Let us know what you think about the Wages of Sin scenario in this thread.

so far i miss my trusty camel archer, hope she'll return to me soon..

I take it these were released in patch "r"? Looking forward to them already!

It doesn't seem appropriate to me that the Elohim cities all have the Order in them, making them adopt this religion. I don't really think that this Mercy oriented civ fits very well with this Law oriented religion. Also, it is one of the weaker religions for them as the special Spirit Guide promotion that Confessors start with is something all Elohim units should have after builder their Reliquary UB.


In the Calabim version I found that Basium owned the Empyrean holy city and adopted that religion. Even though he is Empyrean in The Radiant Guard, I think that Order would have made more sense for him. The Malakim should really have the Empyrean holy city here, as they do in the Malakim version of the scenario.




I just found that my Devouts' Sanctify spell only seems to work in Infernal controlled territory, not in the hell terrain surrounding said territory.

When I started the scenario from within the game it gave me the Malakim even though I won Into the Desert as the Calabim.

Played through as the Calabim, and it seems unfocused. No one seems to be gunning for you, the evil guys aren't fighting a losing war or anything. You don't have any major issues. I just wandered around exploring the map for a bit, then smashed the Malakim, Elohim, and Mercurians one after another.

Part of the issue might be your start. It's to much and to little. The Rangers make defending your area a non-concern, the vampires(and the great commander) give you an assault force. But your civilization setup is weak. Someone else has founded the various religions already. My nearest copper was in Malakim lands. You're into the midgame techs and have a pitiful amount of commerce coming in. Basically, until you're able to turn your nation into a vampire-factory it's useless.

If that's the idea, to use your overly powerful troops to secure a decent setup for your nation, then I'd suggest making it more intuitive(place some of the troops in sight of the Elohim, place the boat by Timberling) or make the Malakim area a bit nicer. I didn't see any mana nodes for Spring by my start position, and big swathes of desert don't exactly scream "conquer me"

In the Calabim version were we meant to be able to choose the Shieam to play as instead of Decius?

Yes to Cyther.
@ others: I'll look into that, thanks.

Calabim scenario is a bit unfocused, yes.

Sheaim scenario is VERY entertaining. Mostly because Hyborem loves you.

Will you be able to play as the svartalfar in a following update? The elven war didn't affect me at all, i never even saw any ljosalfar troops.

Story was very appreciated, i haven't had the time to try the "good" side yet.

Once i implemented the new workshops the game somehow developed, they are really cool. I played as malakim, destroyed a few svatalfar cities with my super-experienced horseman (and a bunch of hunters) before getting slaughtered by alazkhan.
after this it was more or less waiting for chalid and champions as well as enough culture for at least one mana node to come into play (hyborem was to fearful).
was the normal chalid-destroys-all march, then.

I enjoyed the story a lot but find the szenario itself too unfocused in the malakim version.
you kind of sit on the side of the map and, apart from some few svatalfar expeditions nobody ever enters your land, expect some barbarians.
with all the messages (this hero died, this hero died) i felt that i miss all the action - and indeed, all the fun was going on in the middle of the map.

it also took a very long time to build at least a tiny bit of production into the desert cities, i would appreciate more workers or pre-built modernisations.

I just found that my Devouts' Sanctify spell only seems to work in Infernal controlled territory, not in the hell terrain surrounding said territory.
Maybe WB placed hell terrain is immune? If that's the case it should probably be reverted.

I enjoyed the story a lot but find the szenario itself too unfocused in the malakim version.
you kind of sit on the side of the map and, apart from some few svatalfar expeditions nobody ever enters your land, expect some barbarians.
with all the messages (this hero died, this hero died) i felt that i miss all the action - and indeed, all the fun was going on in the middle of the map.That's a good point. How about we remove the "safe" Malakim city, and give them one near the mountian instead? That might help threaten the Malakim more.
Will you be able to play as the svartalfar in a following update? The elven war didn't affect me at all, i never even saw any ljosalfar troops.I had considered it. It wasn't in the original design, I think because Kael intended more effect from Umbra wood than I really wanted (the winner of that one should have extra units and a different evil leader opposing.)
They either need some events tieing them in more, or I should let them be playable.


How about more Mercurian and Infernal units near their enemies? Or even cities, I guess. If they aren't playable, they don't need to be as balanced, really.

Played through again as the Elohim this time. The scenario almost seems designed for them.:D You have a good start, but Calabim to your east and the Infernals above apply some pressure, give you some clear objectives.

Sanctuary should probably be either toned down or disabled for the scenario. My 2 games so far have run about 120 turns apiece. Sanctuary is 30 turns. So you can beat up the mortal enemies, pop it when the infernal SoD's start showing up, and be bringing the game to a close by the time they are allowed into your territory again.

A couple events may need to be blocked early or entirely. The Orb event for example probably shouldn't be allowed in the first 50 turns or so. Starting with pretty advanced techs and a fairly undeveloped area leads to fun stuff like it giving you Righteousness at turn 7 even though you're only putting out 20:science: a turn. And the Svartalfar become much less of a threat when Gurid shows up and takes Thariss:lol:

If Valin or Rosier gets the Black Mirror their introductory thing is displayed every time they use it.
Every. Single. Time.

why can't you play as basuim or hyborem? And does the PA go away after a pair signs one? I hadn't the option when Svalts and Infernals signed one.

Chalid Baby, 1 Hero With blitz and game over. thats it.
Until i got chalid i just holed up in my hole and end-turned until i had the research done, then popped chalid, wait another 50+ turns (until he gets Dril 4 + blitz) then go on a rampage spree. I had him with 300 exp and ALL the useful (even minor useful) promotions at the end. To easy...

why can't you play as basuim or hyborem? And does the PA go away after a pair signs one? I hadn't the option when Svalts and Infernals signed one.

Had you researched Feudalism yet? That's a prerequisite for Permanent Alliances. It's very easy to get a permanent alliance with the Ljosalfar as the Malakim in this scenario.

FYI, know the typos average about 1 or 2 per entry, hopefully most or all will be fixed with the next patch.
Played through again as the Elohim this time. The scenario almost seems designed for them.:D You have a good start, but Calabim to your east and the Infernals above apply some pressure, give you some clear objectives.

Sanctuary should probably be either toned down or disabled for the scenario. My 2 games so far have run about 120 turns apiece. Sanctuary is 30 turns. So you can beat up the mortal enemies, pop it when the infernal SoD's start showing up, and be bringing the game to a close by the time they are allowed into your territory again.

