Some notes on MA Mictlan update

[Kuritza]

Kristoffer O said:
If they are still percieved as weak I'm more inclined to strengthen the MA eagle warriors than making jaguars recruitable everywhere.

Perhaps its just me, but ... flying troops are just bad at fighting now, for some reason they always fail morale check. I am 100% positive of this - I did notice that in many games, and then it was confirmed when I was testing a sea troll king thug. With flying boots, he kept flying away from f9w9 vans; with any other boots he was staying and killing them all.

Edit: I would not say Caelum will be weak, beacuse of this. Very few MA nations have 3+R mages recruitable anywhere. When they are also able to fly they can easily be deplyed anywhere, making them more useful then most home only mages.

True, but of all MA nations Caelum also has perhaps the poorest troops and PD (which is simply THE worst), so it made sense to me they have good combat mages to compensate... also it makes sense for a magocracy.

I believe Caelum is considered one of the strongest nations

Is he? In our games he's rated as in-between 'poor' and 'bad' now. I'm in no way sure of my experience, perhaps in other communities Caelum is deemed strong. But I find that strange.

And Caelum has also been boosted since dom2. Mammoths have turned out to be more powerful nowdays. They have ice crafters. Storm Guard have partial lightning resistance.

Partial lighting resistance is sweet, mammoths too. But other changes have hit him very hard. Imho Dom3 Caelum isnt even close to its former power.

Battlefield size affects everyone, and particulary all those nations that do not primarily use evocations. Caelum is perhaps less affected by this than most nations.

I beg to differ, its vice versa. Nations that relied on evocations have a harder time now because the more troops there are present, the less of impact mages have. Roughly speaking, before a mage could kill, like, 10 units out of 20, and decide the outcome of a battle. Now he will kill 10 units out of 60 - you must agree its not nearly as impressive.
And Caelum, being the most reliant on its mages, is naturally hit the hardest.

[Tuidjy]

Regular Caelum used to be my third strongest nation in Dominion II, when
considering all nations and themes. MA Caelum in Dominion III is in the bottom
twenty five percent, as far as I am concerned. One cannot win just with mages
anymore, their recruitable troops suck as much as they used to, the high Seraphs
random magic has been limited, the tower/lab/temple combo costs a lot more,
relatively, other nations' PD has become more useful, thus raiding is harder.
And of course, Caelum has no effective answer to AW immune thugs/supercombatants.

Today, MA Caelum is a one trick pony. Mammoths. I do not play one trick ponies.

And now a nerf? Well, I can honestly say, a nerf will not change the probability
of me playing them one tiny little bit

[Lazy_Perfectionist]

Have you tried Grip of Winter with Caelum? It's been pretty effective with LA Atlantis, and I only have 50% CR.

What's AW anyways? Air and Water, you mean? Shock Resistant and Cold Resist, or something else?

[Baalz]

Tuidjy said:
And of course, Caelum has no effective answer to AW immune thugs/supercombatants.

I haven't played Caelum, but I can say that this is something I have exploited several times *against* Caelum. Slap a ring of tamed lightning on an ice devil or any of the undead thugs and its pretty much a silver bullet against them.

[Gandalf Parker]

I want Lord of Night
(or do you regret ever putting him in at all?)

[Kristoffer O]

Interesting. I think I'll start a new tread on the matter.

[NTJedi]

llamabeast said:
There are animal rights people chanting outside my window all day (because there is an animal lab nearby - nothing to do with me or my department). They want to free some monkeys. I am almost considering going on a commando mission and freeing the monkeys myself if only to keep them quiet.

Going on a commando mission and killing all the monkeys will keep them quiet too.
JUST Kidding

[llamabeast]

[Nikolai]

Freeing lab animals is crazy :-) Much better to kill them. You do not know what you are letting out, riding with them otherwise.

[llamabeast]

I wasn't going to ride them. That would be crazy. I was just going to put them in my friend's sock drawers so they had a surprise in the morning. Imagine the possibilities!