Why no love for Caelum?

[Stormbinder]

Zen said:
Quickness + Frozen Heart will rout most PD indescriminately. I don't know what you are thinking, or of you've even tried it. Probably not, or you did against say Jotunheim, which isn't exactly the best choice in the world to try to Frozen Heart. The only ones that ever give you much problems are the ones with fliers (Harpies and such), and those give Seraphs just as many problems.

Re: Seithkona. Guess you've never really felt the effects of a truly devistating wave of Nether Darts.

I've done it quite a few times. Seraphs are not stealthy. Seraphim don't have 1A, so I don't know what your comment about stealth is.

Caelum is not the "PD killer" that you want to make it out to be for it's paths, rather because of it's ability to drop into the back row and take provinces that are not in the direct front line?

I imagine Stormbinder, that you are, once again, putting your vast inexperience to the masses. Otherwise you might be moaning about Theurgs, or any other low air unit, water unit, or death unit. It's amazing the amount of people who cry nerf for any other nation than Pythium, which is by and large an absolute beast.

Maybe you need to extend your nation choices to include other nations than Van and Caelum.

Ok, retyping my post briefly.


I've played most of the races and themes in Dom2, and I've been playing it very intensively for the Last 6 monthes.

Frozen Heart is water 1 fatique 20 spell. Your Initiate of the deep will be able to cast 1 quickness and 4 Frozen Hearts, before falling to the ground. That would kill 3-4 soldiers out of 20 of 40 soldiers in province with 20 PD. The rest will grind him into dust.


Nether Darts is a good sepell against most PD, but it takes reseach level 7 to cast.

National commanders must have ether flying or stealthy ability to be able to strike behind enemy back and escape. None of the commanders you mentioned can do it without items, unlike Caelum's seraphs. And no national commanders at the same cost(100 gp) are as efficient as Caelum's A2 W1 serpahs with False Horror (Air 1 fatique ten ) in reliable routing high PD.

Finally I never cried "Nerf Caelum!" as some other people wrote in thsi thread. I think Caelum is nice and unique nation. I just think combination of Caelum's 100gm Air2 W1 mage with False Horror spell is a bit too much.

IMHO the best solution would be to slightly nerf "False Gorror" spell. Remove (or strongly reduce) Fear aura of Fasle Horror, or make him Air 2 fatique 20, or whatever. I think it is much better that nerfing entire nation. The problem with False Horror is that it's just too cheap fatique-wise and easy to cast, and in combination with flying quickened 100gp Caelum seraphs is too efficent against PD of any nation. Caelum will still be a great nation even of False horro spell will be more balanced, but it'll not be able to reliably rout 20 PD of all other nation with just 100gp none-capital mage and lvl 6 spell, as it stands now.

Just my two cents.

[Arryn]

Stormbinder said:I just think combination of Caelum's 100gm Air2 W1 mage with False Horror spell is a bit too much.

And I counter that you're suffering from being way too fixated on just this one unit and losing sight of the overall picture that is Caelum. Step away from the tree and see the forest.

I also must take exception to your assertion that the mage/spell combo can defeat *any* nation's PD. I doubt it'll work against 20+ Jotun PD, unless you have something other than just that mage to stick into the path of those oncoming giants preparing to squish the fragile Caelum units into so much meat paste.

Besides, if a player is relying solely on PD units for defense, they deserve to lose. It's bad strategy. I try to keep L3 priests in support of my PD (Sermon of Courage) along battle fronts. So what if Caelum units can fly and bypass your front line? You take that into consideration and build defense in depth, or better yet, a strong mobile attack force of your own to counter their mobile attack force. They hit you, you hit them back somewhere else. Plan on being attacked, it'll happen. What you do need to do is figure out *where* they'll strike, and just let them do it. Don't worry about preventing it. That's playing into the enemy's plan. What you do is eat the attack and don't let it disrupt *your* attack against them. If you hit them hard enough, their attack won't matter (since you've prepared for it) and they'll have problems of their own (which you've given them) to worry about. (Think Rommel's offensive in Spring of '42, which disrupted the Brit's own offensive, despite the Brit's having ground and air superiority.)

[Stormbinder]

Arryn said:

And I counter that you're suffering from being way too fixated on just this one unit and losing sight of the overall picture that is Caelum. Step away from the tree and see the forest.

I also must take exception to your assertion that the mage/spell combo can defeat *any* nation's PD. I doubt it'll work against 20+ Jotun PD, unless you have something other than just that mage to stick into the path of those oncoming giants preparing to squish the fragile Caelum units into so much meat paste.

