Bannor Armageddon Scenario

[Sureshot]

Bannor Armageddon Scenario V1.1 Download



Scenario Description:

Hyborem has dominated Erebus with his Clan and Sheaim allies, all that remains of decent civilization is a small colony of the Bannor that was hidden in southern tundra regions.
The colony of the Bannor cannot stay hidden long and will soon fall to the tide of evil...

There is small hope for the Bannor, they have a few angels left over from before Basium's fall, the hero Donal Lugh, a cursed paladin in need of powerful healing, a reknowned champion general who is well equiped, and a dragon slaying hero who escaped the fall of the Grigori. Their only other friends are the protectors of the Elohim sanctuary, but they may not be receptive and are no match for the forces aligned against them.


Ingame images:

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Notes:

The only religions in the scenario are Ashen Veil and the Order.
It'll say that the Order has been founded somewhere at some point, but it won't actually be founded anywhere on the map. The idea behind this is that the Order was already founded a while back and the holy city destroyed along with everyone else. For production abilities of the cities of the Bannor and Elohim techwise are backwards reflecting their remoteness which is represented in their much lessened technological advancement.
Bannor and Elohim can still get the Order in their cities by researching the Order tech and using the acolyte (you'll get a popup asking which religion you want to found, but you won't actually found any).
Designed for Marathon speed, the rest of the game options set in the scenario are highly recommended for consistancy. For additional challenge I suggest Double Armageddon option.
All civs are playable, but the scenario was designed around the Bannor and giving them a nice challenge.
For perspective, this actual map should be considered a very very small part of Erebus, with the rest being filled with Infernal, and this map being a fairly untouched remote area near artic wastes; the reason for this area being remote is due to the Lich king residing there and surrounding inhospitable land (the bannor colony and elohim sanctuary are in hidden valleys that are more pleasant).

 

[Rex rgis of Ter]

It looks very impressive. I will play it out tonight.

 

[Sureshot]

thank ya, i started it a week or so ago but stopped to work on a mod to ffh for scenarios that puts more emphasis on units and tactics, then noticed a few people asking for something along these lines so i figured id test, finish and share it.

 

[Tarquelne]

Wow! Look fun! This'll be my next game.

 

[Demus]

just played about 150 turns on this map (epic speed), and so far so good!
The units you get at the beginning may be a bit overpowered compared to the units the AI fields, but i'm only playing at monarch so could be balanced out on higher levels.
There was something weird going on with the order religion: it got founded around turn 5 or so, nor by me nor by the elohim, and when i checked the worldbuilder for it, i couldn't find the holy city at all! Could have been a barbarian city which got razed though.
The pool of tears was to easily reachable. I just had to wait for the elohim world spell to end and i gained a VERY powerfull paladin. Perhaps parking the pool behind/next to the broken sepulcher could make this more of a challenge.
Some of the special items (jade torc, golden hammers) ended up in the hands of normal barbarian units (goblins, warriors) giving my units an early strenght boost which should be more difficult to optain.
The elohim did really add to the gameplay though. Getting a traderoute towards their borders opened up some nice resource trading possibilities, but the route proved difficult to maintain with the constant threats of barbarian or orcish raiders, creating a real effort to keep the happiness and health caps high.

 

[Rex rgis of Ter]

I too have been playing and it is highly enjoyable. Here are a few areas to improve in-

The Order is always founded around turn 5 by no one

You start with economically bad cities. Could we at least start with courthouses(we are the Bannor)

Wilboman is very powerful, and he wiped out the Elohim before I could get to him,.

Otherwise, a great job!

 

[Demus]

i hardly had any trouble with wilboman, but that was because he spent the first 50-60 turns protecting the eastern bear den. When he finally emerged, i had already cured my paladin, and my valkyrie and donald lugh were strong enough to take him down without much hassle. the cities seemed ok tbh, because of the commerce resources you start out with. Although, i switched to city states almost immediatly, which fixed any possible maintenance troubles.

