A question about Momus and Duke Sallos

[Zaklog]

In the Momus scenario, Duke Sallos almost immediately jumps to ridiculous power (according to the power graph anyway). I was just wondering if this is an accurate indicator of how terrified I should be of the Infernals, or if this is buggy or misleading in some way.

I haven't finished this scenario yet, and part of my strategy in my attempts thus far has been to avoid them as long as possible.

 

[Breunor]

Duke Sallos is tough, he is by far the most dangerous opponent. Use your advantages - build pirate ports off of the main sea in the center (where the Kraken gets them). Try to get Octopus Overlords, get a priest or two with the Tsunami spell and the Duke can be handled on the peninsula.

Best wishes,

Breunor

 

[Zaklog]

Probably part of the reason I'm confused about this is because he apparently has all this military strength, but he does almost nothing with it. He makes an occasional foray into our territory, but it usually just takes one determined effort to push him back.

 

[Breunor]

Probably part of the reason I'm confused about this is because he apparently has all this military strength, but he does almost nothing with it. He makes an occasional foray into our territory, but it usually just takes one determined effort to push him back.

Yes. A few patches ago, Kael improved the AI by using some of Sephi's code from Wildmana. Although there do appear to be AI improvements, the AI now doesn't declare war nearly as much, they aren't aggressive. This feature may not be so bad unless as a human player you can exploit it. So there are some people who feel the aI improvements are a mixed bag. The whole exercize goes to show how hard improving AI is.

I do remember that when the new AI came out, I had to drop a level, and then a second level! My early attacks with a 'big enough' force were now suicide. But then I got the trick on fighting the new AI, and I got back to playing on immortal again.

Unfortunately, I suspect most of the scenario testing was with older AI and to some degrees the scenarios have lost some of their 'oomph'. In some cases, the AI is better and some of the scenarios can be harder.

But I agree. I remember playing the Momus when it first came out, and Duke Sallos was tough to defeat. Now, I can wait until I'm built up so I think the Momus now is less interesting.

Best wishes,

Breunor

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Try to get Octopus Overlords, get a priest or two with the Tsunami spell and the Duke can be handled on the peninsula.

He is tough in large part because of Octopus Overlords. The Infernals have a chance to get 2 Manes for every living unit of an evil religion that dies. These can be added to population, production, or upgraded to almost any unit. OO is an evil religion and is already present at the start of the game and spreads widely, causing it to spread widely and make a disproportionate number of units return as Manes after death. Sallos also gets the AV religion (also evil) in all his cities, making that faith spread from very early in the game rather that being founded later and being slowed by the faiths already present. It has been a long time since I played this, but if I recall the good religions are disabled and the Mercurian Gate cannot be built so you do not have access to the holy warriors or angelic allies that you can normally use for an advantage over the demons.


You should really try to target Sallos early, and avoid killing to many living enemy units until he has no more cities left on the map. Use more siege units and summons (although not death or entropy summons as their summoners are also destined to return as manes after death plus demons are resistant to death and unholy damage types). If you do go OO, use more undead and demonic units yourself as they won't return on his side.

 

[Elder Methyl]

Actually, no Religions are blocked. In most of my playthroughs, I managed to get Chalid with Emperyan and destroy a lot of stacks with him. However, destroying the other civs still proved too slow, and in my only victory, I was only a few turns away from automatically losing (apparently, there's a term limit in the scenarios).