Sorry, but you are mistaken Arryn. You see, I happen to play my Last 3 large MP games against Caelum as my main opponent. (won two, still playing 3rd) In fact, I am on turn 80 or something in the duel as Jotun vs Caelum. Jotun's PD run with the best of them, trust me. In fact, Jotuns are much worse than some other nations PD against False horrors. Giant's hitpoints and strength does not matter at all vs horrors, since they do not kill, have zero protection and only 1 hitpoint.


Just for your sake though, I've specificaly run a test with seraph casting Quickness and lesser horrors against 20 PD Jotun province. I run this test twice on two 20 PD provinces.

As expected both times single Seraph with no troops routed 20 PD giants and conquered provinces without any problem.


Finally according to Zen and according to my own observations, Sermon of Courage is prety much useless against False Horrors. They don't kill and seldom wound people, you see - they just scare soldiers ****less until they run. I've tried several times to back my militia with lvl 3 priests. It didn't help militia at all and priest would often just refuse cast sermon courage despite specific orders, since there was no morale loss due to wounds/deaths.

I suggest you ask Maltrease (he loves Caelum and he controled 2 out of 3 these Caelum games that I've mention) how effective Lesser Horrors are with Caelum, he will tell you. Or play against good Caelum player who uses False Horrors strategy yourself. You'll be surprised.

[Arryn]

Finally according to Zen and according to my own observations, Sermon of Courage is prety much useless against False Horrors. They don't kill and seldom wound people, you see - they just scare them ****less until they run. I've tried several times back my militia with lvl 3 priests, it didn't help militia at all and priest would often just refuce cast sermon courage, since there was no morale loss due to wounds/deaths.

Then the AI spellcasting is bugged, since Sermon, according to its description, relies upon *any* morale loss (regardless of reason) and not just morale loss due to getting hurt. (Page 131 of the manual.)

[Stormbinder]

Arryn said:

Then the AI spellcasting is bugged, since Sermon, according to its description, relies upon *any* morale loss (regardless of reason) and not just morale loss due to getting hurt. (Page 131 of the manual.)

Perhaps. That's what Zen said, and that's concur with my own experience. Although I agree that something like Sermon Of Courage should help your units when facing scary opponents. In mean, that's what the Courage is all about after all...

As I suggested, try playing vs good Caelum opponent who uses False Horrors, or play Caelum yourself. You'll be very surprised how effective this little spell is in the hands of Caelum. I know I was. [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/crazy.gif[/img]

[Arryn]

Okay, Stormy, I'll accept that this particular combo is presently an exploit. But it is so solely because Sermon of Courage and/or the AI is bugged. The solution is not nerfing the Horror spell, but fixing the Sermon spell so that it works as its description says it's supposed to. The game already has a mechanism in place for countering fear-based offensive tactics. But if that mechanism is broken ...

[WraithLord]

currently in a big MP game I'm playing as pythium I'm losing badly to caelum in mid game phase. This is because I failed to counter their strengths- mobility, seraphs (quick+ lightning / quick + false horrorX4), and SC air queens. I think Caelum is very strong, but every battle I lose prompts me to some hard thinking. Not only what I could do differently in that battle, but also what I could do differently at previous turns to have been in an advantage.

I think Caelum is a very strong nation. But I really mislike the nerf direction. Mainly for two reasons.
First, in dominions I've learnt that for each good strat/nation/combo there is a counter. And secondly because Caelum is a unique flying nation ruled by mages. This is their theme and flavor, I do not want to see them nerfed.

Truth is, I have a very bad experience from other MP games in which the nerf this and nerf that cries have led the developers to equalize all races (see AOW-SM)

edit. typos.

[Kristoffer O]

The sermon of courage is not bugged, but it's effects are not comparable to the fear inducing effects of several horrors.

One sermon can probably counter one horror with good effects, but if you are attacked by dozens of horrors you will need a lot more than one priest casting sermons.

[Stormbinder]

Arryn said:
Okay, Stormy, I'll accept that this particular combo is presently an exploit. But it is so solely because Sermon of Courage and/or the AI is bugged. The solution is not nerfing the Horror spell, but fixing the Sermon spell so that it works as its description says it's supposed to. The game already has a mechanism in place for countering fear-based offensive tactics. But if that mechanism is broken ...

Aye Arryn, it would certanly help, I agree. Although lvl 3 priest does not come easy for many races.

I would still like to see Lesser Horror to be at least Air1 Fatique 20 spell. IMHO Fatique 10 air 1 is just too cheap for such powerful spell. But I agree with you that Sermon of Courage would reduce Fasle Horror power somewhat, if it would be changed to affect it.