Post your feedback for this scenario here.

Easily my favorite scenario. The way the two main mechanics (Derived from the dynamic map overlay) work together, it feels almost TOO natural that Keelyn would be all grown up and looking for a suitor. I wish she hadn't had her insanity cured by Einion Logos... or was that just so the romance between them could grow?

Anyhow, the 'love catapult' special unit is definitely fun to play with, and I will never again overlook Foreign Trade as a useful civic... Rawr!

Easily my favorite scenario. The way the two main mechanics (Derived from the dynamic map overlay) work together, it feels almost TOO natural that Keelyn would be all grown up and looking for a suitor. I wish she hadn't had her insanity cured by Einion Logos... or was that just so the romance between them could grow?

Anyhow, the 'love catapult' special unit is definitely fun to play with, and I will never again overlook Foreign Trade as a useful civic... Rawr!

:eek: Use the spoiler tags!!!

:eek: so.... where could we find an early version of 0.40? :lol:

HA HA HA HA SNORT HA HA HA HA :lol:

Ya, I'm not sure I really liked the 'love catapult.' It took all of the intrigue out of the wooing mechanic, just made it too easy. I think a more subtle approach, like maybe a 'love assassin' would be better.

You can effectively get a 'love assassin' by taking a normal assassin and giving him the 'rod of loving' equipment.

alright now Xuenay. Settle down now, let's keep this discussion rated PG.

you guys are sick =) going to kill the thread before it can be officially started. (feels the ire of Kael a rising)

Was going to make a comment about Kael and the Rod of loving but thought better of it...

alright now Xuenay. Settle down now, let's keep this discussion rated PG.

Blame the mod team for naming it that way!

For some reason I found the funnies part to be the part about never overlooking foriegn trade....

For those confused...

Kael just started posting feedback threads in a new subforum. I'm opening up a betting pool on whether he can finish making each of the posts before someone comes in and makes a snarky response to one of them...

;)

Woot, I won!

[Time passes]

I turned up the 'snark' factor before posting, to make up for it.
Congratulations, Zechnophobe! You win the Daily Understatement Trophy.:trophy2:

Is there a hippus in the calabim capital?

I find the scenario fun but a little annoying how it keeps asking if you want to hire troops every turn. Maybe change it to be like in Rhye's and Fall of Civilization, where its got the mercenary tab up where you have the trophy tab.

Or, maybe you should make it so that the event giving you a choice of what unit to hire is triggered by a spell. How about just making that be the way hiring mercenaries always works?

Easily my favorite scenario. The way the two main mechanics (Derived from the dynamic map overlay) work together, it feels almost TOO natural that Keelyn would be all grown up and looking for a suitor. I wish she hadn't had her insanity cured by Einion Logos... or was that just so the romance between them could grow?

Anyhow, the 'love catapult' special unit is definitely fun to play with, and I will never again overlook Foreign Trade as a useful civic... Rawr!

This post bears no resemblance to the actual scenario of this name. Were you thinking of another one? Did Kael decide to completely change it at the last minute to punish you (and us, as the replacement doesn't seem nearly as great as you describe)? Or where you just lying to throw us off track?

This post bears no resemblance to the actual scenario of this name. Were you thinking of another one? Did Kael decide to completely change it at the last minute to punish you (and us, as the replacement doesn't seem nearly as great as you describe)? Or where you just lying to throw us off track?

I'm not quite sure if your serious or not...

Short question:
Does the Form of the Titan pay off by giving purchased troops +2XP ?
I don't want to build it for nothing.

This scenario is a mystery. What part does Einon play in all of this? Why is he even there? Why are there two Luchuirp cities on the map? Why does Auric give you gold for killing barbarians? How did he get all that snow there?

And where are the love catapults? I expected big rods of love, damnit!

I'm assuming the team was simply messing with us and that I some-how didn't miss an entire sub-plot in the scenario.

Had fun with this one but think there was some missed opportunity for more interactivity. There isn't a lot of city management to do, although I made a nice Great Person generator with captured workers and farms, so perhaps some quests from the other civilizations on the map would be nice?

