Barbarian Assault feedback

[Breunor]

Much agreed. I've been wiped out in both of my games (Bannor 1, and Hippus 2) but I didn't find copper in either one.

Don't feel bad. In two different games I got iron and copper, and I still got wiped off the board!

(played Bannor)

Best wishes,

Breunor

 

[Sid_Unbreakable]

Don't feel bad. In two different games I got iron and copper, and I still got wiped off the board!

(played Bannor)

Best wishes,

Breunor

Thanks I don't feel too badly, it's just part of the game. I just seek revenge for the countless lives lost under my leadership...

 

[AMBusam]

I'm having fun with this scenario, but I wanted to mention an oddity the first time I started it. My settler spawned right on a barbarian city, so I didn't get any starting units besides the settler himself and 2 scouts.

 

[jprc]

I had fun!

As I do not want to spoil the pleasure for other players, if you pick the "wrong" civ ("wrong" can have a different meaning according to your style...), it can be easy - almost - or a bit tense...
Simple map, well designed, well balanced.
Actually, It took me 4h30 of hard game, and after 100s of turns I realized that I did not need to kill all foes, just reach Sheelba and focus on her. Stupid me. I could have done this long ago without wasting my time... somewhere else.
Going around most problems, the doors were open...

The cut for the last civ is an interresting incentive...
I think I will try this later in some custom games.

It is one of the few scenario I will replay, this time trying a more difficult civ....
Good!!

 

[GoodGame]

This is a great scenario. Multiple starts and civs. The challenge of making the cut, and the challenge of mediocre/crappy starting terrain. A lot of fun.



Thematically, it's a little weird given that the orcs are the ones who are bulding a sprawling empire. I won as the Hippus, winning mostly through pillaging. Kind of a reverse-barbarian scenario.

 

[Kiwi Tyrant]

Maybe I should'nt have read some of the earlier post's, but I found this one very easy on Emperor. I'm now thinking, 'have I just robbed myself of some free XP in the remaining scenario's'?

Spoiler :

Knowing there was heap's of jungle, I went as the Ljosalfar, thinking I'd get my own patch of forest and could easily springboard from there. Instead, I was started in a clearing surrounded with jungle and 2 individual forest tile's! My production sucked, and I had jungle spreading fast into my clearing. However, I put down 3 marginal cities and cottaged most of it, while my Scout's found the location of Sheelba.

I just bee-lined Archery, got Gilden Silveric and spammed Archer's. Went straight to the target and took the first of her four lightly defended cities. I was then thinking that the Great Ape would appear in one of her other cities, but it did'nt! Gurid spawn's near the centre of the map. It has no chance of reaching anything before I do my deed's.
Most of Sheelba's forces are Axemen (no bonuses vs my archer's) and in her capital is a lonely Champion that is 'held'. Pffft....
If Gurid actually spawned in one of her other cities, once one was taken, this scenario would have been much more memorable and more of a challenge.

 

[Vicente]

Ok, after several atempts I finally beat this scenario, and very easy it was after all.

With the Banor (had to be, knowing the Lore now) and in Marathon, I spawned right next to Sheeba. A scout found her two starting cities and died. I guessed the game would be short, with me being her #1 target.

After founding my second city, a clan stack aproached my capital, but probably judged it too defended, and moved on to find other targets. Assuming that meant relatively reduced defences of hers, I send a stack of my own to her second city, and take it with surprising ease. Gurid spawns.

I send my stack to her capital, but after killing the archer and the champion, I'm too weak to beat the remaining shaman :facepalm: so I retreat with what was left (and promoted)

Meanwhile, I amass a large defence in my second city, counting on Gurid, and a second offensive stack for her capital.

Second offensive stack reaches her capital, and while I'm distracted, Gurid reaches mine. 2 warriors defence, all my defensive army 3 turns away...

I take her capital, gurid takes mine. I destroy her last 1 pop city.

...and she enters a golden age.

I split the offensive stack into scouting patrols, while gathering a new mega-super-stack of death to retake my capital.

she was holding out on the elf's capital, and I quickly realised Gurid can't be kicked out of a city.

