EA Caelum

[Warhammer]

Yes, only the 10% with randoms. Otherwise they are too expensive. My belief with Caelum is that they really lack magic paths outside of air. An Eagle King with earth boots, elemental staff, and ring of wizardry is suddenly an A6E4W3 which is pretty nice. Army of gold, destruction, rust mist, and army of lead (need one more boost) all come into play and can enhance the effectiveness of your archers. You put one of these guys with each major army and suddenly your national forces aren't that bad.

[Ironhawk]

Warhammer said:
Yes, only the 10% with randoms. Otherwise they are too expensive. My belief with Caelum is that they really lack magic paths outside of air. An Eagle King with earth boots, elemental staff, and ring of wizardry is suddenly an A6E4W3 which is pretty nice. Army of gold, destruction, rust mist, and army of lead (need one more boost) all come into play and can enhance the effectiveness of your archers. You put one of these guys with each major army and suddenly your national forces aren't that bad.

Why are you going through all this effort to buff your troops? Just turn your Eagle Kings into Wrath-ers and be done with it.

[Warhammer]

Wrathers, I assume you mean wrathful skies? Yes, that is part of the plan as well. However, in my SP games, I haven't gotten them to that point yet. I was having a bunch of problems with the early game, but I think I have those licked now. That was part of the reason for delaying the other parts of this.

[Shovah32]

Mammoths+slow infantry(preferably with good morale) are all you really need for expanding. Caelian archers with raptor meat shields are great for shotgun expansion(provinces not connected to one another) and later on in the early game/early on in the midgame eagle king thugs(see my previous post) can make great expanders/conventional army killers.

[Renojustin]

I've been playing an EA Caelum SP game for a few days now, and I really enjoy them. I went up against only Saroumatia at the start of the game, 8 Impossible AI on random medium map. Here's some thoughts.

The problem with Eagle Kings being good thugs is that they have very high encumbrance with their Fire Plate. After they're done buffing themselves, their fatigue is really starting to get up there. You'd need either priests and an earth bless or a good magic item economy to counter that, so it seems that your best bet here is to leave the Kings as casters unless and until your opponents start using lightning counters.

Your PD is atrocious... you might not even bother past 10 points to try to catch scouts.

Archers are useful against chaff, but mammoths, Wrathful Skies, or Thunder Strike are just as useful, and can be used against high protection units as well.

I just... don't like Caelum's army very much at all. Mammoths are pretty nice for early expansion, and that's about it. I simply pick up more Iceclads every turn as archer bait for my Eagle Kings. Unfortunately, that means you limit yourself to strategic movement 2, hm.

Probably Tempest Warriors are the way to go, set to hold and attack archers, with limited amounts of Iceclads as the aforementioned arrow soakers.

Important: once you research Thunder Strike, there's pretty much no reason to keep your Eagle Kings around the nest anymore. SEND THEM OUT. You need very little magic research to be a very powerful magic nation with Thunder Strike spam. This is what will make EA Caelum an absolute terror from turn 10 onwards.

[Zenzei]

For Eagle King thugs you really want to have an E9 bless, this is paramount. For equipment my standard setting is frostbrand, weightless kite shield, weightless scale mail and girdle of strenght. If I have a fire random EK I add brimstone boots.

Script them with blessing-stoneskin/ironskin (depending on opposition)-personal quickness-mistform-attack. They should be able to take out almost any amount of conventional troops with this setup. Indeed, a well made EK is more like a SC than thug imo.

The above example has prot around 25, def over 20, high damage, encumberance 3, quickness, lots of resistances etc. Try it, you will be pleased by its performance.

[Renojustin]

If you're going to buff, you might as well throw in Mirror Image; it's great with A4.

[Corwin]

Zenzei said:
For Eagle King thugs you really want to have an E9 bless, this is paramount. For equipment my standard setting is frostbrand, weightless kite shield, weightless scale mail and girdle of strenght. If I have a fire random EK I add brimstone boots.

Script them with blessing-stoneskin/ironskin (depending on opposition)-personal quickness-mistform-attack. They should be able to take out almost any amount of conventional troops with this setup. Indeed, a well made EK is more like a SC than thug imo.

The above example has prot around 25, def over 20, high damage, encumberance 3, quickness, lots of resistances etc. Try it, you will be pleased by its performance.

If you are casting Ironskin you might as well replace wightless scale mail with shroud of battle saint, and cast Mirror Image instead of blessing.