A couple events may need to be blocked early or entirely. The Orb event for example probably shouldn't be allowed in the first 50 turns or so. Starting with pretty advanced techs and a fairly undeveloped area leads to fun stuff like it giving you Righteousness at turn 7 even though you're only putting out 20:science: a turn. And the Svartalfar become much less of a threat when Gurid shows up and takes Thariss:lol:

If Valin or Rosier gets the Black Mirror their introductory thing is displayed every time they use it.
Every. Single. Time.
I hate sanctuary. :P Maybe theres a way that they could begin with it up, to have the flavor without the cheese.
There's a lot of events in now, it'll be a challenge to go through and weed out ones that are overpowered starting at a late age. (Is the orb event the constellation one that adds beakers?)
The hero-mirror thing would be annoying, I'll cross post it in the other forum.
Re: Chalid--I think that's a game balance thing in general, but it would probably do to have some stronger starting units, perhaps some with magic resistance.

The event is the one where a merchant offers to sell you an old Patrian artifact. Unlike the constellation event or a GP bulb it doesn't give beakers, it's always a tech. Which is a problem when you're pulling in 20:science: and can pick something that costs 12,000.

I had a wandering monk pick off Alakazan up in Svalt territory. When I brought it back I gave it to Valin of course. Even turn when I made his illusion I got the initial popup dialog.

Maybe make the popup only work when he is initially created, not if he is cloned?

Once again, great scenario!
My only issue is what people have already brought up, that the early game is too unfocused. I think this could be remedied though by improving everyone's land and giving Decius more supplies or something.

Also, I'm really loving the little text that pops up when the heroes appear. The Valin one when I was Calabim really made me go "uh oh... this isn't good". Now I can't wait for the next installment for more of the story!

Perhaps giving calabim starting cities instead of settlers?

Oh, mardero + war= badass

I explored some ruins near the Calabim's southern coast on the second turn, which spawned a Sea Serpent and six Azers, which sacked my capital. I needed to go to class anyway.

However, I looked at the map in WB beforehand, and I had the same impression that came with the early versions of Momus: the map is entirely too big.

It took me 100 turns to realize I hadn't converted to Empyrean as the Malakim. I kept wondering if there was an event that triggered to bring Chalid into play, until I looked at my religion screen. :blush:

Okay, I'll see about editing it again tonight to reduce some space (with mountians or lakes) and giving the players some starting buildings and perhaps some cottages.

I found that my mercyful Elohim vampires can't feed from citizens. Is that a feature in the scenario, is it always like that or did I just lack some requirements?

Feast is a Calabim only ability for Vampires since .40. Vampires belonging to other civs do not have access to Feast.

Repost from my post in the general bug thread:

Several bugs with Wages of Sin:
First of all, several players in that scenario (and possibly in other scenarios) use their world spells in the first turn - for example, the Elohim and the Ljosalfar do (Actually, I think the Elohim did something similar in Barbarian Assault). I would guess that the AI uses its world spells partly depending on whether it's on war with other civilizations - and this scenario and others have the "Always War" option enabled. In that case, the conditions for using these world spells really have to change.

Secondly, The Sheaim player starts with a Great Engineer right next to the Infernals. I assume that the Great Engineer was actually supposed to belong to the Infernals instead of the Sheaim and that it's ejected from Hyborem's territory in turn 0 because the two civilizations do not start with open borders.
Solution: Change the owner of the Great Engineer from Sheaim to the Infernals.

Thirdly, I've tried the scenario several times already and always quit in frustration after I was visited in turn 10 or so by a basically unkillable unit: Basium. (And if I actually managed to kill him, I wouldn't be happy, either, because this seriously hurts the Mercurians...). Hyborem starts with UnitAI_Defense or something like that while Basium had UnitAI_Attack - perhaps that's the problem? In any case, Basium mustn't be allowed to attack that soon personally - either he kills (or at least harasses) the player at a very early point in the game, or he dies that soon. Neither option is particularly satisfying.

Hopefully, this bug report was helpful in some way.

Sure, thanks for the info about the GE.
Maybe I'll cut Basium and have him be buildable like in Lord of the Balors. I'd hate to set him to defense, since then he'd sit there the whole game, I suspect.

in this scenario the glance screen is bit messed up
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y115/Heroine_LL/Civ4ScreenShot0488.jpg
and reloading the autosave from the current turn starts doing the previous AI turn all over again, instead of starting at the beginning of the new day.
not tested if that's just with this scenario

I just thought I would ask a simple question, is Basium supposed to count as one of the 'good opposing' teams to be destroyed in this scenario. If this is the case he keeps restarting after I take his last city. :( I was wondering what the logic was of not making him count as one of the opposing teams to beat the scenario, and if there is a good reason is it announced in the beginning and maybe I just missed it?

It took me 100 turns to realize I hadn't converted to Empyrean as the Malakim. I kept wondering if there was an event that triggered to bring Chalid into play, until I looked at my religion screen. :blush:

You're not alone :(

I just thought I would ask a simple question, is Basium supposed to count as one of the 'good opposing' teams to be destroyed in this scenario. If this is the case he keeps restarting after I take his last city. :( I was wondering what the logic was of not making him count as one of the opposing teams to beat the scenario, and if there is a good reason is it announced in the beginning and maybe I just missed it?

I'm not quite sure what you mean... Taking him out should count as defeating one rival, yes. Require complete kills isn't set. But maybe it isn't because he's on the same team as the Elohim?
You're not alone Sorry... I should either preset your religion or give you units rather than the religion in the city so that it reminds you. Will be fixed in a future patch.

What is it that makes it so easy to forget to convert to the Empyrean as the Malakim? I forgot to do so in this scenario the first time I played the Malakim version of it too.


I think I like having the religion preset better, but make sure that the city already has a holy city to or I don't think the religion will ever really be founded.

I just edited Lord of the Balors to have each civ start out with the proper state religion, and to give the Holy Cities and free religious units as soon as the first cities are founded instead of waiting a few turns until the game decides to found the religions based on the techs they own. I think I like this way much better, especially since I'm planning to add more civs with more religions that will be activated/deactivated based on trophies in other scenarios, and I don't want their religion's free units given out if the religion is founded the old fashioned way.

I'm not quite sure what you mean... Taking him out should count as defeating one rival, yes. Require complete kills isn't set. But maybe it isn't because he's on the same team as the Elohim?
Sorry... I should either preset your religion or give you units rather than the religion in the city so that it reminds you. Will be fixed in a future patch.

Nevermind it is because I was very tired (too much FFH in one day) and I thought he was gaining Elven cities when it was just the fact that Omniscience didn't reveal all of his cities to me like I thought it did, apparently that must only reveal all of the terrain?

I'm sorry if my last post was incoherent it was late at night and thanks for trying to help out a confused soul. :)

Repost from my post in the general bug thread:

Several bugs with Wages of Sin:
First of all, several players in that scenario (and possibly in other scenarios) use their world spells in the first turn - for example, the Elohim and the Ljosalfar do (Actually, I think the Elohim did something similar in Barbarian Assault). I would guess that the AI uses its world spells partly depending on whether it's on war with other civilizations - and this scenario and others have the "Always War" option enabled. In that case, the conditions for using these world spells really have to change.

