MP game - "Pantheons" Started

[The Panther]

False horrors are unbalanced because it makes 90+% of the national troops worthless much too early in the game. Even my power-blessed heart companions with very high morale are worthless against false horrors. My chariots and elephants, were I to build any, would be even more hopeless because trample fails miserably against ethereal troops. My many priests refuse to cast sermon of courage because of some problem about the horrors that I have yet to understand.

Ulm has pretty much no counter to the horrors either until he gets mechanical men, which occurs significantly later than Caelum gets horrors. The smiths cast bladewinds and magna bolts on their own troops when the horrors arrive.

There has been many a post on the forum on this very subject. You can argue against this all you want, but that does not make it any less true. That is one of the reasons that Caelum is frequently Banned in many a new game.

It looks like my turn will work now. Staling twice in the Last 4 turns is rough, but at least it means I have some extra gold now. Also I now have the research to counter the horrors if it happens again. But it is too little and too late for the good guys, I am afraid.

[alexti]

Same goes for Ice/Arch Devils, Elemental King/Queens and even simple Bane Lords. You just can't use national troops alone except in the very beginning. Add to them some fliers or mages with area damage spells and a SC or 2 and they become very decent force. So the main problem with seraphs is not defeat them, but to catch them. They're more similar to call of winds/call of wild in this sense. But of course, when you caught out unprepared, those seraphs with their false horrors can be nasty.

Though in this game with known sides and starting locations, Caelum's seraph-fest was as easily predictable as early Ulm's power rush and the early assault on Mictlan.