 

[Sureshot]

ya, the order is "founded" early on, but its not actually founded, just removed as a possibility for founding. the idea is that this is simply a small bannor colony thats all thats left, and the order holy city existed long before somewhere else and was raised. whats technically happening is theres only 2 possible religions allowed in the game, order and veil, and infernal and co already have the veil holy city and the tech required for it, so by some strange technicality they are given the option to choose a religion to found because they have a religion founding tech, which won't found Veil because they already have that so they choose the only other religion, the order. it doesnt actually spread to them because they have the veil in all their cities. part of why this is all necessary is hyborem: all infernal cities automatically get ashen veil in them, so having hyborem already ingame means ashen veil can never be properly founded without causing some strangeness. i chose not to let him enter his normal way because then who knows where he'd enter and id have to let basium in too.
note i've listed a simplified version of this answer amoung my notes at the bottom of the first post.

im surprised wilboman caused such trouble, i normally take him out rather early and was considering giving him some illian barbs to help him out heh.

about the pool of tears and the cursed paladin, its more just a time delay on using the paladin since the elohim immediately cast sanctuary, though there is one other way to cure him i think (not sure how potent the other option is but its out there).

elohim can prove pretty useful, i left permanent alliances on and always war or peace, so they'll never be anything but of benefit to the bannor, and can one day be allied more closely if theyre courted. i gave a bit of a bonus diplomatically to help the bannor along with them, and besides healing they can be of benefit religiously.

courthouses doesn't seem like a bad idea, i think my general build order was elder council, harbour, courthouse, then after that i wasn't too concerned with buildings til i got the order in my cities. generally i wanted to put the bannor in a setup where they needed to build up before they'd have much hope, but harbours and courthouses would make sense (if i had remote cities in an area that id say was probably reached and colonized by boats id build those two buildings really early). other than that though i think id consider those 5 cities pretty ideal.. i almost consider them too ideallic heh.

about the equipment floating around.. the ai tends to strip them off good units and pass them around to random fodder units for some reason, i could change that but for the time being i dont want a mod required at all for this scenario, i prefer keeping it simple. i do like the equipment for a little fun value though.

i considered switching some of the civics to better ones that are available to start, but was conflicted about which to pick and decided to leave it to the player to choose (personally i choose godking but i saw city states as another good option, and religion versus nationhood).

about the powerful units, i figure its only 5 units total, and with a few bad odds you can only have the valkyrie to defend 4 bridges heh. the AIs have similarly powerful units in greater quantity than the bannor, and the from-start ability to produce units much greater than the bannors start.
originally the paladin was just plain and not even light, i took out the orcs with him and donal alone so i figured he needed some toning down. once healed i figured youve done some work on him so hes not undeserved heh. he's also light and weak tho, which makes him less powerful generally than a regular paladin even after being healed, though i gave him stygmata as part of his curse to make him have potential to be more useful than a regular paladin by the time you get them. not sure how else to cripple him without ruining him heh.


about the broken sepulcher, anyone managed to take it out? after i gave him two friends i lost the ability to cut through his summons and finish him off myself heh.

 

[Demus]

i managed to take down one of the liches, but that was because of barbatos sending some of it's earth elementals out. He did allow me to get all my strong units up to 100 exp quite quickly though.
I never ever had an attack on one of the bridges (other than the one from wilboman). Just move your units to the small mountain pass at the south end of the desert, and you're blocking off anything besides the odd barbarian spawn (fogbusting quickly took care of this though). Maibe create a mountain pass (forested hill with water running in front of it, and a citadel built) on the north side of the elohim? Would atleast make you divert a portion of your troops to defend your allies. Another gap on the far west of the desert would help aswell.

About the religion: why don't you allow something like esus or OO in the game aswell? Hyborem would probably found those over order, allowing you to actually get the religion. An other option would be to have the bannor start out with the order holy city, but give them a downtuning on another tech?

 

[Sureshot]

the small mountain pass is a bit rough to hold id think, what with the liches so close and poor defensive bonuses. are the clan not being very aggressive? i might need to tone them up a bit.. i was actually thinking of making elohims spot even more protected (guardian vines on their entrance tiles) because of them dying to wilboman, not sure i want to make them the forefront of a battle line (currently the AIs almost have to go through the bannor to get to them). i am also considering giving the clan cartography so the infernal and sheaim can attack the bannor earlier, currently thats a time barrier i made to give the bannor some extra time before some of the heavier units come into play.

i tried something similar to what you said second about religion before but then the player gets asked what religion they want to found too (every turn).. scenarios and preplaced religions are major annoyances, even with one preplaced religion and one religion turned off the last one to be founded will prompt the player to choose an option they can't use. hyborem necessitates a preplaced religion, since he automatically gets AV unless you turn it off. for this particular scenario i cant think of a better way to do it than its current setup. ill try putting OO in to see if that solves it just to see, though for this scenario i dont mind the absence of the order holy city heh.

