Lord of the Balors feedback

[MagisterCultuum]

Keelyn is hardcoded in def AI_chooseTech(self,argsList): to beeline for Corruption of Spirit. (Any Evil civ who already knows Philosophy, but not CoS is forced to go straight for CoS so long as the religion isn't deactivated). That, combined with the high chance that AV could spread from so many Infernal cities and the diplomatic pressure once she makes peace with a demon lord makes it very likely that she will go AV.



The AI civs really do tend to settle too close to each other. I'd recommend giving them slower ships that start closer to the coastline, each near a good a widely spaced starting position.



An event allowing Basium t declare war on anyone with the AV religion might be good.

 

[GoodGame]

Most epic and interesting scenario I've played so far. Very nice thematic map, too. I've witnessed several of the horseman die, but not after taking down 100xp angels. I shed a tear everytime an ally dies.

 

[Breunor]

I just finished, I also liked the epic 'feel' of the scenario. Unfortunately, I found it to be quite easy. I played the Mercurians. I suggest anyone playing the Mercurians should consider moving up at least one level, they are very powerful. As your allies get hit, you become stronger, especially in the beginning of the game.

I'm personally not a fan of large maps; this of course isn't the designers' fault, it is just a preference. So, when I got to the point where I knew I had the scenario won, it took a long time to actually conquer everyone.

But I did like playing the Mercurians, from the start, and the scenario clearly has 'cool' power.


One issue I discovered is that nobody was expanding in the West. The Elohim were eliminated early and the Bannor were dropped to one city; the Balseraphs wre doing fairly well. But nobody colonized that side of the map. I guess the Bannor AI decided it needed more troops or research than settlers even with all of that open land?

I'll probably try this with someone else or at a higher level with the Merc's (and declare myself the winner before total elimination of the Infernals).

Best wishes,

Breunor

 

[GoodGame]

One issue I discovered is that nobody was expanding in the West. The Elohim were eliminated early and the Bannor were dropped to one city; the Balseraphs wre doing fairly well. But nobody colonized that side of the map. I guess the Bannor AI decided it needed more troops or research than settlers even with all of that open land?
Best wishes,

Breunor

I've started this scenario many times and it seems the colonization pattern is totally random. Sometimes you get Bals trying to be your neighbor, and sometimes they AI just stays far to the west. If you don't settle in the default area, it seems to alter where the AI settles too.

Incidentally, I find this scenario proves that the AI doesn't use forts or terrain to their fullest. My top priority after the first few workers is to build forts in all the passes and man them. Else it's only a matter of time before all the friendly AI forces crumple.

 

[Breunor]

My suspicion is that the settler issue has nothing to do with rules in the scenario, just the environment.

I reloaded the game for about 8 turns before I won and went into the worldbuilder to see what the Bannor were doing. Their one city was producing 'research'. Not surprisingly, with one city for them and maybe 50 to 60 for me, they were way, way behind in the tech path.

So, I think the 'settler' problem is just another case of bad AI; my guess is that the AI is saying it is way down in research, so its algorithm is spitting out 'build research'. A human recognizes that no amount of research is going to catch up with one city, that there is (rare) unsettled land, and that the best way to catch up is to settle. Notice that this is not 'stupid' AI -- it is very hard for any set of equations to assess this kind of situation.

Anyway, this analysis is just an educated guess, I haven't looked at the AI routines or anything like that.


Best wishes,

Breunor

 

[BLubmuz]

Played this scenario as Capria/monarch, modified in WB the start. Also added some techs and 2 more settlers and workers.

The settlers cost is indecently high in this scenario.

Found that after turn 50 or so i can't open WB without a CTD.
Also, the adepts manage to sanctify the infernal land and consequently reduce the AC counter, but do not manage to remove the fallout. Something should be wrong there.

Anyway, the allies are pretty useless. They do almost nothing, Basium lost his capital and i retook it and gave him.

Sometime i have a CTD between turns and i has to go back by some 2-3 turns to load a save.

 

[AAA]

You can really build up some points in this scenario, I ended up with a score of over 800000 by the end (on deity). The most I've ever gotten on any civ 4 game.

Nice scenario, interesting terrain, I was pinned down on my side of the mountains for quite a while. Fortunately the first of the Horsemen completely destroyed Keelyn (He arrived by turn 50), so I got all her land. Had to prop up Varn and Capria, so they'd keep feeding me angels.

It was fun, sadly my last scenario.
So I've decided to write my own group "Rise of the Emerald Queen". Thessa gets revenge on Faeryl for the great ending of the Splinter Court scenario.

