The Radiant Guard feedback

I am running .41d and trying to finish The Radiant Guard. After killing Hyborem, however, I get the epilogue story popup but then the game freezes with the victory message displayed on the bottom of the screen. My mouse still works, but my keyboard gets locked out. No game recap or score ranking is shown. I am unable to do anything but use my mouse to open up the options panel and 'exit to main menu.'

Upon loading up the custom scenarios screen, I show that I can now play the next scenario in sequence, "The Black Tower". When I try to play it, though, my game crashes to desktop each and every time before it starts.

I think Hyborem's immortality is messing up this scenario. When I kill him just the one time, Dis is gets razed even though there are defender units still in the city. Further, Hyborem's immortality seems to trigger after Dis is destroyed, since his magic weapon, Gela, suddenly appears on an adjacent hill as if he respawned but was displaced by the non-existent, non-relocated capital and killed by script.

Attached is a save file I made right before trying to kill Hyborem so you can observe this yourselves.
 

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Basium: "Mortal, I entrust you with the honour of defending my holy city. From this very spot we will win a mighty victory against the forces of evil and strike at all those that trangress against the Heavens. We will cause such uproar that the very gates of the deepest hell will shake with fear as all come to know the fury of the righteous."

Falamar: "If it please your grace, where is this holy city, that I might best plan my defence?"

Basium: "Trouble me not with such petty inconveniences. Know that it is enough to serve me in the most virtuous of causes."

Falamar: "Your honour, my allies tell me that the city gates lay unguarded. Perhaps we cannot enter the city itself, for all men are sinners and our failings would sully the purity of your great avenues and promenades, but can you not see fit to tell us where this city might lie, that we might post the radiant guard accordingly and prevent the foulest denizens of netherworld from corrupting this, the vessel of your sacred gate on this earthly plane."

Basium: "Silence. I will not tell you where my city lies."

Falamar: "I have this shiny world map. Why just this very morning my keenest hunters and rangers journeyed deep into the heart of enemy territory. Surely such knowledge would make your appointed task much easier and save many more souls from our enemies. We could trade maps."

Basium: [Burst of angelic chorus. It sounds like nothing of this world, and yet, strangely, it also sounds like the cherubim singing "La La La I can't hear you!"]

Falamar: "Very well, I shall try my best. Now about the troops. You've seen fit to provide me with a number of wildsman. They are not strong combatants, but they are well versed in using hawks and eagles as messengers and scouts. With such intelligence, I could deploy my troops strategically to counter my foes every move. If you see your way clear to passing on their feathered friends, we'll be on our way."

Basium: "You have no need of eagles."

Falamar: "But we needn't use eagles, we could use parrots... owls... blue-tits?.... hummingbirds?!? Er, I guess I can take it avian support is off the roster."

Basium: "You are clearly a fool. I know not of this avian of which you speak."

Falamar: "But there a three dozen doves fluttering above your head right now. Every time you speak, they make delightful birdsong and spell out your words in six foot high letters."

Basium: "Trouble me not with your chatter, pirate, my patience grows ever thin."

Falamar: "..."

Basium: "You are still here. Is there something else?"

Falamar: "Well... it's just having landed my ships, I have a few spare tools for the maintenance of my navy. Saws, axes, ropes... that kind of thing"

Basium: "And?"

Falamar: "It occurs to me... and this is only a suggestion mind you, so keep your halo on... Perhaps if you could, you know, spare a few carpenters or manual labourers, maybe I could put them to good use. They could, I dunno, chop down some of those trees, so the enemy doesn't have any cover to hide in. Or build a few forts in clever locations... Hey, watch where your swinging that flaming sword!"

Basium: "Are you still here?"

Exit Falamar. Basium turns to audience and removes a mask to reveal Hyborem.

Hyborem: "Now if that doesn't rile him enough to turn to the dark side, I don't know what will."
 
Basium: "Mortal, I entrust you with the honour of defending my holy city. From this very spot we will win a mighty victory against the forces of evil and strike at all those that trangress against the Heavens. We will cause such uproar that the very gates of the deepest hell will shake with fear as all come to know the fury of the righteous."

Falamar: "If it please your grace, where is this holy city, that I might best plan my defence?"

Basium: "Trouble me not with such petty inconveniences. Know that it is enough to serve me in the most virtuous of causes."

