The Black Tower

[Thunder_Gr]

What is required to play Bannor in this scenario? They are greyed out for me

Spoiler :

Obviously, you didn't help the Bannor in Radiant guard. You have to capture the Infernal city within the time limit they set to you.

 

[jprc]

I think, in the Radiant Guard scenario, you need to

Spoiler :

destroy the city where Capria waits with her Fregate. In exchange she should give you some units and, I guess, open access to the Bannor.

It is also possible that if, in the same scenario, you choose the defeat Basium, the Bannor won't be available (you choosed the "evil" path)...

only suppositions, sorry for this ...

 

[schlalex]

I did not know that it could be useful to support the Luchuirp in the Momus. Now i have serious trouble in the Black Tower, the Deity AI really sucks with these rules. If i play The Momus again and help the Luchurp, will i be able to count on them in the Black Tower? Or did i only have one chance when completing the Scenario first?

 

[Thunder_Gr]

only suppositions, sorry for this ...

This is exactly what needs to be done.

 

[Kael]

I did not know that it could be useful to support the Luchuirp in the Momus. Now i have serious trouble in the Black Tower, the Deity AI really sucks with these rules. If i play The Momus again and help the Luchurp, will i be able to count on them in the Black Tower? Or did i only have one chance when completing the Scenario first?

Spoiler :

If you play the Momus again and save Beeri you will be able to use him when you start the black tower.

 

[TallJimbo]

I've finally beaten the thing...or at least I've got Tebryn down to one city with one unit in it, which is totally surrounded. Unfortunately, when I take the city, I get a CtD. No matter who I do it with, how many turns I wait to pull the trigger, etc, I get a CtD.

I'd love to hear if anyone has any ideas on salvaging it (zipped save game: View attachment Black Tower Done.zip), but I'd settle for knowing how to manually update the trophies file to just get credit. I really don't want to start this one over.

 

[Kael]

I've finally beaten the thing...or at least I've got Tebryn down to one city with one unit in it, which is totally surrounded. Unfortunately, when I take the city, I get a CtD. No matter who I do it with, how many turns I wait to pull the trigger, etc, I get a CtD.

I'd love to hear if anyone has any ideas on salvaging it (zipped save game: View attachment 209782), but I'd settle for knowing how to manually update the trophies file to just get credit. I really don't want to start this one over.

I will fix that in the next version. To win the scenario go into the Worldbuilder and delete all of the units out of Tebryns capital before you attack.

 

[TallJimbo]

Thanks! I'm glad to hear my bug discovery has led to a permanent fix.

But just in case anyone else runs into this problem, it turns out the worldbuilder might not help - deleting the unit there caused a CtD for me as well.

However, killing the units in the city with a HN shadow before conquering it DID work.

 

[NeoBasilisk]

Wow, this one really is pretty crazy. Maybe I should have attacked right away or something, because the entire continent is overrun with Sheaim. I've killed about 500 units so far, and I've only razed 7-8 cities. And they rebuild the cities the instant my army moves away. Once they rebuilt a razed city the very next turn with my army standing right next to it. At the current rate this game it going, I'd estimate it would take 30-40 hours for me to win at this point. Sorry, I don't have that much patience.

 

[Kiwi Tyrant]

After studying hint's in previous post's I managed to defeat this scenario on Emperor by turn 350, on the first attempt. But what a rumble....

I settled 5 cities on my initial island, 3 Lanun and 2 Luchuirp (cities with any decent production potential were made Luchuirp). The Lanun palace importantly provides air & water mana (enabling Maelstrom & Spring\Water Elemental).

Initial start-up island:

Spoiler :

I gave my first Adept the 'Spring' spell to change the desert tiles to plain's. The Lanun cities pump the commerce, the Luchuirp cities pump the Golem's and repairing Dwarves. It's a boon that Luchuirp cities can benefit from Coves built in them by the Lanun! I was lucky I ended up with copper and iron on this island, but had only 1 mana node, which I converted into Enchantment (mainly so Dwarves could initially repair, and cast Enchanted Blade).

I knew that I'd have to act fast and decisively to try get on top of things before it got out of control. No human's healing, and being reborn after death as enemy Demon's, made up my mind tactically from the outset. OO religion for water walking Drown's, self healing Stygian, Saverous hero and Tsunami casting Cultist's. Repairable, fireballing Golem's would seal the deal!

