Blood of Angels feedback

[AljayBoy]

When playing this scenario, does Cassiel have some sort of 'Sanctuary-esque' spell that kicks out invaders back to their own borders?

Twice now, my stack has been advancing on Midgar and once getting there and once halfway there, they got kicked back to the Costa del Sol, the Grigori coastal city I captured.

(Patch E or F, not sure which.)

 

[Kael]

I'm getting the txt_key's missing for defeating Saba and Hannah. Otherwise very much enjoying this scenario so far

cheers

Thanks, it will be fixed in patch "i".

 

[Senethro]

Patch G - the text keys were missing.

I played as the Doviello on Monarch, Normal speed. I had no metal at all so I chose Kilmorph and generated a Great Engineer for a fast Mines of Galdur. That enabled an easy mopping up of the Bannor. Prior to that, the Bannor almost beat me in the field until they threw two large axeman stacks into a mutated Javelin Thrower on a hill city across a river.

Spent 50 turns wondering about looking for Cassiel, gave up and conquered the Lanun about turn 250, whipped out some high capacity tririmes but was against Frigates. I used a Great Bard culture boost to make a crossing over the ocean, lead the Frigate stacks away with decoys and invaded the Grigori. Finished about turn 290. Grigori was full of highly promoted iron Dragon Slayers.

I'm not convinced the naval section added much to the scenario. I would have preferred capturing a gunpowder cache from the Lanun such that I was able to destroy that pesky mountain someone used to block me from Grigori territory!

 

[Jie]

When researching a religion as Doviello, the Illian ally didn't research anything at all. Most likely they can't research and so they sit around not researching anything.

 

[EmptyWolf]

After having captured the Bannor Capitol Torrolerial, when gifting it to your team member the message for capturing Torrolerial is displayed a second time.

 

[TheGreatSteve]

Cassiel needs to better appreciate the significance of his capital in this. Once I finished the Lanun I started planning my attack on the Grigori. And saw 20+ dragon slayers hanging out in his coastal city. 5 or 6 guys sitting around most of his other cities. Except Midgar. I dropped a transport of Mobile Commando's, got around his SoD's, and took Midgar from the whopping TWO guys defending it. I couldn't have held it, of course. But I didn't need to.



This goes for a lot of the scenarios, but I saw it most here-The difficulty seems a lot different depending on your civ at the high levels. As the Illians on Emperor things would seem bad, I'm at war with guys who get a bunch of exp, produce units quick, etc. But I had the Doviello as my shield. They were quickly producing high level units to keep the Bannor and Lanun away.

When the AI is the farther away civ and you are the one next to the enemies, they really squander their bonuses. Using their SoD's on stupid suicide attacks rather than helping defend you from the enemies. Spending the entire scenario settling unoccupied lands. Building wonders that have no use for the task at hand, etc.

 

[Stoik]

Sadness in my heart, spirituality was sacrificed,
Troubles in my head, with it awareness died,
Tears in my eyes, stubborns want to freeze,
Fools seek ascendancy to cure their disease.

 

[Vitek]

The Grigori were really hard to beat. Only reason I managed to defeat them was that I destroyed big part of their army at Costa del Sol using Tsunami. Then I hold this city, slowly losing units (I invaded with around 35 units in first wave and before reinforcments came I had Saverous, Lucian, 2 Beastmaster, 2 Zealots, 2 Shamans and 5 catapults) and weakening coming groups with Tsunami again. (If they had came together as one stack I was crushed into dust easily) Not complaining though, I am happy it was no easy run to next scenario.

Illians were quite useless. I left Bannor with two cities (pop 11 and 2) and Illians took them as late as I was taking down Grigori. Also they captured barbarian city to the east with 45 XP Javelin thrower and they left him there for the rest of game only upgrading him into horse archer. Shouldn't they use him more? And is there some reason why, when I captured Lanun capital I was asked to return it to Illians its rightful owner? They never were in possesion of city.

Spoiler :

And I really hate that stupid to-be-god now. How dare he to act like that. I nearly wished to be defeated by Grigori.
Also in other scenarios is there some explanation where Sabathiel is?

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Sabathiel went back to Junil's Heaven. The Bannor priests had been willfully misinterpreting and misstating his orders for a long time, so he decided there was no point in sticking around to give them orders anyway. The corrupt priests had begun actively persecuting those (like Valin Phanuel) who still honestly served Junil and cared more for justice than for doing what they were told.