Falamar: "Your honour, my allies tell me that the city gates lay unguarded. Perhaps we cannot enter the city itself, for all men are sinners and our failings would sully the purity of your great avenues and promenades, but can you not see fit to tell us where this city might lie, that we might post the radiant guard accordingly and prevent the foulest denizens of netherworld from corrupting this, the vessel of your sacred gate on this earthly plane."

Basium: "Silence. I will not tell you where my city lies."

Falamar: "I have this shiny world map. Why just this very morning my keenest hunters and rangers journeyed deep into the heart of enemy territory. Surely such knowledge would make your appointed task much easier and save many more souls from our enemies. We could trade maps."

Basium: [Burst of angelic chorus. It sounds like nothing of this world, and yet, strangely, it also sounds like the cherubim singing "La La La I can't hear you!"]

Falamar: "Very well, I shall try my best. Now about the troops. You've seen fit to provide me with a number of wildsman. They are not strong combatants, but they are well versed in using hawks and eagles as messengers and scouts. With such intelligence, I could deploy my troops strategically to counter my foes every move. If you see your way clear to passing on their feathered friends, we'll be on our way."

Basium: "You have no need of eagles."

Falamar: "But we needn't use eagles, we could use parrots... owls... blue-tits?.... hummingbirds?!? Er, I guess I can take it avian support is off the roster."

Basium: "You are clearly a fool. I know not of this avian of which you speak."

Falamar: "But there a three dozen doves fluttering above your head right now. Every time you speak, they make delightful birdsong and spell out your words in six foot high letters."

Basium: "Trouble me not with your chatter, pirate, my patience grows ever thin."

Falamar: "..."

Basium: "You are still here. Is there something else?"

Falamar: "Well... it's just having landed my ships, I have a few spare tools for the maintenance of my navy. Saws, axes, ropes... that kind of thing"

Basium: "And?"

Falamar: "It occurs to me... and this is only a suggestion mind you, so keep your halo on... Perhaps if you could, you know, spare a few carpenters or manual labourers, maybe I could put them to good use. They could, I dunno, chop down some of those trees, so the enemy doesn't have any cover to hide in. Or build a few forts in clever locations... Hey, watch where your swinging that flaming sword!"

Basium: "Are you still here?"

Exit Falamar. Basium turns to audience and removes a mask to reveal Hyborem.

Hyborem: "Now if that doesn't rile him enough to turn to the dark side, I don't know what will."

Ha ha, very nice, Jabie!

It all makes sense, now. Plus you can see that the Radiant Guard are cleverly not using metal weapons. Maybe they're too much of a burden; the wooden training gear will suffice.
Hyborem is a genius!
 
I managed to kill Hyborem but...

Spoiler :
...why my wictory screen says about the Sect of Flies torturing Mikel's wife and daughter? Didn't killing Hyborem stopped the evil guys or does the Sect work for Basium?
 
I agree that this scenario is not intuitive. Falamar should be in a permanent alliance with Basium from the start.

Spoiler :
Although there should be the ability for that to change with the scripted event after the 100 kills, should the player choose.


That way Basium will share his map with Falamar. Or at least start them off with a +10 diplomacy modifier or something. It seems rather ridiculous that Basium won't share world maps and I have to waste time looking for the city myself.

I've played this scenario twice. The first time I tried to gather my troops into a stack to just march east, but quickly got the message that Hyborem won a conquest victory. Really? Basium was that poorly defended? Whatever. Second try. I try to secure as many choke points along the mountains and give my units promotions according to the terrain they are defending. I up my mages to fireballs thinking they should soften the enemy as they approach. Fireball is pretty useless as I am fast learning. It was awesome in Age of Ice, but it got beat with the nerf stick really hard for FFH2. I survive long enough to get the quest this time, which is cool, but wait too long to do it. Seems I can't even get past the longbowmen defending Basterdam. My defensive lines start to crumble and I get the 100 kills, but Hyborem still wins a conquest.

Next time I'm gonna try 2-3 stacks with maelstrom instead of fireball and rush Basterdam early.
 
What I did to win.

