Post your feedback for this scenario here.

Dumb question. What do I have to do to unlock it? I've finished Against the Wall, Barbarian Assault, The Splintered Court, and the Gift of Kylorin. Seeing as I'm getting thrashed in The Momus, I'm going to try Return of Winter. That seems like it'd be the proper combo for unlocking the last of the unconnected scenarios.
I could be wrong, though... what are the unlock prereqs for Lord of the Balors, exactly?

Dumb question. What do I have to do to unlock it? I've finished Against the Wall, Barbarian Assault, The Splintered Court, and the Gift of Kylorin. Seeing as I'm getting thrashed in The Momus, I'm going to try Return of Winter. That seems like it'd be the proper combo for unlocking the last of the unconnected scenarios.
I could be wrong, though... what are the unlock prereqs for Lord of the Balors, exactly?

Wages of Sin is one of them and thats not in yet. I dont have access to the code right now but I think the other requirement is the Radiant Guard.

Wages of Sin is one of them and thats not in yet. I dont have access to the code right now but I think the other requirement is the Radiant Guard.

Heh... one of the the reasons I'm so intent on doing Lord of the Balors is because, looking at the description for Radiant Guard, I thought to myself, "I'd best do Lord of the Balors first." But apparently, the egg comes before the chicken...

Hmm, yeah, exactly. Some maps rely on the Infernals presence, so we can't let you reduce it much, so they need to come first.

=P I took a sneak peak a the scenario after I finished the rest, and I must say that I loved Keelyn's story for going after the infernals :lol:

Though that's the case, I'd suggest tweaking the replies for rejecting the minor infernal lords to something more Keelyn-ish than the
"I came here to rid the world of the demons" or something close to that. :crazyeye:

Dumb question. What do I have to do to unlock it? I've finished Against the Wall, Barbarian Assault, The Splintered Court, and the Gift of Kylorin. Seeing as I'm getting thrashed in The Momus, I'm going to try Return of Winter. That seems like it'd be the proper combo for unlocking the last of the unconnected scenarios.
I could be wrong, though... what are the unlock prereqs for Lord of the Balors, exactly?

You can bypass the Scenario screen entirely and play the scenarios is you want to. Just open C:\Program Files\Firaxis Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4\Beyond the Sword\Mods\Fall from Heaven 2\Assets\XML\Scenarios and double click on Lord of the Balors.CivBeyondSwordWBSave.

I'm not sure if completing the scenario this way would effect the Infernal's strength in earlier scenarios of not.

=P I took a sneak peak a the scenario after I finished the rest, and I must say that I loved Keelyn's story for going after the infernals :lol:

Though that's the case, I'd suggest tweaking the replies for rejecting the minor infernal lords to something more Keelyn-ish than the
"I came here to rid the world of the demons" or something close to that. :crazyeye:

Thanks, KillerClowns actually wrote all the text for Keelyn in that scenario and he did an amazing job.

:mischief: And when completing the scenario as Keelyn I ended up with a Gossam victory and the Gossam ending--I was dying to see Keelyn's ending story lol~




Could we have a picture of a bruised Hybbie wrapped up in pink ribbons please? :lol:

Trying to imagine Keelyn ordering all the other lesser demons of Hell to play house with her XD

:mischief: And when completing the scenario as Keelyn I ended up with a Gossam victory and the Gossam ending--I was dying to see Keelyn's ending story lol~

Could we have a picture of a bruised Hybbie wrapped up in pink ribbons please? :lol:

Trying to imagine Keelyn ordering all the other lesser demons of Hell to play house with her XD

Ill fix that in the next version. I will PM the actual victory text to you shortly, you will not be dissapointed.

Oh right one lil' thing I recall, were summoned wraiths supposed to give their summoners one XP per victory?
I was pretty certain my liches weren't getting any XP from using wraiths (so I "cheated" and used the broken Keelyn trick of getting 9 wraiths per lich using puppets since I didn't get the XP in a couple of emergencies :lol:)


(and the twincast trick of getting 36 wraiths out with Hemah felt wrong after soloing an infernal capital so I stopped after that :mischief:)

You know, once I entered hell I found it wasn't very impressive. There aren't very many sources of Manes in this scenario (especially if you can get Keeyln to convert to a good religion early on), so most of the cities stayed pretty small. I was rater disappointed when I found "The Dread Metropolis of Dis" was only size 3. I tend to think that Dis should start out much larger than that. I also tend to think that it could be a good idea to have a small Sheaim kingdom right at the boarder of hell, near the altars where they worship their demonic masters. That could really help with the lack of manes.

Edit: I just noticed that you do give them free manes already. Maybe it just seemed to easy because I cheated to get to Dis really quickly. I guess my earlier suggestions aren't that important then, but they could still be nice.

What do you need to have completed before you get this?

A couple of unreleased scenarios, I'm afraid. (though not for too much longer)

Might be a wise idea to put the requirments in the Scenario Guide text in the next update.

I loaded this scenario from the folder, not in the game (which I thought was actually the proper way until I read MagisterCultuum's post). When I play as the Mercurians, I don't have Basium. What is the go there? Do I need to build him?

I loaded this scenario from the folder, not in the game (which I thought was actually the proper way until I read MagisterCultuum's post). When I play as the Mercurians, I don't have Basium. What is the go there? Do I need to build him?

Yes, you must build him as you would any other hero if you want to use him. He requires Iron Working and costs 240 hammers.

You might actually want to avoid building him, as that way he can't be killed and cost you your traits.

I played it as basium (but without basium), had some small angel-stack out that managed to get rid of the first demon lord but got smacked from some random SoD afterwarts (5 units with a total of 1500xp :( )

my next offensive was chalid with 8 angels, chalid managed to get nearly all available promotions, 650xp or something in the end.
i placed a few cities but got them razed when the apocalyptic riders showed, was a bit sloppy not to think of them.

it was amazing to see varn holding a city with 8 units against two stacks of 20+ demons, most of them CR3++, all due to binding light, seems the AI exploits it, too :)

without chalid the later part would not have been possible, and binding light enabled me to defend against some SoDs that would have taken me out otherwise.

if i play it again i would focus on unlocking special angels, i am not really used to the mercurians and as long as i was happy with the standard angels it never crossed my mind that maybe heralds etc would have been a lot cooler.

i suggest going empyrion/chalid here, followed by angel-techs, at least if you play as basium. keelyn may benefit from a mage-heavy approach etc.