(...)

Thirdly, I've tried the scenario several times already and always quit in frustration after I was visited in turn 10 or so by a basically unkillable unit: Basium. (And if I actually managed to kill him, I wouldn't be happy, either, because this seriously hurts the Mercurians...). Hyborem starts with UnitAI_Defense or something like that while Basium had UnitAI_Attack - perhaps that's the problem? In any case, Basium mustn't be allowed to attack that soon personally - either he kills (or at least harasses) the player at a very early point in the game, or he dies that soon. Neither option is particularly satisfying.

Hopefully, this bug report was helpful in some way.
I feel exactly the same. Ljosalfar wasting their forests on treants when I have a miserable unit near their border is bad.
Basium makes playing as the Sheaim totally uninteresting imo.

I feel exactly the same. Ljosalfar wasting their forests on treants when I have a miserable unit near their border is bad.
Basium makes playing as the Sheaim totally uninteresting imo.

In my game the Sheaim were wiped out entirely too fast by Basium, which was kind of cool it. It seemed to add a sense of desparation to the game that wouldn't have been there otherwise. :) However I could see how playing with the Sheaim instead of the Calabim could be really annoying having to deal with the Mercureans.

Okay, I'm thinking Basium and Hyborem will start held in their cities until a tech is researched, such as fanatacism. Or maybe just after X turns.

In my experience, the Infernals will start building Hyborem immediately if he's not available at the start of the scenario. Don't know for Basium.

Okay, I'm thinking Basium and Hyborem will start held in their cities until a tech is researched, such as fanatacism. Or maybe just after X turns.

Good idea. I'd prefer a number of turns modified by game speed - after all, if their ability to move depends on a tech that's that late into the game, they might never do anything.
An alternative might be a certain value on the AC (but it might be deactivated in this scenario, again?).

Actually, if you make it depend on a number of turns or the AC, you could make it part of the storyline of the scenario - some reason like "Basium and Hyborem need some time to cross over from their own worlds to Erebus", or that they are still channeling some kind of spell or something like that.

I killed basium pretty easy with sheaim. I threw a couple of pyre zombies on him and ringed fired him and last i killed him with rosier. He nailed up on a hill next to my cap.

I killed basium pretty easy with sheaim. I threw a couple of pyre zombies on him and ringed fired him and last i killed him with rosier. He nailed up on a hill next to my cap.
A couple fire zombies? I got him come around as soon as he could, and it was impossible for me to build any unit before he would destroy my capital, even making a stance on the hills. Only way to deter him would have been skeleton spamming so he'd kill the skels every turn, but that's downright boring and unfun.

I killed basium pretty easy with sheaim. I threw a couple of pyre zombies on him and ringed fired him and last i killed him with rosier. He nailed up on a hill next to my cap.
I don't think killing him was as much the issue as how much it weakens the Mercureans when you do so. I never really have a problem killing him it just creates a power vacuum because he equals like half the Merureans power sometimes... :/

It took me 100 turns to realize I hadn't converted to Empyrean as the Malakim. I kept wondering if there was an event that triggered to bring Chalid into play, until I looked at my religion screen. :blush:

Damn, I didn't realize I hadn't converted to Empyrean until I saw your post. :blush:

Feast is a Calabim only ability for Vampires since .40. Vampires belonging to other civs do not have access to Feast.

I think this is a shame. If a player of another civ is resourseful enough to capture a Vampire with command or the Elohim capture a Calabim city and build some Vampires that they should have the full use of the feast ability.

I agree with a number of the posts that say that this scenario was unfocused. I played as the Malakim to continue the storyline from the previous scenario. In the entire game, I don't think I ever had a unit on the west half of the map. I slow played a builder style game at the beginning and stayed in my own territory. Once the AI finished off the Sheiam, I thought that I better get involved in the war (about turn 200 or so) and invaded the nearby Calabim lands. They were pushovers dying from by Decius (Ranger) unit and Baron Drun von halfmoon. I attached Decius to a Hunder and he eventually ended up as a super human Beastmaster who could kill four enemies per turn. The last 20-30 turns of the game consisted of Decius (Beastmaster) and Chalid using their Commando promo to walk up to a Svart city, cast Pillar of Flames and then decimate all the defenders inside who had lost 60%+ of their hp to the spell. The only challenge was a logistical delay in getting 1-2 troops to the captured cities for defense so that my two heroes could continue on to the next city.

I would recommend starting the Malakim closer to the action in the middle of the map. Leave the desert section in the southeast unoccupied and give them a quest to found a desert city (like the Religious Mountain quest in BTS) that will have some bonus given upon completion. As it is now, the inclanation on the good side is to continue to play as the Malakim from the previous scenario and they are just not in the thick of the plot on the currently designed map.

Is there a way to play as hyborem in this scenario?

Cosmetic Bug: The formatting on the Scenario Screen is out. There are several line breaks where they shouldn't be, and no line breaks where they should be.

I think this is a shame. If a player of another civ is resourseful enough to capture a Vampire with command or the Elohim capture a Calabim city and build some Vampires that they should have the full use of the feast ability.

I disagree, I see this as an exploit used to be the best part of the Calabim while at the same time using the strengths of another team as well. Why play as the Calabim if you can just steal or build their best unit as another civ?

I disagree, I see this as an exploit used to be the best part of the Calabim while at the same time using the strengths of another team as well. Why play as the Calabim if you can just steal or build their best unit as another civ?Why not disable the stealing of any unique unit with Command? Why not disable the Command ability all together then?

All civs have unique units that make them fun to play, but only the Calabim unique unit is watered down if captured by another civ. Heck...I can even capture national heroes that are fully functional, but a mere Champion replacement is nerfed for some reason. If the vampire is deemed too powerful to allow another civ to capture than maybe it is unbalanced and needs to be nerfed. If it is not unbalanced then there is absolutely positively NO reason why other civs should not be able to control one with full functionality.

I have successfully captured Alazkan the Assassin and Govannon in past games.

Why not disable the stealing of any unique unit with Command? Why not disable the Command ability all together then?

All civs have unique units that make them fun to play, but only the Calabim unique unit is watered down if captured by another civ. Heck...I can even capture national heroes that are fully functional, but a mere Champion replacement is nerfed for some reason. If the vampire is deemed too powerful to allow another civ to capture than maybe it is unbalanced and needs to be nerfed. If it is not unbalanced then there is absolutely positively NO reason why other civs should not be able to control one with full functionality.

There's one big difference in that if you gain control of any other unique unit, you have one unique unit (and even if it's a hero, it probably won't change everything). If you capture a Vampire, all your level 6 units can suddenly gain Vampirism (which already has several big advantages including +10% Strength). If all these could feast, you would basically have a Calabim+X army (where X is the civ you play right now), making playing Calabim basically obsolete. I don't think that makes a lot of sense, balance-wise, and I guess that's why it's not, in fact, allowed.
An alternative, of course, would be allowing Feast while making gifting Vampirism require Calabim, but I prefer the way it is right now.

