MP game - "Pantheons" Started

[The Panther]

alexti said:

You can beat the large group of Seraphs with just one SC of the right kind. I won't tell what is the right kind though For now.

Obviously, a single air queen can stop this easy. Several flying pretenders can also. Also a flying bane lord, perhaps. But I built my pretender with my neighbor Pythium in mind, not Caelum.

The crux of the problem is that false horrors is a quick, easy research to level 6 in the preferred path for the fastest researching nation. Air queens are not only light years further away, they are impossible for our team in this game with no air races.

I think for a possible rematch, we will have to ban Caelum to be fair.

[Lex]

also, consider that Caelum has the absolutly perfect starting position for this team game. Its protected from almost all sides, and is far enough away from the other team that it would take considerable time for non-flying armies to try attacking it. In my opinion, that simple starting position is what made Caelum unstopable, and not the spell False Horror

Imagine how things would have been if Caelum started next to Ulm? Or next to two opponents. So far I think most people missed the point about how to defeat Caelum. Their biggest weakness is their near-inability to seige a castle. A good general would not try to mad-castle. A good opposing general would go straight for Caelum's capital and/or production centres and steal their castle with typically low defence (Watch Tower or Mauseleum). Once you have their production centres, Caelum is helpless, and will most likely never be able to get them back. They might have a few Seraphs left, but they are defeated.

[The Panther]

I admit that I did wonder what was the logic for placing Caelum in such a remote starting location on the map. Switching Jontunheim and Caelum start locations would have made a big difference, I think.

I still believe that Caelum does not really have any big weaknesses, though, except for being kind of weak early on with the wimpy national troops. Other than that, it is a solid race, the best in the mid-game for sure.

[alexti]

The Panther said:
Also, with our team having no air races, there was no way to get a staff of storms, which is another possible counter.

Staff of storms would rather be helpful to seraphs, but air would give you call of winds which is a good counter.

The Panther said:
As far as the flying SC thing and the army of devils, that takes easily more than 3 times longer to achieve than Caelum merely researching up to level 6 in its preferred path.

Not true, you can start fielding Bane lords with Conj-5 and Con-2 which is less research than Alt-6.

The Panther said:
Still, the bottom line is that we are getting badly beat, almost primarily due to one single unbalanced spell. Without that, Pickles and I may have eliminated both Mictlan and Pythium by now.

That's a bit optimistics, considering that you couldn't even harm my walls and probably I was summoning fiends faster than you could bring re-enforcement. Still it was seriously hurting my development, but at the same time Caelum enjoyed
unhindered growth allowing him to quickly get required research and infrastructure.

The Panther said:
Of course, this does not take anything away from the fact that the Team B playing well and using their inherent advantages to the fullest. They surely are.

I wonder if it is too early to call for a rematch???

I think that the race selection for Team B is stronger than for Team A. Basically, we had all stages (early,mid and late) well covered, plus we had races with their own specialities which were complementing each other.

Rematch sounds interesting. I would be for exchanging nations, we play Team A nations, you play Team B nations (which nations to choose from the allocated selection is up to each team).

[Lex]

alexti said:
Yeah, but the Caelum player won't be happy to lose even one 20-40 seraph army per turn. And the right kind of SC can cloud trapeze/teleport, so it will completely prevent Caelum from using massive seraph armies. They can still raid by lone seraphs though. But on another hand, killing that lone seraphs with remote spell only costs 3-5 gems, so it's more or less equal exchange.

You Flames from Afar my capital, then jump in with some SCs that slaughter my Seraphs, move to the three neighbouring castles before I can recruit enough mammoths to take my castle back, and then one by one, you hunt down my remaining Seraph raiding parties. You could kill me in 10 turns.

Edit: granted you'd need Gate Cleavers at least to seige in one turn. and you'd have to hope that I haven't modified my strategy beyond False Horrors. But Caelum's defeat, had it been planned for, is at least in theory a real possibility.

[The_Tauren13]

I vote for re-randomizing nations for a more fair game if we have a rematch. And maybe going with random starting locations. And maybe allowing Ermor; I've been wanting to play broken empire. And maybe taking out Caelum.

[Aku]

I need to catch up and reading the rest of this page but Vampires DO NOT fly in a storm. Staff of storms was used against me in another game against my vampire army and my vamps didnt fly.

Oh and team A has NO air nations or blood nations so the counters I have read so far are impossible for us to do.

Going to continue reading the rest of the Posts.

[alexti]

Aku said:
I need to catch up and reading the rest of this page but Vampires DO NOT fly in a storm. Staff of storms was used against me in another game against my vampire army and my vamps didnt fly.

Yep, I don't think vampires can fly in the storm. However, horrors do, apparently their flying is teleportation based, rather than wing-based. Anyway, has anybody ever seen a horror with wings?

Aku said:
Oh and team A has NO air nations or blood nations so the counters I have read so far are impossible for us to do.

May I remind that team A has choosen not to use their air and blood nations?

[alexti]

The_Tauren13 said:
I vote for re-randomizing nations for a more fair game if we have a rematch. And maybe going with random starting locations. And maybe allowing Ermor; I've been wanting to play broken empire. And maybe taking out Caelum.

To ensure fair rematch, I'd vote for the same nation sets, but reversed. Besides, it would be interesting to see if all those people who suggest various counters will be able to use them in practice

[Aku]

What air or blood nations did team A have that they didnt use?

The current 5 team A chose are not air or blood nations. The 6th nation was marignon and the 7th nation was tien chi.

Well I guess you could say pangaea could of done blood with its 320gp blood hunters lol or bf ulm theme was chosen or use tien chi for a little bit of air but realisticly all of those options are not feasible. They are nowhere in comparison the same as what team b has which is complete blood and air dominance.

The botton line is that getting raided on turn 15 by false horrors was able to put 5 players on lock down. One nation shouldnt be able to do that. It has nothing to do with the teams or the players it is just a balance issue in the game. It just happens that the nations that could counter it that early were not options to pick for team A such as vanheim and man.

Bleh I still have to read the rest of these Posts because the forum went down right when I posted before. So if I am repeating anything it is because of that.