 

[Corwyn]

Played as Capria/Emperor.

This was a looong game.

I think this sums it up, at the end of the game:

Spoiler :

Yes, he has 1781 xp, and the game lasted 676 turns. Sphener had 616 xp, Donal had 457 xp (I resurrected him with Sphener) and I had a Paladin (with Great Commander) with 432 xp. Honestly, the strongest unit out of all 4 of them was probably the Paladin.

Part of the reason the game lasting soooo long is my own fault though. I'm almost brand new to FFH (only played scenarios so far) and just started playing at the Emperor level and so I read up on the Bannor and also read some strategy posts about playing them. And the recommendation seemed to be "spam Demagogs"! So I dutifully did that, comfortable in the fact that they have no upkeep...

... except that I soon started noticing my economy was going to shambles. They might not have any upkeep, but apparently I have to pay for their maintenance in the field. That, plus the fact that I couldn't build many new buildings in my cities pretty much killed my tech/economy. Still... free units! It's like a drug -- I just couldn't say no and switch out of "Crusader" civic.

I eventually wiped out 1 Infernal civ by staying in Crusader the whole time (at least 100 turns... it was slow going). Was a terrible mistake in hindsight... really hurt my tech and dragged out the game. The Infernals were *way* ahead in tech, had expanded quickly, and the AC count was raising rapidly. I lost a city to the first Horseman.

The AI allies were not of much help unfortunately (though Basium did kill the 3rd Horseman). Varn was getting killed very early on (by barbarians if I recall correctly), and once I bailed him out I decided to keep the barbarian cities, which effectively boxed him in -- I didn't trust him at that point. Basium and Keelyn seemed okay at first, until they suddenly starting losing cities like crazy. I bailed Basium out in time, but Keelyn was crushed. By this point my economy was so bad that I couldn't keep the cities, so I just gifted them all back to Basium.

I was still fighting with Valin when the Infernals were starting to pump out Champions with Str 10... was starting to get a little scary! I beelined (well... slowly since my tech was so bad) to Paladins (and Sphener) and then things got okay. Paladins are amazing, especially when promoted from champions!

By this time the AI had Phalanxes and Cannons, and soon Beast of Agares, but I was comfortable with the killing power of my heros and paladins. Phew...

It was just a matter of moving my SoD (Valin and Sphener + 8 mages for most of it) from one city to another. Honestly, as soon as I gave up on the Crusader civic and went back to my usual habits (heros augmented by buffs, with Maelstrom and Fireball for taking cities) then I started really liking the Bannor. They have a lot of great things going for them. Free Guardsmen promotion was awesome considering that I never had to worry about all my mages.

Haven't been very impressed with Archmages so far while playing FFH. I like mages for their spells, but by the time you get Archmages (and only 4 of them) it seems the other national units are stronger, unless you only focus on one mana type (which would hurt my ability to buff my heros).

Near the end of the game, the Barbarians were actually a big threat. They spawned a lot of Beastmasters, Marksmen, Crossbowmen (barbarian crossbowmen sounds odd), and Stoneskin Ogres. I had to divert Valin full-time to essentially bail out my frontier cities whenever a large threat would pop up.

Feedback/Comments:
* Take out the island(s). Having to build up a fleet to take out a single Judecca city took forever.
* Based on other people's replies, I'd say make sure Basium starts with a religion and won't covert to OO (which is what Keelyn was in my game). Basium was RoK in my game, which seemed like a decent fit.
* The map was too big IMHO. Remove some infernal civs and make the map smaller. And since you can't really expand past a certain point due to your economy, you have to raze cities. Except that the Infernals would sometimes resettle them. Very annoying to have to take out cities from lands you had previously conquered. I targeted any settler I saw with a vengeance!
* Ouzza (spelling?) was culturally boxed in by Hyborem the whole game, and apparently never had more than 2 cities.

 

[Corwyn]

So I've decided to write my own group "Rise of the Emerald Queen". Thessa gets revenge on Faeryl for the great ending of the Splinter Court scenario.

Sounds really neat! I really enjoyed the Splinter Court scenario -- I just wished it had been part of a continuing storyline. Can't wait to try out your scenario.

 

[alhimik]

I love this scenario. I have finished it 3 times already and now going for 4th

1st game Keelyn/Noble - I went on an easier difficulty because I was afraid that with my evil religion I will be feeding the Infernals units. And also it was the first time I played as the Balseraphs.
Had some slow early wars with swordsmen and catapults. When mages, mimics and Hemah came online (after killing the 3rd demon) it ceased to be a challenge.
I easily got the 20 promotion mimic award. Because the AI builds tons of imps and ritualists, many of my mimics had loads of spellcasting related promos. Though the only spell they got was Entropy I.

