Game Diary: Bringin' Down the House of God

[Qgqqqqq]

So, without further ado, here's-


FFH Adventure 3- “Bringin’ Down the House (of God)”



Sponsor: Bobchillingworth
Opening Date: 04/15/2011
Duration: 5 weeks
Map Script: Handcrafted
Difficulty: Deity
Civilization: Doviello


Leader: Charadon

World Size: Standard
Opponents: Five
Victory: Any
Options: Advanced era start, Always War, Living World, No Acheron, No Orthus, No Barbarians (technically), Fellowship of the Leaves is disabled.
Version: Patch O (w/ "zombie fix"- see end of post)


Scenario Description: The Doviello were not known for a love of intellectual achievement. Their cities harbored no universities, and their culture valued savagery and strength far more than scholarly contemplation. Yet those blessed with latent magical talent often found great renown within their camps as a Shaman. At the apex of the Shaman class were the elders, the Grand Witchdoctors. They possessed an arcane ritual, passed down through countless generations, of incredible power- the ability to summon the spirits of the deceased back to the mortal plane. Seeking to restore the Doviello to their former glory, they recalled from Camulo’s Vault Charadon, the nigh-feral founder of the Pack and the most feared warlord during the Age of Ice. So too they later revived the infamous and dreaded Baron Duin Halfmorn, a savage general from the Age of Magic cursed with lycanthropy for his taste for human flesh.


When the Illians were destroyed in the climactic battle to prevent Auric’s ascension, so too were their Doviello allies. Banished for a second time from Erebus, Charadon’s soul found itself trapped in the desolate wasteland of Limbo, unable to return to Camulo’s Vault due to his unnatural rebirth. While other souls would have given in to despair and eventually dissipated into complete oblivion, Charadon raged against the Heavens. Gathering what spirits he could, Charadon commanded an army of lost souls and broke down the Gates of Paradise. If the Gods would deny him his rightful afterlife, he would simply have to take it for himself. It’s time for Heaven to fall!


____________________________________________________________


This is an extreme Adventure. You are facing an allied team of Deity-level AI who begin with substantial advantages over the human player. Reinforcements are available in the form of Baron Duin Halfmorn and his retinue, provided that you can secure their passage through Limbo. Any and all wins are acceptable. There is no formal points-based scoring system. Similar to FFH Adventure 2, players will be awarded STARS on the basis of certain achievements:


* The White Star of Werewolves is awarded for rescuing the Baron from Limbo (the Baron doesn’t need to survive the entire scenario).

* The Purple Star of Paradise is awarded for achieving any win condition.

* The Aqua Star of Armageddon is awarded for eliminating all opponent civilizations.

* The Onyx Star of the Infernal is awarded for winning as the Infernal civilization.

* The Emerald Star of Epic is awarded for personally killing Basium using Hyborem.


Players will be ranked within STARS brackets on the basis of descending order from quickest finish date.


As a final note, be aware that as with Adventure 2, this scenario has been entirely hand-crafted, and has several significant differences from the average randomly-generated map. While Adventure 3 is intended to challenge veteran players, all comers are welcome to try a hand and report the result, whatever it may be. Enjoy!

Closing Day: Monday, May 23, 2011. Reports due by the end of Wednesday, May 25, your local time.

This is to be my game diary for a More Naval AI version of Realms Beyond Fall from Heaven 2 Adventure 3. As you can see, this game was created by Bobchillingworth nearly 3 years ago, but I wasn't a player at the time and I hadn't played it until about a week ago, where I tried it out a Erebus in the Balance game, on quick. However, the Dovellio civilization is significantly boosted in Erebus in the Balance, and I found myself doing better then I expected.
So I have decided to endeavor to attempt this game against the much more difficult More Naval AI AI, and see how I fare. I do, however, have complete spoiler knowledge of this game, and will not hesitate to use it - so if anyone wishes to try this out in their own time and doesn't want any of the fun surprises spoiled (something which I strongly recommend, this is a fantastic game), they should avoid reading any further posts until they are finished.