I won by farming experience with horsemen operating out of civs I had open borders with and clearing dungeons/goblin forts, but leaving other lairs to keep generating units. Eventually I got a treasure chest reward and found a bug. I opened the chest with a stack of about 10 horsemen and got some rods of air affinity and other equipment. I was so pleased with the haul that I went straight to the Luchiurp capital without even bothering to upgrade to Horse Archers. Stealing some of the Gold Hammers gave me strength 6 units that enabled me to kill the highly promoted Barnaxus.

I had two problems playing this. First, and this happened several times, I had a stack of units about two spaces away from my city within the cultural borders and then suddenly the next turn they were sitting in the city and unable to move. The next turn I would move them back out to where they were and a few turns later discover they were mysteriously back in the city. They were not involved in any fighting that I could see, so I have no idea what was happening.

The second problem was when a stack of my units approached a Luchuirp city. I had them moving as a stack and split the stack so I could move them individually. Instead of being able to do that, the turn ended. I watched one of my horsemen move off past the city he was standing beside and attack the capital city. The rest of my units did not move but the horseman withdrew from a combat and then was killed during the AI turn. Any idea what made him run off and suicide like that?

Both of these are from Patch J.

Is one of your horsemen enraged?

Hmm, it is possible he was enraged. He had been nosing around some lairs earlier and may have picked that up.

At least the rod isn't "The Love Stick" :mischief:

EDIT: Nevermind, bad scenario. :(

EDIT: Nevermind, bad scenario. :(

Any feedback to offer?

Any feedback to offer?

D'oh!
Sorry, Kael. That's just my bad english. I meant I posted my feedback here instead of Blood of Angels. :wallbash: I am bad bad boy.:) It's just wrong to be so bad :) I am not yet finished with Beneath the Heel. And thinking about it now, I won'ť finish it soon because I installed save breaking "m" patch.:rolleyes:

I felt bored playing this so i created a few knights to launch into luchiorps cities and capture that golem

Shouldn't Pact of Nilhorn be disabled in this scenario? I had no problem to get it and stooges helped much to take out Calabim. Almost too much. Doesn't seem to fit in here.

Research takes forever in this scenario, partly due to being allied with an AI that is completely frozen (and thus only doing 67% research efficiency). The bounty for killing other units is far too small, you need to kill 20 in order to buy a new unit and I got most my money from simply setting the research slider to 0 (after getting the tech I wanted). AI starts too week and doesn't bolster their defenses, you can probably take out Barnaxus and his defender with 6 units.

In my mind:
The opponents should start with more defending units, more cities.
You should receive significant more gold from defeating opposing units.
Instead of getting a dialog to buy units, all of your cities should be 'settlements' but with the ability to hurry units. You would also receive a fix amount of research points per turn.
Settlers and workers should be 'buyable' to build roads and set up outposts.
Make the scenario work similar to the barbarians scenario in the Warlords expansion.

Research takes forever in this scenario, partly due to being allied with an AI that is completely frozen (and thus only doing 67% research efficiency). The bounty for killing other units is far too small, you need to kill 20 in order to buy a new unit and I got most my money from simply setting the research slider to 0 (after getting the tech I wanted). AI starts too week and doesn't bolster their defenses, you can probably take out Barnaxus and his defender with 6 units.


I am quite sure, I got no money even when I was in greens.:confused: Are you sure with that?:confused: Have that been changed?:confused:

Spoliers

Well, actually, there aren't too many spoilers here, because I don't think there is much hidden here. But just in case .....

I liked the scenario; it was really good for me. One of the reasons I like the scenarios as a whole is that you get a different experience from a normal Civ IV or FfH game -- the strategy, timing, etc are different and you are forced to adapt. This one was fast and fairly simple.

The reason it was probably harder for me than the 'average' FfH player is that I'm not a 'natural' Hippus player. I love to build up, get everything perfect, and launch the big attack that overwhelms the opponent. The Bannor were made for my style; the Hippus aren't! So, I'm forced to learn or hone some new tricks.