I would prefer feast to be enabled and gift vampirism to be disabled if one of them has to be nerfed. This makes more sense because a vampire should be more likely to continue to feast and not share the secret with another civ than to all of the sudden stop feasting.

Really, both abilities should be given full functionality. If Vampires are unbalanced, then they are unbalanced whether playing as the Calabim or another civ and capturing them. If Vapires are overpowered then they should be nerfed accross the board. If not, then the ability to feast should be allowed if they are captured.

Perhaps a fix would be to make feasting give a negative diplo modifier: "you feast on the living." The diplo hit could be greater for good civs than evil civs and could increase the more you use the ability. Another fix would be to make the unhappiness from feasting more severe or even permanent for non Calabim civs so that there is a down side to using the ability of the captured unit.

Spoiler: The text when taking out the second rival, playing Calabim, ends efter a comma. Either you'll want to finish whatever it's supposed to read or change that to a dot.

Also, removing the Orb event seems like a good idea; having 100 starting gold and a Supplies that can build a library means that you can induce the event really early on and get a 3k beaker tech (Warbows or CoS, I believe, as Calabim).

Valin's entry pops up every time he is built, not just the first (Basium created him, went Empyrean (should not happen imo), later Einon built him and the message displayed again).

All as of .40s

Good scenario otherwise... Now I only need to either cut my way thru a horde of angels or a really dense forests... Choices, choices...

And a final suggestion: Tune Blight down please, it comes so early and 20 :yuck: killed my 3 core cities to size 1 stagnant, my research and production completely withered away. I would appreciate if Stephanos didn't enter the game that early aswell, but I suspect that is on purpose... :sad:

It looks like my experience was different from everyone else's. I got crushed as the Malakim. My 'allies' did little to help. I did take out the Calabim but finally got crushed by the Infernals and especially the Svartalfar.

Best wishes,

Breunor

I started the first game as the Sheaim, on immortal:

* The GE didn't get pushed out, it just took him 3 turns to walk to my city and pop a wonder.

* Basium arrived promptly and kicked my ass by turn 30.

Second try, Calabim on immortal:

* Everybody popped their world spells on turn 1. Smart for Ethne, stupid for the Ljos.

* I won the game after 150 turns by wiping out Ethne, then Basium, then Varn.

* The first two vampires wiped out around 10 Elohim and Mercurian cities almost by themselves. As soon as I built one adept to build two death nodes and cast blur on the 5 str. spectres and one ranger with shock to defend against angels, I basically marched through the entire map taking a city every 2 turns or so.

* I like that the Mercs are stronger than either Varn or Ethne, it makes for a nice dilemma whether you go for them first or take out somebody else and give them free angels.

* Basium got killed pretty early by the Sheaim, but he did take some of their cities. Maybe that's why it was easy for me.

* I was in PA with Faeryl, Ethne was with Basium and Varn with the Ljos. Ossy-G offered to become my vassal, which was a pretty pointless thing to do (permanent war and all) and prevented her from PAing with Hybo. Overall, I really liked the PAs and think they added a lot of flavour. I also had Faeryl help me a lot in the desert, I hope she won't get jealous of Thalia.

* Speaking of Thalia, the text after defeating the second enemy does indeed cut off just as Decius is about to get himself some sweet lovin'. Please finish the text and let the poor guy have some fun.

* The barbs were much more of a threat for me than anybody else. Varn sent at most two rathas + two swordsmen even though I left him alone for 100 turns. The Ljos played defensive and didn't even launch one serious attack on Faeryl. I never saw either Chalid or a tier 4 unit, not even champions for Varn.

* Stephanos, however, took out my best three cities within 10 turns. I didn't mind because I won the game with the 4 units, but he is a game-breaker beacuse you can get to AC 40 in 40 turns if you spread AV and raze Ethne's cities. In a normal game, AC 40 requires AV being founded, Hybo summoned and some massive wars. It really can't be done in under 250-300 turns, by which time most civs have some large armies, well developed cites, and a hero or two. In this scenario, nobody has the time to develop an empire and build enough units capable of standing up to him. Blight also took all my cities down to pop 1. Yet, Hybo didn't do anything useful throughout the game even though it got to AC 49 by the end.

* A plan to win on deity in under 50 turns: switch to conquest and rush out moroi and AV disciples without growing your cities beyond size 3. Spam farms and workshops, no cottages. Raze a couple of barb cities and spread AV everywhere, you should hit blight before long. As soon as that happens, throw your two vamps and any morois you have at Varn, even if you lose them. Razing three of his cities should help nudge AC beyond 40. If Stephanos spawns between Basium and Ethne, you've won the game even if you've done on research, have 3 size 1 cities and two longbowmen in your empire.

* Just a little note about the story: You've spent two scenarios drinking the blood of Malakim women and children, making deals with every devil and demon you could find for no purpose other than personal gain and you're switching between CoE and AV for fun. And Thalia becomes your sweetheart just because you stopped a vamp from drinking her? Damn, it must be the aftershave.

All in all, a very nice scenario, albeit with some balance issues (enemies either way too strong or way too weak, Stephanos is completely unstoppable if he kicks in).

Wages of Sin Write-up

Mild Spoilers

I’m labeling this section with ‘mild’ spoilers because there aren’t any scenario specific surprise type ideas here; they really are all strategy type.

I replayed as Decius of the Malakim after losing badly to a Svartalfar attack my first game. After losing, I compared notes with my son as usual, who not surprisingly found the scenario rather easy. He used the ‘traditional’ Malakim strategy of going for great priests, building Altar parts, getting the desert shrine, apprenticeship, and churning out killer disciple units. Of course he got Chalid and just smashed everything.

I like this strategy for Varn, who is spiritual, and obviously it can work for Decius. But I wanted to play differently as Decius, using his Raiders ability more prominently. Clearly, my son’s strategy can work, but we agreed it isn’t the difference between victory and defeat (at least at our level).

Strategy and Scenario

One of the reason I like scenarios is that they provide challenges not seen in the ‘Epic’ game. I haven’t played a lot of advanced starts and I don’t usually play on large maps. But I think the most important difference is that large maps usually have many more players. In Wages of Sin, there is a lot of area, there is little water, and not many players. So strategy should accommodate. The first time I played I think I lost right at the start – when I saw the forces around (a few that I lost) in the first turns, I actually overbuilt some military and I didn’t use my allies. In addition, this scenario starts with the Infernals and the Mercurians on the board, which is a big change from the Epic game. With them on the board, not only are they strong, but they serves as the ultimate ‘Rubber band’ mechanic – kill baddies, and Hyborem gets stronger. Lose a lot of units and Basium gets stronger. Finally, the strategy is dominated by your position. You have very powerful allies, but they are on the opposite side of the board. You can be in trouble in the baddies gang up on you before your Allies can help. It is important to give directions to them, they usually listen to you to some degree.

