Mulcarn Reborn Feedback

[BLubmuz]

Alright, completed all scenarios.
Mulcarn is tough, since you always take the lowest score leader.
I started with Falamar and he was first until the last change: he never built naval units, and he's got all the ports and nets pillaged by barbs.
My last set was with Capria, and her cannons and demagogs took easily Garduk, then it was a matter of time to win before next change.

 

[Valerarren]

I just finished this on patch y, Monarch difficulty. I'm actually surprised as to how easy this scenario was (at least compared to against the wall). Decius was Malakim.

Here's roughly what I did. I made each of my allies found a religion off the bat. And then as I was transferred around, I tried to time techs so I could make sure they built appropriate religious heroes, etc (the computer seemed to use the Malakim Chalid quite well, he had the Decius great general + the nether blade). When I took control of a civ, I made sure to use the time to capture barb cities / build it's own cities in good locations.

A couple times the AI threatened the Bannor or the Hippus, but I was able to send troops (for example, an army of of Cultists / Drown / Stygian guards, or an army of Rathas) to help out.

I do wonder as to the AI build choices though. Why are people spamming Fawn's when they can build champions? Rhoanna, you just lost two cities, maybe you should stop building wonders and start building champions or horse archers?

And strategy, Falamar, you have this huge army of stygian guards, which can walk on water, and they are just sitting in your cities. The hippus could really use your help right now... Rhoanna, you have 10 units sitting happily in a city that isn't being attacked, and the Illians just took out 3 of your other cities, maybe you should consider moving a large part that stack to intercept...?

I of course was also frustrated by what the AI was doing with it's workers (why exactly are you building forts adjacent to our own cities).

The other thing I found frustrating is that it seemed very hard (due to all the switching) to pop GP properly (and then use them as I wanted).

In some ways I was disappointed that the AI didn't send Drifa the white ravaging my lands (or have Auric Ascend). Maybe I should have just tried it at a higher difficulty? At the very least, they probably should coordinate attacks against a random civ (maybe also for 40 turns?)

 

[Ksi]

Haven't finished this yet. I'm playing on immortal and I managed to knock off two of the Illian commanders and the doviello using an early war-cry and then vampies + decius + netherblade to take a chunk out of auric and the elves. Auric is now down to one city which I keep pillaging. I don't have anything past champions yet though. Are there events that trigger or am I just going to kill the dragon and win? I loved the starting story but this is by far the easiest scenario I've played. I expected it to be full of blizzards and whatnot!

edit: I felt kind of sorry for the doviello...

 

[jprc]

Make sure you have some time free and a cup of warm cocoa handy before starting this scenario.

Cold chocolate milk for me, by the litre...
My feeling? A very boring scenario (opposed to other scenarii, all enjoyable) l!!...
(I have not played all yet, I play from top to bottom)

I explain myself

1- I spent 8h30 doing what I am required to do in my job for about 20 years. Do you have fun feeling at work?
I work as technical assistance in poor and/or post/pre war countries. I am a couple of years minimum in a place (mostly Africa), and I am supposed to organize and restructure various areas, mostly at governemental levels. The BIG problem in most countries I work/worked is that, as soon as the T.A. leaves, everything collapse (reasons why are not much the point here...). An another T.A. is then hired by another Donor for redoing the job. And they leave after 6 months or 2 years, and it collapses again... and ... and ... after tens of years redoing what had been done before, you are just left with the feeling that you have a leaking bucket of water for crossing a desert.
This scenario just did that. You spend your time redoing what you did when you left a civilization and undoing wrong things, such as stupid workers with their HORRIBLE forts !!!, refocusing on where you were when you left, etc...

2- It does not do what it says! We are informed that we will have to take charge of the weakest faction. Wrong. At the end of the 46 turns, even if you are still the weakest faction, you are just assigned somewhere else, i.e. the faction just on top of you. VERY frustrating when you try to recover a weak faction and want to have a strategy that makes senses.