 

[JayThomas]

Upgraded to version m. Went to start this scenario and lost, without firing a shot.

Edit: Must of been a fluke. Second try started OK.

 

[Darksaber1]

Patch o, upon start, as soon as I click close on the story, Hannah and Auric are deafeted, mine and Sabatheials scores are 10000, and the Barbs win a conquest Victory.

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

patch q, starting the scenario as Mahala, I have the already mentioned issue of hannah and auric getting destroyed at turn 0 and barbarians winning a conquest victory :\

 

[subanark]

I 'cheated' a bit by taking the barbarian city near the coast and using it to launch ships, bypassing needed to confront the Lanun. I played the Illians and used the 3 Priests of Winter to attack with the ice elementals. I research blitzed towards Theology, and got it free by building the Infernal Grimoire (Doviello was nice enough to research Infernal Pact for me). With 3 High priests of Winter I tore though all the Horse Archers that Cassiel built (Snowfall is extremely powerful at reducing enemy forces).

 

[Diamondeye]

Playing Mahala, Monarch difficulty; I really, really liked this scenario! I took a barb city near the Bannor and held it until I had catapults and Fire Mages with me. Bannor attacked and their hero (Valin) got screwed by fireballs while tracking around in a forest, I then went ahead and conquered their empire. Got 2nd part of the quest...

The game needs to tell you where to find the Grigori! I eventually figured out because I thought I would need ships, so I took Hannahs cities and saw Grigori culture. I then built Frigates, sailed across with my army of Battlemasters and Mages (and Lucian ofc), and took Costa Del Sol. I spent my around 4.000 gold on Mercenaries and then walked into Midgar and won!

Now, if any criticism is needed;
Negative: It's hard to get to Grigori lands! AND they use way too many assassins.

Positive: I really, really like the lorish parts, especially the ending.

Other: Perhaps introducing a reward consisting of a couple of boats for taking a Lanun city would be nice.
And I think you should give the Doviello the Agnostic trait in this scenario. I did well without ever using Divine units, on Monarch, so it is definately doable. And as of now, OO is simply too easy a solution coupled with Frigates with Fire Mages.

 

[Breunor]

SPOILERS Included

It was enjoyable. I played on Emperor (my normal level) with Mahala, and in retrospect did everything wrong. There were three barbarian cities between my area and the Bannor. Usually, I'm very deliberate, I take everything in the way before advancing. But I saw I had an advantage over Torrelial (sp) and I bee-lined. This was a mistake. As I funneled in reinforcements, they were attacked. So I took only one of the barbarian cities.

I had about a 20 - 30 turn siege, perhaps my longest ever in FfH. I had catapults and Lucian was a monster. I had gone AV and had a powerhouse Rosier. But the Bannor kept on slipping troops in. All of the sudden, a horseman kills my top guy without a hit. How? Oh no, it is Valin.

Here I got some bad luck. I suicided two guys against him, and wore him down. Then I beat him in three combats and he escapes all three times, finally into the city!

After about a 30 turn siege, I'm finally ready to attack. Rosier has a 66% attack against Valin. Too low, but this is to win the game. I get lucky, take the city, and .....

Spoilers

I'm now at war with the Grigori, Lanun, and still tough Bannor. My strategy is to try to take out the Bannor, and have a one front war. I've beaten up the Bannor army, but I'm not in great shape either.

Oh no, the Lanun have a big army. I have to march the main army back. I had the ability to cast haste, so I left my three surviving catapults on defense in Bannor lands and hasted the main army back with Rosier moving at top speed.

This was the critical period of the game. While marching back, the Bannor attacked the area of the original conquest. I thought I was toast. I was saved by ... my world spell! Even though the wolves are weak, they were able to slow down and nip away at the attacking armies. I beat back the Lanun army, and move East again to fight the Bannor.

The key now was to beat the Bannor before the counter-attack. I found a few choke points. Now, I'm starting to get ritualists and the like. It does take a bit to subdue the Bannor; indeed, I take most of their cities before handling another Lanun attack. I found that my Ilian allies fortunately turned the Lanun attack back. I then beat the Bannor. At his point,the game was no longer in doubt.

Then, the rest is pretty mechanical. I beat up the Lanun, take their cities. I now have 3 - 4 times the Grigori production and research. His army is much bigger, he is building too many troops. I patiently built up my money, tech, got magic users and the like, while I built a fleet. I get pretty much all of the wonders. (I can be VERY patient). When my infrastructure is done, I just build tons of troops. With about 30 ships I move over the main army over and easily defeat the Grigori, it wasn't a contest.


