Caelum vs. T'ien Ch'i

[Arryn]

Caine,

I said *if* I was going to try to nerf Caelum. I'd think you'd know by now that I am *not* a proponent of nerfing *anything*. (You might want to recall that I'm on record as having said that I think Caelum is fine as is.) I was not-so-subtly trying to get a rise out of all of those rabid anti-Caelum pro-nerfers out there. I wanted to see who'd agree with such an absurd proposal, and what reasons they'd give ...

[alexti]

The Panther said:
What???? Only two games as Caelum?

How did you manage to be playing BOTH those games against little 'ol me??? And recently too???

Probably bad luck on my part, hehe.

Probably so. I am/was in 3 MP with Cainehill and he isn't playing Caelum in any of those (Pangaea, Arco and Machaka).

[Cainehill]

The Panther said:
What???? Only two games as Caelum?

How did you manage to be playing BOTH those games against little 'ol me??? And recently too???

Probably bad luck on my part, darn it all.

Heh. Could be worse - you're Vanheim in one, with no quarrel with me. In the other, you did in fact attack me, I retaliated (and retaliated, and ...) but it all worked out in the end, as you got to feast on Marignon's AI corpse, which I didn't even nibble on.

At least I'm not too bad a neighbor - no ice beer bottles getting thrown over into your backyard, I'm not playing Vanilla Ice too loud, heck, I'm a nIce neighbor compared to some.

And yep - only these two games as Caelum. I get bored and like to try new nations, and avoid having more than 2 with the same nation at the same time.

And I'm arguably doing better in one of my first two R'lyeh games than I'm doing with Caelum.

Guess you're just lucky, eh? Could talk diplomacy over a beer sometime if you wanted.

[The Panther]

How about Jack's Step In Lounge at Central and Juan Tabo? The owner Jack is a golfing buddy of mine.

Cainehill said:
but it all worked out in the end, as you got to feast on Marignon's AI corpse, which I didn't even nibble on.

Well, I did get the capitol, but Pythium got much more of the spoils than me.

[PDF]

Back to the TC vs Caelum debate :
I mostly agree with the fact that TC mages aren't good, whereas Caelum ones are.
How to rebalance it ?
I think nerfing Caelum should be avoided, *but* A4W2 mages recruitable everywhere is damn too good ! What about putting their random in Sorcery only ? It's just the opposite of what Cainehill suggested, but it would make HS weaker indeed.
It's more complicated for TC : ok on having A2W1..etc rather than A1W2.. (which is just awfully ineffective) , but the S1 problem remains...

[Graeme Dice]

PDF said:
I think nerfing Caelum should be avoided, *but* A4W2 mages recruitable everywhere is damn too good!

So should C'Tis be nerfed as well? They have D4N1 mages recruitable everywhere, which is certainly more powerful than A4W2.

[Nagot Gick Fel]

PDF said:
It's more complicated for TC : ok on having A2W1..etc rather than A1W2.. (which is just awfully ineffective) , but the S1 problem remains...

I've pondered this for a while. Yet the only satisfying solution I've found so far would be to use the Magic Duel mod rather than mod the Celestial Masters.

[Zen]

Nagot Gick Fel said:
I've pondered this for a while. Yet the only satisfying solution I've found so far would be to use the Magic Duel mod rather than mod the Celestial Masters.

This doesn't unfortunately change the end result. Instead of having everyone with their sages killing them whenever they want, people will have to equip a pearl on their Sage to kill a Master.

I don't think an equitable soultion to TC is to have it cost 3 Pearl (at bad odds) for 250 Gold with a high chance of the first shot killing the Master. Not to mention that TC doesn't have the benefit of cheap national communion slaves (1/8) in order to try to circumvent some of that Astral weakness.

I don't think there is a good soultion while Magic Duel exists and is based off of pure Astral, unless you totally remove Astral from the CM or give them a significant amount.

[PDF]

Zen said:

This doesn't unfortunately change the end result. Instead of having everyone with their sages killing them whenever they want, people will have to equip a pearl on their Sage to kill a Master.

I don't think an equitable soultion to TC is to have it cost 3 Pearl (at bad odds) for 250 Gold with a high chance of the first shot killing the Master. Not to mention that TC doesn't have the benefit of cheap national communion slaves (1/8) in order to try to circumvent some of that Astral weakness.

I don't think there is a good soultion while Magic Duel exists and is based off of pure Astral, unless you totally remove Astral from the CM or give them a significant amount.

I agree, even "harder" Magic Duel will still kill CMs ...
What about giving TC a cheapo communiant - let's say some "Diviner", S1, Holy, cost ca 70-80 gold ?
This will put TC in a much better position when confronting Marignon, Arco and even Pythium, no ?

[deccan]

I've been fighting an AI Caelum in SP, and I just want to point out that Temple Guards are a damn good troop even if it is capitol only. In a cold environment, they have armor comparable to the best Ulmish troops. However, Ulmish pay for their high armor with atrocious defense, while Temple Guards do not, and they are sacred to boot.

I know that THE way to play Caelum is to make good use of their excellent combat mages, but I'm wondering if Caelum can actually out-Ulm Ulm if you want to play it that way. After all, Caelum has good, if resource intensive, heavy infantry in the form of Temple Guards and Iceclads, excellent missile support with "Wind Guide" as a starting spell, and Mammoths to mow down stuff.