The Clan island:

Spoiler :

The island in the south-east corner has the Clan of Ember's on it. It can basically be taken over whenever you choose. I initially was'nt going to even bother with it, but found it held 3 mana resources! I needed these nodes for Life (Destoy Undead), Fire (fire-ball's are alway's handy) and Metamagic (Dispel Magic; for node changing & bonus to spell damage\resistance). I ended up keeping the 6 captured cities, although they did'nt make prime use of the limited, marshy land. I felt I did'nt have time to raze and rebuild; just get the thing's online quick and adding to the war machine! Though taking this island early double's your civ's capacity, which is important to keep up with your rapidly expanding opponent's. Got 1 decent Lanun and 2 Lucuirp cities; the rest were filler's. It had mithril on it too!

The world map:

Spoiler :

I did'nt want this large map to get deep into the 'crossbowmen spam' stage I'd read about, so I formulated a decisive plan from the outset and basically saw it through with good success. I did not want to have unhealing, mortal unit's adding to the bonfire and thus stretching out this scenario. With the 'classic age' start you get, thing's get going real fast and you can quickly slingshot, so I thought I'd be clinically ruthless from the outset!

My tyrannical plan involved initially sending out the galleon with a couple of the starting Archer's over to hassle Gosea and maybe grab a worker, while I was developing my island. I got a couple, which held her up, while I got Drown's & Saverous over to quickly take her out when she only had 3 cities. I did not wish to take over any cities on the mainland and so razed them. I had a thought that Tebryn would expand into the vacant area and help crash his economy, so he'll keep spamming the predictable Pyre Zombie fodder. I still only had the starting Galleon at this point, so Mobility1 promoted, water walking, undead OO freak's must be the quickest way to zerg on this map.

From here this initial army withdrew and swung out and down to the Clan island. It was replenished with bee-lined Stygian's and Cultist's as they come on tap. These unit's formed the core of my armies to the end. I never built a single Lunatic or Wood Golem. The Tsunami spell proved to be just magic on this map (excuse the pun).

With the Clan island added to the realm, I merely built it up to a level where it was economically viable (courthouses, Summer Palace etc.) and just ended up spamming OO troop's, Iron Golem's & Assassin's. I used Zealot's to crash build OO temples rapidly in all cities. It did'nt need to build boat's to defend it, as the main army here, spearheaded by The Black Wind, just went straight for the ocean choke point in between the island of Averax and Tebryn and they could intercept anything trying to get out of the bunch of port cities there.

This main army quickly, but clinically, razed every port city in this area. That meant poor Averax was wiped from the map, even though he had founded 3 more port cities on the mainland. I did not worry about Hyborem (he seem's to get a slow start or something?) and just consolidated this force to block the boat's Tebryn was starting to spam, especially from the narrow sea passage that snakes up to his capital.

While the initial army performed it's mission's (now getting reinforcement's from the closer Clan island), my main island had been building improving it's cities to keep the economy afloat, and getting building's up for some of the better unit's I'd need for the mainland assault. I first built Styg's/Cultist's, then Frigates, to solidly defend the northern coast sea-pass, between the mainland and the ice-bergs, so Malchavic could'nt get nothing to harass or invade me while I got thing's in place. Then I basically replicated another port-city-razing-army to sail north over to Malchavic and hit him hard.

This northern army was knocking as the southern had finished up the other general, leaving Malchavic as the last. He had flourished on the large, flood-plained river and had many inland cities as well. He was actually larger than Tebryn! He had cities in the north, right down to the southern coastline where I had just removed General Gosea. My first army was still there, destroying the enemy boat spam, while being steadily built up for a big push inland. So it was these 2 main armies that began a truly epic pincer movement that eventually crushed the last general, while simultaneously fending off minor incursion's by Hyborem and Tebyrn from both sides. Thankfully, there were lakes dotted around to help progress!

When the 2 main armies, aided by a few smaller raiding parties that I kept feeding into the fray (to flank, pillage resources, kill worker's and freshly rebuilt cities) met up and converged onto the raging Tebryn, he had just starting getting into that "demonic crossbow 11/15" stage! But by then Saverous, Guy, Hemah, and to a lesser extent, Barnaxus were unstoppable with their stack's of Iron Golem's, Gargoyle's, Shadow's, Assassin's, OO Troop's and mages. Tebryn seemed to respond with a lot of Assassin's thrown at me, but my armies were too well balanced to be blunted that easily!