Your first choices are decisions on using your supplies. I decided to get one of the two ‘builder’ options (library or Temple of Empyrean) and one military building (hunting lodge or training yard). I went for the Temple of Empyrean since I would want to spread the religion and I went for the hunting lodge since the board was big and I thought speed would be important.

My view is to attach Decius to a unit and try to stick with it, try to get to level 6 to build Form of the Titan as long as you have copper (which seems be rather prevalent). It ended up taking 13 turns to build and probably added a few hundred experience points in my second game.

So, with a large map, practically no water, and few players, what do you do? I tried to stick to a rule – only build settlers, workers, and troops early! With already built cities and expansion, I went for 2 workers/city and it still may not have been enough.

After a time using this strategy, I built ‘special’ buildings or wonders; I stopped to get Form of the Titan and then built the Ale house since I was in dire need of happiness.

In my second game, I got marble and stopped to build the Epics which were very useful, especially Heroic Epic. Later I got the three libraries and build the Great Library out in my city to the south (that starts on the board) which was a bit away from the action. I probably wouldn’t have bothered with TGL if I didn’t have marble.

Generally, I found following the river west gave me good cities, but going north or south gave resources. You do not start with a lot of good happiness resources so these can become a priority. Obviously get copper. Remember that the Malakim don’t need horses for the camel archers but these are abundant anyway.

Clearly you want to get religious law first and get Chalid, use the Empyrean strategy of having Chalid kill everything in his path. I went for priesthood, alteration, mathematics and engineering, got the Guild of Hammers. The guild of hammers is a great wonder when there are a lot of cities and the extra movement point on the roads is terrific.

Overall Strategy

Spoilers

Generally I had one city get a mage guild and build adepts. I had two mana sources in my territory. I build enchantment mana with the first since I really like enchanted blade and I badly needed the happiness. The second was body mana for the obvious reasons, I wasn’t planning on using catapults and haste can dramatically increase speed while regeneration is a very nice spell. I was correct that there would be little use worrying about level 3 spells, the game would be decided before they were available.

In both of the games, I found that the Svartalfar were the most powerful enemy in the north. The Calabim were weak and in the south. I rarely even interacted with the Sheam, who seemed to be in the opposite situation as I was surrounded by the good guys amd were a non-entity in both games. Finally, Hyborem was pretty much in the center.

In both games, the key was to fight the two front war successfully. I wanted to conquer Flauros and the Calabim to the south to grab a bunch of nice cities, but I have to worry about the Svartalfar expansion. The general technique is pretty easy, have Chalid blast the defenders down, have him kill anything that is hard, and mop up. With the raiders ability you can move very quickly through the enemy and plunder for money with camel raiders if necessary. I got lots of gold this way.

I had one city churn out adepts almost every time it wasn’t building infrastructure. I had mages to sanctify, haste, and cast enchanted blade. All adepts got scorch for free; this wasn’t particularly useful although I did use the scorch/sand lion trick a few times. Of course I wanted to get mages so I build adepts early. When I was defending against Hyborem, I had three mages with destroy undead. Another city had stables and churned out camel archers. A third city built archers/longbowmen. I stayed on god-king pretty much the whole game and my capital was a monster, building the ‘swing’ type of unit I needed – a Malakim capital with lots of flood plains is pretty awesome and with the ale house, bizarre of Memnon, a money changer, and a tax collector and the money from raiding, I was ahead on tech the whole game.

Chalid is so strong that taking cities is rather easy, but holding them is harder. It may actually be easier to win by burning the cities but I didn’t want the AC to rise so I held them, with the need to garrisoning them being my scarcest resource. This idea may have been a mistake since Basium took the AV holy city.

In both games, the critical step was campaigning in the South while holding the Svartalfar in the north. In my second game, my defending army in the north was far larger. In my first game, after capturing Flauros’ cities, I had Chalid in the south holding the Infernals at bay when I lost to a Svaltalfar army of 30 units conquering the north. With Nox Noctis they can strike hard and fast.

In my second game, the key strategy change was that I was going to take guard against the ‘main’ Svartalfar army before defeating Flauros and put most of my troops in the North. However, this didn’t work. The problem was Alakazan – he would come out, kill the top guy, and move out protected by Nox Noctis, I couldn’t do anything. Assassins would kill all weaker armies. I was losing a few guys a turn.

So Chalid went north, and there was a new strategy. I had to kill the main Svartalfar army and Alakazan before continuing with the conquest in the south. Ironically, it I probably easier to hold the south BEFORE defeating Flauros because Hyborem will find other people to fight and Flauros is weaker! Therefore, my view now is that the Svartalfar threat has to go.

Chalid and the Decisive Battle

The Svartalfar had nothing that could stand up to Cahlid. The critical battle was now Chalid against the main Svartalfar army. Chalid of course had Decius to get his XP’s up, the critical point getting to combat 5 and then up the drill line to get blitz. Any human would have defeated me – any human would throw his whole army away to defeat Chalid and I suspect they could have taken him down. But I marched Chalid out using my Raiders ability, if I took any losses I retreated back to my city. With Crown of Brilliance, pillar of flame, and his attacks, he took down the Svartalfar army a unit at a time. I finally got blitz and mobility for him and could take 3 guys down (sometimes retreating after losses.

I defended him with an escort of Rathas and had camel archers in reserve. The Rathas would go around him and cast blinding light to see if there was a stack ready to pounce on Chalid. If there was a message that 20 units were impacted by blinding light the Rathas would converge and I would send in the camel archers also.

This procedure/battle lasted probably about 30 turns. Eventually, the main army was whittled down. With about 7 units left, mostly adepts, Chalid killed Alakazan. Chalid now had over 200 XP’s and could just take down anything in his path. Later I traded to get Rage from Ethne the White – and I upgraded units to berserkers. A berserker with Alakazan’s mirror is quite tough; use it first on any city!

Aftermath

If this were a ‘normal’ game, I would be pretty sure I had won, and I pretty much had now. The difference of course was that killing so many Svartalfar made Hyborem a true monster. Fortunately, the Sheam had been long defeated and Basium, Arendal, and Ethne were fighting him. Even so Hyboren was beating up the Ljosalfar badly.

For me, I had defeated the Svartalfar so badly that I suspended the Calabim campaign and went on. I didn’t strategically like the way my border was getting larger and the lack of garrison troops was a bad problem. But I captured the Svaltalfar capital and with it Nox Noctis. This was another game changing event as now defending my own overextended kingdom was much easier – workers don’t’ have to be defended, they can’t come from nowhere, etc. After capturing the capital, I sent Chalid south and conquered the Calabim easily. Hyborem sent a medium sized army, but my mages casting destroy undead crushed them.

