The Cult feedback
- Thread starter Kael
- Start date
Love
Deity
This is just awesome, i got a hunter and captured a griffin. Then i could fly around in the dungeon and out to the other side and rape kuriotates settlements with a griffin and no he's lvl 9 and i got two cities at the other side without having explored the dungeon, while Sheaim and kurio is killing eachother dragons and having fun.
It will be fixed in the next patch.
Ambreville
Deity
Great scenario -- thank you!
There are some bugs that I haven't been able to trace. I've have 5-6 CtD's in about 400 turns, not counting the four attempts at getting the scenario started (despite the initial "dual-map protocol"). Unfortunately, I've not been able to trace the problems (could not reproduce the issue after reloading). I got two CtD's while attempting to attack barb units in the tunnel, trying to construct a building in my capital, another while simply scrolling through the map. I suspect another CtD happened when Doviello summoned their wolves.
There were a couple of Python errors (but I accidentally wiped out my python error log). IIRC, one had to do with a Sanctify spell, the other was either a map issue or something that had to do with the screen interface. Sorry. I'll post them if I run into these same problems again.
A bogus red dot appears underneath the tag "Hit Enter to End Turn", at the bottom center of the map screen. I thought at first it was the tip of a unit's flag, but it's not. The red dot sits under the tag line even when I scroll through the map.
The "teleport wonder" (whatever it's called -- the Nexus?) wasn't available, even though I could build the individual portals.
There are some bugs that I haven't been able to trace. I've have 5-6 CtD's in about 400 turns, not counting the four attempts at getting the scenario started (despite the initial "dual-map protocol"). Unfortunately, I've not been able to trace the problems (could not reproduce the issue after reloading). I got two CtD's while attempting to attack barb units in the tunnel, trying to construct a building in my capital, another while simply scrolling through the map. I suspect another CtD happened when Doviello summoned their wolves.
There were a couple of Python errors (but I accidentally wiped out my python error log). IIRC, one had to do with a Sanctify spell, the other was either a map issue or something that had to do with the screen interface. Sorry. I'll post them if I run into these same problems again.
A bogus red dot appears underneath the tag "Hit Enter to End Turn", at the bottom center of the map screen. I thought at first it was the tip of a unit's flag, but it's not. The red dot sits under the tag line even when I scroll through the map.
The "teleport wonder" (whatever it's called -- the Nexus?) wasn't available, even though I could build the individual portals.
Love
Deity
when i played i didn't get any ctd's at all
MagisterCultuum
Great Sage
I've played this one several times and quite like it, but it could use some improvement. I cheated significantly when playing as the Doviello and Hippus, but have played as Auric more often, once without any cheating. (Once I only cheated to deal with Minister Koun. He had split of from Tasunke and controlled the territory of the Pass itself, and could not be convinced to let us pass though his territory. Since the permanent war and peace option is set in this scenario, there wasn't much I could do.)
The scenario seems slightly too easy, imho. The Pristin(us) Pass seems to easy to find. I'd rather there be a longer, winding path though the mountains with some false leads, more Guardians, and more of an enemy presence between you and the Pass. I think it would be better if most of the enemies' cities were on the same side of the mountain as you. In fact, it seems a little odd that these empires could have settled in the storage place of the gods at all. I'm tempted to say that there should be nothing north of the mountains than a wasteland, The Dragon Bones, 3 live dragons, and maybe some other beasts like Gurid and Margalard. (I also tend to think that the dragons themselves should be much stronger, at least having Blitz.)
At first I thought that the portals were really cool, but they annoy me now. I find the need to cast the enter portal spell an annoying bit of micromanagement. At the very least it needs to be <bIgnoreHasCasted>1 instead of <bHasCasted>1. I think it would be much better to instead have a <PythonOnMove> call that transports any unit that moves there to the proper exit. Also, the Portal graphics really don't fit the decor of a mountain pass. It isn't like you are supposed to be teleporting though another dimension, just going underground. I think they should be changed to just look like a stone archway like in AoI or a doorway like in the dungeon portion.
The Hippus seem very strong in this scenario. They can quickly overrun the Barbarian and Kuriotates cities south of the mountains to develop a large and thriving empire and have a good research rate.
The Doviello are weak. Like in the main game, they need to expand early to do well, but they are in no position to expand. They've never actually been defeated in my games because of help from the Illians and Hippus, but they only really expand by having cities gifted to them and they tend to stagnate. They can barely defend themselves from the Sheaim, much less take over them like the Hippus do the Kuriotates. I (as Auric) also end up having to build most of the improvements in the Doviello lands. The Hippus capture several workers from the barbarians and Kuriotates, while the Doviello have to build their own and loose several to the Sheaim.
