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I finished this scenario, but the next didn't unlock...

The Black Tower isn't in yet. It will be patched in.

Basium has some weird game text. "Cower before the might of my No Unit" and (and I quote) "1".

"Strait" meaning a body of water is spelled like so.

So far I've seen Hyborem and Basium win conquest victories, but it seems impossible for the human to win.

I do not believe you people actually beat the Momus, you cheaters. :p

The Momus isn't actually that hard to beat, once you give yourself a few Auric Ascendeds.

i haven't got the trophy for this, but as the others say, Basium/Hyby keeps winning.

You don't need a few auric ascendeds, you just need 1 chalid...

Even if I delete both basium and hyborem in WB I still do not win.

It's good to know that I can't win even if I manage to kill hyborem. I marched my little stack of lanun to bastradam in order to bring the bannor in and was swiftly wiped out by an army of twelve ira and eight balors. Then I would have had to contend with the longbowmen, beasts of agares, and significant amounts of warriors.

Shouldn't hyborem at least have to follow national unit limits in this scenario?

I found that the bannor reinforcements are a little small - two champions? they both were instantly killed by the infernals along with guybrush.

I'm pretty sure I won this scenario - I killed my 100 units, protected Bourne the Gleaming, killed Hyborem, and razed all the Infernal cities - but it was all just reported as a conquest victory for Basium.

Other issues:

- There was an ocean square near Bastradam where Ira kept spawning, so that by the time I sailed over and checked it out, there were something like ten Ira on the one square. When my army got close enough, all ten came onto land at the same moment and killed my forces. I parked a ship there the next time I tried the scenario, which prevented the Ira spawn quite nicely.

- The Lanun player starts off without Bourne the Gleaming in the visible territory area, and so has no idea where it is. You can't move units west to find it either. I was only able to find it by using floating eyes. It's really hard to protect a city you can't find.

- I parked my Arcane Barges right next to Bastradam and used the fireballs to pick off a weak Infernal unit each turn. That gave me about a third of my 100-unit quota. It felt like an exploit, but I can't for the life of me think of any other way the barges might possibly be useful.

- Very minor: in the event text where the demon offers to ally with you, there's the word [PARAGRAPH] instead of an actual paragraph.

- Right before I got my 100 units: "This scenario was pretty easy". Right before conquering Bastradam: "This scenario was kind of hard, but nowhere near as crazy hard as the Momus." Right before killing Hyborem in Dis: "This scenario was crazy hard, but not sadistically so." And then there was Despero and Poena...

- I assume the storyline involves the Mercurian Gate being finished once you've killed your 100th unit, because Basium and his angels started pouring through then. But I never got any text messages telling me that was what was happening or anything.

I got same problems as above...I razed all the cities and killed Hyborem doesn't end.

In this Scenario Basuim is worthless. The city was barely protected, and his forces didn't really do much, I took out all the cities and Hyborem without any help, and couple of times I had to reload, because the Inferno army razed Bourne before I could kill Hyborem.

I just played around with world editor, it seems, that if I take out Hyborem Basuim wins and gets a victory and it ends. But in my case, what happened was on turn 84 I razed the lasty Inferno city, and at the end of that turn (or start of turn 85?) the Infernos razed Bourne the gleaming, so I assume Basuim can't win either, it's pretty wierd.

It seems no way to win it right now?

I agree. I never stood a chance of winning. There were stacks with dozens of units marching past me. Are we supposed to ally with that demon to win?

Okay, just played through it with patch B. You can win the scenario now, though its bloody hard.

I killed Hyborem, I didn't have to raze his cities. Though theres a bug, when you kill the 100th unit the event that pops up, to chose whether to fight Basium or Hyborem, comes up for me every turn.

Played through it again to see if the bug would happen again, and it did.

This time I tried taking on Basium. The bug spawns more Basiums and his other angels each turn. I only had to kill one Basium but it was damn near impossible

Played through it again to see if the bug would happen again, and it did.

This time I tried taking on Basium. The bug spawns more Basiums and his other angels each turn. I only had to kill one Basium but it was damn near impossible

It will be fixed in patch "c".

I found this one sort of unintuitive to make a strategy for.

After getting the quest to raze Bastradam I sent what seemed like plenty of units over there; but just as i landed they spawned a bunch of iras and an immortal. only guybrush even stood half a chance and that didn't last long. (edit: this was relatively early. i only would have gotten there faster by using foreknowledge and bee-lining it)

Meanwhile my defensive stacks were gradually overwhelmed as there were not enough firepower to guard all the gaps. at one chokepoint i was attacked so my longbow and hunters could participate. otherwise mages softened them up but I didn't have enough troops to kill them faster than they could walk. Blinding light was resisted too much and lots of their guys have 2 moves anyway.

I installed patch C, and loaded up a save game from patch A, and after killing Hyboream game didn't end yet anyone else having this issue? Does this mean I need to replay the scenario?

When Capria asks you to capture a city, the game should show you where this city is so it's less of a hassle to do the task.

I really think that Capria's reinforcements aren't substantial enough. I think she should send you a few Confessors and Crusaders instead of Champions. Her Confessors would be the only way you could heal yourself of the Withered promotion from all those Wraiths.

I really think that Capria's reinforcements aren't substantial enough. I think she should send you a few Confessors and Crusaders instead of Champions. Her Confessors would be the only way you could heal yourself of the Withered promotion from all those Wraiths.

I agree; the reward just isn't worth it.

Also, I was getting a marked performance drop on the Infernal turns due to the sheer number of units on screen.

I really think that Capria's reinforcements aren't substantial enough. I think she should send you a few Confessors and Crusaders instead of Champions. Her Confessors would be the only way you could heal yourself of the Withered promotion from all those Wraiths.

Thats a good point, Im boosting them a bit in patch "d".

This just wasn't a very fun scenario. You get your 100 units killed in only about 30 turns, and then afterward it's this very unguided process to 'win' it all. I mean, the enemies that are summoned are much stronger than your units are, and come in large groups. Bastradem looks like it's just broken. Why on earth should strength 12 demons spawn there? Pushing forward to capture a city is already a fair bit of a challenge without random unknowable changes to the game.

Lastly, the game doesn't end when you defeat 100 demons... very frustrating the first time I played through because around 90 or so, I stopped being meticulous in my unit management. Only to find out that an even more impossible challenge lay after the 100 were up.

I would suggest giving the Lanun some Angelic reserves once they defeat the 100th guy. Or maybe give them a 'surge of inspiration' and give all their units 10 xp. Something to help them heal up and reconnoiter.

Can't basium build his own units? I just stacked all my units up, killing every infernal i see an go like, "this is easy" but i lost

Killed Hyborem on the next turn in this save here but it doesnt unlock the next scenario. What gives?

edit: Oh wait patch e happend. all good now. :P

went well, put units in the entries ( used wb to find them, naughty me) took guybrush and all the mages/ archmages on the queen of the line and moved it + arcane barge to bastradam and sacked it pretty well with my heap of fireballs. Got some champions and a confessor (awesome heal + blessings) took everyone back and defend. After 100 kills i went for basium to get my stack killed in two turns, reloaded and continued the war against hyborem and got him pretty fast.

Played this on Patch D, lost to Hyborem but kept playing and a few turns later killed Hyborem and got the victory condition, and unlocked the next scenerio. Should I be able to win even after I already lost?

Tried it out a bit, found it stupidly hard. Checked worldbuilder to find good strategic spots to place my defence in, and realized that the whole map was stupid. After several playthroughs, all i needed to do was to add one archmage with fire and mind at level three, and then the map was completely doable. Pretty hard, but doable.

Tips: Add one more archmage, get rid of the stupid Ira spawn. One Ira should be sufficient defence in a scenario as hard as this, you will just encourage exploiting by putting a ship of the line on the spawn spot (it almost seems like this was intended).

The Lanun campaign is the most pleasurable so far, storywise, but their missions might be the hardest. The meta-story with the empyrean knight was very enjoyable, thank you for not screwing up! :love:

I was so sure that the knight's family was going to be slain. It was nice to get some optimism in this game, especially after the Ljos ending in Splintered Court

This just wasn't a very fun scenario. You get your 100 units killed in only about 30 turns, and then afterward it's this very unguided process to 'win' it all. I mean, the enemies that are summoned are much stronger than your units are, and come in large groups. Bastradem looks like it's just broken. Why on earth should strength 12 demons spawn there? Pushing forward to capture a city is already a fair bit of a challenge without random unknowable changes to the game.

Lastly, the game doesn't end when you defeat 100 demons... very frustrating the first time I played through because around 90 or so, I stopped being meticulous in my unit management. Only to find out that an even more impossible challenge lay after the 100 were up.


While I agree that "Defeat Hyborem" is far to vague when you didn't know that the infernals even had cities besides bastradam, this scenario, while frightening, is in reality quite easy (on noble). Just form a defensive line, anti-greek style with strong units in the middle because the enemy comes in disorganized waves. Spread the mages out and have them use floating eye and then move to maelstrom the crap out of incoming stacks. Level up your weaker units on these damaged ones. Your archmage can take out strong units and defend himself with Earth Elementals, and get Air three and spell extension to snipe small units from afar with Air Elementals. Use host of enheijhar to your advantage.

Take two of your mages and Guybrush (get him CR3 asap) and a swordsman to bastradam on the fleet. All that maelstrom and fireballs makes that city an easy target for city raiders. If your raiders are attacked, fall back to the fleet. Be careful not to give defenders xp fodder in the form of fireballs.

The bannor - guybrush team can then move east and inward to eliminate that wraith - spawning lichs. I didn't know they existed yet when I played, but you may be able to take the rest of Hyborems cities (besides Dis?) at this point, if you can avoid the Ira lakes.

Once 100 enemies are Dead, Basium can fend your himself. Group all your units together, avoid manticores etc. Use stand off tactics with Ira stacks (use eye to spot them) and water elementals/your stoneskined arhmage should suffice in killing them once reduced with maelstrom.

You're units are without courage, but eventually, one'll get Hyborem. It was an Earth Elemental for me.


NOTE TO DESIGNER - please put the end of game message on a timer so we can watch Hyborem die.

I second the suggestion to give you visibility to Bourne from the beginning. I found it after a bit of scouting with Floating Eyes, but especially novice players may not come up with that, and it was pretty disorienting to try to arrange your defences before you even knew what direction you should be defending.

---

On the first try: I managed fine in the beginning, but soon the enemies started slipping past my lines and I had to break ranks in order to stop them. This was made worse by the fact that somehow I forgot that the Wraiths are summons, and so I sent my mages to a desperate rush after them... forgetting that most of them would have vanished before reaching Bourne anyway. I managed to rack up the 100 kills, but after that the rest of my main force collapsed, wiped out by those Beasts of Agares and whatnot.

At the same time, a crack team consisting of the archmage, Guybrush and a single Radiant Guard had reached Bastradam. Thankfully, by placing my units appropriately, the Balors spawning in the city just ignored them and rushed towards Bourne while I kept bombarding the actual defenders with fireballs and elementals. I managed to destroy the city, then took the reinforcements I got and went looking for other Infernal cities. By the time I reached the second city, most of the team had been wiped out, leaving only Guybrush, the Archmage and a single Confessor left. Then I spent quite many turns bombarding the city with a Fire Elemental, slowly wittling away the defenders and the units that kept spawning there.

I finally managed to take it down, but lost Guybrush in the process. Before I could move on to the next city, I got a message saying that Hyborem had won a conquest victory, so I suppose he had broken through Basium's defences. A pity, it would have been an epic story had I succeeded.

I was so sure that the knight's family was going to be slain. It was nice to get some optimism in this game, especially after the Ljos ending in Splintered Court


This is probably more about the themes of Erebus than people really care about but Mikel was only allowed his happy ending because he had been willing to sacrifice his family for the safety of Bourne. It was that dirt, especially cast against his history in the Sheaim (so we know he understood what he was risking) and his own shortcomings, that made it possible to have the victory. Had he have been a perfect hero archetype the laws of Erebus wouldn't have allowed it and it would have felt out of place in this world.

