Why no love for Caelum?

[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.

[Arryn]

izaqyos said:
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)

My bad experiences with nerfing were in the MMORPGs E&B and SWG. It left a very bad taste in my craw for developers who are more concerned about silencing whiners than they are in providing rich content. You can never achieve "perfect" balance without destroying uniqueness and dragging everything down to the worst denominator. This applies to games, education, and just about everything else in real life.

Dom 2, to an extent, imitates life: lions are strong, gazelles are fast. The lion does not always get the gazelle. And gazelles breed faster, which offsets the fact that they do lose to lions most of the time. If we were gods designing such creatures, balance would not be in making them equally strong or fast. The balance is in how they interact with one another, and their environment. That the nations of Dom 2, on the whole, are as balanced as they are is an impressive achievement by IW. Especially since there are 17 of them, and 30+ themes.

[alexti]

izaqyos said:
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.

That game has very difficult research, which apparently makes the time-frame where Caelum has many advantages quite long. And from what I could see your problem wasn't that much because of Seraph's raids, but rather from the big losses in major battles.

In another game I'm losing to Caelum myself, but again, that's not because of Seraph's raiders (though his Ghost raiders are nasty). It's long long war which I'm slowly losing and it is mostly due to the skills of the Caelum player than to anything else.

Aside of that I agree with your position on nerfing. So far I haven't seen Caelum winning too often in MP and while it has some strengths, other nations have advantages in other areas too.

[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]

Kristoffer O said:
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.

Interesting. Thank you for clarification KristoferO.

BTW in the tests that I just run for Arryn 4-6 false horrors from that single 100gp seraph easely routed 20 Jotun's PD soldiers. Most other races would fare similar or worse. I wonder if perhaps you feel that Fear aura of False Horrors is a bit to strong atm? Or spell is too cheap (currently it is just 10 fatique, air 1). As of now, it makes all other nations PD defences totally useless against Caelum's single seraph, and that in addition to Caelum already great raiding abilities.

I mean, granted, PD are weak in general, but one would think that 20+ PD should be able to withstand 100gp none-capital not blessed commander with no items/gems? What do you think?

Regards,
Stormbinder