Things might work better if the Doviello and Hippus (or Kuriotates and Sheaim) switched places.
The Illian capital seems like it is in a bad spot to me. I despise having cities 1 tile away from a river. It was enough to make me learn how to edit scenarios in notepad to move the city 1 tile to the west.
(While I was at it, I also decided to place the Auric unit in the game. I'm surprised we haven't seen more of him in the scenarios. It seems to me that all the Auric scenarios should include the unit and require you keep him alive. I then decided to make it so that when Auric reaches the Dragon's Bones he destroys the improvement and brings Drifa back to life. I'm considering making Tasunke be a vassal instead of a permanent ally and having his loose his traits and declare war on you when raise Drifa, to fit with the story revealed at the end. I was also thinking that bringing Auric to Drifa's bones would be a good victory condition, but then I realized that this would make it just about impossible to win if the human was playing as the Hippus or Doviello.)
The scenario seems slightly too easy, imho. The Pristin(us) Pass seems to easy to find. I'd rather there be a longer, winding path though the mountains with some false leads, more Guardians, and more of an enemy presence between you and the Pass. I think it would be better if most of the enemies' cities were on the same side of the mountain as you. In fact, it seems a little odd that these empires could have settled in the storage place of the gods at all. I'm tempted to say that there should be nothing north of the mountains than a wasteland, The Dragon Bones, 3 live dragons, and maybe some other beasts like Gurid and Margalard. (I also tend to think that the dragons themselves should be much stronger, at least having Blitz.)
At first I thought that the portals were really cool, but they annoy me now. I find the need to cast the enter portal spell an annoying bit of micromanagement. At the very least it needs to be <bIgnoreHasCasted>1 instead of <bHasCasted>1. I think it would be much better to instead have a <PythonOnMove> call that transports any unit that moves there to the proper exit. Also, the Portal graphics really don't fit the decor of a mountain pass. It isn't like you are supposed to be teleporting though another dimension, just going underground. I think they should be changed to just look like a stone archway like in AoI or a doorway like in the dungeon portion.
The Hippus seem very strong in this scenario. They can quickly overrun the Barbarian and Kuriotates cities south of the mountains to develop a large and thriving empire and have a good research rate.
The Doviello are weak. Like in the main game, they need to expand early to do well, but they are in no position to expand. They've never actually been defeated in my games because of help from the Illians and Hippus, but they only really expand by having cities gifted to them and they tend to stagnate. They can barely defend themselves from the Sheaim, much less take over them like the Hippus do the Kuriotates. I (as Auric) also end up having to build most of the improvements in the Doviello lands. The Hippus capture several workers from the barbarians and Kuriotates, while the Doviello have to build their own and loose several to the Sheaim.
Things might work better if the Doviello and Hippus (or Kuriotates and Sheaim) switched places.
The Illian capital seems like it is in a bad spot to me. I despise having cities 1 tile away from a river. It was enough to make me learn how to edit scenarios in notepad to move the city 1 tile to the west.
(While I was at it, I also decided to place the Auric unit in the game. I'm surprised we haven't seen more of him in the scenarios. It seems to me that all the Auric scenarios should include the unit and require you keep him alive. I then decided to make it so that when Auric reaches the Dragon's Bones he destroys the improvement and brings Drifa back to life. I'm considering making Tasunke be a vassal instead of a permanent ally and having his loose his traits and declare war on you when raise Drifa, to fit with the story revealed at the end. I was also thinking that bringing Auric to Drifa's bones would be a good victory condition, but then I realized that this would make it just about impossible to win if the human was playing as the Hippus or Doviello.)
Lade
Prince
The ending annoyed me, Auric keeps killing all the cool leaders, but yet never the annoying brat-child ones *cough*Keelyn*cough*
CarnivalBizarre
Warlord
Yeah, and it's not that logical that he need tasunke to be dragon food when in the last scenario we captured drawf kings to the right and left. Sacrificing and ally that has horsehockyloads of troops just outside is.... just stupid. But that's how it goes.
The scenario otherwise was so and so, Im amazed wilboman could even walk in the dungeon being all lava and such...
Switchblock
Kuriotate Scholar
If you play as the Doviello and just mooch off of Tasunke The War Machine isn't that hard to get to, I used that to take down everyone. Took me forever, but I hate cheating and I already started the game, no turning back from there!
Actually, it makes tons of sence to get rid of Tasunke, he may be a mercenary, but he's not that stupid, he's seen enough to get himself hired by another civ before all the Hippus become slaves to Mulcarn.