I have attatched the world builder save in case anyone wishes to play at a lower difficulty or under different conditions - at the end of the day this *is* an always war game against teamed Deity AIs, and I understand that that's not everyone's cup of tea.

THE SAVE

 

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So lets get this started!

I forced myself to play only the 5 turns, so this will be much more detailed then I'll normally give.

Turn 1:

The Baron and his brothers, stuck away in limbo:

I have a little bit of extra visibility here because of a mistake with the save which I didn't bother to correct. I've named my two great werewolves after Lucian - who is pretty pathetic in a game which starts with tier 3 units - and Tricki, a dog from the Herriot novels. Each of these doggies comes with a healing salve, as well as 4 supplies and a great commander (attached to the Baron). Its probably correct to delete the supplies, but 4 forges are not to be sniffed at. Lucian and Tricki went down the two paths north, while the Baron goes south, killing a skele on the way.

I sent the free settler down south, he will settle here turn 2:

I also revolted into Agrarianism and Aristocracy, and will start a beastman in each city. All the other troops went out exploring.

Turn 2:

First off I Lucian kills a spectre and explores the graveyard beneath, with great results:

This is excellent indeed! It lies directly on the beeline to Ashen Veil which I'm going to have to take (I will talk more about tech path and strategy later), and lets me start a Shaman instantly in my second city:

This may not seem like the best decision, but with the immediate military needs fulfilled my only need for beastmen is garrison units and I intend to bring Fake Lucian back to serve that service. Getting one down quickly will be great, especially as Horseback Riding is going to come in quite late in this game.


Turn 3:

Tricki Pops Another One:

Yum!
I'm cautiously flagging this guy for the Form of the Titan, although I may have to rush to get him back before the AIs find themselves there. (The supplies moves to this tile and Tricki promotes.)


Turn 4:

Unfortunately, Lucian pays the price for my recklessness:

He was on 6.7 strength, but I thought my supplies had determined that there were no units in reach so I explored rather then resting or using the salve. Lesson learned!




Turn 5:

Tricki pops another one:

Nice! As you can see, I'm still saving gold, which is because at this time in my previous games I was awash with werewolves from all the kills, neatly crashing my economy. Has something changed in MNAI to prevent werewolves from spawning out of the undead?

We stop everyone off up in the ancient tower:

From here we can see Lucians killer:

(Yeah that really ought to have been 1 pic. Sorry!)

Back at home, we're exploring the local terrain:

The other side is exactly the same because its mirrored.

 

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So now its time to talk a little bit about strategy. Here is my early-mid game dotmap, now that we've revealed some more of the surrounding terrain:

My first city went south, so as to use all of those beautiful floodplains, share tiles with the capital and be connected instantly. My next two cities, however, will go east and west, to each of the iron spots in those directions. Those may not seem particularly safe spots for withstanding a horde of enemies - after all, they aren't even on hills - but if you look closely you will notice that they are positioned so that an enemy cannot approach them without passing next to a lake. I'm sure you all understand then, the following tech path:

Bring forth the cultists!
My plan then, for the next ~100 turns or so, is to defend using cultists as my primary collateral and iron melee plus werewolves as my hitters. This will hold me over while I prepare for a Hyborem switch.

 

[Qgqqqqq]

Looking around, I recall that spoiler tags are more common on this forum, do people want me to use them for images?

Turns 5-30:

My crossbowman reach the Ancient Towers, and spot our enemies:

Spoiler :

There's a Luchuirp settling party over there. I intend to deploy my crossbowman to try and kill it - although they have high strength units available, most of their units can't contend with a S9 C1 unit this early, so I can probably press quite far, in my previous game they built a Paladin in time to stop me taking them out, but it was close. And with a unit with such high defence, the chance of a successful counter-attack is very low.

For whatever reason, there's no war yet. That doesn't last:

Spoiler :

A word on the barbarians. Bobs initial setup doesn't have them at all, but I turned on Raging Barbs for this play through (made easier by the World-builder Tools added in recent versions - big thanks to Magister and platyping there! :biggrin. While this is anti thematic (goblins and orcs in heaven???), I think it makes for a funner early game, as the AI will not otherwise give any pressure to the player for the first 30 turns or so, and it gives a semi-reliable source of werewolves. It's unlikely to affect the AI's at all, with their uber-units and with most of their tiles being revealed.