I don't see why you wounldn't at least want Basium guarding your capital.

Anyway, playing as the Bannor in a perpetual crusade was how I won this one. endless Demagogs + Shadowwalk + Haste + Bless will take cities easier than you might think ;)

I thought the Order would be better here for crusaders free demon slaying promotion, though I suppose paramanders would be just as good...Hard decision...

Of course order would seem best role-playing wise

0.40h (because of the reported AC90 issues I did not patch higher yet)
Epic, Prince, Mercurians

The infernals seem to slaughter each other pretty early. 2 of them are dead I do not really know who killed them. The AC stay rather low (below 10), because of the internal fighting.
The scenario itself seems fun!

But it can happen that stupid Keelyn lands next to my capital and gets stuck, never building a capital. This happens on the small peninsula directly where the scenario starts. This is a potential AI bug.

Gotta play more, I like it so far.

Would it be absurd to unlock Keelyn as a starting Infernal leader in the normal game after one completes her scenario? I realize I can do this in a custom game for my own amusement, but everyone loves unlocking things :)

That would be quite amusing I think. It could be nice if whoever won the Lord of the Balors scenario to appear in the place of the Infernals, and to fight on the human's side against the Sheaim.

Currently playing as Basium, Noble difficulty. Wasn't doing too well at first. Managed to get 1 infernal city with just angels. Then I got Heralds. They are pure awesomeness. Only cost me 3 gold per Angel to convert (maybe that should be changed?). Killed 3 of the 4 horsemen (Keelyn managed to get the other one).

I'm at 76 AC atm. Someone said that past AC90 there's a bug. What do I need to know about this? I also didn't complete the Momus or Radiant Guard yet, is that a big problem?

Boko, what happens at AC90 highly depends on which patch you have applied. The problem has been addressed in the latest patch already. I did not observe it, neither before nor afterwards. My AC stayed below 10 most of the time. It is interesting that the AC can be so different in different games of the same scenario.
I liked the scenario a lot playing as the mercurians. Probably will play it again at higher difficulty.

Playing as Capria, I just got the event where Meresin offers peace if you kiss his feet. I refused him, but I'm wondering what happens if you accept. (My guess is that Basium declares war on you.)

From my experience and a cursory look at the code I don't think there is a downside to that event. I am unaware of any downsides but those specifically mentioned.

The Tempts events are as follows:

Making Peace with Judecca means declaring war on Basium.
Making Peace with Sallos (agreeing to sleep with him, if female, or a Succubus loyal to him, if male) doesn't cost you anything.
Making Peace with Ouzza costs 1 population in each of your cities.
Making Peace with Judecca means declaring war on Basium.
Making Peace with Meresin (kissing his feet) doesn't cost you anything.
Making Peace with Statius will cost you a city.
Making peace with Lethe will cost you a unit.
Making peace with Hyborem is impossible.

Basium will never get any of these events. It seems like these should at least worsen his opinion towards those to accept, but there really isn't any effect.



It looks like peace with Judecca will last 100 turns, peace with Sallos 50 turns, peace with Ouzza 25 turns, peace with Meresin 25 turns, peace with Statius 100 turns, and peace with Lethe 50 turns.

I'm thinking that the numbers for Ouzza and Sallos should be switched. A peace that costs 1 population in every city should last a longer than one that costs nothing. As it is sex with Succubis is just too good.

When is the ending for Basium gonna be released?

How can you guys win these? Seems awfully hard, cause the demons just keep coming & coming in hordes. Even rusting them off doesn't seem enough. Btw, I'm playing Keelyn.

You're Keelyn and you get OO. Push to Arcane Lore, get Hemah. Combat V, Twincast, Water 3. (or Chaos if you feel a bit more adventurous:lol:) Hemah creates a puppet, gets 2 thanks to twincast. With Summoner they last 3 turns so you can have 6 puppets out at once. And each puppet gets Twincast as well so you're making 12 Water Elementals a turn, 36 out at a time, just from Hemah.


The hell portion of the map seems to big and empty, and the nice area is really unappealling. It seems like it would benefit from either tightening up the hell area to make it more dungeon-like, or improving the start area to make it more war-friendly. As it is I spent the better part of the scenario just wandering around hell with my heroes looking for a fight, basically ignoring my cities because they weren't producing anything anyway.

Been playing through again, as Basium now, and it might be good for one of the Infernal players to like the mounted line. Hell is mostly flat and has no trees. The Infernals love their infantry. Basium's angels come out the gate with pretty good odds against the Infernals forces, if you give them Mobility to stay out of the SoD's range each one busts stacks very well. The outnumbered good guys striking an opponent and then disappearing before the horde can retaliate is a nice thought, but the Infernals just aren't equipped to deal with it. Their response to 1 angel killing 20 axemen and diseased corpses is to build 20 more axemen and diseased corpses. Nothing wrong with a good strategy but there should be someone it doesn't work on.

wow, fun scenario. too bad the text hasn't been all added yet. oh well, guess I have to wait a bit for that.

As for feedback, a agree with TheGreatSteve that the hell portion is rather large. That isn't a problem when playing as Capria or Basium, (keelyn too i guess) who have access to early heroes or Angels. When playing them, I can get two or so highly promoted troops with Mobility to do all the fighting. I never actually built any additional units in my Capria game, since Valin and the Crusader were strong enough. Maybe if you added a few roads stretching across the place it would make building reinforcements worthwhile. With Varn, all I could do was beeline to Chalid.
Still very fun though, as the small number of troops meant that turns went very quickly.

And I almost forgot, it would be very good if you could add a few sources of Bronze on the coast so you can build Crusaders and make Melee worthwhile.