Plus, should you opt to turn on Basium in the scenario things turn out much worse for Mikel.

I found this scenario to be very easy. Stacking the mages and casting Maelstrom 2 times every turn as waves of enemies approach almost seems like an exploit. The Archebus defended the stack well against the weakened deamons. I used the Archmage to cast Air Elemental every turn to get a free kill.

I killed the 100 units by about turn 30. I agree that the reenforcements provided by Capria are a bit weak. Perhaps have the champions start with Deamon Slaying or some other nice bonuses would make them more useful. They were added to my stack, but all they did is shorten the conclusion by one turn by killing one warrior each in the city in the southeast.

When I attacked Hyborem the scenario just ended. I was able to read the end game text, but I was not actually able to complete the game. Text at the bottom of the screen read "Falamar wins a Conquest Victory" but the popup for end game or play one more turn never came up. At first I thought the game had frozen because I could not hit escape to pull up the menu. I was worried that the trophy may not have been awarded and tried to click the trophy scren to check and it too was unfunctional. Fortunately, the menu button in the upper right worked and I was able to exit to the main menu. Starting another game to check revealed that the trophy had been awarded and the next scenario unlocked despite the strange behavior at the victory.

I found this scenario to be very easy. Stacking the mages and casting Maelstrom 2 times every turn as waves of enemies approach almost seems like an exploit. The Archebus defended the stack well against the weakened deamons. <...>

did you put your defenders all in a single stack?

i did not have the experience that the Arqubus defended the stack well; the weakened demons beeline for Bourne rather than attacking the stack; and i felt like we don't have enough firepower to pick them off :(

glad to read that some others are having a better experience though

I had my forces split into two stacks. The stack in the north took the brunt of the action. I kept my units stacked so that the Maelstrom spell would only weaken the enemies. All of my caster had Air II. After that they all got combat promos until they reached Combat V. The toughest part was taking the city for Capria. I lost both of my Boarding Parties who were promoted by earlier fighting and got the lackluster Champions in return. I would recommend not taking the city for Capria...it is a waste of time.

Good scenario, seems well balanced and easy enough on Monarch even on the first play-through if you know how to funnel the AI. (I didn't use Maelstrom at all until well after the 100 were dead - my strategy required only one gap in the defensive line so it was fireballs and the water elemental for me)

The wraiths rushing Bourne were disconcerting. When one slipped through with several turns of life left I assumed I had lost, not sure why I didn't (does Bourne have defenders? are summons prevented from attacking the city?)

I like the Capria side-quest, aside from anything else it gives you a target and then roads to follow to finish off the scenario. The blessings and troop boost are handy.

I didn't like the fact that elemental/host summons seem to be the only way to defeat Hyborem because of the fear factor. Since you have a limited number of units to work with anyway the possibility of a final victory being denied to you because your mages didn't survive seems harsh. Perhaps an acolyte with spirit magic as part of the Capria award or some other work-around could be added?

Good scenario, enjoyed all the ones in this chain so far.

I find this one quite entertaining. Quite hard I must say. Taking city for Capria was good too (I managed to use only Guybrush, mage and Barques). The reward is sufficient now.

The wraiths rushing Bourne were disconcerting. When one slipped through with several turns of life left I assumed I had lost, not sure why I didn't (does Bourne have defenders? are summons prevented from attacking the city?)

When you lost units Mercurians have a chance to get an angel. This saved the day for me when one demon ranger slipped through.;) Also the wraiths are summons and disappear after few turns. (How is that, when from one wraith with summon time can spawn two more without summon time:confused:)

Altogether very good scenario and much more entertaining than Momus for me.:goodjob:

EDIT: Although ending was somewhat strange. As I delivered final blow the text appear and after that nothing had happend and I had to wait few seconds and click another unit to get victory table. Nothing big but...

How do you deal with Wraiths. They move so fast, they often attack before I can hit them with Maelstrom, they can take down fortified longbowman in forest, they scatter the stack after attack and there too many of them, to control them with air elemental. I was doing pretty well in last attempt, I divided my units in 3 stacks and was holding ground, until waves of wraiths started attacking south stack and destroyed it completely in 3 turns. And even if unit survives an attack, it's useless due to wither promotion, which I can't remove.

This scenario was very difficult and very frustrating. After I killed 100 infernal units I assumed I would receive control of Basium (after thinking 100 kills=win), but no. Basium was nowhere in sight, and then I discover I have to go slay Hyborem? At this point I was reduced to two stacks of units, one stack being Guybrush, an archmage and a mage, and the other being two mages and a hunter. So I gave up on defending Bourne The Gleaming since I assumed that's what Basium was doing now. So I combined my two mini-stacks and headed for Hyborem. Onward I razed Bastradam to find it had an ira spawn beside it!? The worst part being they spawn in water beside the city so of course my ships were torn apart immediately. The bannor reinforcements with the current patch are simply a confessor and a handful of champions, only the confessor was useful. Having the confessor and champions join my stack I then searched for Hyborem (floating eyes ahoy), and to my surprise I managed to defeat him with a barrage of Earth Elementals thanks to fear.

I enjoy the story arc but this scenario The Radiant Guard was just frustrating and had a lack of information and unpleasant surprises such as the misleading 'kill 100 units' which implies victory. And it doesn't help either that when you start you have no idea where Bourne the Gleaming is and you have to use the floating eyes to find it when you could be using them to scout for Infernals. Also it's very strange that Basium refuses to give his map...insists the Lanun are 'not yet devoted to the Mercurian cause'. But of course I'm sure "Basium knows best.";)

I'd have to say my most disliked part of the scenario is that it seemed to be strongly implied the win condition is get '100' kills.
edit: As Zechnophobe mentioned about the enemy summons, the never ending Wraith stacks look like the image of defeat approaching. I found the only way to hold off those swarms of Wraiths was to hide beyond Guybrush, and keep tossing earth/water elementals, maelstroms and fireballs. Fleeing upon sight to run away from those uberwraiths and waiting for the duration to expire was not an option due to all of them having four mobility. That also means doom to all the units who weren't in your stacks at the time. I've also got the feeling you can't win this scenario if you lose your archmage or lawmage (which isn't mentioned anywhere).

Zechnophobe's experience reminds me of my own.

This just wasn't a very fun scenario. You get your 100 units killed in only about 30 turns, and then afterward it's this very unguided process to 'win' it all. I mean, the enemies that are summoned are much stronger than your units are, and come in large groups. Bastradem looks like it's just broken. Why on earth should strength 12 demons spawn there? Pushing forward to capture a city is already a fair bit of a challenge without random unknowable changes to the game.

Lastly, the game doesn't end when you defeat 100 demons... very frustrating the first time I played through because around 90 or so, I stopped being meticulous in my unit management. Only to find out that an even more impossible challenge lay after the 100 were up.

I would suggest giving the Lanun some Angelic reserves once they defeat the 100th guy. Or maybe give them a 'surge of inspiration' and give all their units 10 xp. Something to help them heal up and reconnoiter.

in my first attempt (i played all scenarios on immortal so far) i was beaten by units slipping by. i was not aware of the fact that i have to guard basiums city - the scenario name gives you a hint but the task "kill 100" is very straightforward.
i would love to have this clarified in the mission assignments, something like "defend basiums city, kill 100 demons and wait for new orders". the last is helpful for desperate players sacrificing units to get the last kills.

there should be a possibility to remove the withered promotion.

the champions as a reward (i obviously played before the confessor was added in) felt like a joke, especially with the ira spawns taking out my barges and a couple of my units (until guybrush was healed up) - should have brought the archmage there.
it would be very helpful to get a healer unit as well as an adept with courage or similar - just to have a way of winning without the archmage and his summons.

i did not look close at the map design as i just discovered the intention of the scenario by reading this thread. i would suggest these changes:
- make basiums city visible from the beginning
- remove some of the woods, there are too few places where enemies can be taken down without at least 50% defense bonus

Once you know where the objectives are from the start, the scenario becomes a lot more approachable. I'd suggest making Bourne and Bastradam visible on turn 1, and putting a held defender or two in the city on low difficulty settings.

On high difficulty levels using the ships to sail over and destroy Bastradam early seems to be the key, so that all the mages are back in time to deal with the liches. If you keep your units in the middle in two large stacks on good terrain with a strong defender on each, wraiths will only rarely attack. You can use maelstrom and blinding light to great effect (radiant guards should promote to mobility I) and pick off weakened units with fireball, summons or mobility promoted units.

It's also worth moving a couple of the hunters east of the starting line back to Bourne to mop up any weak, fast units that slip through the line.

You really should be in one team with Basium and Capria.
And reduce the spawn of immortals. I had about 20 of them respawning in Dis. It was imposible to kill them faster as they respawned (ok they only had 25Hp and 2,8 Strength, but they were more than my little army...)

When I attacked Hyborem the scenario just ended. I was able to read the end game text, but I was not actually able to complete the game. Text at the bottom of the screen read "Falamar wins a Conquest Victory" but the popup for end game or play one more turn never came up. At first I thought the game had frozen because I could not hit escape to pull up the menu. I was worried that the trophy may not have been awarded and tried to click the trophy scren to check and it too was unfunctional. Fortunately, the menu button in the upper right worked and I was able to exit to the main menu. Starting another game to check revealed that the trophy had been awarded and the next scenario unlocked despite the strange behavior at the victory.
I also had this problem - patch h

When I attacked Hyborem the scenario just ended. I was able to read the end game text, but I was not actually able to complete the game. Text at the bottom of the screen read "Falamar wins a Conquest Victory" but the popup for end game or play one more turn never came up. At first I thought the game had frozen because I could not hit escape to pull up the menu. I was worried that the trophy may not have been awarded and tried to click the trophy scren to check and it too was unfunctional. Fortunately, the menu button in the upper right worked and I was able to exit to the main menu. Starting another game to check revealed that the trophy had been awarded and the next scenario unlocked despite the strange behavior at the victory.

I also had this problem - patch h

I was able to get past that by clicking another unit. Then I got winning pop-up.

I agree that finding out the "kill 100" victory bait-and-switch was extremely aggravating. I replayed it several times even knowing that and had a couple issues.

I can easily get through the 100 kills without losing a unit. However, by the time I get close to Bastradam the waves of Immortals and Balors knock down the stack regardless of Maelstroms and Regeneration spells. Waves of Iras (never saw less than ~4 in any play) against damaged stacks were the end of it in every case. Ships were, of course, toasted by flying Iras when they got anywhere close to the city.


The biggest problem from my perspective was the turn lag as the game progressed. I have a decent machine (Dell's 630 gaming model with a few tweaks) but the lag was so long at one point that I thought it was locked. In one game I was reaching to do a hard reboot right before it finally broke loose. I dumped several games because I was spending more time waiting than playing.

Between the lag and the large stacks, it occurred to me that there might be an issue with the spawn rate if the game is drawn out.

If you send a save game from a current patch (ie: one I can load) that has over a 60 second delay between turns I'd love to check it out.

I'll try to remember to do that.

did you put your defenders all in a single stack?

i did not have the experience that the Arqubus defended the stack well; the weakened demons beeline for Bourne rather than attacking the stack; and i felt like we don't have enough firepower to pick them off :(

glad to read that some others are having a better experience though
same here
may be linked to the fact I don't know where to put the stack

did you put your defenders all in a single stack?

i did not have the experience that the Arqubus defended the stack well; the weakened demons beeline for Bourne rather than attacking the stack; and i felt like we don't have enough firepower to pick them off :(

glad to read that some others are having a better experience though

I had the same problem, it was frustrating and forced me into an offensive position using weak units against far tougher national units, it felt like an impossible task. I lost my first game, the turn after I killed Hyborem in the southern city near his capital then he razed Bourne. With the fore-knowledge gained I focused on two stop gaps his troops always come through and sent a large force immediately to take out Hyborem and do Capria's side quest at the same time. After getting my 100 kills, the Wraiths broke my Southern defense line but fortunately Basium had spawned and the troops I lost meant I could sit tight and just maelstrom everything killing what I could with my weak ass units and letting the units defending Bourne finish them off as they inevitably hit the city. My beelining payed it's dues however as shortly after the Wraiths showed up I killed Hyborem and won the game. The first time through I probably also would have won, considering Maelstrom had not been nerfed yet if only I'd put my Body Mage in the offensive force. Blinding light is resisted waaaaaaay too often imo.

i agree that blinding light should have more effect, especially against creatures of the night

Is there a single player so far who's decided to betray Basium?-)

I've won the game with and without betraying Basium. However, I've never won without cheating.