Some game stat's:

* built 32 work boat's (Lanun farm that damn sea!)
* razed 62 cities
* Notable Kills
- 228 Pyre Zombie's
- 114 Diseased Corpses
- 83 Arquebus
- 91 Assassin's
- 67 Crossbowmen
- 23 Galley's
- 55 Caravel's
- 44 Privateer's
- 41 Frigate's
(I'm glad I went for the throat and did'nt piss around, as these kill's would have been totally off the scale!)
* got a Final Score of 41,000: Cthulhu


Point's of Interest:

* my GNP was alway's close to double my nearest rival's.
* with 'human' unit's, I tended to save a promo or two, just so I could heal them when needed.
* tsunami and/or maelstrom with destroy undead kill's P.Z's cleanly at 1 tile away.
* tsunami and/or maelstrom with fireball kill's P.Z's cleanly at 2 tile's away.
* get Guy instantly upon studying Iron; don't need to actually build him.
* could not get a Beastmaster on a boat if it's got a parrot attached?
* inanimate, fireballing, repairable Golems make life easier.
* Hemah with the early WaterIII spell Water Elemental was pure wicked. What a spell!!!
* I'm not sure if I could handle this madness on Deity......actually I'm very sure!

Other than that, the scenario was bug-free and went smoothly. End message came up as soon as Tebyrn was destroyed, all good....


Wow.......epic post for a truly epic scenario!

 

[jprc]

as you say ... Wow...

I love the word map with the arrows, as if it was a D-Day map !!
Where were dropped the para troopers?

You put so much work in this post! It is indeed a warm congratulation for the team behind the scenario (and scenarii in general)

 

[Grakor456]

It took me a while to get around to writing feedback for this scenario, mostly because I wasn't sure how to put to words what I wanted to say. After a while, I decided that the best way was just to be plainly honest. I found that, in my opinion, the Black Tower is the least fun of all the scenarios, and the worst designed. It is the only scenario that I could not bring myself to complete without cheating, due to the sheer tedium.

It has a problem very similar to Splintered Court, only worse. Like Splintered Court, it has special rules that conflict with other special rules and the goal of the scenario. It gives something that promises to be fun to play with, but in reality is just a trap or a non-factor.

We are given Tolerant and the option to choose the civ of the settlements we make, which in and of itself is a wonderful idea. An epic battle of good versus evil (well, neutral versus evil anyway) with an alliance against the evil Sheaim is wonderful. The problem...all of those civs except the Luchuirp are utterly valueless due to the prevention of healing on humans. As I was playing through this scenario, I was not playing some epic alliance, I was playing the Luchuirp with Unrestricted Leaders. It would have been great to make full use of tolerant and make Bannor melee, Hippus cavalry, etc. But the simple fact is, the scenario punishes you for doing so. The special rules are in direct conflict.

The healing restriction is the main problem, but the fact that living units that die turn into undead just amplifies the problem. It's another reason to never use living units for your grunt-work (a living unit would have to kill *at least* three units of equivalent power, without ever healing, to be worth the hammers put into it - The unit, the unit again when it's undead, and the equivalent of *itself* after it perishes. That's all not counting the fact that the Sheaim *outnumber you*). Besides the Luchuirp and OO demons, there's only one way around the healing restriction, and that's High Priests (or, say, Sphener, which is just as bad.) But High Priests are T4, and if you wait that long before you begin to attack the Sheaim will have settled their entire continent and have a huge army, that you have to kill not once, but TWICE (Pyre Zombies excepting.)

All of this causes the scenario to go beyond the difficult and into the realm of sheer tedium. It's not impossible, that much is obvious. You could even say it's not that *difficult*, as you can just use the Luchuirp for everything, but that makes for a huge missed opportunity. What this scenario is, in my opinion, is just not at all fun and too tedious. I'm convinced that the healing restriction adds absolutely nothing to the scenario due to the presence of the Luchuirp and OO, it only takes away. It's a scenario that promises a lot but fails to deliver, and a huge missed opportunity.

