some thoughts

[Quetz]

After playing a recent game as the Sheiam, I had a few thoughts on them as a civ, as well as the Agares-demon mechanic.

First, do the Planar Gate creatures need to be so high maintenence? They are far more expensive than normal troops - in fact I often see my gold/turn jump by 2 after deleting just one Tar Demon. The whole game I was running at 40% research and still losing money (thank god for trade ships.) No wonder the Sheiam economy can't keep up with the AI! And you are paying for creatures that are usually subpar (mobius witches are nice at first but can't upgrade, and Revellers and Chaos Maruaders just suck.) Succubuses, Manticores, and Minotaurs are better, obviously, but still it seems to me that at least the lesser units should be free, like the Kahdi spawns.

Second, the demon spawns are out of control. At AC 20-30 (at 160ish turns) I had barbarian manticores, balors, and everything else spawning everywhere and wiping out practically all the AI's, and leaving the ones that survived almost unable to function. I know you can turn them off but it is a neat feature and would work a lot better if the spawn types were linked to the AC (IE no Manticores/Balors before 80/90, etc.) They also seemed to be spawning at a far higher rate than the AC would warrant at the time.

Third, what happened to Mardero's Balor summoning and Meshabber's uber Ring of Flames? I mean really, Fireball? He even has divine and can only cast... Fireball. Sad.

The game was Immortal, Quick on a Standard map, for the record. And the top AI civ was the Charadon, interestingly, with Valk's Doviello+ mod.. he dominated almost the entire game. Sadly the Malakim didn't fare so well - shortly after founding the order the holy city was annihilated by some angry Manticores.

 

[Sarisin]

After playing a recent game as the Sheiam, I had a few thoughts on them as a civ, as well as the Agares-demon mechanic.

First, do the Planar Gate creatures need to be so high maintenence? They are far more expensive than normal troops - in fact I often see my gold/turn jump by 2 after deleting just one Tar Demon. The whole game I was running at 40% research and still losing money (thank god for trade ships.) No wonder the Sheiam economy can't keep up with the AI! And you are paying for creatures that are usually subpar (mobius witches are nice at first but can't upgrade, and Revellers and Chaos Maruaders just suck.) Succubuses, Manticores, and Minotaurs are better, obviously, but still it seems to me that at least the lesser units should be free, like the Kahdi spawns.

Second, the demon spawns are out of control. At AC 20-30 (at 160ish turns) I had barbarian manticores, balors, and everything else spawning everywhere and wiping out practically all the AI's, and leaving the ones that survived almost unable to function. I know you can turn them off but it is a neat feature and would work a lot better if the spawn types were linked to the AC (IE no Manticores/Balors before 80/90, etc.) They also seemed to be spawning at a far higher rate than the AC would warrant at the time.

The game was Immortal, Quick on a Standard map, for the record. And the top AI civ was the Charadon, interestingly, with Valk's Doviello+ mod.. he dominated almost the entire game. Sadly the Malakim didn't fare so well - shortly after founding the order the holy city was annihilated by some angry Manticores.

I agree with your first point. I find myself awash in cannon fodder like Chao Marauders and Revelers, although the latter can be OK if you give them a Poison weapon. I usually end up deleting them, though, as soon as they are spawned in favor of stronger guys. I also delete Moebius witches that don't have at least 3 mana spheres when spawned.

I honestly have not seen your second point. In my games the Manticores did come almost every turn, but the AC was quite high. I do remember one game where they were spawning, but playing as the Sheaim I couldn't get a single one from my Planar Gates and I met the requirements. They were very difficult to defeat because of their flying ability and the fact of killing one only brought another usually the next turn.

I never saw any Balors, but lots of Pyre Zombies, Drown, and Azer. Those came when the AC was in the 60s, I believe and the Manticores maybe the 70-80s.

 

[Quetz]

Maybe something was wrong with mine because they were definately all over the place in the 20's in my game.

Regardless of what is spawning, the volume of it seems to be rather out of hand.

 

[Deon]

Maybe it's just not adjusted well for a quick speed? Most players play on normal/epic so they can't see your problem and complain.

 

[ICanHasName?]

I play on normal speed, immortal difficulty and I see the same thing. When hell terrain shows up in a civ's land, it dies. Then bad things happen to their neighbors, and pretty quickly drowns start walking around on the ocean and bad things start happening to everyone.

