Why no love for Caelum?

[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

[Arryn]

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.

It *is* bugged if, as is being reported, priests never cast the spell at all. The AI should cast Sermon immediately once units take morale losses, regardless of why there was a morale loss. I've seen the AI cast Sermon repeatedly, as units take physical damage (and thus lose morale that way). If the AI is not recognizing morale loss from castings of Horror, then it's a bug. Perhaps someone should confirm this by having one casting of Horror per combat turn and seeing if the AI ever casts Sermon to counter those *single* horror castings. If the Horror spell drops morale by more than Sermon raises it, that's a seperate issue. The question, at present, is whether the AI even tries to counter the Horror spell at all.

[Cheezeninja]

Even postulating that Caelum's 100gp wizards can take out extremely large amounts of pd with little to no danger, i fail to see how this should automatically equate to a nerf of Caelum or false horror. Caelum is a powerful raiding nation, false horror is a powerful spell, the simple fact that you have already won 2 of the 3 Caelum wars you have fought should do alot to assure you that the nations are balanced overral. And if you plan on arguing that you won because you had more skill than your opponents despite a national disadvantage, well what of it? The game would be boring if all Nations played the same and had no respective advantages/disadvantages. Until people playing Caelum start winning an inordinate percentage of the time (and this hasnt been my experience) how can there be any argument that they are overpowered? False horrors with Caelum IS a powerful strategy, but it is meant to be. You could make the same argument for Pythiums theurg's being underpriced. Because for all that they initially cost the right amount, the fact that they are sacred (reducing upkeep) and the easy availability of cheap communicants could be said to push their versatility through the roof. In fact, i believe the addition of astral magic is more than worth the extra gold.

In point of fact i just ran several tests in which i left 2-4 raptors from call of the winds in a province with 1 pd (man) and then proceeded to cloud trapeeze seraph after seraph into the province. The raptors were able to routinely win against the single seraph so long as there was at least 2. Occasionally a raptor would be killed by the seraph before the seraph died, allowing the next seraph to conquer the province (as 1 raptor was not enough). But nevertheless, with 4 raptors (1/5! of a call of the winds, not even counting the commander, an investment of 1!!! air gem per province) i was routinely able to defeat a single seraph set to cast quickness, false horror, FH, FH, FH. You can hardly argue that a single air gem is too big of an investment to counter seraphs now can you? Especially since it takes a mere 2 air to cast call of the winds, and conj 3 (which most people should be shooting for anyway). And once you start scaling it up and talking about multiple seraphs wielding perhaps SoS's.... well once a staff of storms is involved, or multiple national mages... NO PD stands a chance, or is supposed to.

Hardly overpowered to my mind.

[Arryn]

Nicely argued, Mr. Cheeze!