[Endoperez]

Well tons of nations can fulfill the role of PD-killer with flying boots, actually, but whatever.

I am wondering why no one is saying Return of Raptors too weak (edit: meant strong ). It does have the same pd-killers as Caelum, has Death magic to summon number of creatures and toughies and Earth magic to equip them, as well as strong Air magic to summon Queens of Air. Also, if they ever get anything that boosts Earth magic besides Earth Boots they will have lots of fun with Staves of Elemental Masteries...

I find Caelum to be very strong -- but, like Ermor (which I dont find that strong in MP), fairly inflexible. Strong, but not crying for a nerf; strong, but not bannable from games.

I totally agree with this.

[Cohen]

Because their best mage, the Harab Elder, costs far more than an Arch-Seraph, and is capitol only.

Meanwhile Caelum could recruit in every of his castle an Arch Seraph ...

I don't see Caelum inflexible at all.
It's like most nations, with his best mage with 1 random pick.

And I don't think their troops are weak.
Prec 12 Archers, with wind guide base spell, and a Seraph, are good enought to conquer no knightly provinces.
Even you can avoid knight provinces flying around and over.
You can avoid to get bottled and lost turns coming back into your provinces.

Caelum troops are expensive in resources too because:
A: Their armor raises protection in cold provinces.
B: Almost all their weapons are considered magic.(get rid of Etherealness, break mistform).

[Endoperez]

Because their best mage, the Harab Elder, costs far more than an Arch-Seraph, and is capitol only.

I know why Return of Raptors is considered weak, I just wondered why Caelum is over- and RoR underpowered. Harab Elders are, after all, Arch Seraphs with level 2 priestly magic instead of random and with correct price-tag (check this post for hard numbers ).

Meanwhile Caelum could recruit in every of his castle an Arch Seraph ...

In fact, the post which I gave link to says that High Seraph costs 60% of the price modding price guide would give to a similar mage, giving it "real" price of ~290... Saying that Harab Elders are too expensive for what they are seems out-of-place in a thread which says that High Serpah's price should be higher, especially when Harab Elder costs about the amount of what High Seraph should but is sacred.

I don't see Caelum inflexible at all.
It's like most nations, with his best mage with 1 random pick.

I thought inflexible in this case meant that Caelum cannot do that many things with its mages. Sure, they are great in battle, but no that good outside it. Is there any non-unique summon you are looking forward as Caelum? Which one/s? What are you looking forward to as, say, Vanheim? Air and Water are not that good paths for items either, with Quickness-granting items as an exception for Water and some multipath items for Air...