Played as Basium. At first those angels hold their ground very well untill ennemies get better units then you best have some upgrade of your own like herald and such. The starting area is flat and treeless so I decided to go FOL this time to plant trees everywhere. I was amazed to see the first cavalier (Angelo) not only waste resources but also remove forest. About this, new forest come so fast to ancient forest that it is hard to make any lumbermill but anyway I needed the extra food ancient forest give.

There is 3 choke points on the mountain ridge that separate starting area from demons land, the first one is close to the north east of start. I secured this one with a city at my 3rd cities and was there after heavy attack. I managed to plant trees in front just to slow ennemies. It make a good base for raid in ennemies land.

Later I managed to place a city to the west near where Keelyn usualy start. better be fast for this one because Keelyn eighter get wiped or prevent you from placing a city with culture. She usualy get spanked if you dont send forces. The last choke point is fra to west at the end of the map, no hurry for this usualy quiet place. I just send few units to know whats happening.

My first research was Deception to get neutral. 2nd was FOL. I will be able to make druids later.

Planting trees seem the only way to improve things as cities size and output since workshop substract one food and there is no water arround to irrigate. And if you cant secure mithril later you are in deep trouble. I quickly discovered that you dont waste time with world wonders, they seem to get them automatic without even producing it.

Ill fix that in the next version. I will PM the actual victory text to you shortly, you will not be dissapointed.

I guess it's not fixed yet since I got the Varn ending after beating it with Keelyn. Can you please send me the victory text too, Kael? Kind of curious about what goes down.

...Dopefish?

...Dopefish?
:lol: :hatsoff:
Yes, that was indeed a dopefish. I couldn't resist, for the sake of absurdity, but I never expected anyone to actually recognize the reference.
EDIT: And I'm pretty sure someone's guessed the lantern as well.

What's up with there being NO rivers or fresh water anywhere on this map at the start?? VERY annoying at higher difficulties. And do I really have to go with cottages?? *SHUDDER*

I believe there are some freshwater lakes on the map, but they are deep within infernal territory.

God there's three strangling points, almost too easy (especially when i got the orb event and bumped feudalism at turn five) but still too hard because all the infernal cities have stacks of dooms and one or two should be fine to manage but 7?!?!?!?

Oh and keelyn ass built her capital in a corner and her capital at turn 150 had 4 pop and it was her only city

Keelyn... I am almost tempted to let her conquered by infernals and retake her cities :)

I couldn't because the only thing she built was archers (seven) and i had a protective mercurian capital popping longbowmans in 1 turn and getting angels all the time

Given that the Throne of Hell is supposed to lead to Mulcarn's Hell, I think it could be good to add a cold region full of Blizzards. The upper left portion of the map usually seems quite empty, so that may be as good a place as any. I'm thinking it may be good to have the Ring of Carcer found here too.

Is it a 'feature' of this map that I cant use WB to finish on turn one just to read the other civ's endings?

Lame map.
The friendly AI dont do anything good. Nobody does any tech trading (heck they even refused to share the map, afterall if ALL of us are going to hell to kick some demon ass, at least lets cooperate. Keyleen is stupid, got her cities taken by barbs, friendly AI in general is stupid, i havent seen 1 Stack of Doom from them but i see dozens of stacks from the demons. No fresh water so max city size i could get was about 12 (as basium), i had to go with the God king civic to at least pop Crusaders each 2 turns. All over the map are "scary necromancers towers" that make your units run in fear (unless you give them loyalty). Going to try to play as the malakim guy, get inside the corner, get a few cities beeline chalid and game over afterwards (like all the other scenarios so far, chalid = win)

Tech trading is disabled

Tech trading is disabled

Yeah, I gotta say I just don't get the setup of this scenario. No fresh water anywhere means you're forced to go CE. No tech trading means you're very limited in how you interact with your AI 'allies'. I realize this is intended to be a combat intensive scenario but just don't see the logic of restricting strategy to this point. This is the only scenario I haven't been able to bring myself to finish, it just feels like too much of a chore.

Also the map is too big.

I think the no tech trading is there because if it were, all the lords would have traded with each other and become terrifying horrible

I really think that no tech trading should be changed to no tech brokering.


Is it possible to add more playable civs that are unlocked by decisions in/outcomes of other scenarios? I'd like to have a bit more variety.


I still think that a little fresh water should be added, apart from that little lake deep in Infernal territory.


I still think that it would be appropriate to make an are of the map to be a cold region full of blizzards leading to Mulcarn's hell, and that having the Ring of Carcer found there so you can have Brigit join you against Hyborem would be very cool.

The lack of fresh water is the definitely the worst part of this scenario.

Edit: Ugh. Two games in a row as Keelyn, Varn and Capria settle their capitals right on top of each other and never expand past them, Basium converts to OO and spams units into the infernals making them a lot nastier than they should be and everyone proceeds to get stomped which cranks up the AC and the horseman come and take me out. This would be easier without the "help".

Bannor;

Valin Phanuel = WTFPWN (1500 XP, yet I still haven't actually finished the scenario)

3 demons are dead...

After that I figured the fight would be reasonably fair..... I was expanding into the west for the resources.. Valin busy slaughtering more demons.

..When all of a sudden, Mercurial cities start falling, FAST, with Balseraph cities soon following.

Valin rushes back (5 moves+ commando does that..) just in time to liberate a city for the Mercurians.. (in case troops of mine die, I like the idea that they'll come back as angels at least)
Keelyn is currently being propped up with phalanxes, paladins, longbows though I'm tempted to just let them all be wiped out.

What I AM wondering about, though this is more of a general question than specific to this scenario; why SHOULD I sanctify hell terrain (sure, there's some combat bonuses for infernals, but considering the area isn't attacked anyway..)
It feels "correct" thematically, but it would appear that it's not really useful as such.

Also, sanctify is supposed to "clear fallout in the tile".. but it seems you can't actually move INTO the fallout tiles (they're impassable) :confused:

Does sanctify even work in this scenario? Anyway, demons would lose a 10% str bonus if they were on normal terrain instead of hell terrain.
Btw, crusade is insane on this scenario once you've taken a few infernal cities. They really like building cottages.