I won when I dropped down a level on my second attempt...

Though I suspect I didn't need to as the biggest help was knowing to get an offensive force off to Bastradum from the offset, and (after reading this thread) placing a ship on the tile that the IRA's are spawned. In doing this I managed to liberate the city before it I was requested to (indeed the request popped a turn or two after I'd already razed the city and got the reinforcements!)

Route taken was;

Send 1 Arcane Barge directly to the IRA spawning location

Sent the Law and Body mages, plus Threepwood, a longbowman, Radiant guard and a Boarding Party to the fort in the large bay in the South where the second Barge and Queen of the line rendezvoused with them (the Barge providing a bit of fire support for the few defenders I kept there)

Archmage, plus Arquebus were place to the south-west of the inland lake, whilst the two remaining Mages pushed a bit further East but remained pretty much in the North.

The Archmages location was aimed to provide support for a Southern defence force that mostly relied on a Ranger. I found that by taking Bastradum early though that the number of Infernals that approached along the Southern shore were pretty limited in numbers anyhow, so the Archmage drifted North to support the Maelstrom firing Mages with harder hitting summons (Air from a distance, water closer in). After taking Bastradum, the two Arcane Barges moved back to the bay to provide a bit of fire support/fireball recon - albeit that was limited to hitting only the occassional straggler. The Queen of the line sat on the IRA spawn tile as I wasn't sure if they would still spawn afterwards...

Guy and his gang then moved along to the East, and took out the other Southerly Infernal city which meant it was only the Northern approaches that I had to worry - but it was about this time that I hit the 100 mark.

The march north met little resistance, and just as I was thinking I'd have to have Guy's bunch sat outside Dis whilst the Archmage and other remaining defence units attempted to march East to meet up with them, I tried a couple of maelstrom attacks and found with favourable odds found Guy ignored fear on his first attempt and took out Hyrborem.

All in all, I enjoyed this scenario more than The Momus, though I agree with earlier posters that it should be clearer from the offset that there will more to do than notch 100 infernal kills. Also agree that players should start off knowing the location of the city to be defended (plus the various passes to it). I'd almost even be inclined to have a bigger batch of the troops start next to the Queen of the line as a bigger hint that the scenario isn't just about defence...

Given that the maelstrom nerf considerably increased the difficulty of this already hard scenario, I think it would be reasonable to upgrade the player's units a bit to compensate, either give them some XP or upgrade the unit quality as the swordsmen and archers are pretty useless.

Maybe add something like a spirit/fire mage to help with the undead and a worker for strategic forest clearing?

Given that the maelstrom nerf considerably increased the difficulty of this already hard scenario, I think it would be reasonable to upgrade the player's units a bit to compensate, either give them some XP or upgrade the unit quality as the swordsmen and archers are pretty useless.

Maybe add something like a spirit/fire mage to help with the undead and a worker for strategic forest clearing?
can't you just burn the forest?

I still agree with the need of a bit more/stronger units

(patch "l")

You can't win this scenario if you slay hyborem before you get your 100 kills. (See save game - Gybrush wins at 66% odds).

When I played this scenario the first time I think I accidentaly dumped the Arcane Barges right where the Ira spawn without knowing it :D That probably helped me out quite a bit. Either way, I found it a bit odd that my Radiant Guards didn't have Iron Weapons while my Swordsmen did (I did play back on patch h though I think, maybe it was changed).
Blinding light really saved me though, especially with the wraiths. I would blind them and then their duration would run out the turn they got back to normal. It does seem to be resisted very often, but it's balanced in the main game so I say it's fine. On the other hand, this scenario probably got ALOT harder with Maelstrom's recent nerf, so maybe a few more units might be needed so it doesn't get too hard.
I agree that Bourne should be revealed at the start, as I had no idea what I was going to defend until I spend a few turns using Floating Eye on all the peaks. Otherwise, it was a very fun game. Really enjoyed the whole Falamar line of scenarios.

Lore Question:
Is the Blue demon with a Goat's Head and Shattered Bones the same-one as was negogiating with Einon Logos?

My air elementals didn't spawn lightening elementals when they won a battle.

Yay, I beat it on my second try. On Monarch. (not sure what difference difficulty makes though on a scenario like this).

Going on the offensive right from the beginning made a huge difference. There are definite benefits from having played it once before and knowing the objectives ahead of time.

I beat it and got the trophy on the menu, but it didn't unlock the next scenario.

Immortal, patch K or L:

Bug - I won the game by defeating Hyborem, but still got the lovely story about Mikel's wife being "proper f****d" to quote from "Snatch". I assumed by taking on Hybo that was the sort of thing that would be avoided. If anyone can please post the text for the other win (happy ending for Mikel) in a screenshot I would really appreciate it.

When I finished, I didn't get a victory screen but the Black Tower was unlocked rom the scenario screen.

Also, I didn't have a lot of Ira spawning but I kept both barges at the norternmost line of Bastradam Bay, so that might have been accidental. Inspired by the NFL playoffs, I played defense similar to what the Eagles used to beat the Vikings: the corner cover run contain 4-gap scheme. To elaborate:

4 defensive tackles (fireballing mage + archer + radiant + hunter) fortifying and containing.
3 linebackers blitzing the gaps (Guybrush/Archmage/Ranger)
2 deep cornerbacks in coverage of weakened units that slip through (Ratha/Ranger with mobility 2).

Despite the goal being a bit unclear, I scouted west with an eye and figured out what to do.

All in all, turns 5-40 were the best 5 hours I spent playing civ. Like a beautiful chess match, when one wrong move, one lost unit or one unit outside of position means the difference between triumph and defeat. Maybe I won without cheating because I spent a full minute thinking about every unit move, but that is the way I recommend everybody to play it to have the most fun.

I haven't been able to start this, it crashes to desktop after briefly showing the intro screen.

All in all, turns 5-40 were the best 5 hours I spent playing civ. Like a beautiful chess match, when one wrong move, one lost unit or one unit outside of position means the difference between triumph and defeat. Maybe I won without cheating because I spent a full minute thinking about every unit move, but that is the way I recommend everybody to play it to have the most fun.

Agreed. :goodjob:

This is a viciously difficult scenario. I managed a clean victory by betraying the Mercurians and letting the endless tide of Wraiths and Beasts of Agares do most of the work, but the idea of folding up my battered defensive line and trucking over to Dis, against that same tide, to fight the strongest demons yet, is the stuff of nightmares. I can't think of a way to use Maelstrom effectively when it hurts me just as much as it hurts them. Bastradam is an absolute non-starter with those Ira. Basium manages his forces so poorly that I've seen him defeated in his capital by a horseman. I assume that the horseman had some daunting combat odds, but it's still obvious that he can only hold out for so long, having mailed his megastack of angels to an ignominious disintegration somewhere near the center of the map.

Am I wrong in thinking that I need to cover every possible route to Bourne, lest a scout slip by and sack the utterly defenseless city? I see you guys talking about using stacks, but it seems like during the initial phase I can never afford to have more than four units in one tile. If I spot an Infernal stack moving for the unguarded north, I don't have time to stop them before a bigger stack shows up, driving for the center. So, I fill every gap, sometimes with a lone hunter on open ground, which feels a little bit like exploiting the AI.

I'm sorry if this reads like a complaint. I was pleasantly surprised to be so challenged by some middle-of-the-story crapshoot, and did feel the need to vent after trying at it for so many hours. However, certain elements of the scenario do seem a bit too impossible. I think that it would be a bit more manageable if the player were able to control the Mercurians directly (with considerably fewer units, even) or if Bourne had just a few in-city defenders from the start (just what happened to the rest of the Radiant Guard mentioned at the start of the scenario? Don't they have any weapons at all?). And what's the deal with those Ira? I mean, what can you even do about them?

The victory screen when you win by betrayal is genuinely a little bit disturbing, and I hope that I can spare my conscience with a bit of practice, but I don't know if I'll be able to do it without the worldbuilder. Thanks!

fireballs are awesome against nightmares.

I can't think of a way to use Maelstrom effectively when it hurts me just as much as it hurts them.

if Bourne had just a few in-city defenders from the start (just what happened to the rest of the Radiant Guard mentioned at the start of the scenario? Don't they have any weapons at all?).

In response to these two points.

Maelstrom is excellent providing you're using it from cover of a stack, after using it is when you jump out to harass the already injured enemies. Then you get them back in the stack before using Maelstrom on your next turn, although sometimes it may be worth while to take the self inflicted damage to bring down a vulnerable big guy and hope you can get the unit back under cover without losing it.

One thing to keep in mind is any unit you lose has a chance to spawn a defender for Basium, so as long as you've seen the message that one of your units has been reborn as an angel at least once, then letting a few of the weaker & injured demons through is relatively safe. My main goal after seeing this message was to simply Maelstrom all the demons to max damage and take out the big demons (beasts of agres, wraiths, lich's etc...) It cost me quite a few of my units (more potential defenders for Bourne...) but I was confident the Angel's could handle the injured smaller stuff that I let by, I didn't lose the second time so I figure the plan worked.

I beat this scenario.

Basic plan. Stacks of 4 units with a caster with fireball arranged north south with more stacks in center and only 1 at the top. 1 stack to attack coastal city and raize it gaining additional troops. At 100 kills cluster guys and go into survival mode. Save as many guys as you can. March to the next port city and raize it. Then seige the capital untill you have a chance at killing Hyboream the unit.

I took a mage and a few units and spread them north and south. With heavier guys in the middle. I took my hero, a certain mage that could some full water elementals, and 2 boarding parties to capture the port city at the bottom. When you take the city you get a confessor and some champions. Your arcane barges rock! Use them to hurt or wipe out enemy that is close to the shoreline. You dont need to keep a mage by the southernmost stacks because of the boats. (once youve taken the coastal city they become rather useless unless you can capture a worker to build a fortress so the boats can go further east.)
The begining part is simple. Kill 100 Units and take the one coastal city. Keeping a caster with 2-3 units is the best strategy. Use fireball to weaken a stack then radient light to freeze it if it is still too strong. They will keep moving east. You cant let any get through.
The beginning stacks are easy. When you take out the first coastal city for the additional units you should march them back to your greatest concentration of troops. You don't want to have armies all over the place. One big concentration in the center, and a few small clusters on the edges. The enemies that come will continue to get tougher. It is the central stack that will ensure your units survive to heal and fight again. The enemy sends most of the units towards the center. The far top is almost completely ignored and once you raise the bottom city the south gets hit far less.

Once you kill or are really close to killing the 100th enemy Cluster your troops. You get the choice of going evil or good. I went good. Soon large numbers of strong wraiths and all kinds of evil stuff starts hunting down your units. They will pick off any weak stack. I lost my southern and most of my northern units in the first few turns. Once you get your army massed together for safety. March them all south and follow the coast. You don't have to worry about anything else at this point. Let the enemy pass if you can. Focus on upgrading your guys and only expend the summoned units. I took out the 2nd coastal city at this point and was ignored by the enemy untill I reached the capital. Or you can push on to the capital and continue to be assaulted. It depends on how many survivors you have. You need at least 3 casters that can summon things or at least have fireballs. I like water elementals for this. The first one dies creating 2 more you can use that turn. Its like getting 3 for the price of one. Using maelstrom, water elementals and many fireballs i was able to whittle away at the defence enough for my biggest guy left to have a 64% chance against hyboream. I won.

Yup, this was hard. I do not belive I have done it on Emperor by the second run, wow to me.

First attempt ended when one scout of a horsemen slipped through my defence line. Second attempt was a bitter fight I was was sure I have already lost when more and more wraights came at my last stack of defenders.