 

[DharmaMcLaren]

I could build Sphener, is that supposed to be possible? Am I mistaken in thinking that he requires the Order holy city?

 

[Demus]

i would remove the "light" promotion from all starting units. The 2 movement is simply to powerfull, and you hardly notice the -10% strenght.
Go barbarian hunting for combat 5 and drill 4 (or somewhere near that exp. level), and go fortify yourself in the jungles surrounding the entrances to the clan. Not a single unit will get through, not enough to be a threat anyway. Setting them up a bit further down the metal path might help here, but to be honest i doubt it. Are they starting with their unit multiplying buildings in every city? Otherwise, a 3rd entryway on the far east side of the clans cities might work.
Teching order - writing - bronze working - military strategy - feudalism (perm. ally with ethne) - fanatism - iron working, i could have taken the orcish towns 10x over before i hit feudalism (CR2 champion = 1 dead fortified archer per turn), but decided to wait for demagog backup so i could hold them instead of razing.
The Sheiam weren't that threatening eighter. The first stack was quite tough, but their dragon suicided itself on my dragonslayer standing on a hilled forest, and after that all they had left were 2 revelers, 1 tar demon and a few adepts. Maybe let the sheiam start with all planar gate buildings to give them a military boost?
Never gotten an attack from the infernals yet, even though i suspect he's got quite a powerful city up there, given all the units i've been killing.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I could build Sphener, is that supposed to be possible? Am I mistaken in thinking that he requires the Order holy city?

The only units that require Holy Cities are The Mithril Golem and Meshabber of Dis

 

[Sureshot]

i would remove the "light" promotion from all starting units. The 2 movement is simply to powerfull, and you hardly notice the -10% strenght.
Go barbarian hunting for combat 5 and drill 4 (or somewhere near that exp. level), and go fortify yourself in the jungles surrounding the entrances to the clan. Not a single unit will get through, not enough to be a threat anyway. Setting them up a bit further down the metal path might help here, but to be honest i doubt it. Are they starting with their unit multiplying buildings in every city? Otherwise, a 3rd entryway on the far east side of the clans cities might work.
Teching order - writing - bronze working - military strategy - feudalism (perm. ally with ethne) - fanatism - iron working, i could have taken the orcish towns 10x over before i hit feudalism (CR2 champion = 1 dead fortified archer per turn), but decided to wait for demagog backup so i could hold them instead of razing.
The Sheiam weren't that threatening eighter. The first stack was quite tough, but their dragon suicided itself on my dragonslayer standing on a hilled forest, and after that all they had left were 2 revelers, 1 tar demon and a few adepts. Maybe let the sheiam start with all planar gate buildings to give them a military boost?
Never gotten an attack from the infernals yet, even though i suspect he's got quite a powerful city up there, given all the units i've been killing.

i like the light promos for those 4 units so they can keep up with donal, and them being powerful is intended, but im guessing ill need to up the clan a bit and give them cartography so the sheaim and infernal can help them sooner.

i think ill add up 2 more entryways for the clan, they prolly need more ways through like you said, and i can move them up to longbowmen and maybe a few other techs. they do have their doubling building in all their cities.

i might need to give sheaim more cities, they do have planar gates and most of the buildings for summoned units in their cities, but a combination of the low AC and too few AV cities doesnt allow them many gated creatures.

good feedback, confirms a few things i was thinking needed being done

 

[Sureshot]

updated the download, theres more ways into clan land, and through the eastern mountain path. i powered up the sheaim, infernal, and clan a bit, and set Last Days as default so thatll boost the AC up a decent amount. i also gave the elohim a bit of defense so they dont get taken out early. bannor cities start with courthouses and harbours. other minor changes.

 

[Broken Hawk]

I really like this scenario. I'm a big Bannor fan. Thanks Sureshot.