Spoiler :
Put units to cut off choke points and re-org most of the army to the river/middle pass area. Use hero unit to level up as fast as possible by attacking units outside and get march. Then as the number of units killed reached close to 100, my middle lines began to break and I ended up retreating towards the allied city while attacking troops with my arquebest unit and hero, with all my mages/other units. Once killed 100, I regrouped what units I had left (the northern pass units were still fortified and ignored), I retreated a stack of 8 units (including the mages, hero, arquebest, a longbowman, an archer, and some melee units). I fireballed units as I retreated and healed in the allied city. Then I defended in the allied city for 10-20 turns and gained exp for my hero and arquebest unit. After that I took my stack out and made my way towards the north to link up with my northern pass units (4 extra units there). At this point I gave up on taking bastardam city for the extra reinforcements. Once I was linked up I painfully attempted to avoid the incoming horde and reach the hellfire lands. I lost all my units along the way except for my hero, a radiant guard, a archmage and a mage. With these 4 units I found the city Dis, and setup two tiles away north of it. At this point my hero and other units were all withered. I used my archmage and mage to send fireballs into the city to bombard its defenses to 0%. Then I used maelstorm to weaken the units. This left the general at something like 5.3 strength. I used my hero (combat 5, drill, shock, march) and killed him to win the scenario at something like 200+ turns.

Once the 100 units killed limit has been reached, the allied city should be able to defend itself.
 
Much the same as the last guy, but I started out by putting one Radiant guard on my boats and moving over to take the infernal coastal city before I even got the quest. needless to say i was surprised with the free units until I was asked to liberate them from the city. Ultimately they didn't do much except fortify a forested hill, while Beasts threw themselves at me (blessing every turn.)
I gave the archmage summon fire elemental which also does collateral and had a nice chokepoint in the middle of the map where the infernals nicely poured most of their units to my experience mill. I managed not to lose a mage unit until I stormed the infernal territory and even then it wasn't enough for them to stop me driving them out of this land.
 
Wow... very intense scenario!

Like others, I had no idea where the city was, and I incorrectly assumed that the reason I couldn't move further West was because that's where the infernals were coming from. Fortunately, with a couple of Eyes (all my mages cast Eye the first turn) I quickly discovered the city.

As soon as possible, I made sure every unit had a move of 2. That's standard practice for me, and to be fair it didn't help that much in this scenario (so much forest!) but in some key moments it was really crucial.

Also, I had all my units move to the middle to get the Loyalty buff from one of my mages (lasts the whole scenario!) then move back into a loose N-S line of defense.

I sent out the Arcane Barges early for exploration (standard practice) and quickly found Basterdam and Capria. I parked them there and weakened (or killed) passing infernals with lobbed fireballs. Never did see any Iras there, so I guess I got lucky.

There were way too many holes in the defense... I couldn't see any nice chokepoints that couldn't be just avoided. And the infernals just walk around you most of the time anyways... so I decided to fully exploit that in many cases. ;)

For instance I had a lone hunter in the NE corner (on a fort) that the big guys (including Beast of Agares) would just walk right by and ignore. But then the Hunter would see a 2-stack of Riders or Warriors and so he'd poach one of them off, but since there were 2 targets in the stack (and hence 1 remaining) the Hunter didn't move from his Fort.

I ended up with 3 main stacks on defense: north, middle, south. In hindsight I guess they correspond to the 3 Hyborem cities.

I eventually got the quest for Capria, and with the Archmage, 2 Boarding Parties, and 2 mages it was pretty quick. An Immortal spawned in the city just before I got there, but 1 Maelstrom, a Water elemental, and 2 fireballs later he was really weak and easy to kill.

The confessor is awesome, and I took him back to the defense line. I couldn't take all the Swordsmen back though, and they died soon after (though they did at least kill a couple more units for me).

Eventually I started to see Wraiths -- they scared the heck out of me, but they seemed to avoid the stacks of defenders. I used Guy to attack a damaged one, and promptly got withered (I'm still learning the game). That really hurt.

(I've discovered that I really, really hate Wraiths now, especially when they have Move 4)

Soon afterwards I finished the "100 kill" quest. I wasn't all that surprised to see there was more to it (seems to be a common trend in FFH2 scenarios ;) ), but it's still a bit of a shock in such a hard scenario.

I realized I could now move West, and I had two troops (my back row to pick off any stragglers that managed to make it past my defense) move into the city. That's when I realized I didn't have to worry about defending the city anymore. Wow... that's a lot of really powerful angels!

But the stream of Infernals got a *lot* harder. Fortunately, I clued in fairly early that the southern stream was easier than the middle and north stream of infernals.

Since I started clumping up my troops into fewer stacks at this point, I had the liberty of using the Eyes more. I saw two Manticores to the South (which I carefully avoided), and eventually found the Despero city. Not seeing Hyborem in the city I moved north a bit, and soon found Dis with my Eyes.