3- Agressive civilization? Not really. as you are already at war with the other team, I am afraid the agressivity factor is gone. They (both team) do not attack more than usual, and it is not much destabilized, and I now regrets Perpentach in another scenario when we were always on the edge. Here, everything is way to predicable and annoying. Built, then go to another place, and build, then do the same somewhere else if you are lucky and/or rebuild, etc... Meanwhile, as you are making a round table with your civs, you necessarily end up surrounding the other team, and everything becomes long and predictable. You just have to do all the micromanagement job and be patient

4- Too much micromanagement in this game due to points 1 and 2.

5- Way too much Mithril and Gunpowder! I think evryone can get some. pointless. 1 resource was enough, and if possible placed in a common area between civilizations...

6- Lanum is way too well protected, with way too much potential land, and incredibly lazy for doing any sea invasion. They are also sure that they will never be invaded.

My suggestions:
1- Exchange the starting position between Delcius and xxx (in orange). For avoiding the logical surrounding position and watch your back somehow. Why not on the large island east of Lanum? 2 teams are then even concerning the sea access.
2- Add a non playing Perpentach (on an island surrounded by ice?), and have him deciding the number of turns you have got, randomized from 20 to 100. You need to have won the scenario where he decides of who is at war. Have him also sometimes and randomly taking his toll for his work, such as money (random amount or %), or research points, or even units!
3- kill all workers who even think about building a fort! (seriously, how come there is no patch stopping them from building this when automated, i.e. when monitored by another civilization?). If a fort is built, the worker dies.
4- start the game with "end of winter". it sounds logical with the storyline I guess...
5- 1 mithril placed in the center/center-north of the map, 1 gunpowder placed in an island south east of the mainland (for being half way between lanum and the orange civ, if the orange civ is switched with decius)
6- The island just south of Lanum should have a narrow connection with the mainland with
7- Gartuk, Aulric's capital, should be surrounded by a lake (or mountains), with access through 1 cell. Gartuk should also be a 3 squares city. Afterall, it is a main goal with their guarding dragon...
8- If the lanum/bannor/... team becomes globally stronger that the Ilian team, then the Dragon is awaken, i.e. gets the right to move... and destroy...
9- bring in Acheron, the mother of all dragons! And put him right where mithril and/or gunpowder is (c.f. sugg 5)! After all, the Illians can have attracted Acheron with their Dragon spell!...


Concerning the story line, it is great (as usual), and the only good moment I had with this scenario is when I red the final story...

 

[iffi]

By that I mean the mechanic that puts you in control of the weakest link of your team after 40 or so turns. Because that was the most fun for me in this rather enjoyable scenario.

Such fun to try to guide the AI to do as well as possible, I even managed to point them the way to succesful multi-city conquests.

So any hidden options to enable this? And instructions how to manage it..

 

[KnightBoat]

I just beat this scenario, and like everyone else, I found the constant switching really frustrating. But I have one question about this one...

Spoiler :

Can the Illians build Auric Ascended? By the time I won, they hadn't quite got to T4 units yet, but I was expecting the mother of all battles, and was a bit disappointed? Best I got was a Paladin beating Drifa with a 4.7% win chance!

 

[MagisterCultuum]

No one can ever "build" Auric Ascended, as he is created in python through a ritual. They can build this ritual, but they don't seem very focused on doing so. I had to give them a lot of techs and a lot of great people in Worldbuilder and still wait 100 turns for one of the minor leaders to finish it.

The mortal Auric unit does not get removed when the god enters the game.


In my version, I changed it so that the Ascension Ritual upgrades Auric to Auric Ascended (meaning you can't use it until you build Auric, or if Auric dies, but letting Auric Ascended benefit from promotions gained before ascention), and removes the held promotion. Stir from Slumber can also be used in the scenario again, not to get a second dragon but to remove Held from the one you already have.