The whole scenario is about getting money and buying troops. I was playing badly in the beginning -- I was sending horsemen out, usually in 2's, and getting ravaged by griffons. I was waiting to heal. My son told me to stop playing like the Bannor! You can't control this board, you have to sweep through fast.

I recommend getting horsemen for 50 gold and scouting. You can get a LOT of money through conquest. Here, waiting a bit may help, as pillaging towns can yield as much as 100 if completely destroyed through hamlet.

Spoilers

Production and research – Strategic questions

It takes a little while to get used to the fact that you can’t build anything, you can get troops only by buying.

My view is that your research/money decision comes from a decision on the following strategic decisions that you must make:

1. Do you want to effectively make a full cavalry army, or do you want to include combined arms? Or, is three an in-between, with a ‘flying’ column of cavalry and a slow army perhaps of strong troops?

2. Assuming that you are building mostly cavalry, is it worth getting horse archers? I view this as the critical question here: cavalry costs only 50, while horse archers cost 100. So, of course the horse archers are stronger, but is a horse archer worth 2 cavalry, especially since it costs over 1000 beakers to get stirrups; if some of the gold going to beakers is spent on more horsemen?

I decided to get Stirrups to use horse archers, we are the Hippus after all! But I don’t think I should maximize research – I kept it at about 50%. If the answer to question 2 is ‘no’, I’d rather spam horse archers for 50, then you may just want to skip ANY research and put the research slider at 0. This allows you to generate a lot of troops. Note that it is unlikely that you will get better slow troops than your axemen and catapults, so again you don’t need research.

If you choose to get horse archers, again there may not be a lot worth researching after stirrups, you may want to consider not doing research. Other ideas are drama (for the free great bard, a golden age may be nice), currency can give you some money, sanitation can help production/food.

As far as building, remember that all troops come from money. Your first build should be a market. You want to get great merchants; with many of your squares unworked using a merchant specialist is a good idea. After the merchant, the next question is do you care about research/the techs listed above? If yes, try for an elder counsel, a library, and even the great library (which also gives you a +4 diplo benefit with the Sidar, helping you set up a sneak attack). The other buildings you want are the happiness buildings as the population expands, which means the carnival and the Dereptus Brewing House. If you stay with Nationalism then a training yard helps. One interesting fact is that getting stables has little value, since upgrading a horseman to a horse archer costs more than a whole new horse archer.

As was said above, the absolute best build if you do use a ‘slow’ army is the Pact of the Nilhorn. It is the only building that can directly aid your army, and you can win this scenario only militarily. The three giants are great for a slow army. In my game I went market, Elder counsel, Pact of the Nilhorn, carnival. I got a Palisades and Walls but I didn’t really need them.

Spoilers

Scouting took quite a while for me. I agree with the other posters that exploring dungeons is a good idea. For instance, I got the lizardmen-dwarf war event. I helped the lizardmen. I now had two lizardmen. Even though they aren’t as fast as horsemen, they eat up griffons and I was able to walk the board easier. There are a lot of dungeons. Of course you will get some bad events but if you get units in that 3rd or fourth level I would take the gamble. I also got a Timor Mask.

Barbarians are your friend. Not only are they experience factories, you also get 2 gold per unit killed.

During the game, you will get units injured. You have to calculate if it is better to move back home to heal there or heal in the field. I often had a ‘shuttle of units moving back and forth.

Once you some bead on the locations, you can hit the Calabim. In my game, they were nice enough to declare war on me. They had 2 cities and settled a third during the war. One city had Rosier – I didn’t take that city, I didn’t try, but I did take the other 2 cities. More important, I got a lot of pillage money. I used my giants form the Pact of the Nilhorn to take down the defenses.

Try to steal a worker or two or three as soon as you can. It is grating to have unworked land. Obviously getting cottages is good here as it increases money.

The Sidar could have been the next target, but I got open borders with trusting but foolish Luchiurp, so I bee-lined to winning. I took my three giants, catapult, and found the closest spot. I went with horse archers, quality over quantity

It took me three turns to get the slow army to the city holding Barnaxus. I tried to kill off reinforcements. I didn’t get a lot of direct attacks, was that because of the Timor Mask?