Actually, it makes tons of sence to get rid of Tasunke, he may be a mercenary, but he's not that stupid, he's seen enough to get himself hired by another civ before all the Hippus become slaves to Mulcarn.
I played this as Illians (Monarch), I was suprised by how amazingly good Tasunke was on this map. He quickly covered 3/4's of our space south of the mountains, I was lucky to grab spots for a couple more cities before he settled everything. The Doviello completely stagnated, spending most of the game with one city, no worker, no improvement except those I built for him to access the unused rare resources in his territory, eventually he built an additional city by which time Tasunke had 8 or 10.
The entire game I was wondering what the point of my allies were, exactly, since they're obviously not bright enough to cross the dungeon and all the bad guys seemed to be in the dungeon or on the other side of the mountains, leaving me to deal with them alone. It wasn't until after winning and watching the replay that I realized there had, in fact, been Kuri and Sheaim cities south of the mountains which my good friend Tasunke conquered so quickly that I never even saw them. I don't know, the AI usually isn't that good in my experience, it seems like there must be something imbalanced about the Hippus in general or their starting position in this scenario or the combination of both. Same goes for the Doviello, except the opposite, the AI isn't usually that abysmally bad either. Probably wouldn't hurt to make the southern Kuri and Sheaim cities a bit better defended as well, maybe a few more archers would help them stick around longer without being too threatening offensively? I really don't know what they have, again, I never even saw them as Tasunke steamrolled them both so fast.
I, too, wondered why I had to sacrifice my incredibly effective friend Tasunke at the end when we had a perfectly good dwarven king leftover from the previous scenario - oh well. [Maybe the above poster is correct and Tasunke was too smart for his own good, folks like Auric don't seem to encourage their underlings to be overly ambitious and powerful, but it'd make more sense if the lore more strongly suggested this or any other justification for sacrificing Tasunke over that dwarf.]
The entire game I was wondering what the point of my allies were, exactly, since they're obviously not bright enough to cross the dungeon and all the bad guys seemed to be in the dungeon or on the other side of the mountains, leaving me to deal with them alone. It wasn't until after winning and watching the replay that I realized there had, in fact, been Kuri and Sheaim cities south of the mountains which my good friend Tasunke conquered so quickly that I never even saw them. I don't know, the AI usually isn't that good in my experience, it seems like there must be something imbalanced about the Hippus in general or their starting position in this scenario or the combination of both. Same goes for the Doviello, except the opposite, the AI isn't usually that abysmally bad either. Probably wouldn't hurt to make the southern Kuri and Sheaim cities a bit better defended as well, maybe a few more archers would help them stick around longer without being too threatening offensively? I really don't know what they have, again, I never even saw them as Tasunke steamrolled them both so fast.
I, too, wondered why I had to sacrifice my incredibly effective friend Tasunke at the end when we had a perfectly good dwarven king leftover from the previous scenario - oh well. [Maybe the above poster is correct and Tasunke was too smart for his own good, folks like Auric don't seem to encourage their underlings to be overly ambitious and powerful, but it'd make more sense if the lore more strongly suggested this or any other justification for sacrificing Tasunke over that dwarf.]
First
Chieftain
- Joined
- Sep 8, 2007
- Messages
- 81
Beeri's pedia entry and his appearance in the Momus kinda explain why he wasn't available for sacrifice. Also it seems to me that even if they still had Beeri around, Auric probably wouldn't have bothered having him brought in to be the sacrifice. He seems rather single-minded in his task and I doubt he really cared about the consequences of him turning on the Hippus (besides The Black Tower ending fills you in on the aftermath of Auric's betrayal).
I've got to agree with Tasunke being on steroids in this scenario, I played through as Auric and he easily bulldozed the Sheaim and Kuriotate cities on the southern end of the mountains and rapidly settled a great deal of territory - surrounding Auric and Mahala in a big bearhug of horselord friendship.
Getting through the Pass and the dungeon wasn't that difficult - though the Pass gargoyles spawned more than once on me. (I don't know if that was intended or not. They triggered three times in succession on me when units entered the squares.)
The allies were totally worthless in this scenario past the 50-turn mark or so in my game, since they weren't smart enough to assist in exploring the dungeon and certainly couldn't invade the Sheaim/Kuriotate area. This was the hardest part for me, micromanaging the troops necessary to capture the 15-so fortified cities on the other side through the dungeon.
I don't know if anyone will agree with this, but I think the scenario could be improved if ways were added for the AI allies to actually cross over and assist with the war effort on the other side - coding an event to transform some of the peaks separating the Doviello and Hippus from the Kuriotate and Sheaim into hills after you exit the dungeon might help.
Getting through the Pass and the dungeon wasn't that difficult - though the Pass gargoyles spawned more than once on me. (I don't know if that was intended or not. They triggered three times in succession on me when units entered the squares.)