When first released Sanctify would not work, but after that it was changed to directly change hell terrains to their non-hell equivalents when the plot counter is off.

I really think that no tech trading should be changed to no tech brokering.


Is it possible to add more playable civs that are unlocked by decisions in/outcomes of other scenarios? I'd like to have a bit more variety.

Very much agreed on both these points, while it is fun to play as Basium and get a better feel for him the other teams offered didn't seem too interesting. Although I will probably try out Keelyn at some later date it might be fun to play as Falamar or someone else here as well. ;)

I got a recurring CTD that ended this scenario early for me. Like everyone else I was disappointed by the lack of fresh water, impotent "allies" who can't fight and won't trade, and found that my religious hero (Valin for me) dominated my crusade against the Infernals.

I allowed the Infernals to kill off Keelyn and then took her cities back. I didn't get my forces all the way to the OO holy city fast enough and it was taken back, so that is currently the frontlines of the war until one of my offensive stacks can get back from hell (6 turns) to retake it again.

Overall, I like the design of this scenario. The choke points where the deamons funnel down to the coast is a nice touch. I really think that a few small (1 or 2 squares) freshwater lakes should be added to the coastal area to allow the good guys to build some farms.

Now if only I can get autosave to run so that I can finish it...

Haven't finished this scenario yet (and I only get to play on the weekends) but I'm playing Basium for the first time and I have a dominant position, with only Judecca in any reasonable shape (maybe 12 cities) and Hyborem whittled down to a measly three.

This post is going to be a mixture of general Mercurian ideas alongside the scenario itself.

First off, things I don't like about the scenario. It's long, grindy, the lack of rivers anywhere and freshwater until you get into the deeper recesses of Hell are all quite irritating. Yeah, the AI is a bit dim, but isn't it always? Personally, I got saved by Kaelyn early on when her forces deflected the brunt of an early Infernal rush, and Varn was able to knock out one of the Demon lords by himself, so I cannot with any sort of good face call them useless.

After Kaeyln converted to the Order, it highlighted a real problem with the scenario though. 7 infernal players, by themselves, have no evil living units and therefore generate 0 manes. I on the other hand was being fed (sporadically anyway) by my three allies, as well as the never ending horde of champions I turned out of Bourne the gleaming to march to their deaths. I think either there should be a few vassal evil civs, like clan and doviello mixed in, or perhaps more thematically, a steady influx of Manes by event. Also, since about 85% of what you face are demons, Demon Slayer becomes more or less an automatic, and basically gives you a 40% bonus to all units. Diversity is important, and the AI is limited in this one.

The Mercurians are awesome, especially for a map like this. Angels of death can wander along, crippling the infernal cities with their Vile touch and knocking the population down to one, which will never recover. Holy Damage is awesome against Demons and even more so when they try using diseased corpses. Ophanim can simply fly over the mountain chains that seperate regions. My newest gimmick was when I realized that Angels of death do not replace shadows, but are in addition to them. Given that my areas completely cover the front lines now, my allies tend to sit there with huge armies in their capitals and do nothing. A little Mask, and a little prying, and suddenly the now good Balseraph and Bannor (The Malakim are actually contributing, albiet mostly ineffectively) are once again contributing Angels to the cause.

Basium has gotten to obscene levels, at 1100 exp and counting. I've run out of meaningful promotions to give him, and every so often if he gets hurt I'll give him something like protection from electricity to heal him up a little. Sphener is also starting to become a demigod, although he has but a puny 300 or so exp. (Bannor got Valin first. :mad:)

One thing I absolutely love about the scenario are the passes. Hell seems to be segmented, and I get a little defender's thrill out of noticing there is only one square they can get to me at, and building a fort and stocking 15 units there.

Adding in a Clan civ is an interesting idea for the reasons you outline.

Or, if you want to make the AC a bigger deal, you could add a Sheaim civ instead, or possibly both.

For some reason I feel like Averax belongs here. I get the impression that the Cambion is likely the son of either Duke Sallos or a Succubus in his service, and so could make a good Vassal of Sallos. (It could also be interesting if the event that gives peace with Sallos could also lead to his birth and the creation of a new enemy under his control. Of course, it is probably not chronologically correct for him to be born in this scenario if he is present in The Black Tower.)


I'd still really like one area of the map to be cold a blizzard filled region (as it leads directly to Mulcarn's hell), containing the Ring of Carcer. Brigit really needs to be in some scenario, imho.

I'd still really like one area of the map to be cold a blizzard filled (as it leads directly to Mulcarn's hell), and to contain the Ring of Carcer. Brigit really needs to be in some scenario, imho.

I definitely agree with this. Brigit is waaaaay to cool to be wasted. You could even have some cool flavor text on how she's released depending on what the civ is!
Please Kael? :please:

I definitely agree with this. Brigit is waaaaay to cool to be wasted. You could even have some cool flavor text on how she's released depending on what the civ is!
Please Kael? :please:

I have to agree with both of these refined gentlemen as Brigit is really cool, but I feel like we don't get a real good look at what she's about and what she thinks. + She's awesome. :D

Bright would add a nice element to this scenario.

Having two or three (or even four) evil civs (Clan, Sheiam, etc.) that start close to the "good" (including Keelyn for some reason) playes on the coast would be a nice addition too. They could be at the gates to hell so to speak, and their units could provide manes for the Infernals as they are slowly eliminated in the early game.

Speaking of manes, with 7 Infernal players in the game, which one gets the manes? Does Hyborem get all the manes, or are they split up (or even duplicated) for each of the Infernal players in the game?

Give..... me...... water........ please........

More seriously, playing as the Bannor, there is just one thing I need to say: Crusaders. Own.
Free demonslaying and mobility, plus combat 1-4 from Alter and Shrine of the Champion, plus Bless from Confessors= Lots of dead Infernals.
My allies haven't been too useful, with Keelyn converting to AV, Varn just expanding westward, and Basium mostly concentrating on carving out a little empire of barbarian cities inside Hell.
Tech pace is laconic, even with Emperor AIs, seeing as it is at turn 200+ with the only T4 units being my 4 Priors that I spent 50 turns getting (should've gone for Righteousness).
The upper left part of the map seems kind of redundant; maybe something could be done to spice it up?
One the whole, I'm having a blast with this scenario (most fun since Momus) and hope I can rescue Donal.