The Svartalfar sent one more army while Chalid was south, this was their last swan song. But now I was ready – they were a little stronger until Chalid showed up and mopped them up. With the destruction of their second army, defeating them further was simply a matter of logistics.

Of course, winning would now be routine. I had a much larger economy and production than anyone; I built Teutorix, gut arquebus’s. I probably could have defeated Hyborem but Basium was hitting him pretty hard and I figured the easiest way to win was to beat the Svartalfar. I got guilds to churn out engineers, got the Nexus. At this point then getting garrisons out to cities was easy. I mopped up the Svartalfar and won..

Conclusions – Spoilers

I had a lot of fun and did some new things. I do think this scenario has a lot of replay value – I can play other factions or even the Malakim again and try the ‘priest’ strategy. I clearly thought it was one of the best scenarios, probably because I did find it quite a challenge.

Regardless of how you build your army, I do think the key items are those laid out at the top. You are on a large map that is unsettled with Hyborem and Basium starting on the map. You have a powerful enemy in the north and want to conquer south. Handling these challenges is the key to victory.


Best wishes,

Breunor

I played as the sheaim, and Basium showed up at my door 14 turns into the game! No fun when he s wandering around outside my capital, killing a skeletion a turn... its a bit rediculious that he shows up to attack me so early...

Well after continuing, I eventually killed basium, and soon Hyborem offered me a permanent alliance. I have only kept my one city Galveholm, and the rest goes as an offering to hyborem. Armageedon counters at 70 now, and my diseased corpses are sweet (tower of necromancy woo)

Heh, I won this scenario as the Sheaim with the armegaddeon counter at 100. i killed the avatar with meshabber of dis with the staff of souls (he had 45 str at one point). Being allied with hyborem was great, my ritualists that died just turned into more power for him. But my dragon died when armageddon hit :-(. Didn't matter, by that point it was a beast of agares festival.

Played as the Malakim on Immortal level.

Fun scenario. For once the AI allies aren't that useless after all - Arendel kept Hyborem busy in the northwest, Basium wrecked Os-Gabella and left her barely alive, and Ethne took on Flauros with reasonable success. A few units help there was enough to finish the Calabim off.

As usual, if you're going to have Empyrean anyway, Religious Law is a beeline for Chalid. After Chalid hit the field with Rathas and Champions backing him up the Svarts were wiped out quickly, followed by the Sheaim. Armageddon never got very far, considering how quickly the Sheaim were reduced to a few cities and I put real effort in relentlessly hunting down the AV wherever it popped up in cities I controlled - or mostly, conquered.

Decius is pretty strong if you know how to use him well. Warring with Decius is mostly abusing your free Commando promotion, and getting a few units quickly to higher levels with the Decius GG. Then again I had it easy because only the Svartalfar were gunning for me and they weren't putting that much effort in it - the other enemy AI's got bogged down in other wars.

I've found that (with a few minor changes in ScenaroFunctions.py) this scenario makes a very good hotseat game, and is probably a good multilayer game in general. It really starts in medias res, which minimizes the pointless clicking early on.

Played as Calabim, on Emperor level. No bug's etc, all goodness! :goodjob:

With Basium in the large map from the outset, I efficiently went for the throat, before he got too powerful, and won the scenario by turn 149. Not a bad scenario, although it was a little easier than I initially thought. The Vamp's probably start as the weakest civ too.

Advanced start-up again allow's you to just boost away and use your foothold to get into an early steamroll.

*embedded GM in capital
*used supplies for library & training yard in capital
*settled most cities around the lake next to you; due to random resource placement. I had no iron, only copper.
*only had 1 mana node. I knew I would only be using Vampire's and Ritualist's as my main troop's (the battle could be over long before I could get Mage's on tap) so I only made a single Adept and upgraded it to a Death node (just so my vamp's Spectre's get a bonus).
*adopted Godking/Nationhood/Slavery/Conquest/Undercouncil

With my starting troop's, I cleared the few enemy that start near you. Lightly defended my 3 starting cities and got into whip mode. Used Ranger's to quickly get Subdue Animal promo so I could get wolves den, dancing bears and War Elephant's from all the natural gift's running around. With the Slavery civic, I quickly got heap's of Slave's from the barb's. I just love this civic for rapid start-up's!

With the Malakim on my right and Elohim and Basium on my left, I immediately set out to destroy the Malakim to free up my eastern flank. I put my best starting troop's (Vampire with Decius attached etc.) on the ship and sailed it along the coast. You start with a Vampire and an Assassin on a Caravel up north. I dropped the unit's off on the Malakim coast and used the boat to make contact with the Svartalfar. You also start with a Moroi just north of the Malakim cities. I moved him away from the Hunter danger to link up with my forces as they later converged. Made sure my vamp's killed a couple of barbs en route to give them the summon Spectre. I caught the Malakim with only 3 lightly defended cities (eg.capital only had a Longbowman and an Archer). The Longbow's were tough, but the summoning Vamps, Assassin and fodder managed to just pull it off. There were a couple of key 60-70% do-or-die combat's that saw me through. Only a couple of now nicely promoted troop's survived and I had to raze everything as the maintenance would have sunk me. With the Malakim desert emptied, barbarian's took over the area and simply fed me with endless XP and slave unit's.

As I revealed the map, I regularly passed it on to Hybo, the Sheaim and Svarts to hopefully guide them to battle. I ended up being allied with the Svarts, but the other's never really cared about me. I just held against the Elohim while I built up; they just trickle fed unit's to me. Parking my ship outside their only coastal city made them spam Galley's etc.

I had to convert to AV to please my allies, but mainly for the Ritualist's. However, when the hell terrain spread to my land's, it shattered my economy. From here I just spammed Vampire's and Ritualist's from my 5 cities to push west into the 2 remaining civ's I had to eliminate.

When the AC very quickly hit 30, the blight hurt me really bad as the hell terrain had wiped my healthiness. Once it's effect's eased, I cast my World Spell and then just kept the pressure on and walked through the Elohim who just seemed to make mainly Longbow's and Monk's. Their Homeland promo was frustrating; the frequency of withdrawal (10% odds only!) made me think all their Longbow's and Monk's were all on horseback!!! They, like most of the other's, blew their World Spell's from the outset, so there was no respite. I don't know what the hell my allies were doing because it just seemed that I alone was taking the fight to the infidel's; getting little to no support. I noticed the allied Svart's were building fresh cities to extend an already overextended empire!? I was the main guy fighting and razing cities before the AC got totally out of control.

I laughed when I got a truly menacing pop-up informing me that Valin Phanuel is after my head on a platter. 2 turn's later he's dead from suiciding into a far off city!