Meanwhile, in Limbo:

Spoiler :

Popped a acolyte. Meh, this is fairly useless all told, its quite likely to die before returning and Order is already founded, so no benefit until we get Orders from Heaven...at which point we'd get a acolyte anyway. Still, it gives a little more healing, so I deign to take it for a ride.

Spoiler :

And then immediately lose it because I forgot non-SPI ones come with a pathetic 1 MP (it didn't even take down one spectre, despite 73% odds). Still, a disappointing end to a disappointing lair. Moving on.

I grabbed this shot to show you some domestic stuff:

Spoiler :

I'm one of those people who often go back and forward on workers, and this game is a good (?) example of that. Here, I put both cities on workers at size 2 because I hadn't had enough to improve them. Later I found I had a surplus of improvements pre-settler. My defences here actually aren't as bad as they look, I avoided finshing the beastman in the cap because of unit costs, and a unit (fake Lucian?) is coming back for defence.


The Luchuirp settled their city:

Spoiler :

And I come to punish them for their impudence:

Spoiler :

The Malakim city will have a bit more time, having popped its outer ring:

Spoiler :

But they too shall be given their due.


We start a-whittling:

Spoiler :

And the same turn we get our first ravenous, and immediately blooded Werewolf:

Spoiler :

I'm still not sure why we killed one here and not earlier - we've had dozen of fights in Limbo, and only the one werewolf. Maybe its something to do with the Hidden Nationality promotion (which I presume is why only one of those spectres has the word barbarian next to it)?
Actually while I'm writing this, I have an idea. Its a mild tangent, but I seem to remember Tholal saying that units with the HN promotion no longer have racial promotions (to make the Veil of Night spell vaguely useful in multiplayer). I theorize that demons or undead - whichever spectres/skeletons are - has been programmed not to give a werewolf result (which is as it should be), and the HN promotion is removing this, thus re-making them eligible. Sound feasible or likely?


Anyway, stop being sidetracked. We explore a graveyard for a neat 30 gold:

Spoiler :

You can also see the healing salve that Lucian was carrying there. It was picked up by one of the spectres that then suicided against Tricki.


We find a slightly more challenging foe, a Lich:

Spoiler :

Challenging being relative of course


The Juggernaut moves on:

Spoiler :

They have no respect, these nomads. We will teach them the meaning of it.


The Baron gets a nasty lair result:

Spoiler :

And that is why we save promotions. C4 and C5 heal him up nicely.


The eastern crossbowman scores first blood:

Spoiler :

Fahrenheit 532 people
(Gives Basium a angel, unfortunately.)


Damn:

Spoiler :

I knew it was possible of course, I was just hoping they wouldn't be around. Still, I'm bound to resist eventually, and he's in no trouble for now.


Welp:

Spoiler :

Still, while they're building wonders, they're not expanding. Right?


Flush with victory, he moves on the capital:

Spoiler :

Damn. Still, there's no real alternative, we won't have a better chance to destroy them for a hundred turns, if not more. I'll heal him up a bit and then move in.


In the west, more success:

Spoiler :

It was tempting to try for those workers first, but I was worried about reinforcements so I took the chance while it lasted.


More cash:

Spoiler :

I shouldn't complain, I've yet to have a bad result from a grave, but it's getting a bit bleh.


I moved the Baron too far, forgetting about the Great Engineer, fortunately the blooded werewolf was close enough to catch him, but I need to be more careful:

Spoiler :

Edit: and wow, that's 30 images. Story continues in the next post.

 

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Well this is the moment that matters:

Spoiler :

If I win with 30% health or so, then I should be able to wipe out the rest of the golems, strangling it in its cradle if you will. There's about a 25% chance for that, but still, it's almost certainly worthwhile. So lets role the dice:

Spoiler :

Eh well, these things happen.