 

[AAA]

I liked the scenario, although it got a little relentless at the end. Perhaps the Sheaim could have a little less room. I played it through at deity and it was tough. I won at year(?) 388 for a score of 147000. The ideas in this form were very useful, so if anyone wants a bit more:

-at the beginning I built cities (6 all Lanun - pirate coves rock!) wonders and tech speed. I got Heron Th, Gr Lib, Gr Light, Bone Pl, in my capital I think before I built a single unit -- marble is a must.

-then I went for the must haves for attack; sorcerers, stygains, and cultist. I didn't have any iron on my island but this was a good thing, as it stoped me from making frigates, fast caravels (with double expanded hulls) are better. A caravel with two cultist and a stygain sinks anything. Then I razed everything on the coast and was never really challenged on the seas for the rest of the game.

-once I had Astro I expanded in the land right below the start island but didn't start to really attack until I had Speakers and Dwarven Druids (their crush spell is a must)

-Stygains were 90%+ of my units, the hippus and bannor were pretty much useless except for their heros.

Hope thats useful

 

[MAPBill]

I found the scenario very interesting due to its unusual rules, which forces you to adopt different paths for victory.
As was posted before, going through it with Luchuirp golems and/or Octopus Overlord demons really increases your chances. That's why I refrained myself to use them. So I went for a more disciple oriented army. Rushed Empyrean religion, went for Theology to get those Luridus' (making sure to have some Incense resource close by) and Fanaticism for Chalid. After The Radiant Guard Scenario I felt it'd be fitting.

My early main army was made out of Radiant Guards backed with Vicars and Luridus, Chalid and Guybrush leading them. I had no idea I could get heroes of every allied civilization, that's why I got Donal, Magnadine and Alazkan much in the late game, when all Sheaim generals were already defeated.

I disagree that the Bannor units were useless. Their free Guardsman promotion was essential in keeping my Disciple and Siege units alive; I had not much use of Hippus cavalry though, but I'm sure there must be a strategy that makes use of them.
Svartalfar Radiant Guards (and later, Champions) were awesome. Very useful in ambushing units in wooded areas (Blinding Light and Elven trait).

Razed almost all the cities I've captured.
I maintained only a few captured Sheaim cities close to Tebryn's capital, guarding them with two Luridus and lots of Radiant Guards. That way, Tebryn kept wasting time and resources bashing on my defenses, while my assault army was taking care of his unassisted generals.
Even the generals's armies were focusing on attacking my few possessions on the main island, leaving their home cities poorly defended.

 

[cabbagemeister]

I thought this scenario was a blast (on Monarch). I think the key is to go as fast fast fast as possible. I know a lot of people like to build up a giant stack of crushing invincible doom before going to war, and I like to do that in the epic game too, but I think it’s the wrong tactic in this scenario. If you wait until you have an unbeatable stack before you attack, the Generals will have T3 and T4 living units for you to kill, and Tebryn will be a monster with a billion Crossbows by the time you get to him. But if you catch the generals when they have only PZs and Diseased Corpses, Tebryn doesn’t get fed any units and is weak when you get to him. And let’s be honest, while we all love making SODs, you don’t NEED them when you have access to cultists and you’re attacking coastal cities. You barely need warriors for that purpose.

Here’s my strategy: First, I built my cities to get the absolute maximum pirate-cove commerce at the expense of production. My reasoning was that, with plenty of lanun-boosted seafood and coves, lots of health, and few happiness resources available (only Gold, Incense, and Whales), I would have a massive food surplus far in excess of my happy caps; thus, I could make up for my poor production cities by running Conquest. Focusing on cramming in as many pirate coves as possible, I was able to get 3 cities with 3 coves (capital spot, north near the iron, and the island off the west coast), two with two coves (desert gold in the northeast, and southeast corner of the island) and one with one cove (the coast west of the pigs). I teched these coves like crazy, focusing GP production on scientists for academies.