Basium had quite a few cities to get through. But the Angel's, though tough, were never going to hold out against stack's of Vampire's and Ritualist's with summoned Spectre's and rings of flame; Assassin's nipping at the edges. This simple combo just steamrolled them quickly and efficiently without adding too many more Angel's to his already swollen rank's. Basium himself had long been slain. He had some Crusader's in his last cities, but it was just more of the same by that point.
I was very lucky I had moved quickly from the outset.....Stephanos had appeared in the desert and was galloping rapidly toward's my few cities! :eek:

I agree with the MC that this would make a good MP map.

This map is still unnecessarily cruel to the Sheaim, due to Basium being spawned right off the bat. I did manage to win this one, though it required that I "abuse" the Great Engineer that was mistakenly given to me instead of Hyborem to rush the Pact of Nilhorn and send the giants to my capital, where they caused Basium to stall long enough for me to build Rosier the Fallen. While Rosier was no match for Basium, the big angel got himself mostly mauled on the free longbow I started with, and Rosier played clean-up. Once the initial rush was destroyed, I got far enough to start making mages and ritualists, which made the scenario much easier.

But definitely, definitely Basium and Hyborem need to be taken off the map and be manually built. They're way too powerful right now with those guys on the field at turn one, and it took me ten or so tries before I finally survived the first hundred turns.

I rather like having Hyborem and Basium on the map already, but moving them back to their capitals could be a good idea. It also seems odd that Basium has immortal in this scenario, when normally only Hyborem does.


Thematically, shouldn't the Amurites be on this map? I rather like the idea of adding a weak and falling Amurite nation under the control of Valledia the Even with The Order as its state religion, as the pedia clearly shows Valledia inviting the Order into her lands right after ordering the murder of Einion's wife. (Perhaps this should be set as the state religion at the beginning instead of just given the holy city and encouraged to convert, as I believe she could still be neutral that way. She is definitely not a good person, and chose to adopt this religion for purely pragmatic reasons after committing a horrible sin for the same cause.) It doesn't seem right to me that the Elohim are following Junil. I believe that Nikis-Knight said that the Elohim were given the Order Holy city just so it wouldn't be spawned randomly. The Infernals also seem to control more cities than the intro text would have you believe they should by that time. I think I'd reduce them to one city, but give them a decent sized army on the brink of conquering several enemy cites. (That would also mean they would get all their free buildings there, which I believe are missing in at least some of the cities already given to them on the map. I think that the Infernal City that the Mercurians usually take at the very beginning would be better if given to the Sheaim, and maybe given a Tar Demon or something to defend it. Also, I think the Great Engineer should either be given to the Infernals or moved closer to the Sheiam capital.

Advanced start-up again allow's you to just boost away and use your foothold to get into an early steamroll.

*embedded GM in capital
*used supplies for library & training yard in capital
*settled most cities around the lake next to you; due to random resource placement. I had no iron, only copper.
*only had 1 mana node. I knew I would only be using Vampire's and Ritualist's as my main troop's (the battle could be over long before I could get Mage's on tap) so I only made a single Adept and upgraded it to a Death node (just so my vamp's Spectre's get a bonus).
*adopted Godking/Nationhood/Slavery/Conquest/Undercouncil

With my starting troop's, I cleared the few enemy that start near you. Lightly defended my 3 starting cities and got into whip mode. Used Ranger's to quickly get Subdue Animal promo so I could get wolves den, dancing bears and War Elephant's from all the natural gift's running around. With the Slavery civic, I quickly got heap's of Slave's from the barb's. I just love this civic for rapid start-up's!

With the Malakim on my right and Elohim and Basium on my left, I immediately set out to destroy the Malakim to free up my eastern flank. I put my best starting troop's (Vampire with Decius attached etc.) on the ship and sailed it along the coast. You start with a Vampire and an Assassin on a Caravel up north. I dropped the unit's off on the Malakim coast and used the boat to make contact with the Svartalfar. You also start with a Moroi just north of the Malakim cities. I moved him away from the Hunter danger to link up with my forces as they later converged. Made sure my vamp's killed a couple of barbs en route to give them the summon Spectre. I caught the Malakim with only 3 lightly defended cities (eg.capital only had a Longbowman and an Archer). The Longbow's were tough, but the summoning Vamps, Assassin and fodder managed to just pull it off. There were a couple of key 60-70% do-or-die combat's that saw me through. Only a couple of now nicely promoted troop's survived and I had to raze everything as the maintenance would have sunk me. With the Malakim desert emptied, barbarian's took over the area and simply fed me with endless XP and slave unit's.

As I revealed the map, I regularly passed it on to Hybo, the Sheaim and Svarts to hopefully guide them to battle. I ended up being allied with the Svarts, but the other's never really cared about me. I just held against the Elohim while I built up; they just trickle fed unit's to me. Parking my ship outside their only coastal city made them spam Galley's etc.

I had to convert to AV to please my allies, but mainly for the Ritualist's. However, when the hell terrain spread to my land's, it shattered my economy. From here I just spammed Vampire's and Ritualist's from my 5 cities to push west into the 2 remaining civ's I had to eliminate.

When the AC very quickly hit 30, the blight hurt me really bad as the hell terrain had wiped my healthiness. Once it's effect's eased, I cast my World Spell and then just kept the pressure on and walked through the Elohim who just seemed to make mainly Longbow's and Monk's. Their Homeland promo was frustrating; the frequency of withdrawal (10% odds only!) made me think all their Longbow's and Monk's were all on horseback!!! They, like most of the other's, blew their World Spell's from the outset, so there was no respite. I don't know what the hell my allies were doing because it just seemed that I alone was taking the fight to the infidel's; getting little to no support. I noticed the allied Svart's were building fresh cities to extend an already overextended empire!? I was the main guy fighting and razing cities before the AC got totally out of control.

I laughed when I got a truly menacing pop-up informing me that Valin Phanuel is after my head on a platter. 2 turn's later he's dead from suiciding into a far off city!

Basium had quite a few cities to get through. But the Angel's, though tough, were never going to hold out against stack's of Vampire's and Ritualist's with summoned Spectre's and rings of flame; Assassin's nipping at the edges. This simple combo just steamrolled them quickly and efficiently without adding too many more Angel's to his already swollen rank's. Basium himself had long been slain. He had some Crusader's in his last cities, but it was just more of the same by that point.
I was very lucky I had moved quickly from the outset.....Stephanos had appeared in the desert and was galloping rapidly toward's my few cities! :eek:


Very interesting to read this, seeing as how my game went almost EXACTLY the same, right down to winning two 70% battles with the barb-leveled eastern Vamp/Assassin to break the Malakim's defense for good. I must have been just a little bit slower than you because Stephanos showed up and razed one of my ex-Elohim cities five turns before I took Basium down and won the scenario. Too bad for Steph that he was right in the way of newly-immortal Losha, who was perfectly willing to "suicide" against him to knock him down to 2.5 str.

