AI Cheat, feature or bug?

[hapveg]

I'm stuck, I've been unsuccessfully raiding for ages, with no progress, and am trying to work out if the game is bugged, or if there is some special wonder / building / spell I am unaware of.

Version .32l, including Fall Further 041, monarch difficulty.

The AI I'm fighting has a lot of invisible units. Workers, ships, military (Beast of Agares, Eidolan, Boarding parties, catapults), once they're outside a city they go invisible. They can attack my units and stay invisible. The ships seem to appear when the get further away (maybe outside cultural borders?).

I've moved into the squares where I know the enemy is, it's not a graphical problem, the enemy just cannot be attacked. Maelstrom correctly affects the invisible units, showing the location where each unit has been zapped (but not making the unit visible).

I've tried a scout, but he couldn't see them either.

World builder (first time I'd used it this game) shows them them properly, and examining the units I can't see any unusual promotions.

I'm playing as the Sheaim (summoners) and have had 8 high level summoners raiding the Lanun (seafaring pirates) for many, many turns, capturing the first city was easy, but a lot of summoned wraiths and water elementals have been thrown against the Lanun capital, so there will be some high level units in there, but even lot level units are invisible.

Maybe relevant:
I'm fighting near the Remnants of Patria, never done that before. The Lanun founded the AV, and the holy city is about 6 squares north of the main battle. After about 30 turns of failed attacks I'd started pillaging everything, so almost all the combat is taking place in unimproved hell terrain (invisible workers are constantly rebuilding, but I'm keeping it pillaged). The map has 4 civs, each with their own island, room for about 6 cities each (randomly created map).

The Lanun War Tortoises have about 20 defense (before promotions), it seems suspiciously high.

Any ideas? Is it bugged or is there something I've overlooked?

 

[Kael]

They've built the Council of Esus shrine. That makes all your units invisible when they aren't in cities.

 

[hapveg]

ahhh, thank you.

I haven't seen that before (only been playing a few weeks).

Thanks for the quick reply.

 

[arcticnightwolf]

They've built the Council of Esus shrine. That makes all your units invisible when they aren't in cities.

And if my units leaves my cultural border they will be still invisible?

 

[JayThomas]

And if my units leaves my cultural border they will be still invisible?

No. The invisibility applies only inside cultural borders.

 

[hapveg]

While a bunch of units can see invisible animals, only a handful of units can see invisible units:
Hawk
Marksman
Malakim Sand Lion
Sheaim Revelers
FoL hero Kithra Kyriel
Empyrean Vicar, Radiant Guard, Ratha and Shrine (reveals invis inside borders)

However, I've tested hawks, marksmen, ratha and revelers with world builder and none of them can see units hidden by the Council of Esus Shrine.

Capturing this island will require 'Plan B'.

 

[seZereth]

While a bunch of units can see invisible animals, only a handful of units can see invisible units:
Hawk
Marksman
Malakim Sand Lion
Sheaim Revelers
FoL hero Kithra Kyriel
Empyrean Vicar, Radiant Guard, Ratha and Shrine (reveals invis inside borders)

However, I've tested hawks, marksmen, ratha and revelers with world builder and none of them can see units hidden by the Council of Esus Shrine.

Capturing this island will require 'Plan B'.

Plan B is going for Empyrean? would that work?

 

[Pyr0mancer]

Nope. NOTHING can reveal the invisibility from Nox Noctis (Esus shrine). Your only choice really is to create an uber-stack-of-doom and aim it at the Esus holy city. Once you capture or raze the shrine, everything they have will show up again.

Oh and the War Tortoise is supposed to have ridiculously high defense. It's got low attack and slower movement to compensate (compared to War Chariots).

 

[hapveg]

I didn't really know what Plan B was, but I wanted a summoning theme game (Arcane / Summoner leader), so I didn't really want to change religions, since I was OO and my most powerful unit was the OO spellcasting hero (twincast+water elemental+combat 5).

Not too sure how much Empyrean would've helped? They couldn't have seen the enemy units either, dunno if Pillar of Fire would've been affected by Spell Extension (stayed at Maelstroms max range to avoid Ring of Flames and assassins).

Using maelstrom to reduce the garrisons health to 50% and throwing 4 wraiths/spectres and 4 water elementals per turn only managed to give the defenders hoards of xp, it was just about impossible to shift fortified the War Tortoises (95% city defense bonus + fortified + promotions).

