Sheim Bugs or Features?

[Arumath]

Hello all, I've been playing the Grigori on a huge Erebus map and I've encountered a couple of odd occurances that I'm not sure if they are bugs or features of the Sheim. I don't know much about them as I've never played them.

So somewhere around turn 200 (normal) I encountered the Sheim and immediately declared war on them to win diplomatic brownie points with my freinds the Ljosalfar. Next turn I finish the Guild of the Nine and suddenly notice that the city that built it was at 3 population when it had been at 9 or 10. I checked the rest of my empire and all my citries had lost major population chunks, one went from 10 to 1. River of blood had been cast a long time ago so I knew it wasn't that. I went to the turn log and all i could find was some death damage to my troops a few turns ago that I'd somehow missed. There are no Sheim troops anywhere near my realm it would have taken their Galley'[s almost 30 turns to get to my shores anyway. I've never been at war with anyone else except for wiping out my first neighbor the Elohim. I'm guessing they did some sort of ritual or something that didn't show up in the turn summary. I ended up using the WBS to fix my populations.

The other thing I encountered was much later in my game Just before going to bed last night I decided to test and see how well my heroes would do as shock troops to establish a beachhead while the galleons were ferrying the army over from the Ljos shores. My hereos quickly snatched a coastal city and all was good. Then the next turn or so later my mage hero suddenly couldn't cast any spells the icons were just gone. All he had were the icons for promotions he had available. I was saving thel ast 2 for when I get Archmages. I went into the WBS and check him over thoroughly there were no negative promotions or anything I could find that would indicat a prolem like some sort of silence spell or something. I didn't save it so I'll see if it repeats today.

I apreciate any input on this very much

Yeehaw time to smash the ?Sheim!

GAME ON!!

 

[Jarrema]

Reason of the first thing that You descirbed is: Blight!
It has nothing (oh, I'm overestimating) to do with Sheaims. It happens to ALL civs when Armageddon Counter (AC) reaches 30. Then all living units take some damage, and all cities have huge penalty to their health, so typically they start to starve (especially if You do not have a lot of buildings that increase health, like granaries, herbalisits, etc)
Sheaim can be "responsuible" for this, because maybe they rised AC

Second thing: Do You have Amurites in Your game? It could be their worldspell - it prevents casting

 

[DemonMaster]

When the Armageddon Counter hits 30, a special event called Blight happens. It causes temporary large disease penalties in every non-infernal city in the world. This will cause cities (especially large one) to loose population points. It will decrease back to normal over time. The event also casue Death Based Damage to all living units.

I think there is a normal event (but I can't remember now) that do the same thing but not that harsh. Someone else better comment on this.

There is a civic (for AV followers) called Sacrifice the Weak (or something like that) that helps some to endure the blight.


The no magic thing is a world spell cast by Amurites. It will last 20 turns (look at the red text above the AI civ list to the right) and stops all spells (or spell-like abilities) except for Amuritians.

 

[Arumath]

Is there a numerical or graphical representation of the AC somewhere on screen I havne't seen it?

Strange I don't ever remember encountering the blight before or maybe I had more health buildings hmm. Oddly they didn't continue to starve after I reset the populations...

On the second item it was the Amurites, well that's a double edged sword for my war effort, how long does that last on a huge map is it 60 turns?

Thank you!

Edit: Does the Amurite world spell stop piyre zombies effects? that would make my war effort much easier. as I don't have life mana

 

[DemonMaster]

The ring in the attachement is the Armageddon Counter. It is a percentage score (100 = Apocaplyse). X is where the red text should be if the Amuritian Worldspell is cast (or the Illian stasis spell).

Spells that need to be cast are stopped.

 

[Arumath]

Ah thank you much!

DANG the AC is at 61!

 

[Onionsoilder]

Yeah, the AC is pretty important. When it hits 10, you will get a message about whispers and such, but there is no real effect. At 30, Blight hits, which causes a large % of death damage to all living units. Usually they can heal back up, but if they're already wounded they can be killed. At 40 Stephanos spawns, who is a powerful barbarian unit that can turn your own units into barbarians. He is one of the 4 horsemen of the Apocalypse. At 50, 60 and 70, the other 3 spawn, each with their own special abilities. At 80... I think the hellfire appears, which spawns barbarian/infernal Champion units. 90 brings the Avatar of Wrath, and 100 is the Apocalypse.

AC is raised in one of these major ways, though there are other ways:
1) Razing a city. Larger population, higher the AC rises.
2) Spreading the Ashen Veil religion to a city.
3) Sheaim completing their Elegy ritual.
4) Units being created in the city with the Prophecy of Ragnarok.
5) Special units being summoned/buildings built, such as Hyborem or Basium.

AC is lowered by:
1) Sanctifying city ruins. Unlike razing a city which increases by city size, this only lowers the Ac a small amount.
2) Removing AV from a city, either from Inquisition or Razing. Cities with AV that are razed lower the Ac instead of raising it, but it does not scale with population size.
3) the Elohim completing the Hallowing of the Elohim ritual.
4) Units with the Prophecy Mark(from the Prophecy of Rangarok) being killed.
5) Special units being summoned/buildings built.

 

[Arumath]

Okay new question how the heck do you stop these new stacks of doom i've got a stack containing 64 pyre zombies coming at me!

 

[Onionsoilder]

The best way is to have a caster with Life II use Destroy Undead. 4-5 castings(needing 4-5 casters) will destroy all 64 in a single turn. Otherwise, you can try hit-and-run tactics with high movement units like Horse Archers so you don't suffer as much collateral damage, expendable summons like Hosts of the Einherjar, immobilizing spells like Slow or Blinding Light, try and use units with Fire Resistance... There are several ways to deal with them, but you have to be prepared. It's hard to set up a counter to pyre zombies on the fly.

 

[Emptiness]

If I see that the Sheaim are in the game (but far enough away that I can't rush them effectively) then I try to get access to Priests quickly, and build a lot of them. I promote them with Combat I-III, Magic Resistance, and then Fire Resistance. This gives them base strength 5 and 70% resistance to fire. A Pyre Zombie with bronze weapons will have strength 5 (effectively 4.3 thanks to my fire resistance), so the Priests will do okay on attack or defense. The main advantage is that 70% fire resistance means that most Pyre Zombie explosions will will only do 0-2 points of damage (out of 100) to the Priests in my stack. This makes it possible to stand up to the Pyre Zombies in a fight, provided you have a similar number of Priests and there are not too many Pyre Zombies all at once. For a stack of 64 Pyre Zombies you would need to try to split the stack up, or start with hit-and-run attacks.