 

[dyx]

I found the scenario quite nice, but then I hadn't finished some others, so I only had Hippus, Bannor and Lanun (which were like non-existant, just keeping to their isles). And the Hippus were weak, I took the starting Horseman to harass the nearest Illian, to have the AI kill it in a futile attack, later on barely holding out (I had to retake some cities and actually defend the borders with more than one unit). The Bannor were weak too, but because they always do they built a lot of units which I just used to roll over the enemy.
Anyways, if you play it with less civs, it's harder.

 

[KnightBoat]

I found the scenario quite nice, but then I hadn't finished some others, so I only had Hippus, Bannor and Lanun (which were like non-existant, just keeping to their isles). And the Hippus were weak, I took the starting Horseman to harass the nearest Illian, to have the AI kill it in a futile attack, later on barely holding out (I had to retake some cities and actually defend the borders with more than one unit). The Bannor were weak too, but because they always do they built a lot of units which I just used to roll over the enemy.
Anyways, if you play it with less civs, it's harder.

I think I'd prefer it with less civs, cos I'd have more control over them that way! It's frustrating being stuck out with the Lanun while the Bannor manage to make no ground with Donal, Valin and sphener.

 

[AAA]

Hi, I'm having real problems with this scenario. It continually cuts out on me with the "this program is having a problem and must shut down". I have restarted it four times, loaded auto saves to try to finish it, but it is going to be a long one, so I don't think that I'll be able to finish it that way.

Is anyone else having problems? All of the other scenarios worked fine.

 

[Kiwi Tyrant]

I'm having real problem's too. It's a different problem, and it's pissing me off as this is the last scenario in the Auric campaign. I NEED to know the conclusion! Everything run's smoothly, but when my allies uncover the enemy cities, I see that they're on size 20+ because of the obscene tile bonuses from ice. It's only turn 30! I don't know if this is a bug, or it's meant to be, but I'm just getting badly caned as I try get into the game.

9 off an unimproved ice tile!? Another city was getting 1, 8, 1 off a mined hill!?
I've included a s/s of one of the cities as an example, without spoiling anything....

 

[Senethro]

This scenario looks much different than I remember it being. I've only played the first turn of this different version and am wondering where Decius is.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

It was changed so that Decius would enter 5 turns in (I think) instead of being there at the start. This was a fairly early change, and the whole map has been replaced since then (mostly to stop Volanna from having her capital on an ocean tile, I think).

 

[Kiwi Tyrant]

Yes, Decius kick's in about turn 5.

Can anyone else confirm that the Illian's are getting obscene tile bonuses in this scenario. Is it broken, is it supposed to be, or is it just me?

 

[Corwyn]

Just finished this scenario -- seems like most of the complaints have been addressed since the Lanun don't start on an island and, well, I had fun!

I started with the Lanun on the coast, quickly built some ports, and explored as much as I could. The lanun are just incredible when it comes to tech'ing and to economy! In fact, after that early build up (and an attack or two on the neighboring foe) I never played the Lanun again -- they quickly established themselves as the dominant force and never looked back.

I rushed for RoK, and tried to spread it as much as possible. Eventually all of my allies got it, and that really helped out with their economies as well. The Auric alliance didn't have any religion at all (which makes sense) until much later when one of them finally got OO. Gave me an appreciation for how powerful religion can be to your growing empire.

Next move was over to Decius (as Malakim), who really needed some help expanding. I think they had only 2 cities. I built him up as well.

This trend continued (next with Capria/Bannor). Unlike some other posters, I actually really enjoyed taking over an empire and fixing it. It's fun to play the under-dog that comes out ahead!

My normal strategy for scenarios is hero-based, by which I have one or two heroes and build them up (with some supporting units) so that they become massively promoted and can single-handedly take out cities. This time I knew that the AI would likely lose the heroes as soon as I switched out (and indeed quite a few heroes did die this way), so instead I focused on getting a strong group of regular units. Meaning focusing on Iron then Mithril, getting Shield of Faith, some Mage buffs, etc. Worked out pretty well in hindsight.