When I say die, I mean everything they have gets pilliaged, their units hide in cities, and they slowly get chewed up by demons. It might take them 100+ turns to actually be defeated, but the second a square of hell terrain starts spreading into an AI's land, its too late for them.

Its kindof fun and flavorful, but at the same time, if you are at peace with the demons all you really have to do is not die, because every other civ is slowly loosing.

 

[Quetz]

Another weird thing: Minotaurs have a bonus to city defense and 8/11 strength, yet cant take city defender promos and are useless in that capacity anyways. They can't even use metal weapons. For requiring Pass Through the Ether, that is pretty bad.

 

[Quetz]

And at 90 AC, I have yet to spawn a manticore under my control either...

 

[deadliver]

I agree that demonic spawns should be influenced by the AC. However, I also think that the spawns should be influenced by the number of specific mana nodes in the world. Entropy nodes should either empower the spawns or upgrade the spawn to the next tier regardless of the AC.

Now that would be a real reason to hate on people using entropy.

 

[WarKirby]

I've never noticed high maintenance cost for those. I do agree some of the early creatures are a bit weak, though. I'm classifying Tar Demons as Monstrous Creatures, and I'll be boosting them quite a bit when I put out my Monstrous Creatures module.

I share your opinion that the demon spawns are overpowered. Aside from the sheer numbers, the demons tend to start with3-4 free promotions. It is kind of a let down when they just annihilate everything for you.

The AI's general inability to proactively deal with demons, is a big factor here. But the ridiculous numbers, and experience level of the demons, also makes it nigh impossible for human or AI to stand up to them.

I'd personally really like to see all Agares demons have a significant strength penalty when they're outside of hell terrain -60% or so, so that they would tear apart anyone whose land fills with hell, but they wouldn't just be able to go and wipe out good nations so easily. Perhaps an autoaqquire promotion, that is aqquired on any non-hellish terrain, and has no effect initially, but degrades into the aforementioned strength penalty after 2 turns. I could possibly make a module for that, actually...

Also, Ira are horribly, horribly overpowered. I've seen a single one wipe out nations. I think their strength boost is handled in python though, which makes it hard for me to change them. Their strength goes up to a limit of 32, which is higher than most of the mega units in the game, and higher than every single civ hero except Auric Ascended.

I'd rather see Ira changed to be as follows.

1. Remove the strength boost after winning a battle.
2. Instead, have them duplicate after a battle. representing new souls joining the demonic army. Perhaps newly duplicated ones could start at str8, and become the norma strength after a kill or 2.
3. Remove the ability for them to heal naturally, entirely. But give them a +20% after battle heal rate, so that they can more easily be worn down.



As to Mardero, he's a disciple unit, so he has Command promos, and also the entire Entropy Spellsphere. Unless you're fighting non-living enemies, Wither is an incredible spell. I don't think mardero needs anything except a better model.

Meshabber however, is pitiful, I agre. I'm Boosting him in Monstrous Creatures too. he'll be getting all AV priest spells, and the Fire/Entropy spheres.

 

[Sarisin]

I definitely agree with you on the demon spawn. Getting Manticores EACH TURN with many promotions is very tough to defend. They fly into your territory and decimate any improvements. It is impossible to bring them down with a single Tier IV unit (if you are lucky enough to have any) and most heroes. The Azers also could be tough, but the Manticores are over the top, IMO.

The Iras are bad if you have the unfortunate luck of being anywhere near the Avatar when he spawns. The Iras keep coming until you are dead. I was building Rangers in my cities every turn and it took 3-4 to kill each Ira. What a tedious exercise as the Iras just kept coming - strong and with promotions.

Of course, the solution to all this is to make peace with the demons, but that is not always easy depending on the civ you are playing and who wants to sacrifice a city if you only have a few? The AI, of course, is clueless to that ritual and gets mowed down in short order by Iras and Manticores.

I guess Armageddon IS supposed to be bad, but in FF it is very, very tough! Add to this that most of your units have scurried away (from Enraged) or been killed (at AC 100) and it is a mess.

 

[deadliver]

2. Instead, have them duplicate after a battle. representing new souls joining the demonic army. Perhaps newly duplicated ones could start at str8, and become the norma strength after a kill or 2.