Well, I took the pieces of Barnaxus, but at this point Beeri (or was it Garim, sorry, I don’t remember) had about 6 cities. I had about 10 – 15 horsemen or horse archers surviving the attack. Then came the worst part, the Luchiurp counter-attack. I lost about 7 guys and had about 5 that actually outran the Luchiurp and back to the Ilian capital. My slow troops left behind were slaughtered.

Conclusion

This was fun. Even though it is easy in some way, there are some key decisions to make. My son’s advice probably saved my bacon. I’m also not sure if I won because of the Timor Mask; I may have to play better next time/

I’m definitely going to try this again with the no research/spam horsemen strategy. Of course, it will be easier since I now know where the other players start. It was nice to have this scenario after the long Blood of Angels.

Thanks again to the design team for this scenario!


Best wishes,

Breunor

Perhaps I'm completely missing something here, but I am able to construct units in my city? Archers, horsemen.. everything?

Perhaps I'm completely missing something here, but I am able to construct units in my city? Archers, horsemen.. everything?

My apology, I should have said 'buy' instead of 'build'. In this scenario you cannot build units, you must purchase them. You can produce buildings.

Best wishes,

Breunor

nono, I was able to build units as per a normal game when I played this scenario. I was offered the option to hire them as well.. but nothing stopped me from using my city to churn out horsemen and horse archers.

:o

The scenarios seemed out of order. This scenario was much easier and the plot seemed to be prior to the Blood of Angels. This scenario took anout 90 minutes to finish and the Blood of Angels took 5+ hours to finish. The two scenarios seem more appropriate if the order was switched.

As far as the design of this scenario goes, it felt a bit unpolished. I agree with the earlier post that there should be a few side quests to add some spice. THe mechanic to purchase units instead of building was okay. The popup was a bit annoying at first, but I got used to it. If the interface button suggested in an earlier post could be implemented, then the mechanic may make a good game option for OCC games.

Very nice scenario. Playing as the Hippus is always fun, specially as Tasunke and his agressive raiding horsemen.
Taking the Calabim early in the game is highly advised. Rosier can be bad.
Made good friends with Einion. His location in-between the Luchuirp is good for stationing troops.
Took out the southern Luchuirp settlements just for fun and gold. Then Beeri started attacking Einion. Oh boy, here goes my helpful hand to protect them. Couldn't prevent the taking of two Elohim cities by lots of wood golems and Phanuel.
Managed to get them back and started to attack some Luchuirp cities.
The Illians could at least build some units enough to defend themselves. I've almost lost the game due to a huge Luchuirp army going towards the Illians'. Managed to crank up some defenders there pronto (Guild of The Nine, Gal'dur Mines and the all good mounted mercenaries made it).
The Luchuirp turned their attention towards my city, then. Not nice. All of my defending units were at the Illians'. Had no option but to buy peace. Cost me about 200 gold. Damn greedy dwarf!
I've quickly mobilized my assault force to approach the Luchuirp capital. Their huge invading army was still returning from the siege, so I faced few defenders back in their homeland. Barnaxus went down easily against my upgraded mounted mercenaries. Razed the damned city!
The long way home was, strangely, tranquil. Had no idea where Beeri's great army was during my return, but it went smoothly.
The Sidar finished destroying the Elohim by then. Ah, well...

I simply set the slider at 0% or 100%, alternating between buying mercs and teching. Got lucky (EXTREMELY) because a dungeon popped an Adventurer. Upgraded him to Horseman, then ravaged the landscape with my hero.

Probably one of the easiest scenario's so far. Completed on Immortal in around 45 turn's. Simple, but enjoyable for a quick blast.

*I checked and could not build any unit's, even if corresponding building is done.
*I'm getting a -1 food yield penalty due to my Illian alliance?!

Hitting all the soft tribal villages and razing the 2 Calabim cities gave good money to steadily build up the troop's I required. I was opting for nothing but Horsemen unit's, nothing else!