It was a very exciting game, especially in the beginning. Was it too easy? After all, I played at my normal level, and won, after doing everything (in retrospect) wrong. However, the key to my win is that I did get lucky, especially with Lucian. After reviewing the game, I realized that I won about 10 fights with odds between 80 - 95 without him getting killed; I got him to about 120 XP's. Even though this may not 'appear' to be lucky, the odds that you win 10 attacks between 80 % and 95% is pretty low. Rosier also won some close fights, not the least the epic fight with Valin. The Doviello were well suited to the strategy. I did lose a lot of troops, but I would capture workers or slaves, and then cheaply upgrade them in the field - no one does this like the Doveillo!

So, I do think the scenario is well done. Of course, the surprise is part of the scenario. I got caught in a bad state. Because I won a lot of key fights and got two heroes to being very strong, I recovered. My world spell was timely and my usually useless allies actually helped, maybe even saved my bacon. So I got lucky so I won pretty easily.

Spoiler

Needless to say, if you want to win and you know what is coming, it is much easier to stay at peace with the Lanun and Grigori, take the Bannor and barbarian cities besides the Bannor capital, and then capture the capital. Then the Bannor are destroyed nd the game would be easy.


Best wishes,

Breunor

 

[Kael]

Great feedback Breunor. I always like seeing that you replied to a scenario post!

 

[Breunor]

Great feedback Breunor. I always like seeing that you replied to a scenario post!

Wow, thanks! A compliment from the supreme being of Mods!!

Best wishes,

Breunor

 

[Mesix]

I see that a lot of people had problems finding the Grigori. I guess I lucked out. The Grigori showed up early (not sure how contact was established) and offered to trade maps with me. I hadn't even started my push into Bannor lands when I uncovered most of the map.

Spoiler :

I liked this scenario up until the point that I had to sail to take out the Grigori. The idea posted earlier that a mountain could be removed by an event to allow a single choke point into Grigori lands seems spot on. In the current implementation, the Grigori are not much of a threat, just a hurdle to overcome to get the end game text box. If a choke point opened up on a land route to the north of the Bannor lands, then the Grigori units would be free to invade the player controled territory and pose a real threat.

The choke point at the south of the Bannor lands was well designed. Having to take a well defended city on a hill surrounded by mountains made for a nice early game challenge.

In my game, I lost two or three good sized stacks to get my foothold in Grigori lands. Once I established a foothold, I just marched straight to their capital to finish the game. The Grigori were never really a threat to my empire, even with their huge stacks of troops. Once the Bannor are finished, this scenario is won...it just takes patience to finish. Having a threat and the ability to lose all the way to the end would make it more enjoyable.

 

[MAPBill]

Well, you can't say it is a dull scenario. Played it as the Illians. I've made the huge mistake by taking my sweet time to siege Torrolerial.
Firstly, Hannah tore down mine and Mahala's cities closest to her borders. My main army made it to the rescue when the Doviello were down to one city. Hannah prepared a great army while I was at peace with her and enjoying doing the Illian rituals, I guess.
Conquering Lanun lands after defeating their expeditionary forces was ok. They already had berserkers and surely used'em to take down big ol' Wilboman. No matter.

Spoiler :

Now the Grigori... oh, boy. Got a glimpse of their lands and army by sending a hawk to the peaks west of their territory. They must've extracted every saltpeter they could find in their mines 'cause I'd never seen so much arquebusiers in any game like this!
Dominating the seas wasn't hard. Getting a foothold and keeping things together was the real challenge. Got ahold of one of their coastal cities and cramped it with crossbowmen and arquebusiers of mine.
Then they came in waves over and over again (they had the Blood of the Phoenix ritual worked on). Not only arquebusiers but knights, berserkers, phalanxes and the real Immortals swarming all over (not to mention Adventurers). Arcane Barges helped me out a lot. Didn't see many Dragon Slayers.
Old story cut short: stood my ground till they started to leave longer gaps between waves and conquered a city closer to the capitol. Stood my ground there too and marched to Midgar, defended by 10 arquebusiers and some other units.

 

[cyther]

In the Grigori Stage I sent a large army far away from Migdar and then sent in the High Priests as a crack team are captured Migdar easily (It only had two crossbowmen and an archer)