I've been playing these kind of games since the Civ 1 in the early 1990's, but successfully capping that capital using a summoning theme is probably one of the most difficult challenges I've faces in a turn-based-strategy, it took about 6 hours (only lost 7 living units after beating the Infernals and Lanun, but lost 424 water elementals, 113 wraiths and 112 specters, water elementals often split into 2 weaker elementals when they die, so that's probably why the death count is higher for them).

Plan B was scorching plains to prevent the invisible workers constantly fixing my pillaging, and using fireballs to bombard the fortification level of the city.

So I trained a small army of mages and obsidian gated them to the continent, Scorched a little, fireball bombards worked well, but the collateral damage was very helpful.

Even pounding the capital with about 5 fireballs / turn and sending in 8 third tier summons and 5 spectres it took about 5 turns to actually capture the city.

Jolly good fun though.

Loving the idea behind the Council of Esus shrine, giving a major defensive advantage, especially if you use assassins (which is what Esus would like). Seems a lot more interesting than the other religious wonders.

Something which did seem odd, fireballs don't benefit from the 'summons last 3 turns' trait, dunno if it's a bug, balance thing or design choice (fireballs are a summon, but they're not a creature summon).

 

[Kael]

Something which did seem odd, fireballs don't benefit from the 'summons last 3 turns' trait, dunno if it's a bug, balance thing or design choice (fireballs are a summon, but they're not a creature summon).

That is by design, only creature summons take advantage of the summoning trait.

 

[Sarisin]

Nope. NOTHING can reveal the invisibility from Nox Noctis (Esus shrine). Your only choice really is to create an uber-stack-of-doom and aim it at the Esus holy city. Once you capture or raze the shrine, everything they have will show up again.

Oh and the War Tortoise is supposed to have ridiculously high defense. It's got low attack and slower movement to compensate (compared to War Chariots).

I ran into this problem too, and the Holy City for CoE was not displayed - that too is hidden. I captured 2 cities in the civ and razed 1 and did not get the one with the Holy City.

Magister C suggested looking at the Religion screen to see where the Holy City was founded, but it was listed as UNKNOWN.

 

[avalonnn]

Magister C suggested looking at the Religion screen to see where the Holy City was founded, but it was listed as UNKNOWN.

Wouldn't that mean that the holy city was in an area of the map you had not explored yet?

 

[westamastaflash]

Using maelstrom to reduce the garrisons health to 50% and throwing 4 wraiths/spectres and 4 water elementals per turn only managed to give the defenders hoards of xp, it was just about impossible to shift fortified the War Tortoises (95% city defense bonus + fortified + promotions).

Earthquake ? (I think) will unfortify units, and then if you bombard the city (fireballs are slow, but effective), you should be easily able to take out war tortises. Especially since the AI doesn't usually bombard your stacks while you sit outside.

 

[Pyr0mancer]

Also, try Diseased Corpses and Pyre Zombies. Disease weakens the tortoises, while Pyre Zombies' explosion is a reliable way to wear down a stack as well.

Finally, the most effective solution? Domination. Take those strong, highly-promoted defenders and make them work for you

 

[Sarisin]

Wouldn't that mean that the holy city was in an area of the map you had not explored yet?

No, I don't think so as I had sent troops to all of the cities of the civ with CoE I was at war with. He only had 7, I think it was. I proposed peace after taking 2 and razing 1 as I didn't want the counter to hit 40 and my maintenance was very high.

However, that UNKNOWN business was something I have always wondered about. Just like when you see a message that "XYZ was founded in a land far, far away" or something like that...and it turns out it is right next to you.

 

[xalien]

You need to adopt CoE in order to see where have it spreaded and probably where has it been founded as well.

 

[Sarisin]

You need to adopt CoE in order to see where have it spreaded and probably where has it been founded as well.

Yeah, that's a good one...and watch your heroes leave you and the unrest from not having CoE in all your cities. No thanks.

 

[fish_sticks]

This is probably just a bug that might not be able to be avoided, but you can tell which city have the shrine for CoE by looking at the religion screen.

It always shows the founding city and civilization.

 

[Pyr0mancer]

48. Units that can see invisible can see units hidden by Nox Noctis.

from the 0.33 changelog. Nox Noctis will still be powerful, just not nearly so overpowered.

 

[hapveg]

Probably for the best, after finding it so difficult to counter the AI using Nox Noctis I have been using it myself, in a survival challenge, I was finding surviving very difficult until I build Nox Noctis, now my territory is very safe.

Stepping outside my territory is practically suicide, but that's to be expected on deity vs 2 AI's.