The SE portion of the map where all the fallout is placed doesn't work so well. It seems like the intent is to have the player explore a maze to get to the bad guys. Unfortunately, it is more of a burden to the AI than the player and limits the growth of the Infernals.

I started a new game with this scenario as Basium again with the new patch V.

At first I got a wierd start then decided to reload...see attachement for detail.

I am now at turn 393 and the AC is pass 70 for the first time and I keep it beyong 80 by killing infernals. Very intersting game so far. I read somewhere that at 80 all disciples units are changed to prophet or sage not sure wich, does that mean even hero disciple like Chalid ?

The annoying part is not seeing what happen in your 'allies' territories unless you keep a garnison there to prevent infiltration and troops outside your border lower the revenu plus the inflation and then research is cripled.

Would be nice if there was a permanent alliance possible.

I agree with the opinions that the scenario would be better of with fresh water and a little less dead space.

I played with Basium and picked FoL in order to get some more food and a holy city. (Bannor gets Order for free.) Research was anemic at first and the blight struck before I had time to switch to Guardian of nature. Bleh! My AI allies spammed cheap units that they garrisoned and didn't expand. Stephanos appeared and managed to get himself killed on a huge stack of Ecclestians in the Malakim city. When I got priests, I noticed that the tigers too are reborn as angels when they die :cool: Soon a horde of free, rampaging angels swept into hell and pillaged all those phat towns and citadels for obscene amounts of gold. :D I also burnt and sanctified all the demon cities, so the AC dropped like a rock. This part was quite fun but still a bit long slog.

managed to get himself killed on a huge stack of Ecclestians in the Malakim city.

Wow, that must have been a rely huge stack...

Patch y.

Way more fun with the fresh water. I can farm now! Also in this game the allies are packed around each other pretty tightly, bad for me an capria since we're stuck in the middle, but Basium and Varn seem pretty effective.

Playing with Capria, I agree that Crusaders are pretty fun, as someone observed.

Check this out though: build Sphener and resurrect poor Donal... then recruit after every demon slain, wow. Sure, Donal gets "reborn" without an Empty Bier, but him picking off demons just for the sake of recruitment mania is where his strength is for this scenario. I wonder if this is a bad thing, haven't finished with Capria yet, so I wonder if it'd make any end story which could mention Donal, odd, but hey.

Well crap. 825 turns and I finally win with Keelyn only to get a victory story about some mage sanctifying trees. Surely that wasn't the Balseraph victory screen?

It shouldn't be. This is the Balseraph victory:
At first, I thought I had arrived at Amathaon's heaven. I had cheated, stolen, committed crimes beyond count, even sent Perpentach's idiot daughter to face Hell itself, and yet I had made it to paradise! Maybe the gods were rewarding me for ridding them of that spoiled brat.

I beheld gardens, beautiful statuary, a sky that held fairy-tale clouds, and great angels dressed in pink and white. Great angels, with horns and large teeth.

The gardens, I noticed as my vision cleared, grew gulgarms, razorweed, and other, even more hellish plants. The statuary depicted not handsome men and beautiful women, but succubi and demon princes. The sky, I saw, was actually more red than pink, and the clouds were coming from an active volcano.

This was not the hell I had imagined awaiting me, but it was hell nonetheless. One of the great demons, absurdly dressed but still terrifying, marched towards me. "Princess Keelyn wants you to dance," it said.

"Princess... Keelyn?" I muttered, unable to believe what I'd heard. I was dragged to a great central hall, where upon a demonic throne made for giants was placed another throne, of mortal scale, that looked like it had come from a giant doll-house. Keelyn sat upon that throne. I could not believe it, Princess Keelyn was sitting on Hyborem's throne. I had sent her off to die, and she had overthrown the Lord of the Balors.

"You're that advisor. The one who gave me the boat."

"Yes," I said. "Remember all the fun we had together..."

"You didn't like me," she said. "You were always mean to me. The only nice thing you did was give me that boat..." she leaned close and then smiled, "and that was because you thought I'd die."

I stared, unsure how to respond to the new Lady of the Balors.

"Dance," she ordered. I danced. I'm not sure how long for. She clapped and was clearly amused, but demanded I keep dancing. So I did. I kept dancing until I collapsed, unable to continue. "Don't stop! Keep dancing!" she demanded. But I couldn't. "Guards," she yelled, "he won't dance! Throw him in the Naughty Pit!"

As I was dragged away by a Balor, I knew that the Naughty Pit was going to be far worse than dancing until collapse. The screams to which I was being dragged towards suggested that, as did the cruelly stupid grin upon the Balor's face.

Thanks MC! That was much, much better.
I don't even want to imagine what is in the naughty pit.

KillerClowns did an excellent job with the Balseraph stuff on this scenario.

Finished this scenario over the weekend. It is WAY more fun with fresh water added; in retrospect there is no way I would have finished this scenario before patch y. It was still a bit long, but I did get to try out every type of T4 angelic unit (Repentant Angels are, to borrow a term, wtfpwn in this scenario). Admittedly I could have finished sooner, but I decided to settle a few cities in the north just because a couple of the infernal civ capitals had really good wonders, like Guild of Hammers, that I can't ever bring myself to raze. Overall, lots of fun.

My only recommendations are make the map a bit smaller (watching the postgame movie, the whole west side was never settled) and maybe give the player or the playable civs bonuses (units, etc, as in the first Illian/Doviello scenario) as the demon lords are defeated. I'd also liked to have seen some of the unique features in the north to really make the player think about the cost/benefit of settling cities up there as opposed to a raze-fest with a SoD or two. I also thought it would be cool if, at some point, say when 4 of the demon lords are wiped out, the remaining infernal civs would ally under the leader (probably Hyboreum) and the good civs would likewise have the option to ally, just to switch things up a bit.