Fortunately, the same stack made to attack him can be made to attack old elven cities.

 

[F-F]

Difficulty: Deity
Speed: Epic
Civilization: Elohim

A lot of options in this scenario, but I decided to try out the Elohim here; figured that bringing peace to the world by reducing barbs was their thing.

I spawned on flatland, though the jungle was near, which I guess was better than spawning in a jungle like some. My biggest complaint about my starting area would be the poor production.

Now obviously the true challenge in this scenario is the score based elimination in the beginning. This can be especially tricky because many of the weaker civilizations will get wiped out by the barbarians (before time elimination), and this will lead to the situation where you have to compete with the stronger civilizations. Aggressive expansion and teching worked for me: I conquered two barb cities and finished a tech around 10 turns before the last elimination, and thus survived by a score lead of 20 points. Close one.

After the inital phase I was slightly at a loss with the Elohim, but ran aristo-nation-appr-agr civics and popped at a constant phase great prophets whom I used to get religious techs and the religon specific wonders. Military wise upgraded warriors to axes, and then began building archers to free the axes to an offensive. However, later on I got a better idea: Built in one turn Guild of the Nine with a great engineer, and used my 2K gold deposits on hiring mercenaries. Not much else to say; 12 or so axes went on an offensive and mercs defended cities. When the giant ape spawned hired some more mercenaries in the threatened city and killed it. Took about 5-6 mercs.

The basics steps to win the scenario:

1. Warrior-rush some barb cities and tech.
- Get your score up asap or there will be no tomorrow.
2. Get your economy running.
- Bronze for jungle clearing is a must.
3. Attack with your preferred forces.
- Go straight for Sheelba; no point in wasting time.

As a last note I might add that I probably got slightly lucky with the neutral civilizations: Ljosalfar held back the stronger Clan player and Hippus harassed Sheelba. I barely saw any offensive from the Clan, they were that busy with the other civs.

 

[Gaga1111]

It wasn't that hard becuase I won on noble in 14 mins because I got lucky as the hippus with my first horsmen having luck and so got combat 4 and shock 1 and beated sheelba just like that

 

[Cromagnum P.I.]

I was able to play this scenario as Luchuirp but every time I try to pick the Bannor I get a crash to the desktop after the first third of the map loading bar. Any thoughts?

 

[Elyssaen]

I just started as the Amurites. I started with one warrior, one scout, one settler and one adept (I think), one square away from a barbarian city guarded by two axemen. That... isn't quite the start I had in mind. I quit out right off as I was quite negative about my chance of finding a good city site, not being attacked by the 'spare' barbarian axeman and managing to not have the lowest score once the first cut came. The starting locations in this can certainly be very cruel depending on your luck.

In my second game I played the Bannor and had a central start with a river and quite a lot of hills. There was jungle everywhere, of course, so I went for Bronze Working. I also found that playing the Bannor I had a starting axeman. I sent him off exploring and killing barbarians along the way, and he found Charadon. His chance of killing Lucian when he was fortified in a city wasn't that good, so I continued exploring and got him some more XP and a Shock I promotion. I went back to finish Lucian, who had in that time gone exploring as well. My axeman killed a Doviello warrior and they died.

The same axeman continued to wander about, and at about the same time I made my second city on a beautiful site to the north, on the other side of a chokepoint. I found the Luchuirp capital right next to it and was a little annoyed to discover that my beautiful city (which had copper) was going to be culture pushed to oblivion. I made a small group of warriors and sent them in with my axemen, and destroyed the Luchuirp. Their city was a bit too close to my second, so I razed it and decided I'd build another a square or two further away later.

At about the same time a few other nations were destroyed – Cevedes fell ungracefully to a lizardman. Orthus spawned and attacked me, and I was in a lot of trouble for a while. My army was still over at Vallus and had a trek to get back, as Orthus marched on my capital which was defended by only one warrior. I ended up leaving Vallus defended by only one warrior instead, and it was attacked by a lizardman. I narrowly survived both, and my axemen killed Orthus. At that point I took Orthus's axe and named my axeman Orthus.