I won by sending my hero, the archmage, a boarding party and one longbowman to capture that quested city for Capria. The arcane barges helped a lot. Then my stack went to see what the deamons prepared for me as my defense of the middle [by then I noticed the hordes were aiming directly at the city and were focusing on the middle pass] was good. Few turns passed and everything changed. Pit Beasts, infernal rangers, first wraith and on the offense side Iras from the second infernal city with I finally found. With only the hero, archamge, confessor and two hunters that did reckon in the beginning but then I forgot about them [beeing fortified the whole time!] I 'captured' a forested hill and waited for the end. My defence of the middle was so full of holes that I give up mentally. Only then I have noticed I have to kill only 12 units to win! Lucky me, a stack of weak units were just passing by my forward stack so I did a quick hit and run for 3 turns. added some suicidal attacks from the rest of my defenders and bingo....what? Another task?! This was too much for me. I withdrew my defenders to the Basium city, one mage, one radiant guard and one ranger. One more turn without Basium and the wraiths would get me. I have clicked 'end turn' like 20 times but nothing happened. I was counting that the sheer amount of units that Basium spawned each turn will finally win the scenario for me, but it was 3 AM. I saved and moved my hero stack with I thought was too weak to do the job. I wanted only to scout the area so I can do the scenario again. I was lucky and found Hyborem in few turns, yay me again. My hero had City Raider III, combat 5, add to it bless and a fire elemental before the attack and Hyborem was dead. 0.o Impossible has happen :)

Loved the scenario cause I wont it like that. Would hate it if the hero stack actually did not make it. Maelstorm is not week even after the nerf.

I did not like the map thou. It did not seem like it was a scenario map, but a random scripted thing. It worked in the Momus were randomnes was the point of the scenario but here it did not fit at all. What I aslo would expect is some kind of help from Basium after you save his city. I killed the 100 units but had almost too little units left to do the second objective. The player should get some units in reward for the brave defence that would give him always a chance to achieve the second objective.

I propose that the objectives list how many they are in game interface. Like, it should write '(1 of 2)' next to the text were the number of units to kill lists.

Finally beat it on my third try, but It wasn't like I dominated it. I sent a raiding party to take the quest city and defended the city with everyone else. When I got the bonus troops I continued to Dis with them, a mage, guybrush and a couple others. I was SO close to losing. I was holding the line OK, but then the liches came and since their summons move 4 per turn they were instantly past my line. I quickly tried to finish killing my 100 troops (i had about a dozen left) so that basium would defend himself, i also attacked recklessly to try and have some souls die and defend the city. I simultaneously sent 2 or 3 souls, killed my 100, and defeated hyborem on the same turn that the wraiths would have taken the city. This was only on noble too :( Not my favorite campaign, but different strokes for different folks.

I also finally beat it (on noble). The keys to my new strategy were:

*Everyone that doesn't already have two moves gets a mobility promotion.

*For the Mages, fireballs+spell extension only. Don't bother with Maelstrom, and metamagic 2 isn't worth it when you could just give your fireballs another level of empowerment. For the Archmage, Water Elementals rule.

*Don't make a move on Bastradam until you have your 100 kills. On Noble at least, there should be plenty of time left before the Bannor take their ball and go home.

*Use Guybrush to kill everything possible. He needs to be strong for when you get to Dis.

Even though the game text said I couldn't move to the west, I was able to. It was pretty easy to defend the city when my units were camped out inside with a wall of stone and water/earth elementals. I think I'm playing on patch i, maybe this is fixed later on. I did not get any reinforcements or the choice to join the demons, probaby because all of my units were in the city when I got my 100th kill. I did get Capria's champions and confessor, which made it a lot of fun to march on Dis after the hordes stopped attacking Basium.

Hyborem also made peace with Basium about half way through, which was interesting. Again, likely the result of me having units in Bourne the Gleaming.

Excellent scenario, I'll probably have to try it again without moving my units into the city...

*For the Mages, fireballs+spell extension only. Don't bother with Maelstrom, and metamagic 2 isn't worth it when you could just give your fireballs another level of empowerment. For the Archmage, Water Elementals rule.

What is good about water elementals? I liked air elementals because of their range & speed, I liked fire elementals because of their collateral damage, but what benefit does water have besides the water walking? They seemed slow and generally unimpressive, I never bothered with Water III. Should I have?

Well, water elementals split in two if they die, creating 2 more slightly weaker ones. Great for busting large stacks, not so great for killing Hyborem.

On the other hand, am I the only one who moves a bit to the east to hold the 2 passes there and let summons kill every unit? I stack three Radiant Guards with my Archmage and some other units on the tile with the Ancient Tower and kill anything that passes with water or earth Elementals.
I also make a beeline for Bastradam. I find that if you do it early enough, enemies won't even exploit the lack of a Southern defence. Then I ship back a the original units while I have the Bannor troops kill units passing by the area.
First time I played I only lost one Hunter (it was on prince though, I didn't know what to expect).
Second time, I lost a boarding party to a few stray Wraiths. Usually if you pull back with your archmage stack by the time the Liches get close you can blind all the wraiths while they slog through the forested hills with the river running by them.
I never even got any units except Guybrush above level 3. I also killed Hyborem with a Law Bringer. 30% odds and I didn't think he would win. I love those random kills like that!

finally (third try) I managed this one (patch o)
no cheating but knowledge of the map.

My strategy was pretty simple :
one main city taking stack, one main unit killing stack, a few scattered defensive units.

most of the 100 kills were so by defensive units + fireballs from the unit killing stack and the arcane barges.
at some point, I had 6 units left to kill; I had already done banor's little extra task and all my unit killing stack (including the mages) got killed, as well as most my defensive units (one radiant guard was left). I saw a lot of infernal troops cruising to the city I was supposed to defend, and saw nothing I could do against it, so I moved my city killing stack as fast as possible (body mage!) to dis and completed both tasks (killing 100 then killing hyborem with those before doom striked.
Not too proud of this one but a victory is a victory.

Did anyone manage this one without foreknowledge of the map? (meaning on the first try)

looks like I managed to break this little scenario :D


..That is, sent my "core" troops to whatever that southern city is, razed it, moved east, razed that city, moved north to Hyborem's city.

Killed Hyborem with some ~10 units to go on the "kill 100"
killed the remaining necessary troops... And was then asked to "defeat Hyborem", which didn't quite work out.


It also seems a bit counterintuitive that suiciding (sending them in with low odds to get them killed) a bunch of Radiant Guard troops is a good idea, to be sure you can miss a few infernals slipping through.

I actually beat this the first time through on Emperor... part of it was being really cautious I suppose as some of you have mentioned (really agonizing over my first moves, to make sure I lost no units). I didn't even know where Bourne was though... so imagine my surprise when I was sweeping east, killing enemies, but some were walking by - "hmm, where are those guys headed - OH..." I remember one radiant guard following a stack of like 3 guys for about 20 turns (cause I had sent everyone east from the start) casting every turn to slow them down - in the end I think a couple random units got by but the city survived.

So, I had sent my ships and a small force (hunters, a mage) to Bastradam very early - but then the Ira's showing up like mad deterred me from that (they killed all my ships!). When I knew what was going on I rallied everyone back to the middle to protect the city/beat the 100, and was pretty sucessful (air elementals for killing the lichs, once I figured out where they were summoning all the units from) and then came the twist I was half expecting (this was after playing the Blood of Angels scenario I think - where I "thought" killing the Bannor would end it and "hey, go kill this other guy" so I was expecting something was up here. But I figured Basium could protect himself then, one big super stack just marched on (summons and spells + highly upgraded Guy and Arquebus made me basically invincible), took Bastradam (lol'd at the reward at that point) and on to Kill Hyborem.

Overall I thought this was good, very much encouraging tactical thinking - maybe the one tough thing was that people would be expecting it to end at 100 kills, if they didn't save their units the first time through. Also, the hellfires springing up were cool - I hadn't seen those before but made a top priority to send elementals to raize them so there were fewer demon spawns.

I beat the scenario by turning against Basium and crushing him with Hyborem, but the it just said that Hyborem had won a conquest victory. I think i have the latest patch. Anybody know whats up?

I have managed to get past this one the second time. The first time I sat back, waiting. Killed 100 demons, and then I rejected the offer from Hyborem...
After that, I got the message from the Bannor that I will have to rze that city in 20 turns, and I was onm my way with ships filled with troops...promptly sunk by Iras..RIP. In the meantime they got to the Gleaming and the game was over...

Second try, I got to the offensive from turn one...Landed a small amount of troops near the city I ment to capture first(4 units of which 2 made it successfully due to my wrongly selecting the disembargation point...). So, I kept harrasing them with fireballs from the Barges and Maelstorm from the wizard landed there. I also made sure that my enemies were severly hurt when passing by and I headed with two main stacks(one containing the archmage and arquebus the other Threep and 2 mages). I kept a small one(the 2 mages with a radiant,swordsman and ranger) to the north, to delay these troops...
My losses strengthened the Basium. I merged the remainder of my forces outside the first city. I had to sacrifice Threep to take the first city. When taken, I merged with my last wizard(all other troops north lost, as well as two more wizards) and headed north. I used the Earth elemental on attack and the water elemental when I wanted to defend. I made sure to weaken the enemies with maelstorm. Hopefully, with the help the Bannor gave me, I managed to raze the second city and get to hyborem. When I defeated him(over two turns), the game announced a conquest victory and...stopped.
No stats, no exit options, no nothing. I checked with the scenario button (the buttons were working) and saw that the next scenario was unlocked...So, I exited to main menu and went on to start the next scenario.

This is very enjoyable scenario that presents a challenge. The only thing I think can be improved is the finale. It would be nice for the player to be given the option to exit knowing that his computer did not hung up or something...

Now, Maybe I should post this to the Black Tower feedback, but I haven't started it yet for the following reason:
After I started the Black Tower, and when settled my first city I got a window asking me what civ I like this city to be handlled by...And had Ljosalfar and svaltalfar greyed out...I checked the other scenarios and didn't show anyone giving the alliance of any elves to this scenario.
I figuered it may be the splintered court, so I started that scenario instead, but it doesn't say that this will give me the option to have elves at black tower.

Anyone know something about it?

I beat the scenario by the edge of my fingertips, with a single unit left, on Monarch. Feedback would be something like:

1: Ira! Ira! Ira! Get them off me! Get them OFF me! The Ira killed my entire stack heading for Bastradam. I believe this is mentioned by others. I would find it balancing if one or two Ira spawned, but twelve?

2: Visibility. I actually organized my defenses against west (thinking the limitation of movement was to prevent offense against Infernals until later). Also, the passes to the city would be nice to see aswell. Perhaps add visibility of Hyborem once the 100 demons are dead.

3: Ships. I never realized the Infernals would not send ships, so I kept mine at a two-tile strait until I had killed the 100 Demons. Then I attacked and lost them against the Ira.

4: Lore. Very nice! As mentioned by others, a message that the Mercurian Gate is built would be nice.

I beat the scenario by the edge of my fingertips, with a single unit left, on Monarch. Feedback would be something like:

1: Ira! Ira! Ira! Get them off me! Get them OFF me! The Ira killed my entire stack heading for Bastradam. I believe this is mentioned by others. I would find it balancing if one or two Ira spawned, but twelve?

2: Visibility. I actually organized my defenses against west (thinking the limitation of movement was to prevent offense against Infernals until later). Also, the passes to the city would be nice to see aswell. Perhaps add visibility of Hyborem once the 100 demons are dead.

3: Ships. I never realized the Infernals would not send ships, so I kept mine at a two-tile strait until I had killed the 100 Demons. Then I attacked and lost them against the Ira.

4: Lore. Very nice! As mentioned by others, a message that the Mercurian Gate is built would be nice.

If you move quickly, you get the city before Iras are spawned.

I enjoyed this scenario very much. What do I look for in a FfH scenario? Three main items - first, a good challenge, an interesting time; second, the scenario is different from a regular Epic game; third, it has an interesting story/lore that helps enjoy the experience. The third item, though, is not nearly as important to me as 1 and 2, but it is a nice enhancer.