Back in Limbo:

Spoiler :

Huh, that's weird. I mean, this should be tragic, a wraith just killed Bloody (lets give him a name post-mortem) my first and, to date, only werewolf. But at the same time it could've, and should've been a whole lot worse. Because my Great Engineer was underneath, and somehow retreated out of the enemies path. Is this intentional? He was definitely on that square, with no moves left, when I ended turn, so why is he alive? Do Great People run from barbarians/enemies/summons/not alive units in this mod?


Anyway, our next dungeon pop is a ironic one:

Spoiler :

Just when I thought I'd got rid of them


Sphener is built by the Malakim:

Spoiler :

Not sure whether that works or not given the Mercurians started with him - maybe they changed religion and he abandoned them?


They've fought, bleed and died in this accursed limbo, but finally the end is in site. The Pack has been thinned by the horde of undead, but it has grown strong too, gnawing on their reanimated limbs. They will need all their strength too, for beyond this glistening portal lie a host of enemies, sworn to prevent their sacrilege. The Baron sighs, considering, when a pile of bone and iron suddenly rises against them, baring a wicked scimitar. Tricki springs forth then, knowing that her mate must not risk himself, not now that they're so close:

Spoiler :

Despite its strength, she emerges, battered but triumphant. The Baron chuckles, amused at her caution, though he secretly acknowledges its wisdom. Then he leaps forth, determined to reach this paradise and taste its riches. With him go the spoils of a broken limbo, just another broken and subdued land before the strength of The Pack. His mate will remain, hunting down any resistance and breeding him a litter of bloodthirsty followers.


I claim * The White Star of Werewolves:

Spoiler :

1 down, 4 to go



My cities are still garrisoned by beastmen, but The Pack is loping home. My settler finishes in 2-3 turns. I may be cutting it a bit fine with the reinforcements:

Spoiler :

 

[A Moon]

Huh, that's weird. I mean, this should be tragic, a wraith just killed Bloody (lets give him a name post-mortem) my first and, to date, only werewolf. But at the same time it could've, and should've been a whole lot worse. Because my Great Engineer was underneath, and somehow retreated out of the enemies path. Is this intentional? He was definitely on that square, with no moves left, when I ended turn, so why is he alive? Do Great People run from barbarians/enemies/summons/not alive units in this mod?

To clarify what happened here: The wraith had the fear promotion, which made the Great Engineer run away.

That said, this was an interesting read. Looking forward to the next update.

 

[Qgqqqqq]

Turns 30-61:

So where did I leave off?

Oh yeah, right. THAT guy.

He actually didn't do anything of note for a while, just hanging around there until...but I'm getting ahead of myself.

What I'd missed in my near-heart attack experience was THIS guy:

Spoiler :

Who ate a blooded before I even realised he existed. The scary thing about him is his 5 moves, in an area that I have weak units, workers, supplies and a Great Engineer hanging out.

The slightly less scary part about him is that he's landed right next to my 3-move, C5 Baron

Spoiler :

Effective strength 22 FTW! (99% odds)



Meanwhile in the place between places...

Spoiler :

Man I love Death Knights Unfortunately, at this stage they need more then cool art and fun bonuses to take out dear Tricki.

And our next lair pop gives...

Spoiler :

Yet another GC! Damn, I wish I'd let the Baron take the other one through the portal, as is I'm going to have to provide cover all the way along.


Back at the base, I see something that tells me I need to stop fooling around:

Spoiler :

Oh for all that is good and...Okay, this is battle stations. Angels of Death are possibly the scariest killers out there, especially at a stage when all my cities are defended by beastmen. The Baron rushes straight home, and I turn my saved-up supplies into a Hunting Lodge. Everything is sacrificed to get a hawk out pronto:

Spoiler :

Damn that's painful. Still, probably necessary.

Next turn I spot our killer:

Spoiler :

Two turns from the cap! At least there's only one.


A short interlude from mind-numbing terror:

Spoiler :

Thank you, Mister Engineer!