Tech path was very focused. I went: Writing (for insta-libraries from the Supplies), Message from the Deep, Priesthood, Warfare (for Conquest), HBR, Compass. I spit out the Black Wind and some supporting caravels and easily achieved naval superiority. I then started spitting out small attack groups that would be a staple of my game, consisting initially of two double-cargo promoted caravels carrying two Cultists and four Drowns. All Drowns were initially promoted CR and Mobility. I then went around razing every coastal city in classic OO style. Attacks would go like this: Cultists Tsunami from 2 squares away; Drowns get off the ships and attack the city one at a time (to avoid PZ damage as much as possible). If any Drowns get red-lined, the ships pick them up and move back to two squares away before anyone else attacks. After all four drowns have attacked, the ships pick them up and move back to avoid Ritualist retaliation. When the Drowns are healed in two turns, repeat the process. Cities were all razed (with the Mobility Drowns scooting back to the coast to avoid attacks), because there’s no way Drowns could hold a city. Essentially EVERY coastal city can be razed this way; importantly, no SODs are needed, so you can attack as many cities as you can spit out iterations of this force.

While this multi-front razing spree was underway, crippling the Generals’ tech pace, I further teched Mind Stapling (for Saverous—I didn’t even try to take any non-coastal cities until I got him), Fanaticism (for Stygians), and Iron Working and Astronomy. The last two gave me Frigates and Galleons, which cemented my command of the seas and let me move my strike forces around much quicker, respectively. After I got some Shipyards rolling, my ships all came out with 3 promotions (CIII for Frigates; Cargo and Nav1 for Galleons, giving them 5 cargo and 7! Movement, before I even got adepts for Fair Winds). After I got Stygians, the pace started picking up a LOT: the Stygians were unstoppable, since they could attack every turn with their March promotion. I diverted just one of my attack groups to annihilate Jonas, which it did with no trouble. By the time all the Generals were dead (with Saverous doing the heavy lifting in the interior of the continent), Tebryn had only just gotten to Longbows and only had 7 cities. Tebryn foolishly decided to make his stand in Galveholm behind Abashi, which (whoops!) was coastal. Since Dragons’ magic immunity got taken away in a recent patch, Abashi and the rest of the demonic army didn’t hold up well to my 20 Tsunamis. And that was all Tebryn wrote. I never even got to Eidolons or Speakers (I had researched Theology, but all my best Cultists were busy razing Tebryn's last cities and never got upgraded)--probably the first time I've ever won a game without any T4 units. This was a thoroughly enjoyable scenario, though I have no idea how I would have done it without OO.

 

[blade117]

I don't get it, I've beaten both requisite scenerios, but I still can't play this one. WWWWWWWWWWWHHHHHHHHHYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(Please help me!!!)
-Thanks

 

[popejubal]

Building the Shrine of Sirona was a big help for me in this game. I built a Life node to get Destroy Undead, but then I realized that Shrine of Sirona might work in the game, so I went for it. Woohoo!

Also, I noticed that I only ever got Great Priests even though I was only about 30% chance for priests any time I hit the CP threshold. Was this on purpose for the scenario or did I just get really crazy results from the Random Number Gods?

 

[Breunor]

I guess I thought this was my favorite scenario so far, I’ve now played them all except Mulcarn Reborn! Wow! Thanks to the development team! It was amazing.

I usually don’t like large boards; I usually find them a little tedious; for some reason, that didn’t happen for me here. I think the reason is the unusual setting, the fact that the game was, de facto, a ‘duel’ on a large map, the special rules, and the tightness of the game. Even thought I saw that the game took 52 hours, I was engaged. I suspect the key is that I thought it was the most ‘epic’ – large, powerful, without dragging.

Obviously, there was a challenge here; no healing for living units, units killed come back for the enemy; and not the least, the inability to directly attack Tebryn. So, instead of most games where you just move forward, here, after defeating Gosea, you have to swing around to the back and defeat the others first. But we should also note that we have a big advantage; playing against the Sheam without an Armageddon counter is a very large benefit. This requirement makes you change the way you set up attack and defense. Furthermore, the game had a powerful naval element that is too often ignored in other games. I think much of the epic feeling comes form having something like 7 powerhouse heroes; but again, the clever design makes it hard to use them at least immediately.

I played on Emperor. I lost my first game; actually, I probably still had a chance but decided to try it over. My second game was a fairly easy win but it was fun.

Spoiler :

Strategy

Big Picture

I see there has been some discussion about attacking early or attacking late. I went for the ‘pretty late’. I launched the attack around turn 300 and won around 450. The ‘Orc’ island to the south was empty for me; of course, in my second play I had an unfair advantage in that I knew the island was there and that it was empty.