I won this my first time, but I was sweating. Indeed, at one point I thought I was going to lose and considered restarting, but I stuck with it.

SPOILERS

The beginning of the game reminds me of the BtS (or was in Warlords?) scenario Defense! The key is to find a good line of defense, choke points, and to try to do fighting at range, just like Defense. Obviously the four mages and the archmage are the key units here. The idea is to kill at range.

I don't have a lot to add to the comments already here. I think the key strategic issue is whether to wait to get 100 kills before aiding Capria, or getting the 100 kills, gathering the army, and moving in force. I realized though that there was a lot of hellfire and a lot of spawning of very tough units; I'm thinking a quick attack may be worthwhile before the Infernals build up. But how many units, which units? I took my time and found fierce resistance.

I got the '20 turn' message, but got to Balderstam in about 10. Next time, i may try to move faster.

Spoilers

I lost a lot of units attacking Balderstam including my arquebus -- I was terrified I wouldn't be able to take out the Infernals. The most important lesson is not to try to kill everything, sneak around to try to get to Dis.

Intelligence is a key to victory -- your floating eye spell is a life saver.

When I got to Dis it was lightly defended and I ended up winning.

Summary

I lost about 10 units and thought I was in bad shape, but I wasn't. I didn't find the scenario to be overly hard but it is 'tight'; I was on the end of my chair. It clearly was a strategy game different from what we see in normal FfH. Good job!

Minor min-bugs:

Spoilers

A key part of the game is trying to avoid the killer stacks of baddies while marching to and trying to find Dis. While marching around and using floating eyes, I got a message that a great prophet was generated in Dis; it showed me exactly where the city was!

Second, when I won the game and got the message, I got put back in the game, but I couldn't get off the screen; there was no ability to get out. I had to get out with cntl-als- del.

Best wishes,

Breunor

I'm having problems with this scenario.

The first part (kill 100 enemies) goes rather fine: I manage to kill them, and conquer Bastardam. Then, when the game tells me to defeat Hyborem... that's where the trouble begin.

First, I thought it only meant that I should kill the unit Hyborem, but that doesn't seem to do anything. Then, I managed to conquer all of the Infernal cities, only to be told that "Basium has won Conquest victory". After re-attempting that for a couple of times, I got frustrated, and spawned the map full of Aurius Ascended, defeating every last demon there was. The game tells that the Infernal Civilization has been defeated, but again, it is Basium who wins.
I do not even gain access to the next scenario!

I do believe I have the latest patch, so if anyone could help, I'd appreciate it.

My game ended as soon as I killed the Hyborem unit.

I'm having problems with this scenario.

The first part (kill 100 enemies) goes rather fine: I manage to kill them, and conquer Bastardam. Then, when the game tells me to defeat Hyborem... that's where the trouble begin.

First, I thought it only meant that I should kill the unit Hyborem, but that doesn't seem to do anything. Then, I managed to conquer all of the Infernal cities, only to be told that "Basium has won Conquest victory". After re-attempting that for a couple of times, I got frustrated, and spawned the map full of Aurius Ascended, defeating every last demon there was. The game tells that the Infernal Civilization has been defeated, but again, it is Basium who wins.
I do not even gain access to the next scenario!

I do believe I have the latest patch, so if anyone could help, I'd appreciate it.

Quick question for you, The P -- Did you kill Hyborem originally outside of Dis? If the answer is yes, did he get reborn and did you then kill him again?

If you answered yes ot the first question, then it would appear that Hyborem's immortal ability is messing stuff up -- that is, because he is immortal he is being reborn and he isn't being registered as killed and you aren't triggering the scenario victory conditions; then when the infernals are defeated, there is a conquest victory for Basium since he owns the cities on the map!

And if the answer to the second question is no, then the rebirth mechanism may be messed up; or if the answer to the second question is yes, perhaps scenario victory isn't being triggered on the second Hyborem death.

And if the answer to the first question is no, and you killed him in Dis, then I'm just totally wrong! :)


Best wishes,

Breunor

Where can I find those patches for The Radiant Guard (if it can be that specific)?

I thought the final release of FFH2 contained all the patches. Are all scenarios patches to be downloaded separately?

Thanks in advance!

Where can I find those patches for The Radiant Guard (if it can be that specific)?

I thought the final release of FFH2 contained all the patches. Are all scenarios patches to be downloaded separately?

Thanks in advance!

Just download the latest patch. There are no specific scenario patches.

I manage to win this with some cheating:
cheat 1: opened WB to see the map
immediately grouped my units, loaded all my ships with the strongest, beeelined to the coastal city
Once received the preciuos confessor and some useless champions, i got a lost by conquest!!! ??? !!!
cheat 2: reloaded a couple turns early, see the Mercurian city under siege by some 12 units, defended by 2 weak angels. Put a paladin there, promoted to CG1,2,3. No more worries on that side.
Then kept a small stack on a forested hill near Basium, stacked all the others to take the far north city. Useless, i should have beeline the central one.

Once killed the big demon, i got a freeze: just clicked the minimap and i got all the victory messages.
The Mercurian city disappeared, the infernal city and all the units too, and i has Innsmouth in the SW corner of the map.

I think it's not so easy beat this scenario without those cheats: give Basium at least a strong defender is required, you can't avoid some enemy unit to escape and kill the weak defenders.
Also it would be better see the Mercurian city from the beginning and after you kill your 100th unit, see the real target.

I have problems with this stage. I downloaded the patch a week or two ago hoping this problem would be corrected, but I've tried to play this scenario quite a few times only to fill all the requirements and still not actually complete the scenario.

It just comes up with a conquest victory. No end-game stats or movies and the next scenario is still locked. I downloaded the most current patch today, so hopefully the next scenarios will be unlocked and this problem will be corrected

Had the sweetest time playing it on patch 'y'. It seems alright. No bugs found.
Did the ol' Rush-for-Bastradam strategy, and I wasn't surprised to see a jolly confessor joining my ranks (often quoted in lots of posts here).

That priest surely helped my expeditionary stack (Threepwood, archmage, two mages, two champs, confessor, swordsman, radiant guard). All I needed to raze Despero and face Hyborem.
The rest defended Bourne courageously (until those damned Wraiths made them all run for shelter, but Basium took over by then).

Gonna try the other side of the coin some other time, and see for myself if Bourne's really worth sacking.

This is probably more about the themes of Erebus than people really care about but Mikel was only allowed his happy ending because he had been willing to sacrifice his family for the safety of Bourne. It was that dirt, especially cast against his history in the Sheaim (so we know he understood what he was risking) and his own shortcomings, that made it possible to have the victory. Had he have been a perfect hero archetype the laws of Erebus wouldn't have allowed it and it would have felt out of place in this world.

Plus, should you opt to turn on Basium in the scenario things turn out much worse for Mikel.


I did this, then after reading the ending text promptly reloaded and killed Hyborem instead. Reading that ending made me feel physically ill.

Good short, sharp scenario; especially after enduring Momus. :goodjob:

Took 1 archmage, mage, arquebus, swordsman, radiant guard and Guybrush by boat to Balderstam, leaving the rest to defend. Positioned the Queen of the Line boat on the coast, 2 or 3 tiles north of Balderstam, and left it there. I'm not sure if that was where the Ira spawn is, but I never saw any of them as a result!? Received confessor & champ's and walked stack straight to Dis (bypassed Despero) wasting anything in my way (enemy troop's seemed more focused on trudging toward's the Mercurian city?). The arquebus defended the stack well, but once promoted to 'Guardsman' they were impressive. Slew Hyborem in lightly defended Dis (just as my defence lines were starting to get overwhelmed at home) and then got end game story. All good, no bug's etc.

p.s. Reading the happy ending made me feel physically ill, so I promptly reloaded and killed Basium instead. :drool: The darkness has returned and my faith in Kael is restored....

I found Radiant Guard rather unintuitive. You're told to protect a city you can't see, and for a while I thought the city was to the east and not the west until the demons started arriving. After reorganizing my defenses, I came to certain realizations:

1. The enemy outnumbers me.
2. The enemy is faster than me.
3. The enemy is stronger than me in a straight up fight.
4. There are far too many holes in the mountains to completely block off the city you need to protect with the units you have.

This ended up making me reach the conclusion that the only advantage I had over the forces assaulting the city were the mages I had. Maelstrom was the spell of the hour, as Fireball pretty much did jack-squat against most of them demons, though my Archmage did have fun throwing Water Elementals at people.

Then came the realization that sacrificing the Radiant Guard created angels for Basium, Angels that were in reality far more valuable than the Guard themselves, considering they were weaponless and their Sun 2 kept getting resisted too often to be of much help.

I found it practically necessary to sacrifice my Radiant Guard in order to create angels. There was simply no way I could destroy all of the forces going through my lines, especially once Liches spamming Wraiths and Beasts of Agares started coming over the horizon. I can't imagine anyone actually expecting us to kill all of those with what little forces we have, especially if we're also trying to do Capria's side-quest at the same time.

It was a good scenario, balance quirks otherwise. I liked the "good" ending.

This one was fun tactically, but a bit of trick pony since it's pretty difficult unless you attack the SE demon city and get the free reinforcements.

Playing this scenario was the first time I’ve had a FFH experience I really, really disliked. It was incredibly frustrating and very much not the style of game I enjoy. I tried beating it straight up (no cheating) three times at decreasing difficulty levels and failed each time. I’m normally an Emp-Immortal level player; if I have to go below Noble to beat this, something is wrong (with me, probably). Do lower difficulty levels actually make it easier for the player?

After failing three times, I finally decided to beat it by cheating. I gave myself a Eubarates near Dis to kill infernal units before they got to my weakling units, and I marched Guybrush to Bastradum, WB-deleting the Ira that spawned there. I have no idea how else to beat this. Even so, I twice had to WB-delete hellhounds that broke through my lines before I got 100 kills, which was on like turn 20 because Eubarates was slaughtering 3 guys a turn (I gave him Blitz). MOST frustratingly, when I razed the last Infernal city I got no story victory screen and I wasn’t able to start the Black tower. I finally had to manually give myself the trophy in the Trophy.cfg file. Now I wish I had done that from the very start instead of playing through this junk.

My observations from my failures:

1) Radiant Guards without iron are really pathetic. Now I remember why I never build them in the epic game. Here, the RGs can’t even hold their own against demonic axemen. Having a bunch of units with blinding light is an interesting idea for this scenario in theory (it gives you extra time to cover gaps in the defense), except that 1. BL gets resisted WAY too often, meaning the RGs are useless unless you stack 3 of them together, and 2. all the forest terrain means your units move too slow to get back and cover gaps anyway.

2) Razing Bastradum is pretty much impossible with the Ira spawns. 4 Ira (they always have at LEAST 4 by the time I walk over there) = dead stack. I suppose the only viable strategy is to get there quicker on the boats—I didn’t think about that until I read it in this thread. Kind of ridiculous to offer only one realistic strategy for victory.

3) Even with the Mages spamming maelstrom and fireballs, Only two of your units stand any chance of killing anything stronger than an axe: Guybrush and the Archmage. Unless you keep both of them back for defense, the demons WILL break through. Of course, if you keep them back for defense you can’t raze the demonic cities.

4) Because you only have two units capable of killing wraiths / Beasts of Agares, you HAVE to funnel the enemy towards where those two units are. This means pulling cheesy tactics like blocking chokepoints with hunters knowing that the AI pathfinding won’t let the AI just try to go through your hunters. I really dislike relying on AI exploitation like that to win, but I see no other choice here.

I've been trying to complete the scenario for two whole days. Im fed up with it to an extent I don't have the mental capacity for another shot. Can anyone give me a tip on how to change the scenario to *Trophy* so I could continue the campeign?

Thank's.

I can't help with that, unfortunately; but if you follow the hints in the main thread, it should be pretty easy. Just play it on a very low level if you are having trouble.

Finally, you can just cheat using the worldbuilder.

But I appeal to you to try it the 'regular' way. I think the idea of these scenarios is to take us as players out of our 'patterns' and playing with different starategies and ideas; that is why some people find them very easy and some find them hard. It can be frustrating but it is rewarding when it is accomplished!