Unfortunately, the AoD ran away fast:

Spoiler :

Of course, that's not all bad news, for, as the eagle-eyed amongst you may have spotted, Sabathiel chose this time to flew his muscles:

Spoiler :

S:I have a kill stack, ho ho ho!


And I spotted worse in the Malakim land:

Spoiler :

B:I have a RIDICULOUS kill stack, ho ho ho!
Disclaimer: some units on the highlighted tile are Elohim, any reference placing this force under total control of Basium is for narrative ease only, and does not refer to a worldbuilder-fueled transfer of ownership. User:Qgqqqqq does not accept any responsibility for the factuality, internal consistency or logic of this report, nor does he in any way claim to be represented by an actual attorney and any insinuation otherwise may be punished at the clients discretion by any means within the laws presiding over the Greek city-state of Sparta (pre-Roman invasion).


I...don't really have a plan for dealing with this. I mean, I have some very strong units, including The Baron, my C4 Crossbow, and a bunch of other werewolves, but if I lose them on low odds I'm pretty well stuffed. As it happened, I was able to fend off Sabathiels men with nary so much as a scratch, but this taught me that I can't just wait and hope to hold out till cultists, I need to have a force to field out here, and the cheapest one is probably Iron axes, so I turned a lot of my cities away from expansion and onto military, in anticipation of the war to come.



Meanwhile, turning barbs on had an effect I wasn't anticipating:

Spoiler :

Yup, apparently when everyone has Iron Working barbarian Ogres start to spawn. Little more then an annoyance, but a costly one when my best units are still S8.



Erm, it appears I got quite engrossed in playing and missed A LOT of screenshots for this period, sorry. Anyway, I fought off the Bannor and got some hawks out, who gave me a good range of visibility in all directions, enough to spot the Mercurian stack approaching, and the Elohim support (which includes the Earth Elemental-summoning Corlindale) trailing behind. I've toyed with the Mercurians for a while here, trying to force an encounter before the Elohim catch up, but they seem to prefer just pillaging.
This turn we found OO in the iron city, as hoped:

Spoiler :

Which sparked another threshold too
I'm not sure where all of this has come from, tbh. I've had one AC event and chosen the "right" choice, but apart from that I can't imagine anything affecting it.

Edit:splitting in two here, again. Seems I don't learn...

 

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Tricki pops another one:

Spoiler :

Not sure what I'll do with him tbh.



Another look at the front:

Spoiler :

And Bambur coming to join in. Unfortunately he'd be a devil to snipe:

Spoiler :

Here's another big gap, sorry. Problem of playing things late last night. Anyway, I remember what happened here, I killed off the Mercurian kill stack about a turn before Corlindale and co. could catch up. Basium and Brigit were the hardest, each taking a couple of units with them. In the end, I had to use The Baron on a 75% fight against Basium, which fortunately he won. Angels are, at this point, mop up for my best units, and they got butchered the next turn.
Actually, I found one picture of this period (but have no intention of re-writing the above ):

Spoiler :

This is the turn I took out their stack, you can see he's taken out my iron mine and reduced the citadel to a castle. Unfortunately that really is the extent of my pictures here, so you'll just have to take my word for it


Then I picked it up again this morning, with the capital spawning a low-odds GC:

Spoiler :

He's low odds because the Capital has been having to hire a lot of specialists to keep up with its growth.


The Bannor city (they captured it off the barbs) is sporting very low defences:

Spoiler :

(All that extra info comes up when you hold ALT over something whilst in debug mode. ALT is also the key used for pictures. I've turned this off recently but I always seem to forget for the first picture of a session. Anyway, enough of first-world problems!)



A couple of turns later, my hawks spot a piecemeal assault force emanating from the dwarven stronghold:

Spoiler :

This is unfortunate, because my army is not large enough yet to protect both fronts at a time.


I move the majority of my (hasted - lets hear it for Shamans!) units out and...hullo what's this?

Spoiler :

It appears our Elohim friends were keeping an eye on us the whole time! Looking back, it seems obvious that his visibility came from his annual Earth Elementals. Anyway, this is something that I obviously have to respond to - I can't hold both fronts at the same time, so this is an opportunity to eliminate his stack out in the open. I start that this already this turn, with The Baron eating one paladin, but unfortunately I wasn't planning for this so the rest of my units can't reach them, but I will fall back next turn as well, but keep close enough to hit them the turn after, if they make the same maneuver again.