I used the initial Axeman and Catapult to plod straight south and link up with my, by then, swelling Horsemen number's. With the Vamp's wiped without even making any Hero unit, my army swooped north toward's what my scout's had uncovered. I disbanded the heavily broken Catapult.

I had purposely not ventured into many of the Epic Lair's etc. but felt brave on the way to the Luchuirp. I popped a Great Bard, but was far from home, and I didn't want to waste a unit escorting him home. So I just used him to bulb Drama (first to discover), got a free Great Bard in my capital instead, and used him to bulb Sanitation! :crazyeye:

I pulled up outside the border's of Beeri with 10 Horsemen, which revealed on route there was another Luchuirp civ on the map. This produced a momentary dilemma; which Luchuirp civ actually had this Barney chap I needed? I was at peace with them, without Open Border's, and I couldn't get a view of inside their foggy cities. I felt I did not have the time to be subtle; he may reinforcing as I ponder.......I took the logical choice of the brown Luchuirp, Beeri, and declared.

I gallop forward to see ole Barney in the hill city with just 2 Slinger's, Yeeeehaaaaa!!!
Cast my World Spell, charged my well promoted war-crying Horsemen, personally collected the pieces with my healthiest unit leftover from the slaughter, and gloriously charged off home to victory!

I don't know if killing Barnaxus trigger's anything, but the barbarian's were really pouring out of the woodwork on the way back to deliver the piece's!!!

I might have been able to do this faster from the start if I just put the Slider on 100% money, maybe built a market (doesn't matter what's after it), and just try get those 10 Horsemen ASAP and rush Beeri before he gets too much defence. A bit of luck is required, but hey, this scenario is merely demonstrating a Tasunke rush and any rush doesn't mind a little luck on their side.

For those confused...





[Time passes]


Congratulations, Zechnophobe! You win the Daily Understatement Trophy.:trophy2:

I'm still very confused...
What is this 'love catapult' that is spoken of?

Fun little scenario, very quick. I've very new to FFH2, and this was my first time playing Hippus. Moving 4 squares with almost all my units was a blast!

I really liked the different "feel" of this scenario. Being able to only buy troops was novel. Didn't mind the pop-up at all... every time it came up I *wanted* another horseman, so I was looking forward to it.

As a suggestion, I think it needs a few more in-game twists or scripted events though.

When I realized I had no workers, my first thought was "whoa, I need to get Slavery!". But then I realized that for a scenario like this one, the map was likely going to be very big and sparse, and hence that moving and escorting workers safely back all the way would be a huge pain.

So I figured "let's go God King, set tech/gold to 50%, and use specialist sages". So naturally my first building was Elder Council. In hindsight, I shouldn't have bothered. The scenario is so quick that I never did research Stirrups. Setting the gold to 100% would have been far preferable.

My first inclination would be that Barnaxus would likely be the farthest point away from me, so in the SW corner. I beelined for it, and found a dwarf civ, which I declared war on. But he wasn't there. But there was another dwarf civ, and it only made sense that a golem would be in a dwarf city, so I eventually found the other dwarf civ (nearby) and declared war on it. Bingo!

When I found Barnaxus, he only had 1 slinger with him defending the town :)

Unfortunately, I had been exploring dungeons/ruins (hoping to get some gold, which did occur on occasion), so had to heal up for 8 turns. By the time I was ready and moved some other troops into location, there were now two dwarf slingers :(

So I popped Warcry... seems like doing this early, before people get tech'ed up, is the way to go. A +1 STR when everyone has slingers/archers on average seems a lot better (relatively) than when people have longbowmen as defenders.

Using my horseman specc'ed as Flankers (one had 80% or 85% withdraw) I was able to weaken the defenders, until Barnaxus stepped up as the defender. At that point I used my "lancer" (Combat I, II)... who died. Nonetheless, my last Horseman took him out. Then it was just a matter of cleaning up next turn, getting the piece, and making the long sojourn back home.