Finished it playing as the Bannor. One of the best scenarios ever, although it seemed a bit long (not so much, finished it in about 270 turns on Prince difficulty).
I've took my time in leveling that first Crusader you get in the beginning. Along with Phanuel, he spearheaded every Bannor assault. Single handedly finished the Infernal Queen leader. Renamed him to Bane The Demonslayer, tacky but fitting.

I've found that the best way to win this scenario was simply not to let the Infernals to expand too quickly (course it's impossible to keep them all from doing it, but the most of them you finish off earlier, the better). Keeping their cities was far too costly and dangerous, razing them and moving on was the best strategy.

Also I've found that keeping the Armageddom Counter low is crucial. Not having to deal with those damned Horsemen greatly raises your chances. That's why destroying Infernal cities is important, and quickly Sanctifying their ruins.
Still I got Stephanos raising hell on Varn's stronghold. Took us lots of units to take him down. My main army was really far away, so I rushed Demagogs and Crusaders to tackle him.

My allies (except for Keelyn) were very useful. Basium was relentless on his assaults, helped me out a lot. Varn simply conquered the west part of the scenario and remained there but occasionally sent some troops over towards Meresium's (I guess getting pounded by Stephanos really slows you down). Keelyn got engulfed on my evergrowing culture, and converted to Ashen Veil. Stolen her precious iron resource with my culture, my only source of metal throughout the whole game (wasn't blessed with any metal in my starting location).

All in all, great scenario. The Bannor really get it easy with their Crusade civic and steamroller infantry. Gonna try the other civs for sure later. The texts are great by the way.

Finally a happy ending! Rare thing on Fall From Heaven scenarios.

I agree that this scenario is much better with the water added. It also has some good replay value since every faction has some very different starting units.

Overall though I think Bannor and Mercurians are probably the most fun to play as.
Also, I don't know if it was changed, but... Did anybody else rescue Donal by finding the "island" in the fire?

Sorry to be dense here, but I'm playing as Basium -- how do I get the Basium hero unit? I thought maybe I needed fanatacism, but that didn't help. I saw a lot of you got him to be an uber-power. How does he get in?

Thanks for any help,

And Best wishes,

Breunor

Btw I am playing Patch Z

Basium requires Iron Working whenever you don't get him automatically.

Basium requires Iron Working whenever you don't get him automatically.

Thanks MC!

Best wishes,

Breunor

Beat this is Varn but I didn't get the end game text. :(
Captured Sallos's city last.

finally won last night as Bannor, mostly enjoyed this scenario, but did feel that with the game pretty much won it was extended by around 20 turns or so because there are a couple of landmasses in the far right that are inaccesible from the main continent.

Therefore as Judecca had colonised an island in the bottom right, and Hyborem had colonosied a tip of land cut off from the rest by mountains in the top right of the map, I had to build a mini fleet in order to ferry troops to engage them. Just seemed like a bit of an unneccessay chore.

Also note - should it be possible for the Bannor with Sphener to resurrect Donal Lugh? Not that it made much difference as he came into the game not much before the need for the mini fleet after the tide of demagogues and crusaders had already done most of the smiting

Of the allies, Varn and Basium were fairly active - Basium in particular got a fair number of Angels come his way. Keelyn adopted AV and pretty much spent the game in her city having a hissy fit at me for being Order.

I found it somewhat alarming, in my first couple attempts at this map, that because Basium is on the opposite side of Keelyn and has no default religion of his own, under the AI he frequently adopts OO and becomes neutral. :lol:

This was a challenging map though, in a good way. In my winning game, I played Mercurians with Runes of Kilmorph religion. Basium and Arthendain were monsters by the time I finished. Capria and Varn Gosam were moderately helpful, and managed to take out one of the demons while working together, while Keelyn was...doing something, I'm not sure what. That AC is killer here, by the way.

Are the demon lord locations randomized? One got stuck behind Hyborem's culture zone, and none of them really expanded westward enough to pose a threat to Varn, which is probably why he was able to be as aggressive as he was. Good map though. Good job whoever wrote the story for the Balseraphs and the Mercurians, I enjoyed both stories. :goodjob:

Played as Basium/Immortal.

The AI allies did not contribute anything except that two of them contributed angels to the righteous cause. Varn squeezed his capital between Capria and Keelyn and as such he was useless the whole game long on 2 cities. Keelyn converted to the Ashen Veil (!!!) and did nothing either - whose side is she on anyway? Only Capria did something... but not even she managed to get a demon lord down - or even a city. I had to do it all by myself.

(PS. If Keelyn converts to Ashen Veil - as seems to happen sometimes - might there not be an event that has Basium declare war on her? Because well... Basium is not exactly the most open-minded person about dealing with demons and their worshippers. If that is not possible or would destroy the scenario, maybe there should be something that prevents her from adopting AV in this scenario)

I am very happy that I held back on the Decius arc until patch z - and with Lord of the Balors, which follows it, I'm also happy that I waited. Why? The new Mercurian art. The top tier Mercurians now look awesome. Heralds, Ophanims, Repentant Angels... awesome. Main priority was getting to there, and after that start demon hunting.

Once the Mercurian machine started rolling there was really nothing that could stop me. High-level (among which a former Valin and a former Chalid) tier 4 angels cannot be stopped by anything the various demon lords throw at me. I don't remember facing many tier 4 units.

And well, the ending...

Nice to see a good ending for once, indeed. Fitting for Basium that he's not content to keep the victory to Erebus, and instead wants to bring the fight to the home ground of the demons. Actually, with the army I built him I can see him succeeding in wreaking havoc in hell at the very least.

Keelyn is hardcoded in def AI_chooseTech(self,argsList): to beeline for Corruption of Spirit. (Any Evil civ who already knows Philosophy, but not CoS is forced to go straight for CoS so long as the religion isn't deactivated). That, combined with the high chance that AV could spread from so many Infernal cities and the diplomatic pressure once she makes peace with a demon lord makes it very likely that she will go AV.