The only bad part is that due to the Lanun quickly taking over their side of the continent, yet Drifa being in the middle of the map, the Lanun would repeatedly smash themselves against Drifa and die. By the time I was well into "cleanup mode" and looking at taking out Drifa, it was an absolute beast! Drifa had just about every imaginable promotion.

I got my best shot with Capria, rushing my catapults and Paladins against Drifa... and they all perished. Drifa was truly powerful. And then I got switched to Hippus. So I figured I would focus on cleaning out the rest of the Auric alliance before focusing on the sole remaining Auric city and Drifa. By this time I decided to convert the Hippus to OO, and I figured that I'd abuse that nice little lake next to Drifa with Tsunami

By the time I was finally ready, Drifa had grown stronger. And it turns out that both Tsunami and Maelstrom were having no effect on Drifa. So I charged with an absolutely massive army, figuring out that sheer numbers would bring Drifa down... until I realized that the Hippus didn't have access to Courage, and so they were all too afraid to attack. No problem... I'll build up a Flesh Golem. After summoning some Krakens and finally getting a Flesh Golem with 16/19 strength I checked the odds... I had a success rate of 12.8% and a retreat rate of 45%

The very next round, the AI Malakim won the scenario for me. A bit of a anti-climax, really. Apparently a single Malakim Paladin, with less than 26 xp, had managed to somehow kill Drifa. I guess the AI finally threw enough stuff at Drifa that it eventually got lucky.

Oh well. It was at the very least a truly unique experience (I'm still very new to FFH, having only done the scenarios) and I've loved all the scenarios so far!

Great job!

 

[Aaginor]

I just tried this scenario with Patch 'j' and it became unplayable because of the AI. With patch d, this scenario teached you how worse the AI really plays, because you see the results of the AI when you take over ... I was looking forward to try this Scenario (I really like the feeling of a "hotfixer" when playing.) with the AI patch ... but it made it completely unplayable (I tried it on Emperor) for me: The reason is very simple: The AI is producing warrior after warrior ... nothing but warriors. With the 3rd switch in game, the civ I took over had that much warriors, that it can't even afford them any longer. Besides, one enemy civ was already killed ... by babarians. And the AI placed the second city VERY close to the capital (3 intersecting tiles in the fat crosses) even with plenty of space.
Is there any chance, this behaviour will get fixed? I'd really like to play this scenario, but atm it is no fun at all.

 

[sty]

I have the exact same problem with the Civs when I take them over. They won't do anything but make warriors. At first I thought maybe something with the game was messed up so I reinstalled everything from scratch. After the reinstall thought it was the same thing. When I took over the 3rd Civ they had produced so many warriors they were broke with 0% science. I used the stack to attack an enemy Civ taking their city. I then looked at the other enemy Civs and noticed they hadn't settled any other towns. At this state the scene is just unplayable. With every computer controlled Civ just spamming warriors the scene isnt worth playing.

I am currently going back and playing the other scenes again to see if they also have the same issue.

 

[Nikis-Knight]

Someone else reported the same problem when the ai was set to always war. That seems to have been overlooked in the new ai logic.

 

[sty]

I would agree with the "always war" having an effect. I played most of the scenes and it was occurring whenever the AI was at war early. I even started a custom game with "always war" on with teams. The problem occurred again tho when I declared war on the computer right from the outset. It just seems like the computer is giving all of its priority to producing the cheapest unit possible at times of war.

Interestingly when i played The Splintered Court one of the "good" AI team members over produced until they were broke. Were the orange color themed AI member did watch his economy some and while he produced a lot of warriors he was growing and had some variety in his units.

Also it might just be me but it seems like the Barbs which should be "always at war" are better than ever at causing me grief and eliminating computer AI civs with frequency. I don't know if any tweaks were made to the barbs with the AI changes or not with patch J.

 

[Veqryn]

i beat all the requirements for thsi scenario (beat against the grey as calabim), BUT I only have 3 people to choose from: Bannor, Lanun, Hippus.
I am guessing I can also get the elves by doing the elf scenario, but how do i get decius into this scenario? Also, is lanun supposed to begin on an island, cus he didn't...