Clearly, the idea for a late attack is to build up. For me, I wanted to wait until I could heal before attacking, which ultimately meant getting high priests. I went for the overlords because I thought naval superiority was crucial and Stygian Guards are probably the best unit – they can heal and use weapons. .

Naval Superiority

Indeed, my first game I got badly hurt since the AI crushed me with Privateers early. My pirate coves were smashed, as well as my sea resources, and this crippled my economy. I played on for a while, but never got true naval superiority. Later, Tebryn build a 10 – 15 15 ship invasion fleet and attacked the Southern island! I didn’t know the AI could plan this! They took a key city (which I now cannot counter-attack!) and I started over.

My second game, I got Optics as my second tech after writing (to get the supplies into Libraries). This allowed me to build the Black Wind and some caravels. I did manage to keep naval superiority the whole game, but I obviously I spent a lot of resources on it. I also got Octopus priests and raising parties, and stole his fleet. Guybrush probably took about 6 ships.

Wonders

I think the wonders were the key to victory for me. I know many people feel in a regular Civ IV or FfH games that building wonders can be a mistake; it slows down building troops, or settlers and workers, which can be more important. But The Black Tower is different!

First, in a standard Epic game, they can indeed slow down expansion. But in the Black Tower, if you do a late attack, your expansion is pretty much limited to the two islands anyway and fairly soon they will all be settled. Secondly, if you are playing with 7 opponents, your getting the wonder keeps one of 7 players from getting it; you get the benefit of the wonder if 5 -10 cities, and more later, and keep one player from getting it. Here, every wonder you get keeps the other side from getting it. Especially for wonders that impact ‘every city’, once fighting started, on a large map, I can get the benefit in very may cities and keep the Sheaim from almost as many.

So, in my second game, I started by building the Heron Throne – my capital was going to be my wonder city and it gives a hammer boost. Since I build the Black Wind, I got a level 6 unit quickly, and I got Form of the Titan. Again, I probably build some 400 – 500 units and Tebryn maybe as many; I bet it impacted over 1000 xp’s.

The Big Three

Three wonders were dominant.

The great Lighthouse: With intercontinental trade, I probably was getting 5 - 6 GP/trade route later in the game (I admit having Inn’s and Tavern’s). With maybe 40 – 50 cities in the mid turn 300’s, this gave maybe 500 gold per turn and probably kept the Sheaim from earning very large amounts. Between the gold it generated for me and it kept Tebryn from getting, it may have generated 100,000 gold or more. Get that lighthouse!

Guild of Hammers – OK, we all know how good this is!

The Nexus – This was also absolutely critical. Without it, holding territory and deflecting attacks is very difficult. Now, wherever a threat comes, just Nexus in an army. I also got the Guild of the 9, with my outrageous economy it allowed me to build many mercenaries. With the Nexus and the guild, I took cities instead of burning them

The Next Most Important Wonders

I was lucky that Gosea had built Nox Noctis; I captured it very early. Although this isn’t equivalent to Tebryn’s ability to strike without retaliation, it is probably the next best thing. I can kill people straggling outside of cities and not get hurt; workers can work any tile with impunity. With naval superiority and Nox Noctis, I had only to defend my borders, and with the Nexus, I could move ahead.

The Shrine of Sirona – Normally a secondary wonder, here it lets you HEAL! I was then really pissed when I found the Sheaim had built it!! Fortunately, again, Gosea built it and I took it early. It is especially useful for healing living units that aren’t in the main stacks with the high priests casting Heal.

Form of the Titan – Mentioned above

Tower of Eyes – I didn’t get bad war weariness. By the end of the game I was still on city states with a 20% luxury slider, but it can help to have the dungeon in every city.

Guild of the 9 - It is more useful once you start attacking and winning, because by then you should have a lot of money and the mercenaries can help.

Others

I got most of the religious shrines; these were useful early when I needed mana sources and later for general power. I got a bunch of the others, but these were the crucial ones.

General Strategy

Originally I thought I would do my attacks with my non-living units, my main armies were maybe 70% Stygian Guards and 30% Iron Golems. I got Barnaxus to power 5 and then sent him to my capital. But the Guards were stronger.