On a lighter note, I stretched myself further to take out a batch of barbs in the south:

Spoiler :

They should be able to get back in time to strengthen the eastern front. You can see a settler being built there, he's been on hold for a while to support a city up in the shadow of the mountains, but I may be forced to send that settler east instead.



Another grave, another cache of gold:

Spoiler :

I swear there's an equal chance of all grave results, but I'm pretty sure 2/3s of the grave pops have been for gold.


You remember the Engineer I popped? My military situation means I'm having to risk him out in the open:

Spoiler :

The plan is to go for gold, so to speak, if I meet a barb, but its still a great risk with spiders and lizards in the air.



One of my blooded werewolves stumbles across a wraith:

Spoiler :

.....
Yeah, lets NOT kill that inviting warrior.



The Luchuirp continue their inexorable march (closest stack highlighted):

Spoiler :

As you can see my current defences are absolutely insufficient, so it all rests on whether I can end the Elohim threat in time to shuffle more then just the basic units to stop them.



This, then, is the conflict that matters. If I can't reduce the stack to shreds by the end of this turn then I'm going to lose at least one city, and maybe even more. To start off with, this is where we are at the turns start:

Spoiler :

You can see my stack on the tile SW of the capital, exactly 4 tiles from the enemy stack, ready to spring the trap. In the log, you can see the strong unit I left behind, a Greater Werewolf that popped out of one of the previous battles. He managed to survive the battle, although he won't be helping in this battle.


The Baron starts us off:

Spoiler :

Its a bit of a risk, but I don't have any better options. You can also see all the annoying barbs in the area.


Success!

Spoiler :

And wow, that's quite the turn of events - Baron spawned a ravening wolf who quickly blooded himself, only to make his own offspring in the process.


Next:

Spoiler :

I'm trying to avoid using the crossbow - I want him to be heading east ASAP, so I send this guy in instead. It's good odds, and he'd make a nice Eidilon off all that xp.

Spoiler :

Damn. Also, the highlighted stack is in the city, and reflects why I have to send in the crossbow now, because most of them got frozen by the blinding light.

Spoiler :

Victory! At 99% odds I should hope so...Now I am left with the question of who to give the 20-odd xp you get from killing a hero, and Corlindale is perhaps the best xp-deal you ever face. In the end I went for by far the funnest, if also most dangerous, choice:

Spoiler :

This is easily the stupidest move off this whole conflict. He has a very real chance of dying and is, too date, my only Shaman, and thus the only unit I can use to haste my units next turn, which will be crucial to getting them there on time. On the other hand, who can resist the chance to pimp an adept

Spoiler :

Oh yeah! Instant Archmage baby! He'll be delayed a little, and I can't use the promotions until I get some more mana, but its still a nice fuzzy feeling to have this sorted out.
(I cannot emphasize enough how much them moving in helped me. The +25% they got on that forest pushed up the threshold horribly - Baron got something like 88% odds, and the rest would've been much more painful.)



The Dwarves have not been idle:

Spoiler :

The most eastern ones have been distracted by a too-friendly Ogre

I couldn't resist ending turn to see how they would move:

Spoiler :

On the one hand that's a dead wolf, but on the other it's a enemy out of place, not in the citadel, and, best of all, on flatland!



Thanks for the pointer A Moon! Always fantastic when the mechanics work in your favor.

 

[Horatius]

And the Game Diary tradition continues.
That was unexpected. I guess RB is now slower now a days.

 

[Qgqqqqq]

And the Game Diary tradition continues.
That was unexpected. I guess RB is now slower now a days.

Hmm? I'm writing here rather then at RB because a) there's more of a single player tradition here and b) because those at RB are more likely to have either played this scenario in the past, or at the very least read reports from it.

Also: I probably won't have time to do another report like this for the rest of the week. I may be able to fit in smaller installments, but we'll see.