Best wishes,

Breunor

I can't help with that, unfortunately; but if you follow the hints in the main thread, it should be pretty easy. Just play it on a very low level if you are having trouble.

Finally, you can just cheat using the worldbuilder.

But I appeal to you to try it the 'regular' way. I think the idea of these scenarios is to take us as players out of our 'patterns' and playing with different starategies and ideas; that is why some people find them very easy and some find them hard. It can be frustrating but it is rewarding when it is accomplished!




Thank's.. unfortunately even those tips didn't really aid me. I've wasted days on that scenario and Im pretty much done with it. Could you tell me how does one enter the world builder (Yes, I've never felt the need prior to this scenario)?

Ctrl-w .

I am running .41d and trying to finish The Radiant Guard. After killing Hyborem, however, I get the epilogue story popup but then the game freezes with the victory message displayed on the bottom of the screen. My mouse still works, but my keyboard gets locked out. No game recap or score ranking is shown. I am unable to do anything but use my mouse to open up the options panel and 'exit to main menu.'

Upon loading up the custom scenarios screen, I show that I can now play the next scenario in sequence, "The Black Tower". When I try to play it, though, my game crashes to desktop each and every time before it starts.

I think Hyborem's immortality is messing up this scenario. When I kill him just the one time, Dis is gets razed even though there are defender units still in the city. Further, Hyborem's immortality seems to trigger after Dis is destroyed, since his magic weapon, Gela, suddenly appears on an adjacent hill as if he respawned but was displaced by the non-existent, non-relocated capital and killed by script.

Attached is a save file I made right before trying to kill Hyborem so you can observe this yourselves.

Basium: "Mortal, I entrust you with the honour of defending my holy city. From this very spot we will win a mighty victory against the forces of evil and strike at all those that trangress against the Heavens. We will cause such uproar that the very gates of the deepest hell will shake with fear as all come to know the fury of the righteous."

Falamar: "If it please your grace, where is this holy city, that I might best plan my defence?"

Basium: "Trouble me not with such petty inconveniences. Know that it is enough to serve me in the most virtuous of causes."

Falamar: "Your honour, my allies tell me that the city gates lay unguarded. Perhaps we cannot enter the city itself, for all men are sinners and our failings would sully the purity of your great avenues and promenades, but can you not see fit to tell us where this city might lie, that we might post the radiant guard accordingly and prevent the foulest denizens of netherworld from corrupting this, the vessel of your sacred gate on this earthly plane."

Basium: "Silence. I will not tell you where my city lies."

Falamar: "I have this shiny world map. Why just this very morning my keenest hunters and rangers journeyed deep into the heart of enemy territory. Surely such knowledge would make your appointed task much easier and save many more souls from our enemies. We could trade maps."

Basium: [Burst of angelic chorus. It sounds like nothing of this world, and yet, strangely, it also sounds like the cherubim singing "La La La I can't hear you!"]

Falamar: "Very well, I shall try my best. Now about the troops. You've seen fit to provide me with a number of wildsman. They are not strong combatants, but they are well versed in using hawks and eagles as messengers and scouts. With such intelligence, I could deploy my troops strategically to counter my foes every move. If you see your way clear to passing on their feathered friends, we'll be on our way."

Basium: "You have no need of eagles."

Falamar: "But we needn't use eagles, we could use parrots... owls... blue-tits?.... hummingbirds?!? Er, I guess I can take it avian support is off the roster."

Basium: "You are clearly a fool. I know not of this avian of which you speak."

Falamar: "But there a three dozen doves fluttering above your head right now. Every time you speak, they make delightful birdsong and spell out your words in six foot high letters."

Basium: "Trouble me not with your chatter, pirate, my patience grows ever thin."

Falamar: "..."

Basium: "You are still here. Is there something else?"

Falamar: "Well... it's just having landed my ships, I have a few spare tools for the maintenance of my navy. Saws, axes, ropes... that kind of thing"

Basium: "And?"

Falamar: "It occurs to me... and this is only a suggestion mind you, so keep your halo on... Perhaps if you could, you know, spare a few carpenters or manual labourers, maybe I could put them to good use. They could, I dunno, chop down some of those trees, so the enemy doesn't have any cover to hide in. Or build a few forts in clever locations... Hey, watch where your swinging that flaming sword!"

Basium: "Are you still here?"

Exit Falamar. Basium turns to audience and removes a mask to reveal Hyborem.

Hyborem: "Now if that doesn't rile him enough to turn to the dark side, I don't know what will."

Basium: "Mortal, I entrust you with the honour of defending my holy city. From this very spot we will win a mighty victory against the forces of evil and strike at all those that trangress against the Heavens. We will cause such uproar that the very gates of the deepest hell will shake with fear as all come to know the fury of the righteous."

Falamar: "If it please your grace, where is this holy city, that I might best plan my defence?"

Basium: "Trouble me not with such petty inconveniences. Know that it is enough to serve me in the most virtuous of causes."

Falamar: "Your honour, my allies tell me that the city gates lay unguarded. Perhaps we cannot enter the city itself, for all men are sinners and our failings would sully the purity of your great avenues and promenades, but can you not see fit to tell us where this city might lie, that we might post the radiant guard accordingly and prevent the foulest denizens of netherworld from corrupting this, the vessel of your sacred gate on this earthly plane."

Basium: "Silence. I will not tell you where my city lies."

Falamar: "I have this shiny world map. Why just this very morning my keenest hunters and rangers journeyed deep into the heart of enemy territory. Surely such knowledge would make your appointed task much easier and save many more souls from our enemies. We could trade maps."

Basium: [Burst of angelic chorus. It sounds like nothing of this world, and yet, strangely, it also sounds like the cherubim singing "La La La I can't hear you!"]

Falamar: "Very well, I shall try my best. Now about the troops. You've seen fit to provide me with a number of wildsman. They are not strong combatants, but they are well versed in using hawks and eagles as messengers and scouts. With such intelligence, I could deploy my troops strategically to counter my foes every move. If you see your way clear to passing on their feathered friends, we'll be on our way."

Basium: "You have no need of eagles."

Falamar: "But we needn't use eagles, we could use parrots... owls... blue-tits?.... hummingbirds?!? Er, I guess I can take it avian support is off the roster."

Basium: "You are clearly a fool. I know not of this avian of which you speak."

Falamar: "But there a three dozen doves fluttering above your head right now. Every time you speak, they make delightful birdsong and spell out your words in six foot high letters."

Basium: "Trouble me not with your chatter, pirate, my patience grows ever thin."

Falamar: "..."

Basium: "You are still here. Is there something else?"

Falamar: "Well... it's just having landed my ships, I have a few spare tools for the maintenance of my navy. Saws, axes, ropes... that kind of thing"

Basium: "And?"

Falamar: "It occurs to me... and this is only a suggestion mind you, so keep your halo on... Perhaps if you could, you know, spare a few carpenters or manual labourers, maybe I could put them to good use. They could, I dunno, chop down some of those trees, so the enemy doesn't have any cover to hide in. Or build a few forts in clever locations... Hey, watch where your swinging that flaming sword!"

Basium: "Are you still here?"

Exit Falamar. Basium turns to audience and removes a mask to reveal Hyborem.

Hyborem: "Now if that doesn't rile him enough to turn to the dark side, I don't know what will."

Ha ha, very nice, Jabie!

It all makes sense, now. Plus you can see that the Radiant Guard are cleverly not using metal weapons. Maybe they're too much of a burden; the wooden training gear will suffice.
Hyborem is a genius!

I managed to kill Hyborem but...

...why my wictory screen says about the Sect of Flies torturing Mikel's wife and daughter? Didn't killing Hyborem stopped the evil guys or does the Sect work for Basium?

I agree that this scenario is not intuitive. Falamar should be in a permanent alliance with Basium from the start.

Although there should be the ability for that to change with the scripted event after the 100 kills, should the player choose.

That way Basium will share his map with Falamar. Or at least start them off with a +10 diplomacy modifier or something. It seems rather ridiculous that Basium won't share world maps and I have to waste time looking for the city myself.

I've played this scenario twice. The first time I tried to gather my troops into a stack to just march east, but quickly got the message that Hyborem won a conquest victory. Really? Basium was that poorly defended? Whatever. Second try. I try to secure as many choke points along the mountains and give my units promotions according to the terrain they are defending. I up my mages to fireballs thinking they should soften the enemy as they approach. Fireball is pretty useless as I am fast learning. It was awesome in Age of Ice, but it got beat with the nerf stick really hard for FFH2. I survive long enough to get the quest this time, which is cool, but wait too long to do it. Seems I can't even get past the longbowmen defending Basterdam. My defensive lines start to crumble and I get the 100 kills, but Hyborem still wins a conquest.

Next time I'm gonna try 2-3 stacks with maelstrom instead of fireball and rush Basterdam early.

What I did to win.

Put units to cut off choke points and re-org most of the army to the river/middle pass area. Use hero unit to level up as fast as possible by attacking units outside and get march. Then as the number of units killed reached close to 100, my middle lines began to break and I ended up retreating towards the allied city while attacking troops with my arquebest unit and hero, with all my mages/other units. Once killed 100, I regrouped what units I had left (the northern pass units were still fortified and ignored), I retreated a stack of 8 units (including the mages, hero, arquebest, a longbowman, an archer, and some melee units). I fireballed units as I retreated and healed in the allied city. Then I defended in the allied city for 10-20 turns and gained exp for my hero and arquebest unit. After that I took my stack out and made my way towards the north to link up with my northern pass units (4 extra units there). At this point I gave up on taking bastardam city for the extra reinforcements. Once I was linked up I painfully attempted to avoid the incoming horde and reach the hellfire lands. I lost all my units along the way except for my hero, a radiant guard, a archmage and a mage. With these 4 units I found the city Dis, and setup two tiles away north of it. At this point my hero and other units were all withered. I used my archmage and mage to send fireballs into the city to bombard its defenses to 0%. Then I used maelstorm to weaken the units. This left the general at something like 5.3 strength. I used my hero (combat 5, drill, shock, march) and killed him to win the scenario at something like 200+ turns.

Once the 100 units killed limit has been reached, the allied city should be able to defend itself.

Much the same as the last guy, but I started out by putting one Radiant guard on my boats and moving over to take the infernal coastal city before I even got the quest. needless to say i was surprised with the free units until I was asked to liberate them from the city. Ultimately they didn't do much except fortify a forested hill, while Beasts threw themselves at me (blessing every turn.)
I gave the archmage summon fire elemental which also does collateral and had a nice chokepoint in the middle of the map where the infernals nicely poured most of their units to my experience mill. I managed not to lose a mage unit until I stormed the infernal territory and even then it wasn't enough for them to stop me driving them out of this land.

Wow... very intense scenario!

Like others, I had no idea where the city was, and I incorrectly assumed that the reason I couldn't move further West was because that's where the infernals were coming from. Fortunately, with a couple of Eyes (all my mages cast Eye the first turn) I quickly discovered the city.

As soon as possible, I made sure every unit had a move of 2. That's standard practice for me, and to be fair it didn't help that much in this scenario (so much forest!) but in some key moments it was really crucial.

Also, I had all my units move to the middle to get the Loyalty buff from one of my mages (lasts the whole scenario!) then move back into a loose N-S line of defense.

I sent out the Arcane Barges early for exploration (standard practice) and quickly found Basterdam and Capria. I parked them there and weakened (or killed) passing infernals with lobbed fireballs. Never did see any Iras there, so I guess I got lucky.

There were way too many holes in the defense... I couldn't see any nice chokepoints that couldn't be just avoided. And the infernals just walk around you most of the time anyways... so I decided to fully exploit that in many cases. ;)

For instance I had a lone hunter in the NE corner (on a fort) that the big guys (including Beast of Agares) would just walk right by and ignore. But then the Hunter would see a 2-stack of Riders or Warriors and so he'd poach one of them off, but since there were 2 targets in the stack (and hence 1 remaining) the Hunter didn't move from his Fort.

I ended up with 3 main stacks on defense: north, middle, south. In hindsight I guess they correspond to the 3 Hyborem cities.