The allies were totally worthless in this scenario past the 50-turn mark or so in my game, since they weren't smart enough to assist in exploring the dungeon and certainly couldn't invade the Sheaim/Kuriotate area. This was the hardest part for me, micromanaging the troops necessary to capture the 15-so fortified cities on the other side through the dungeon.
I don't know if anyone will agree with this, but I think the scenario could be improved if ways were added for the AI allies to actually cross over and assist with the war effort on the other side - coding an event to transform some of the peaks separating the Doviello and Hippus from the Kuriotate and Sheaim into hills after you exit the dungeon might help.
Switchblock
Kuriotate Scholar
I think the fact that there were a few Guardians of the Pristin Pass caused the multiple gargoyles, which weren't that hard to take out.
I agree that an event where you reach the other side of the pass and find a weak spot on a mountain that you can cause to crumble would help make the scenario be a little more fun, being able to use allies > Sloshing through fotified city after fortified city.
I agree that an event where you reach the other side of the pass and find a weak spot on a mountain that you can cause to crumble would help make the scenario be a little more fun, being able to use allies > Sloshing through fotified city after fortified city.
1) I played this as hippus, and the reason they do so well is that they have lots of space to expand into (where barbarian cities tend to spawn) and auric/mahala don't. Maybe the starting positions for Auric's team could be spread out a little more to give the other two more space.
2) The dragons are fun, but there should be some lore text when they appear (where does the cult come into it?)
3) Such a large dungeon should have some special events and loot, rather than just being a maze where random monsters spawn
4) Allowing the allies some way to get to the north side of the map would definitely improve the scenario
2) The dragons are fun, but there should be some lore text when they appear (where does the cult come into it?)
3) Such a large dungeon should have some special events and loot, rather than just being a maze where random monsters spawn
4) Allowing the allies some way to get to the north side of the map would definitely improve the scenario
Kael, I think the Doviello AI needs some improvement.
I'm playing the Illians in this scenario, so you can see how the AI is doing with Mahala.
It's now turn 400ish and the only tile improvements, the Doviello have, are those that I built with my workers.
Mahala instantly upgrades each worker to a warrior probably due to the permanent war.
I'm playing the Illians in this scenario, so you can see how the AI is doing with Mahala.
It's now turn 400ish and the only tile improvements, the Doviello have, are those that I built with my workers.
Mahala instantly upgrades each worker to a warrior probably due to the permanent war.
Excellent point. I'll a change it in patch "k".
ChinaBlue
Xenite
- Joined
- Dec 17, 2006
- Messages
- 191
Besides from being disgusted by the storyline and same time in love with these Auric scenario's 
, I'm also a little annoyed.
I cannot kill friendly neighbor Mahala's Shaman on Speed, every single turn she casts haste on her fortified units.
This happens often in other games but playing this particular map made me go a bit nuts, having to listen to the constant wooshing and such. Could be because I've played four days straight....FFH ICE!!
Yea..must be it
, I'm also a little annoyed.I cannot kill friendly neighbor Mahala's Shaman on Speed, every single turn she casts haste on her fortified units.
This happens often in other games but playing this particular map made me go a bit nuts, having to listen to the constant wooshing and such. Could be because I've played four days straight....FFH ICE!!
Yea..must be it
I don't like this scenario very much. Beginning is extremely easy. You just conquer one city and build some settlers. Then you have to clear equally easy, but way too long dungeon, but once you hit the other side, you have to face 3 dragons and everything else those kingdoms throw at you. It takes around 50 turns just to bring one group of reinforcements and unless you know what's on the other side, you will need them. Airlift is of course only way to go, but there's no indication of what's waiting on other side of the dungeon, so chances are, you won't research it. To conclude, distances you have to travel make this scenario extremely frustrating. And of course, your allies are useless, since they don't use the portal, so I'm not really sure why you even added them.
You should split this scenario into two smaller ones. First one would require you to clean the dungeon, which should be populated with much stronger opponents, to actually make it a challenge. Second one would be defeating two kingdoms in the north. Allies can be cut completely, they don't add anything to the game.
You should split this scenario into two smaller ones. First one would require you to clean the dungeon, which should be populated with much stronger opponents, to actually make it a challenge. Second one would be defeating two kingdoms in the north. Allies can be cut completely, they don't add anything to the game.
Senethro
Overlord
Alternatively, after exiting the caves change the Peak plots to hills between the portals allowing you and your allies to bypass the dungeon completely. Micromanaging units through dungeon is a real drag. You'd be better off building a fishing village on the lake and shipping them about in galleys.