The AI civs really do tend to settle too close to each other. I'd recommend giving them slower ships that start closer to the coastline, each near a good a widely spaced starting position.



An event allowing Basium t declare war on anyone with the AV religion might be good.

Most epic and interesting scenario I've played so far. Very nice thematic map, too. I've witnessed several of the horseman die, but not after taking down 100xp angels. I shed a tear everytime an ally dies.

I just finished, I also liked the epic 'feel' of the scenario. Unfortunately, I found it to be quite easy. I played the Mercurians. I suggest anyone playing the Mercurians should consider moving up at least one level, they are very powerful. As your allies get hit, you become stronger, especially in the beginning of the game.

I'm personally not a fan of large maps; this of course isn't the designers' fault, it is just a preference. So, when I got to the point where I knew I had the scenario won, it took a long time to actually conquer everyone.

But I did like playing the Mercurians, from the start, and the scenario clearly has 'cool' power.


One issue I discovered is that nobody was expanding in the West. The Elohim were eliminated early and the Bannor were dropped to one city; the Balseraphs wre doing fairly well. But nobody colonized that side of the map. I guess the Bannor AI decided it needed more troops or research than settlers even with all of that open land?

I'll probably try this with someone else or at a higher level with the Merc's (and declare myself the winner before total elimination of the Infernals).

Best wishes,

Breunor

One issue I discovered is that nobody was expanding in the West. The Elohim were eliminated early and the Bannor were dropped to one city; the Balseraphs wre doing fairly well. But nobody colonized that side of the map. I guess the Bannor AI decided it needed more troops or research than settlers even with all of that open land?
Best wishes,

Breunor

I've started this scenario many times and it seems the colonization pattern is totally random. Sometimes you get Bals trying to be your neighbor, and sometimes they AI just stays far to the west. If you don't settle in the default area, it seems to alter where the AI settles too.

Incidentally, I find this scenario proves that the AI doesn't use forts or terrain to their fullest. My top priority after the first few workers is to build forts in all the passes and man them. Else it's only a matter of time before all the friendly AI forces crumple.

My suspicion is that the settler issue has nothing to do with rules in the scenario, just the environment.

I reloaded the game for about 8 turns before I won and went into the worldbuilder to see what the Bannor were doing. Their one city was producing 'research'. Not surprisingly, with one city for them and maybe 50 to 60 for me, they were way, way behind in the tech path.

So, I think the 'settler' problem is just another case of bad AI; my guess is that the AI is saying it is way down in research, so its algorithm is spitting out 'build research'. A human recognizes that no amount of research is going to catch up with one city, that there is (rare) unsettled land, and that the best way to catch up is to settle. Notice that this is not 'stupid' AI -- it is very hard for any set of equations to assess this kind of situation.

Anyway, this analysis is just an educated guess, I haven't looked at the AI routines or anything like that.


Best wishes,

Breunor

Played this scenario as Capria/monarch, modified in WB the start. Also added some techs and 2 more settlers and workers.

The settlers cost is indecently high in this scenario.

Found that after turn 50 or so i can't open WB without a CTD.
Also, the adepts manage to sanctify the infernal land and consequently reduce the AC counter, but do not manage to remove the fallout. Something should be wrong there.

Anyway, the allies are pretty useless. They do almost nothing, Basium lost his capital and i retook it and gave him.

Sometime i have a CTD between turns and i has to go back by some 2-3 turns to load a save.

You can really build up some points in this scenario, I ended up with a score of over 800000 by the end (on deity). The most I've ever gotten on any civ 4 game.

Nice scenario, interesting terrain, I was pinned down on my side of the mountains for quite a while. Fortunately the first of the Horsemen completely destroyed Keelyn (He arrived by turn 50), so I got all her land. Had to prop up Varn and Capria, so they'd keep feeding me angels.

It was fun, sadly my last scenario.
So I've decided to write my own group "Rise of the Emerald Queen". Thessa gets revenge on Faeryl for the great ending of the Splinter Court scenario.

Played as Capria/Emperor.

This was a looong game.

I think this sums it up, at the end of the game:

http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w57/Adonran/FFH/Valin.jpg

Yes, he has 1781 xp, and the game lasted 676 turns. Sphener had 616 xp, Donal had 457 xp (I resurrected him with Sphener) and I had a Paladin (with Great Commander) with 432 xp. Honestly, the strongest unit out of all 4 of them was probably the Paladin.

Part of the reason the game lasting soooo long is my own fault though. I'm almost brand new to FFH (only played scenarios so far) and just started playing at the Emperor level and so I read up on the Bannor and also read some strategy posts about playing them. And the recommendation seemed to be "spam Demagogs"! So I dutifully did that, comfortable in the fact that they have no upkeep...

... except that I soon started noticing my economy was going to shambles. They might not have any upkeep, but apparently I have to pay for their maintenance in the field. That, plus the fact that I couldn't build many new buildings in my cities pretty much killed my tech/economy. Still... free units! It's like a drug -- I just couldn't say no and switch out of "Crusader" civic.

I eventually wiped out 1 Infernal civ by staying in Crusader the whole time (at least 100 turns... it was slow going). Was a terrible mistake in hindsight... really hurt my tech and dragged out the game. The Infernals were *way* ahead in tech, had expanded quickly, and the AC count was raising rapidly. I lost a city to the first Horseman.

The AI allies were not of much help unfortunately (though Basium did kill the 3rd Horseman). Varn was getting killed very early on (by barbarians if I recall correctly), and once I bailed him out I decided to keep the barbarian cities, which effectively boxed him in -- I didn't trust him at that point. Basium and Keelyn seemed okay at first, until they suddenly starting losing cities like crazy. I bailed Basium out in time, but Keelyn was crushed. By this point my economy was so bad that I couldn't keep the cities, so I just gifted them all back to Basium.

I was still fighting with Valin when the Infernals were starting to pump out Champions with Str 10... was starting to get a little scary! I beelined (well... slowly since my tech was so bad) to Paladins (and Sphener) and then things got okay. Paladins are amazing, especially when promoted from champions!