I like this idea but the avatar should spawn a lot of them when he appears to make sure at least a few survive to create more. Or the avatar could spawn iras each turn he manages to survive. That could flood the map with these guys, a cooler representation of the end time than fighting the same rat *&*)(&)! each turn with a str of 32

 

[WarKirby]

Iras aren't just due to the avatar of wrath. In a game I'm currently playing, I had to quickly assemble an army to kill a str32 Ira at AC 45

Luckily, it being a team game, we rushed righteousness, and I had 3 angels (sphener, brigit, sabathiel) and a ton of paladins.But it was still a tough little thing.

str 32 is a really ludicrous value for a unit that can be spawned endlessly. That's stronger than all the dragons in FF, and only slightly weaker than the Avatar of Wrath himself.

 

[deadliver]

Iras aren't just due to the avatar of wrath. In a game I'm currently playing, I had to quickly assemble an army to kill a str32 Ira at AC 45

Luckily, it being a team game, we rushed righteousness, and I had 3 angels (sphener, brigit, sabathiel) and a ton of paladins.But it was still a tough little thing.

str 32 is a really ludicrous value for a unit that can be spawned endlessly. That's stronger than all the dragons in FF, and only slightly weaker than the Avatar of Wrath himself.

Huh. I appear to be missing out on the AC goodness. (I mean yeah I did dwarven slinger Buboes to death and started hunting Stephanos for his crown) but I have not encountered Iras, Minotaurs or manticores spawning. What settings should I try for a real nasty experience? I tend to stick to Prince because my civ skills are kinda laughable...though I have gotten a few victories now maybe I should try the next difficulty. I've had ac 90+ but that was several patches ago (both in FFH and FF).

Something as nasty as an Ira shouldn't appear before AC 50 at least, though I thought they were supposed to be the personal attack dogs of the Avatar.

 

[WarKirby]

I've never seen a minotaur. Like ever. I opened the model in nifscope just to see what it looked like yesterday. They're pretty good actually.

I'm fairly sure Minotaurs don't spawn as part of the AC. Or maybe it's just that they have such a high tech requirement.

And I've never played a Sheiam game far enough tog et some of my own.

 

[deadliver]

They are cool looking, a look alike for the Dragonlance minotaurs basically.

I spawned one once, a looooong time ago.

 

[Sarisin]

Huh. I appear to be missing out on the AC goodness. (I mean yeah I did dwarven slinger Buboes to death and started hunting Stephanos for his crown) but I have not encountered Iras, Minotaurs or manticores spawning. What settings should I try for a real nasty experience? I tend to stick to Prince because my civ skills are kinda laughable...though I have gotten a few victories now maybe I should try the next difficulty. I've had ac 90+ but that was several patches ago (both in FFH and FF).

Something as nasty as an Ira shouldn't appear before AC 50 at least, though I thought they were supposed to be the personal attack dogs of the Avatar.

I play at Prince and there is plenty of "goodness" to be found if you get the AC up high and hell terrain spreads.

WarKirby, what could have brought the Ira at AC 45?

I have only seen them when the Avatar appears at AC 90.

I agree that is out of whack if they show up that soon.

 

[WarKirby]

WarKirby, what could have brought the Ira at AC 45?

I'm not sure, but it was Age 42, str 32, and had Combat V plus a ton of other promotions. So it was quite old.

 

[Quetz]

If you haven't noticed the high maintenence, you must not have played them enough. It is almost ludicrous. I deleted a tar demon earler and went up 3 gold/turn. Tried some Diseased Corpses and no change. A reveler got me another gold/turn. The spawned creatures definately cost more than normal troops.

If you don't believe it, just start a sheiam game and test it yourself.

 

[xienwolf]

What type of demons you see depends on what branch of the tech tree you go down. Since we are still needing some work on the AI to get them to tech better, it is essentially player progress only which controls the demons (they gain techs which other people know at a rate depending on your difficulty level and how many people know that tech. Eventually it will also depend on the alignment of the people who know the tech as well)

 

[Sarisin]

What type of demons you see depends on what branch of the tech tree you go down. Since we are still needing some work on the AI to get them to tech better, it is essentially player progress only which controls the demons (they gain techs which other people know at a rate depending on your difficulty level and how many people know that tech. Eventually it will also depend on the alignment of the people who know the tech as well)

But, xienwolf, I think there is a problem with the Manticores specifically. I had ALL the techs researched and could not spawn a Manticore with about 10 Planar Gates. However, the AI was spawning them quite frequently.

Also, there is a question brought up in this and other threads concerning the type and strength of demons that spawn fairly early on. While they can be a nuisance to the human player they pretty much spell doom for the AI civs. Again, I think the chief culprits are the Manticores which are powerful, come early, and are spawned very frequently.