I eventually got the quest for Capria, and with the Archmage, 2 Boarding Parties, and 2 mages it was pretty quick. An Immortal spawned in the city just before I got there, but 1 Maelstrom, a Water elemental, and 2 fireballs later he was really weak and easy to kill.

The confessor is awesome, and I took him back to the defense line. I couldn't take all the Swordsmen back though, and they died soon after (though they did at least kill a couple more units for me).

Eventually I started to see Wraiths -- they scared the heck out of me, but they seemed to avoid the stacks of defenders. I used Guy to attack a damaged one, and promptly got withered (I'm still learning the game). That really hurt.

(I've discovered that I really, really hate Wraiths now, especially when they have Move 4)

Soon afterwards I finished the "100 kill" quest. I wasn't all that surprised to see there was more to it (seems to be a common trend in FFH2 scenarios ;) ), but it's still a bit of a shock in such a hard scenario.

I realized I could now move West, and I had two troops (my back row to pick off any stragglers that managed to make it past my defense) move into the city. That's when I realized I didn't have to worry about defending the city anymore. Wow... that's a lot of really powerful angels!

But the stream of Infernals got a *lot* harder. Fortunately, I clued in fairly early that the southern stream was easier than the middle and north stream of infernals.

Since I started clumping up my troops into fewer stacks at this point, I had the liberty of using the Eyes more. I saw two Manticores to the South (which I carefully avoided), and eventually found the Despero city. Not seeing Hyborem in the city I moved north a bit, and soon found Dis with my Eyes.

And unlike Despero (which had ~20 defenders) the city of Dis was barely defended! I did have one stack that was moving from the middle of the map straight to Dis, but I quickly realized that wasn't going to work... the infernals were just getting too strong. No sense in fighting them (the Angels would take care of that), so I had them skirt around from the South as well, and I was finally able to have all my units in one mega-Stack of Doom.

Attacking Dis from the South seems like the way to go. The infernals ignore you almost completely, and Dis itself is lightly defended.

Once I reached Dis it was just a matter of using Maelstrom, a Fire Elemental, two more fireballs, and then Guy (now cured from the Confessor) to finish off Hyborem.

Feedback/Suggestions:
* Loved the quests, and the twists!
* Liked the ending! Very cool. I hope the daughter who can see spirits/angels shows up in future scenarios.
* I echo what others say about making the Mercurian city initially visible, even if it's greyed-out due to fog of war (I don't think we need to Permanent Alliance). I don't really need to see it as much as know where it is.
* I was little disappointed that my Hunters had no Eagles, but I guess perhaps that would have given us too much Visibility. Still, would have been nice to have at least 1 eagle -- otherwise the Hunters are kind of blind.
* I wouldn't give the liches Spell Mobility 2 -- the Wraiths are bad enough, but with a move of 4 they're really hard to control.
* I didn't have problems with Iras, but I may have just been very lucky. I did spot a stack of 6-10 of them just West of Dis in a little lake, but they never seemed to move.

I lost this scenario three times before I got a handle on it. I ended up forming two teams to assault Hyborem's cities:
1. A boarding party and the archmage; they took a long time due to healing delays.
2. The arquebus, Threepwood, and a radiant guard. The confessor joined them later.

The rest guarded the choke points. Maelstrom pretty much rocks out in this scenario. I managed to beat it in turn 80. It felt pretty good, after being crushed so badly the first few times.

It really helps a lot that Hyborem's cities clear out periodically, leaving only a longbowman or two. I found this the most challenging of all the scenarios I've tried, but it was so much fun!

OK, I'm lost here. I don't see any real chokepoints that don't get bypassed easily. The bigger problem is terrain. Where am I supposed to fight so that I don't get forced into attacking str 6 axemen on woods tiles? Even after malestroming them for several turns, I still stare at 50/50 or worse odds because they are always in woods for the defense bonus.

I tried setting fire to clear an area, but 20 turns later all I had was a bunch of smoke.

Where am I supposed to be fighting?

OK, I'm lost here. I don't see any real chokepoints that don't get bypassed easily. The bigger problem is terrain. Where am I supposed to fight so that I don't get forced into attacking str 6 axemen on woods tiles? Even after malestroming them for several turns, I still stare at 50/50 or worse odds because they are always in woods for the defense bonus.

I tried setting fire to clear an area, but 20 turns later all I had was a bunch of smoke.

Where am I supposed to be fighting?

Maelstrom followed by fireballs works rather nicely. I like to kill weakened enemies using mages so that they can have empowered fireballs. And it helps to keep the mages moving so that they can all concentrate their fireballs on a single stack at a time.

For the first 50 turns this scenario seemed awesome
After that, and by the 150th turn, I have come to hate this scenario

First off, How do you win it? I am at 150 turns and have killed easily 200 enemy units, and not a single enemy has made it to the friendly city.... soooo shouldn't I win?
The game needs to tell me what I have to do here. Am I supposed to go and conquer the enemy cities? How the hell am I supposed to do that when they are spawning those giant ugly bears and stacks of 10 Iras, along with :):):):) loads of balors and eilodors or whatever they are called?
My fireballs don't even damage these units, what gives?


edit:
at some point later the game said basium won, which is good right? except the next scenario is not unlocked.....
WTF?

For the first 50 turns this scenario seemed awesome
After that, and by the 150th turn, I have come to hate this scenario

First off, How do you win it? I am at 150 turns and have killed easily 200 enemy units, and not a single enemy has made it to the friendly city.... soooo shouldn't I win?
The game needs to tell me what I have to do here. Am I supposed to go and conquer the enemy cities? How the hell am I supposed to do that when they are spawning those giant ugly bears and stacks of 10 Iras, along with :):):):) loads of balors and eilodors or whatever they are called?
My fireballs don't even damage these units, what gives?


edit:
at some point later the game said basium won, which is good right? except the next scenario is not unlocked.....
WTF?

If you don't have the latest patch, the next scenario will not unlock. There's also another scenario you have to win first.

As for taking the Infernal cities, I sent out a razing team consisting of the archmage, the arquebus, Threepwood, and a radiant guard. They were able to raze every infernal city, since most of the defenders clear out periodically.

Maelstrom followed by fireballs works rather nicely. I like to kill weakened enemies using mages so that they can have empowered fireballs. And it helps to keep the mages moving so that they can all concentrate their fireballs on a single stack at a time.

Double maelstrom knocks an axeman to about 4 ... which I still can't kill if they are in woods without trading a radiant guard each. And there are far too many units to spend maelstrom, maelstrom then fireball, fireball. And that's before the horsemen just run right by me. Last attempt I had a big stack in the north not that far from the city. I was blinding and maelstroming 3 stacks, and I still couldn't get decent odds on any of them.

Already had the latest patch..
K, I played through it a second time and this time I won, got the end of game text, and next was unlocked

It turns out that AFTER you get to 100 kills you no longer have to prevent bad guys from going west.
I had no idea and the scenario never tells you.... someone should think about adding in a message to tell the user that after they get to 100 kills they no longer have to keep protecting a long line

And also, it turns out you don't have to take any enemy cities, all you have to do is kill that demon/dragon guy in their main city AFTER you got to 100 kills, and then it says you win.
Again, why doesn't the game tell you this? Should be made more clear.

For the latter, you're probably not supposed to, just a quirk of the way it's coded.

Ah, that's most of the problem. I somehow got hold of an old patch, that was before Radiant Guard had bronze weapons and other changes. I downloaded it from CivFanatics, so I'm not sure exactly how it wasn't up to date.

I played it in Monarch level

First, I saw Basium's city from moment zero, so I knew what to defend.

I started by spreading my troops in three groups with hunters running around to scout rouge unit I may have missed.
The guardians stopped some close calls with the blind spell (one of the best spells in the game).
After getting the mission to destroy the city I moved the bulk of my troops, hero trailing them. The two arcane ships helped until Ira's started to unleash. I though I was a gooner, pit beasts showing up and all kinds of nasty beasts... and yet, I used my troops to tunnel in until I got close enough to wipe it out. The guardians stopped all the nasty beasts and I had the opportunity to kill them one by one (Guybrush killing Iras... my hero!)
Anyway, after I killed that large stack and almost missing a few horsemen that tried to get through on the north end of the map, i advanced everything I had on the evil cities, destroying them one by one (south to north). The evil dude didn't stand a chance.
BTW, once I got the order to kill him, I left Basium to manage himself, not guarding the passes anymore.

The ending was very moving, loved the entire story.

I am having some problems with this thing.
I killed the 100 units and took the coastal city without too much of a problem. (Without loosing a single unit in fact). I proceeded to take the northern and southern demonic cities without losses as well.

The problem is that Hyborem has this one huge stack made up of something like 200 units at least 50 of whom are the high priest guys that summon wraths. They keep cruising the BFC and chasing me out of it. And they wont pursue out of it.

How am I supposed to defeat that with only the few units I have?

PS. World Builder and Restarting are out of the question.

Others noted already that it isn't hard (on Noble difficulty at least) to conquer Bastradam, kill 100 enemy units and raze all infernal cities. But then the game ends with Basium's victory and the next scenario won't unlock.

After reading through this thread, I learned that Hyborem's death should have ended the scenario. It didn't. Is an old bug showing again that used to be fixed already? The latest patch (0.41m) is installed.

By the way, wouldn't it be nice if Bastradam were given to Capria instead of being destroyed? Without that city, the ships can't sail east and look pretty stupid.

EDIT: The problem is that Hyborem was among the first 100 units killed. Maybe someone should add a check for this condition?

I wouldn't usually add to a thread this long, but it seems to me that no one has summed up the biggest single thing that's wrong with this scenario, though many have said parts of it.

The heart of it is that you've got a defensive force, and a defender friendly map, but your enemies generally won't attack you. Unless you've got them totally blocked, they just slip on by to the west, especially if you're actually in a good defensive position where your puny troops might have a chance.

Others have mentioned the general weakness of the forces, the lack of laborers to build forts or clear forests, that sort of thing. And they're right. This is an interesting scenario, but most of the more intuitive options are not available. Of COURSE the first thing most people are going to think of is building a defensive line and digging in. But you can't, and you shouldn't even try.

I hadn't figured out that Basium gets angels when your guys die, and indeed, that's the best use for more than half of your units. But I finally took a peek at the map with WB, 20 something turns in (on my third try). A vast horde awaits me at the three eastern cities. I mean, ANOTHER vast horde, besides the one that consistently pounds my defenders into Cheese Wiz.

The heck with this. I like a challenge, but it's time to move on.

I like the idea of this scenario, it's a great setup, but a terrible execution. I've played Civ since the original in 1991, and I've loved FFH more than most "official" Civ's. D&D flavored Civ. Mmmmmm... And my hat's always been off to Kael and company. But I'm afraid I'm going to have to put this one in the "whiff" column.

One thing that I can't understand is why Basilum is so useless?
Surely they could code some sort of script forcing him to attack his single arch enemy.

I'm not really sure how I'm supposed to defeat a stack of 13 profanes, 12 beasts of agares, 56 iras, 5 liches, 6 immortals, not to mention the hordes of crappier units...

(and 12 balors too)

Heh, well i guess i just run around them and kill Hyborem!

You've still got to kill your 100 units first, though. I turned down the difficulty to finish this one, but I don't think I had to do it to win. Now that I understand it better, I think the problem with this scenario is (mis)information.

It's a mistake to think this is a "defend the Alamo" sort of situation. Understanding that your troops SHOULD die through attrition is crucial. Trying too hard to keep everyone alive is a sure recipe for defeat, since Basium winds up defenseless against the inevitable units that get through. On the other hand, being more free with their lives resulted in 5-6 angels on defense for me.

Pretty quickly, the infernals coming through will be too much for your forces to handle, no matter how good you are. At that point, you've hopefully bagged your 100, at which point the game becomes to ignore and avoid the attackers, and get to Hyborem to kill him.

As several others have mentioned, the up front information for this scenario is incomplete and misleading. Also, I think it's almost impossible to win "cold"- that is, just loading and playing, knowing nothing about what's going on. But once you know what's where, and what's going on, it goes from impossible to fairly easy.