Nonetheless, I did wind up having my main attacking stack living units; the haste ability is just too important. I would bring up slower troops, by the end of the game I had about 170 Stygian Guards and 60 Iron golems. But these would largely be ‘assault’ troops and hold my cities and Nexus in. My main army had my heroes, 2 high priests, and my most powerful mages and archmages. (Not my liches).

Like everyone else, with naval superiority, I used my ships to bombard the city defenses, and my cultists to cast tsunami form the sea, and coastal cities were easy to take.

My main army in the Gosea area was subject to the most attacks. This army was maybe even stronger than my main stack. I had to spread between 3 cities. By the end of the game I had very strong Stygian guards, many 10th level or higher. The key to defending is to have 2 mages who can cast Maelstorm and maybe destroy undead. This defense was repeated as I defeated the other Sheaim.

Get a temple of order in your biggest city (I had one city with the Tower of Complacency and about 30 people). Use Donal’s ability, and you get about 20 units/kill. I would kill a baddie, nexus him out, cast rally, get him back, etc. The hardest part was the logistics of getting all of these unit to the front. You have to move them to other cities so you can nexus them out fast. Later in the game, perhaps form laziness, I would just rally in a local city to avoid the logistics problem.

I had one high priest on a secondary front. I would take wounded units, nexus them off to him, he would heal, and they would go back.

Magic

It is hard to get a lot of mana before the big attack. Here the shrines and the wonders can help – I got the soul forge to get an early death mana which is necessary for liches.

Your units that are earmarked for liches cannot be in the main attack because of the need to cast destroy undead. Therefore, they need death to become liches, but get spell extension, maybe SE II, so that they can stay behind and summon killer units. I used them mostly for defense, they can’t be hasted and keep up with the main army anyway.

Another wonder I got was Catacomb Libralus, but I don’t know if it is needed. Most of my mages were from the Luchiurp, I was spamming them. Just as your living units cannot heal, your ships and golems can be instantly healed with a bunch of Luchiurp adepts casting repair.

The ‘ideal’ fleet set-up was to have a Cultist and a Luchiurp adept with repair and fair ewinds and you will rule the seas! Unfortunately, real life games and ‘ideal’ play aren’t always the same thing.

As always with a game where the attack will be late, and there is time to set-up, build the adepts early. You need a lot of mages here.

The biggest risk at high levels is the mindless damage from the pyre zombies. Therefore, you always want to get the two maelstroms and lots of destroy undead spells. Fortunately, you start with air mana. Therefore, early mana builds are enchantment (happiness, repair, enchanted blade) and life.

For the archmages and especially liches, get metamagic. By the end of the game my Djinns had a strength of 30! It’s a big map and if you start to take territory, you get a lot of mana sources.

Your defense stacks should be packed with these magic users and watch the attackers melt away!

Civics

Although it is considered bad form, I ran god-king for a long time. Why? It is the wonders and the need for some speedy builds. Once I got the Guild of Hammers, I had most of the Southern Continent build up and I needed City-states.

I went for the moolah; consumption, guilds (apprenticeship earlier), agrarianism and then guilds, and undercouncil.

By the time I could attack Tebryn, I had 5 armies circling. I doubt it took more than 10 -15 turns to finish him off.

The big attack

In my second game, Tebryn also came after my southern Island with a 10 – 15 ship group; but this time, I was ready. I had about 5 -6 units in the facing coastal cities; but more important, I was watching. I had sentry ships out in the ocean! As he was one turn from landing, I cast Raging Seas! I then clobbered them.

Conclusion

I lost the first time, and learned a lot. I then had a fairly easy but hard-fought victory. The scenario is a builders’ advantage. It takes a lot of logistical skill to get everything to work. I do think the wonders here are critical.

So, in all, it was probably my favorite scenario. I’ll probably try it on immortal at some point! Thanks, as always, to Kael and the gang!


Best wishes,

Breunor

 

[Dragoon1]

I think the south Isle is empty when you beat the Barbarian Scenario where you kill the Clan of Ember.
But anybody knows if I can build Svartalfar Cites when I finished the Splinter Court Scenario?
I really want have Illusionist for this Scenarios. Also is there a good way to use Bannor cites in this scenario. Ii doesn't get to me that their buildings nor units are a great help here.

 

[cyther]

Yes you do get Svart cities if you beat the Splintered Court but only if you won with them.

I built a Bannor city just so I could get Donnal Lugh, they really don't have much other use/