Orthus then found Cevedes and razed it, found the other Clan of Embers faction and slaughtered them and found Sheelba. I couldn't take the fortified champion straight away but I had him wander about and take her other three cities until he had Combat V, Shock II and Drill III. He was able to finish off the champion and the other forces then.

This was a fun scenario, but I'm suspicious about the balance of the starting locations and the starting units. Starting with an axeman as the Bannor is much better than having an adept as the Amurites.

Oh, and that damn gorilla! He razed my third city, destroyed most of my standing army and laid siege to my capital. I got lucky as he eventually attacked too much before healing, and when he was down to 5.2 strength my axemen were able to finish him off. Seeing an axeman go from level 1 to level 7 in one kill was funny, but losing almost everything to a giant gorilla was not. Well, okay, it was. I was laughing the whole time. But what place does a 22 barbarian have in the early game?

 

[Diamondeye]

As many people have mentioned, Hippus victory seems too easy due to the starting Horseman... I am just saying:

Spoiler Copper ain't necessary :

I believe the unit killed about 15 Clan units in the last three turns of the game, taking a city a turn. Raider, Warcry, Mobility II, Drill IV and Blitz makes for a wicked massacre...

 

[Calbrenar]

Every single game I've played so far Hafgan researches whatever religion I'm going for. If I try elves he gets FoL. If I go Amurites he goes OO. What a jerk lol.

 

[PaintItBlue]

Hey they are old posts about CTD when starting this, but i just had the same problem.

I got it to work by launching a norml play now game, go to main menu and then load scenario, not sure if this clears hd cache if civ has one.

 

[zdpotter]

Played this on Warlord difficulty, but I probably could've stood to bump the difficulty up a notch. I played as Luchuirp, and had a slow but steady time with it, taking until long after 5 were left to wipe out the 2 Clan teams. I was lucky enough to have only a weak skeleton lair near me at the start and a strong Bannor right between me and the rest of the barbarians and Sheelba. Iron and Mithril popped up within safe distances when I researched them. Capria helped attack Sheelba's SoD that were just chilling in Clan-land, but not to much effect. In the end, the AI was no match for my large golem armies (and savescumming to retreat. )

Also had an odd case where the Hippus were eliminated twice and the message appeared thrice. (Taken when I was making a settler to grab the iron, Mithril was just outside the pigs. Patch J.)

Spoiler :

 

[Terxpahseyton]

I am just playing it and wanted to found Empyrian. Researched honor - and nothing happened? That's really screwing my tactic right now, because I intended to mass spam Ratha's I even tried to give me Empyrian via Worldbuilder but somehow it didn't work.
Is Empyrian supposed to be unavailable?

 

[blueparrot1966]

I'm a little surprised no one else pointed this out, but the Amurite start, with an adept, was a lot of fun. I've gotten the center start a couple of times, surrounded by useless jungle.

No problemo. I had the adept go around the clearing twice, alternating between the eyeball scout and blaze. For about 1/3 of the map, my explorers knew right where to go, and 200 turns later, my original clearing was 5x its original size, peppered with forests, and a large swath of that !@#$ jungle was still burning.

Winning the scenario is a different story. Twice now, I just haven't been prepared when the orcs start whipping up on me, even though I was much smarter about the research the second time...

 

[Minor Annoyance]

OK I was just playing for about six hours and 300 turns and I've found out that Sheelba is not in the game. It can't be finished.

 

[Breunor]

OK I was just playing for about six hours and 300 turns and I've found out that Sheelba is not in the game. It can't be finished.

Odd. Was she eliminated? You might want to send a save - I doubt it will help but I can see if there is a clue.

Best wishes,

Breunor

 

[Minor Annoyance]

It appears the Ljosalfar killed Sheelba on the first turn, since they have the capital in an early auto save. Later they were eliminated by the timer so there was no trace. Maybe they spawned on same tile as the clan's only city?