2nd game Basium/Monarch - was a slow game with a long build-up. The only game so far where my allies did anything at all. They didn't take any cities but I occasionally got some high level angels from their units dying.

Spoiler :

In this game I tried approaching Hyborem from the north. I think this can only feasibly be done with Basium. I cast his worldspell when I came within reach of Hyborems patrolling SOD. Even then it took 3 turns with my stack of 27 units to take Dis

The rest was clean-up with Ophanims and Repentant angels (I didn't reach any of the other T4s)

3rd game Capria/Emperor - surprisingly this was the easiest and shortest (188 turns 2h 56min, compared to 7h 36min with Basium and 5h 17min with Keelyn). After settling the 3rd city I built Valin and sent him into the hell part of the map. I wanted to give him Blitz so I went for that tech and also got the general, delivered to Valin by a horseman. He single-handedly destroyed 3 demonlords. Built loads of bronze chariots and a few confessors to help with the rest.
I managed to build some crusaders but they never saw action, the first ones were 1 square short of Dis on the turn I destroyed it.

I will now attempt Varn Gosam/Immortal, see how that goes

 

[Karstedt]

Are workers and settlers supposed to be disabled at some point? I can't build them since the turn 180 plague.

 

[Balzemon]

One issue I discovered is that nobody was expanding in the West. The Elohim were eliminated early and the Bannor were dropped to one city; the Balseraphs wre doing fairly well. But nobody colonized that side of the map. I guess the Bannor AI decided it needed more troops or research than settlers even with all of that open land?

I reloaded the game for about 8 turns before I won and went into the worldbuilder to see what the Bannor were doing. Their one city was producing 'research'. Not surprisingly, with one city for them and maybe 50 to 60 for me, they were way, way behind in the tech path.

So, I think the 'settler' problem is just another case of bad AI; my guess is that the AI is saying it is way down in research, so its algorithm is spitting out 'build research'. A human recognizes that no amount of research is going to catch up with one city, that there is (rare) unsettled land, and that the best way to catch up is to settle. Notice that this is not 'stupid' AI -- it is very hard for any set of equations to assess this kind of situation.

I realize this post is over a year old, but I'm sure I'm not the only one still playing these, so for future readers...

The Bannor probably cannot expand due to the Crusade civic which prevents the production of settlers and workers. The AI usually switches to it at the first opportunity and stays with it, thus stunting their growth. Normally they would be expanding up until they got the tech for Crusade, but since they start with a head start they get it much earlier in their expansion.

Are workers and settlers supposed to be disabled at some point? I can't build them since the turn 180 plague.

If you're playing as Bannor and have the Crusade civic, you will not be able to build settlers or workers. Just a guess.

 

[cypher132]

Just beat this one again. First time it took me around 600 turns, but I eventually grinded the demon lords away. I got my allies to attack by asking them to attack the capitols of the demons. Varn was able to wipe one out, the Mercurians wiped out two, Keelyn helped me destroy one and I got the rest.

The last time I decided to make it hard on myself. I moved Keelyn into the hell lands and messed with the diplomacy to make her an ally of the demons and an enemy of the Bannor, Malakim, and Mercurians. The Infernals were much stronger this time around with Keelyn opposing us. Took a lot longer, but I eventually won.

 

[Elder Methyl]

Finally won this fair and square (I cheated last time) last week as Basium/Emperyan. My economy was almost done in by the influx of new Angels, and it took a long, long, time for me to destroy the last Infernal stronghold. Thankfully, Keelyn managed to take down more Demon Lords than I did, and building the Summer Palace on Astori ligthened the maintenace burden enough for me to turn a profit (along with lowering research to 30%, which was in turn offset by my many Temples of the Emperyan).

 

[ZeroZeroSix]

That is wierd, the first time I played this scenario it was a chalenge. Now I started it many time and each time the infernals seem to have hard time doing anithing at all. They do 2 or 3 cities and camp stack of troop in each and wait for me to slauther them. All the sent to me is lonely archers and axemen, no stack of troop. It look like the AI play defence and dont expand.

 

[Lone Wolf]

Kael merged an incomplete AI mod and then declared the mod to be done. The new AI is especially bad in "always war" situations.

 

[ZeroZeroSix]

Yes, it appear the AI is camping his settlers in cities waiting for peace.