I never did use my Catapult and Axeman... they're simply far too slow. I attacked Elohim for fun, doing some pillaging (I had a lot of Horseman by this point, and it was really hurting my finances). But my Horseman carrying the Pieces of Barnaxus was never attacked, so it was straightforward.

Perhaps some kind of scripted event, such as a large mobile foe that is placed between the dwarf city and yours after you capture the Pieces of Barnaxus would have helped?

Hello, is it the normal behavior to be unable to upgrade older units to better one when you get the required tech. In my game i've been exploring a lot with some horsemen while researching stirrups. I even got an adventurer in a dungeon. Now that i have stirrups, i moved everyone back to my city to upgrade them and have level 6 horse archers instead of horsemen only to discover it was impossible to upgrade. Even my adventurer can't be upgraded, making him a worthless sitting duck.

Well I just played through this and it was interesting. Killed the Elohim in the first few turns with a lucky 60% victory, then spent time moving over catapults escorted by a horsemen while I had 3 horsemen run around the map farming exp. Once the catapults arrived I charged into Beeri's territory as I'd open-bordered with him earlier to find that Barnaxus was in his capital. Razed his first city without any trouble and used my catapults to fatally weaken his capital's defenses to raze it with only 1 horseman loss out of an 8 large stack. I then immediately made peace with the other Luchiurp o.O and ran back home.

I did not at all see any Calabim until the post-game beginning to end animation.

Could not buy axemen in this scenario, and I don't really understand why. I mean, I beat it quickly with just horsemen and sending out my initial catapult, but am I supposed to be able to buy axemen? Why have the option if I cannot? Do I need copper?

Here's a hint for anyone looking to beat this real quick: Turn research off completely.

I'm suprised to read about the AI settling more cities and having armies and waging war. I ran around pilliging whatever I could find and then droped 15 cavalry on top of Braxus. I even forgot the warcry spell.

Alright, I dont know if I'm missing something or what, but maybe someone can help me out.

I dont get the option to buy troops. At all. Ever. I go through the whole scenario and never get any kind of pop-up or find any sort of button to buy troops with.

Also, I actually managed to get the Pieces of Barnaxus without the ability to buy troops other than ones I got from Recruit with a Great Commander and ones from the Guild of the Nine.

However, once I got the pieces of Barnaxus back to the Illian Capital like it says, nothing happened. I cant drop them, so I left the unit there for 6 turns. Nothing. I deleted the unit so the pieces automatically dropped and waited 6 turns. Nothing.

Any ideas?

Alright, I dont know if I'm missing something or what, but maybe someone can help me out.

I dont get the option to buy troops. At all. Ever. I go through the whole scenario and never get any kind of pop-up or find any sort of button to buy troops with.

Also, I actually managed to get the Pieces of Barnaxus without the ability to buy troops other than ones I got from Recruit with a Great Commander and ones from the Guild of the Nine.

However, once I got the pieces of Barnaxus back to the Illian Capital like it says, nothing happened. I cant drop them, so I left the unit there for 6 turns. Nothing. I deleted the unit so the pieces automatically dropped and waited 6 turns. Nothing.

Any ideas?

Broktor,

I just tried the scenario again and it worked fine for me. It may be some precondition/weird set of events. Are you using patch n? If so, try it again, and send a save if you don't get an option to buy troops.

Best wishes,

Breunor

Well, I've un/reinstalled everything again, re-downloaded FfH2, doublechecked the paths to make sure everything is in its right place, ensured I have the proper and up-to-date patches, and started Beneath the Heel from turn one.

And got the exact same results. No option to purchase troops, no victory upon bringing Barnaxus to the Illians, nothin. If anyone has any more ideas, I'd sure appreciate hearin em.

I finally won this scenario after several tries. First, I got as many Horsemen as I can, then rushed south to destroy the Calabim, slaugthering what Barbs came my way, then I signed an Open Borders treaty with Enion, allowing me to use his cities as a base from which to heal my wounded troops. Then, the Elohim expanded towards the Luchiurp, casuing the latter to Declare War. Needless to say, I took advantage of this and stomped Beeri by rushing HAs at him, then pulling them back to a nearby Elohim city in the same turn.