I'm very excited to hear that FFH is going pro and independent (though I've still heard no details on that), and I hope that feedback like this helps tweak the design of that product.

In spite of any criticisms I might have, I'm totally in the tank for the FFH team. Just as a labor of love, you guys have made one of the best PC entertainment products I've played in years. I can't wait to see what you can do when you're actually getting PAID to do it, lol.

One unfortunate consequence of the improvements in the AI (obviously a good result !) is that some of the advice on these forums may be out of date since a large body of the strategy advice, coming from 'regulars', is based on older versions. For instance, I found this sceanrio rather easy - but that was before the AI got smarter. So, with a smarter AI, players may have to find new tricks.

Best wishes,

Breunor

@blueparrot1966

I can advise to the exact opposite from my game.

At monarch level I had trouble getting my 100 at all, the AI seemed just to hoard them somewhere instead of sending them. And when they did come in, they came like bloody X-wings in pairs or alone and were easy pickings for a mage + RG combo.

I took the first quest city with only my hero, my archmage and 1 radiant guard leaving the rest to mop up anything that went through. Water elemental + hero makes for a win situation with most hordes. Brought the mages in once the waves stooped to blow the city up with fireballs.

Newer lost a single unit yet nothing got through.

Later when I got to Hyborem, I found his entire army, some 300+ units patrolling around his city. No way to get through. There you have to use some quite creative tactics.

I'm not sure if this is the appropriate place to post this...

I'm attempting this scenario for the first time, and I'm 84 turns in, 20some units left to kill. (I keep hoping the Infernals will send a few more out so I don't have to hit one of the giant stacks.) At this point, any time I click for next turn, Civ crashes. I've tried reloading from a few different saves and at this particular point it crashes to desktop for me every time.

Although that's very repeatable for me, I'm not sure what else to say about the problem I'm having. Any ideas? Anyone else having this problem?

I'm not sure if this is the appropriate place to post this...

I'm attempting this scenario for the first time, and I'm 84 turns in, 20some units left to kill. (I keep hoping the Infernals will send a few more out so I don't have to hit one of the giant stacks.) At this point, any time I click for next turn, Civ crashes. I've tried reloading from a few different saves and at this particular point it crashes to desktop for me every time.

Although that's very repeatable for me, I'm not sure what else to say about the problem I'm having. Any ideas? Anyone else having this problem?

Post a save game the turn before a crash and i'll take a look.

Best wishes,

Breunor

Post a save game the turn before a crash and i'll take a look.

Best wishes,

Breunor

This should be it:

This should be it:

The game crashed unfortunately becuase you lost the scenario. For some reason, it crashed instead of giving a defeat notice, the crash may have to do with the defeat message?

Anyway, there was an Infernal horseman who captures Bourne the Gleaming.

If you want to play, on, here is a save where I eliminated the Infernal horseman.

Best wishes

Breunor

Huh. I wonder why the defeat message takes it down.

Thanks for helping me figure that out -- I'm not averse to starting again and trying harder to make sure I don't let anyone past, I just had no idea that was what was happening.

It may not be the defeat message for other reasons, it may have to do with the defeat message for losing Bourne the Gleaming.

Good luck on the next try!

Best wishes,


Breunor

I'm not sure if it was pure luck or what, but I never saw those huge stacks. Biggest was like 10, and I had already practically won by then. Difficulty was Monarch, and I'm pretty sure it's the latest version. I only downloaded this couple of months ago from these forums.

First time I was confused and was even defending the wrong direction, I quickly established the basic facts, scouted a bit and found Bastradam. Started over and immediately sent solid attack force to take Bastradam. Hero, archmage, mage, hunter(or were those scouts that were on the frontline?) swordman and boarding party. Could've been bit of overkill. Took the city before the message and then proceeded to east with my fighting force. I then addd to that the priest dude from Bastradam forces. Got earth III to my archmage, haste for my mage and quickly proceeded to raze second city. It's not difficult to find the cities. Head east and when you see hell terrain pay little more attention to what direction you are going. Elementals can scout a bit, make sure to have mobility on archmage and combat. He doesn't need much else. Earth elemental + hero pretty much worked for wallbreakers and other melee scouped rest.

My small SoD took care of southern troops, north never saw a single mob, so this time stationed all to the middle except few to south and couple to north, just to be sure. By the time I got 100 kills, I was sitting next to Hyborem and he was being defended by maybe 4-5 mobs.

Maybe that stack was in the middle, since I started getting liches to my defence line. At first I was confused because the wraith indicated they had 1 or 2 turns left, but they re-appeard again next turn. And they didn't care much about my radiatn guard spells.

I'm replaying this scenario after a very long time, to see what changes to the AI have done, and I've noticed that the Unit AI "Barbsmasher" seems to be causing the Infernals some trouble. Granted, I am playing on the Nobel difficulty rating, but thats because last time this one schooled the mana out of me. Anyway, it is turn 95 and the Infernals have only sent 46 units after Bourne the Gleaming. So I jump in the WB to have a poke around, and I see massive stacks of Beast of Agares and Pit Beasts and so on wandering around their end of the map all with this AI Barbsmasher. I destroyed the city to get the help from Caprica, has that trigured something to make all of the unit get "Barbsmasher" instead of "lemming"?

Anyway, so I give up waiting, and go looking for ugly. I raise the southern city, all is good with the world, no sign of this mega stack that I saw in the WB. So I march north to get Hyborem, and there is the stack. But the stack is stupid. I go to one side of the ridge, and it goes to cut me off, I change direction and scoot back the other way, and it stops moving because it can't see me?!? So I kill Hyborem, and raise Dis, the game keeps going. I mosey on up to the city in the north and start slaying to my hearts content, and I realise, that I still have to kill another 12 units before I get rid of that first "task". Not wanting to risk loosing it all on the mega stack, I sit around and wait for the city to spawn more units. And so sure enough, it spawns just enough that I can kill the last one as I raise the city. At last, I think, victory is at hand. No that would be a happy ending, and FfH2 is not about happy endings. As I kill the last unit, my 100th for the game, I get the message that Basium has been created, and the message from the blue guy about swapping side. I choose to go ahead and kill the bad guy's, hey I was right there it was too easy to pass on........

Basium wins a conquest victory. Are you Fraking serious! The guy has been in the world for the length of a bee's handle bar and he wins. I'm sorry for ranting and all, but.............

I wouldn't usually add to a thread this long, but it seems to me that no one has summed up the biggest single thing that's wrong with this scenario, though many have said parts of it.

The heart of it is that you've got a defensive force, and a defender friendly map, but your enemies generally won't attack you. Unless you've got them totally blocked, they just slip on by to the west, especially if you're actually in a good defensive position where your puny troops might have a chance.

Others have mentioned the general weakness of the forces, the lack of laborers to build forts or clear forests, that sort of thing. And they're right. This is an interesting scenario, but most of the more intuitive options are not available. Of COURSE the first thing most people are going to think of is building a defensive line and digging in. But you can't, and you shouldn't even try.

I hadn't figured out that Basium gets angels when your guys die, and indeed, that's the best use for more than half of your units. But I finally took a peek at the map with WB, 20 something turns in (on my third try). A vast horde awaits me at the three eastern cities. I mean, ANOTHER vast horde, besides the one that consistently pounds my defenders into Cheese Wiz.

The heck with this. I like a challenge, but it's time to move on.

I like the idea of this scenario, it's a great setup, but a terrible execution. I've played Civ since the original in 1991, and I've loved FFH more than most "official" Civ's. D&D flavored Civ. Mmmmmm... And my hat's always been off to Kael and company. But I'm afraid I'm going to have to put this one in the "whiff" column.


You're exactly right about the first part. They completely ignore you, almost as if the default setting for all units in this scenario is to go straight towards Bourne the Gleaming (you know how the AI gets when it's on a mission.) I played this game twice - the first time I had left about 8 defenders and send the rest on a mission to Bastradum which I razed. It was going well and then I realized that none of my guards were doing anything because the Infernal Units had so much movement they could slip by without me even seeing them. This was the worst part of the scenario - either take away their movement or give me Sentry II, but it's not fair that they can just slip by so easily unless you guard every possible entrance. I found out that I would have to "micromanage" every turn with the Eyeball just to see who was nearby, and that's not fun to me. I didn't even know that some parts of the mountains were entrances until after I got the game over notice because you can't go west and find out whether you could pathfind there!

This scenario frustrated me a lot until I went into WB, removed 2 or 3 units that had slipped by my guard, and extended the range of the mountains. After that it was easy. I think something could to be done about the fact that you can't even see units like the Wolf Riders go by. I chose to fight Basium for an unknown reason and that was really easy considering he didn't even leave the bulk of his guard in his city >.<

Despite my criticism, I like this scenario and it was an interesting and memorable experience. I realize that I may not have gone about it the right way and that's why I resorted to cheating, but the main reason I play these scenarios is for the story so it didn't matter to me. Thank you, FfH team! :goodjob:

You're exactly right about the first part. They completely ignore you, almost as if the default setting for all units in this scenario is to go straight towards Bourne the Gleaming (you know how the AI gets when it's on a mission.) I played this game twice - the first time I had left about 8 defenders and send the rest on a mission to Bastradum which I razed. It was going well and then I realized that none of my guards were doing anything because the Infernal Units had so much movement they could slip by without me even seeing them. This was the worst part of the scenario - either take away their movement or give me Sentry II, but it's not fair that they can just slip by so easily unless you guard every possible entrance. I found out that I would have to "micromanage" every turn with the Eyeball just to see who was nearby, and that's not fun to me. I didn't even know that some parts of the mountains were entrances until after I got the game over notice because you can't go west and find out whether you could pathfind there!

This scenario frustrated me a lot until I went into WB, removed 2 or 3 units that had slipped by my guard, and extended the range of the mountains. After that it was easy. I think something could to be done about the fact that you can't even see units like the Wolf Riders go by. I chose to fight Basium for an unknown reason and that was really easy considering he didn't even leave the bulk of his guard in his city >.<

Despite my criticism, I like this scenario and it was an interesting and memorable experience. I realize that I may not have gone about it the right way and that's why I resorted to cheating, but the main reason I play these scenarios is for the story so it didn't matter to me. Thank you, FfH team! :goodjob:

There is actually no need to spread the lines or any of that. Knowing I'll get extra units and understanding that with every turn 3-4 new demons pop out (some very un-pleasant) I rushed Basterdam and sacked it in 7 turns. I then hurried to sack the city on the bottom of the screen (turn 20 something) and this triggered an interesting response - all the enemy units started heading back to the starting point, even the three units that somehow slipped past my lines. I did make some arrangements for protection by sacrificing a 1-2 radian units (turn into angles to protect the city), and since the units that did get past me were too weak to tackle them, I didn't lose.
After that I just gathered all my troops and started to look for loop holes in the very large enemy stacks, fending off the pesky summoned units and even killing the demon hero. it wasn't easy but with all 5 mages/wizards and Guybrush, it is just a matter of time. Big red ugly didn't stand a chance.

Word of warning - do not kill big red ugly before you finish off the 100 units, the scenario rules don't know how to deal with it

I'm not really sure how I'm supposed to defeat a stack of 13 profanes, 12 beasts of agares, 56 iras, 5 liches, 6 immortals, not to mention the hordes of crappier units...

(and 12 balors too)

I had twice that, not counting the wraith hordes that the liches kept summoning.

Heh, well i guess i just run around them and kill Hyborem!

That stack sort of follows me everywhere I go, and if they get to close the profanes bring everyone down to 50% strength.

Despite my numerous complaints about this scenario which I'll keep to myself, I think I would be happy if there was just a unit cap on national units for Hyborem. It would make it soooo much easier.

I killed Hyborem before it was an objective and razed two Infernal cities. So I had to add more cities on world editor. Also recreate Hyborem and add more infernals. 6.9/10 because it was too long but a good theme.

Took me 70 turns to kill 100 units, and 6 more to kill Hyborem. On Noble that is.
The AI acts really weird, but it seems that has been mentioned many times.