Overall, a very fun scenario. I think it would have been a little more challenging without the eastern units, who can easily level up on barbs enough to kill the Malakim by themselves.

EXACTLY the same.....great mind's think alike! :lol:

I agree you should not start with the free eastern unit's. I could not believe I started with those key unit's, and immediately thought of a logical plan to use them. I guess Kael planned it that way....I suppose.

Take 'em out to hopefully maintain 2 immediate front's for direct pressure from the outset.

It doesn't seem right to me that the Elohim are following Junil. I believe that Nikis-Knight said that the Elohim were given the Order Holy city just so it wouldn't be spawned randomly.

Why not Basium's capital?

Played as Elohim. Fun scenario. Two notes:

* They didn't start with a State Religion. Shouldn't they have started out as Order?
* Hell terrain advanced and changed the terrain to hell. Later on I captured soem Infernal cities and started using Life I to repair the land. Most of the land was restored, but in a few locations the Broken Lands (I think) just wouldn't disappear despite repeated (attempted) application of Life I and being located soundly within my borders.

Have the fixes for this scenario been forgotten about? Basium still rapes the Sheaim on turn 10, the Sheaim still have the GE that was suposed to belong to the infernals, everyone still pops their world spell on turn 1, some of the Hell terrain still cannot be cleared...

Even with all of the problems (most negatively the Sheaim, my favorite civ) this is still a great scenario and I am looking forward to the final, tweaked version.

In addition to what has already been said by other posters, my suggestion is that seeing as it is supposed to be a major religious war, I think the civs should probably start with a state religion already selected.

Have the fixes for this scenario been forgotten about? Basium still rapes the Sheaim on turn 10, the Sheaim still have the GE that was suposed to belong to the infernals, everyone still pops their world spell on turn 1, some of the Hell terrain still cannot be cleared...

Even with all of the problems (most negatively the Sheaim, my favorite civ) this is still a great scenario and I am looking forward to the final, tweaked version.

In addition to what has already been said by other posters, my suggestion is that seeing as it is supposed to be a major religious war, I think the civs should probably start with a state religion already selected.

I agree. My first game as the Sheaim in this, I wasn't expecting Basium, and got crushed.

I also agree about the religions- as the Malakim, I completely forgot to flip to Empryean, because I assumed I already was Empryean...

I have a dumb question: do you (and/or your PA) need to kill the 3 opponents? Or does it count if someone else does the deed? I'm playing as Sheaim, PA with Faeryl (Decius beat me to the PA with Hyborem). I'm just trying to decide how generous I can be with Decius/Hyborem... I'd like to gift them all my tech, unless they can deny me the victory. Thanks!

Glancing though ScenarioFunctions.py, it does not appear that how the civs are eliminated makes a difference.

I'm a FFH2 newb (just downloaded this game recently) and started immediately with the scenarios. :)

So far I'm liking the "Decius" scenarios.

There was a bug with this scenario though -- everytime I tried to play as Malakim/Decius, the game would hang.

So it forced me to play Elohim, which was probably the better choice, at least in terms of fun. Different civ (I'm brand new, so it's great to try out each civ), so it's a different experience from the last senario (in fact, I was a little disappointed I had to play as Malakim in the sequel scenario). Also, from what I've read in this thread it seems that playing Elohim is more fun because it puts you right in the middle of the action.

Hello, i can't load this scenario (malakim path). If i try to load it through the ingame scenario loader, the game crashes, and if i try to load it directly (i copy it to the scenarios folder and select it), i get an error message telling me the game can't open it.

Corwyn: I definitely agree. I originally started playing the Malakim but quickly decided that I'd have more fun with the Elohim. I've just finished a game as them, and I was right.

The first 50 turns were very slow, which made for some interesting micromanagement. I was able to (auto-)raze the Calabim's first city very quickly with nothing but what I started with. In the early game I found that the Mercurians were aggressive enough that I didn't need to build too much of an army to protect myself.

Once I had Valin I finished off the Calabim and took their cities. They screwed themselves over a bit by trying to build Pact of the Nilhorn (Hyborem finished it before them). I took a little time then to build up a decent army. I hadn't played the Elohim before and was surprised by how effective the monk was. I glanced over them on paper, but they're stronger than axemen, available about the same time on a different (more natural) route, have Demon Slaying and Medic I and can at least get City Raider I – this map wasn't big enough for the lack of II and III to be a problem.

Basium was also a very good ally in fighting Hyborem. The Sheaim were a bit of a bust. The AI seemed to have no idea how to use them, and in mid game I just camped Corlindale outside their kingdom with some mercenaries and hurled earth elemental after earth elemental at them, killing the odd adept or tar demon they had wandering around. The Svartalfar almost embarrassed me early on with a very strong assassin appearing out of nowhere, but later on they were leaving too many of their cities undefended – Valin took two alone, and a team of four paladins took three more with Malakim back-up.

'course, the Ljosalfar and Mercurians were doing the same, and I was delayed when I had to help them defend because they left only one unit in their border city.

It seemed near the end that the enemies failed to pick up any real momentum. I could have raised a second army to deal with the Sheaim or back up the first in attacking Faeryl, but it just wasn't necessary.

Ethne is dead! Curse it: though I knew little of the Elohim, I thought a female leader with an unusual (for the Elohim) inclination toward fighting would be a good idea. I had no idea Ethne would be that, and was dreaming of adding my own leader. It's difficult to see how the Elohim could survive in Erebus without someone like her – Einion Logos's ideas aren't going to cut it.

Overall I really liked this scenario. This one and The Splintered Court are my favourites so far. The scale of warfare is reasonably small and you have enough space and allies for it not to be completely hectic (hate The Momus).

@ Elyssaen

If you like strong and/or courageous female leaders, then you might like the story for the Bannor (with Capria) in the "Lord of the Balors" scenario. However, you might not enjoy the scenario itself if you didn't like the Momus. It can be a loooong slug fest on a large map.

I'd like to re-emphasize how difficult this scenario is when playing as the Sheaim. I read through the thread before playing and thought I'd get a charge out of taking Basium out. I was right; it was hard and I had to sacrifice a few units, but he helpfully charged the fortress that starts south of Galveholm and hurt himself badly killing my Longbowman, Pit Demon, and a skeleton(!). I took him out with the Horsemen, who got 53 xp from the fight. I promoted the Horseman to combat 5 and got the Mobility promotions and one Drill promotion and figured I didn't come out too badly.

But he had the Immortal promotion, and so he respawned, charged right back at me, and showed up at the fortress again on turn 22, with the Combat 5 promotion (I'm not sure if he had that the first time).

That's pretty ridiculous.

Since it seems like this is a long-standing known issue, let me suggest an alternate fix: make the svarts the other playable race, instead of the Sheaim. I love the Sheaim, but this is not really a tenable starting position, at least not without some serious warnings about the difficulty.

I enjoyed my Malakim playthrough much more.