By this time the AI had Phalanxes and Cannons, and soon Beast of Agares, but I was comfortable with the killing power of my heros and paladins. Phew...

It was just a matter of moving my SoD (Valin and Sphener + 8 mages for most of it) from one city to another. Honestly, as soon as I gave up on the Crusader civic and went back to my usual habits (heros augmented by buffs, with Maelstrom and Fireball for taking cities) then I started really liking the Bannor. They have a lot of great things going for them. Free Guardsmen promotion was awesome considering that I never had to worry about all my mages. :)

Haven't been very impressed with Archmages so far while playing FFH. I like mages for their spells, but by the time you get Archmages (and only 4 of them) it seems the other national units are stronger, unless you only focus on one mana type (which would hurt my ability to buff my heros).

Near the end of the game, the Barbarians were actually a big threat. They spawned a lot of Beastmasters, Marksmen, Crossbowmen (barbarian crossbowmen sounds odd), and Stoneskin Ogres. I had to divert Valin full-time to essentially bail out my frontier cities whenever a large threat would pop up.

Feedback/Comments:
* Take out the island(s). Having to build up a fleet to take out a single Judecca city took forever.
* Based on other people's replies, I'd say make sure Basium starts with a religion and won't covert to OO (which is what Keelyn was in my game). Basium was RoK in my game, which seemed like a decent fit.
* The map was too big IMHO. Remove some infernal civs and make the map smaller. And since you can't really expand past a certain point due to your economy, you have to raze cities. Except that the Infernals would sometimes resettle them. Very annoying to have to take out cities from lands you had previously conquered. I targeted any settler I saw with a vengeance!
* Ouzza (spelling?) was culturally boxed in by Hyborem the whole game, and apparently never had more than 2 cities.

So I've decided to write my own group "Rise of the Emerald Queen". Thessa gets revenge on Faeryl for the great ending of the Splinter Court scenario.

Sounds really neat! I really enjoyed the Splinter Court scenario -- I just wished it had been part of a continuing storyline. Can't wait to try out your scenario.

I love this scenario. I have finished it 3 times already and now going for 4th

1st game Keelyn/Noble - I went on an easier difficulty because I was afraid that with my evil religion I will be feeding the Infernals units. And also it was the first time I played as the Balseraphs.
Had some slow early wars with swordsmen and catapults. When mages, mimics and Hemah came online (after killing the 3rd demon) it ceased to be a challenge.
I easily got the 20 promotion mimic award. Because the AI builds tons of imps and ritualists, many of my mimics had loads of spellcasting related promos. Though the only spell they got was Entropy I.

2nd game Basium/Monarch - was a slow game with a long build-up. The only game so far where my allies did anything at all. They didn't take any cities but I occasionally got some high level angels from their units dying.
In this game I tried approaching Hyborem from the north. I think this can only feasibly be done with Basium. I cast his worldspell when I came within reach of Hyborems patrolling SOD. Even then it took 3 turns with my stack of 27 units to take Dis
The rest was clean-up with Ophanims and Repentant angels (I didn't reach any of the other T4s)

3rd game Capria/Emperor - surprisingly this was the easiest and shortest (188 turns 2h 56min, compared to 7h 36min with Basium and 5h 17min with Keelyn). After settling the 3rd city I built Valin and sent him into the hell part of the map. I wanted to give him Blitz so I went for that tech and also got the general, delivered to Valin by a horseman. He single-handedly destroyed 3 demonlords. Built loads of bronze chariots and a few confessors to help with the rest.
I managed to build some crusaders but they never saw action, the first ones were 1 square short of Dis on the turn I destroyed it.

I will now attempt Varn Gosam/Immortal, see how that goes

Are workers and settlers supposed to be disabled at some point? I can't build them since the turn 180 plague.

One issue I discovered is that nobody was expanding in the West. The Elohim were eliminated early and the Bannor were dropped to one city; the Balseraphs wre doing fairly well. But nobody colonized that side of the map. I guess the Bannor AI decided it needed more troops or research than settlers even with all of that open land?

I reloaded the game for about 8 turns before I won and went into the worldbuilder to see what the Bannor were doing. Their one city was producing 'research'. Not surprisingly, with one city for them and maybe 50 to 60 for me, they were way, way behind in the tech path.

So, I think the 'settler' problem is just another case of bad AI; my guess is that the AI is saying it is way down in research, so its algorithm is spitting out 'build research'. A human recognizes that no amount of research is going to catch up with one city, that there is (rare) unsettled land, and that the best way to catch up is to settle. Notice that this is not 'stupid' AI -- it is very hard for any set of equations to assess this kind of situation.

I realize this post is over a year old, but I'm sure I'm not the only one still playing these, so for future readers...

The Bannor probably cannot expand due to the Crusade civic which prevents the production of settlers and workers. The AI usually switches to it at the first opportunity and stays with it, thus stunting their growth. Normally they would be expanding up until they got the tech for Crusade, but since they start with a head start they get it much earlier in their expansion.

Are workers and settlers supposed to be disabled at some point? I can't build them since the turn 180 plague.

If you're playing as Bannor and have the Crusade civic, you will not be able to build settlers or workers. Just a guess.

Just beat this one again. First time it took me around 600 turns, but I eventually grinded the demon lords away. I got my allies to attack by asking them to attack the capitols of the demons. Varn was able to wipe one out, the Mercurians wiped out two, Keelyn helped me destroy one and I got the rest.

The last time I decided to make it hard on myself. I moved Keelyn into the hell lands and messed with the diplomacy to make her an ally of the demons and an enemy of the Bannor, Malakim, and Mercurians. The Infernals were much stronger this time around with Keelyn opposing us. Took a lot longer, but I eventually won.

Finally won this fair and square (I cheated last time) last week as Basium/Emperyan. My economy was almost done in by the influx of new Angels, and it took a long, long, time for me to destroy the last Infernal stronghold. Thankfully, Keelyn managed to take down more Demon Lords than I did, and building the Summer Palace on Astori ligthened the maintenace burden enough for me to turn a profit (along with lowering research to 30%, which was in turn offset by my many Temples of the Emperyan).