And unlike Despero (which had ~20 defenders) the city of Dis was barely defended! I did have one stack that was moving from the middle of the map straight to Dis, but I quickly realized that wasn't going to work... the infernals were just getting too strong. No sense in fighting them (the Angels would take care of that), so I had them skirt around from the South as well, and I was finally able to have all my units in one mega-Stack of Doom.

Attacking Dis from the South seems like the way to go. The infernals ignore you almost completely, and Dis itself is lightly defended.

Once I reached Dis it was just a matter of using Maelstrom, a Fire Elemental, two more fireballs, and then Guy (now cured from the Confessor) to finish off Hyborem.

Feedback/Suggestions:
* Loved the quests, and the twists!
* Liked the ending! Very cool. I hope the daughter who can see spirits/angels shows up in future scenarios.
* I echo what others say about making the Mercurian city initially visible, even if it's greyed-out due to fog of war (I don't think we need to Permanent Alliance). I don't really need to see it as much as know where it is.
* I was little disappointed that my Hunters had no Eagles, but I guess perhaps that would have given us too much Visibility. Still, would have been nice to have at least 1 eagle -- otherwise the Hunters are kind of blind.
* I wouldn't give the liches Spell Mobility 2 -- the Wraiths are bad enough, but with a move of 4 they're really hard to control.
* I didn't have problems with Iras, but I may have just been very lucky. I did spot a stack of 6-10 of them just West of Dis in a little lake, but they never seemed to move.
 
I lost this scenario three times before I got a handle on it. I ended up forming two teams to assault Hyborem's cities:
1. A boarding party and the archmage; they took a long time due to healing delays.
2. The arquebus, Threepwood, and a radiant guard. The confessor joined them later.

The rest guarded the choke points. Maelstrom pretty much rocks out in this scenario. I managed to beat it in turn 80. It felt pretty good, after being crushed so badly the first few times.

It really helps a lot that Hyborem's cities clear out periodically, leaving only a longbowman or two. I found this the most challenging of all the scenarios I've tried, but it was so much fun!
 
OK, I'm lost here. I don't see any real chokepoints that don't get bypassed easily. The bigger problem is terrain. Where am I supposed to fight so that I don't get forced into attacking str 6 axemen on woods tiles? Even after malestroming them for several turns, I still stare at 50/50 or worse odds because they are always in woods for the defense bonus.

I tried setting fire to clear an area, but 20 turns later all I had was a bunch of smoke.

Where am I supposed to be fighting?
 
OK, I'm lost here. I don't see any real chokepoints that don't get bypassed easily. The bigger problem is terrain. Where am I supposed to fight so that I don't get forced into attacking str 6 axemen on woods tiles? Even after malestroming them for several turns, I still stare at 50/50 or worse odds because they are always in woods for the defense bonus.

I tried setting fire to clear an area, but 20 turns later all I had was a bunch of smoke.

Where am I supposed to be fighting?

Maelstrom followed by fireballs works rather nicely. I like to kill weakened enemies using mages so that they can have empowered fireballs. And it helps to keep the mages moving so that they can all concentrate their fireballs on a single stack at a time.
 
For the first 50 turns this scenario seemed awesome
After that, and by the 150th turn, I have come to hate this scenario

First off, How do you win it? I am at 150 turns and have killed easily 200 enemy units, and not a single enemy has made it to the friendly city.... soooo shouldn't I win?
The game needs to tell me what I have to do here. Am I supposed to go and conquer the enemy cities? How the hell am I supposed to do that when they are spawning those giant ugly bears and stacks of 10 Iras, along with :):):):) loads of balors and eilodors or whatever they are called?
My fireballs don't even damage these units, what gives?


edit:
at some point later the game said basium won, which is good right? except the next scenario is not unlocked.....
WTF?
 
For the first 50 turns this scenario seemed awesome
After that, and by the 150th turn, I have come to hate this scenario

First off, How do you win it? I am at 150 turns and have killed easily 200 enemy units, and not a single enemy has made it to the friendly city.... soooo shouldn't I win?
The game needs to tell me what I have to do here. Am I supposed to go and conquer the enemy cities? How the hell am I supposed to do that when they are spawning those giant ugly bears and stacks of 10 Iras, along with :):):):) loads of balors and eilodors or whatever they are called?
My fireballs don't even damage these units, what gives?


edit:
at some point later the game said basium won, which is good right? except the next scenario is not unlocked.....
WTF?

If you don't have the latest patch, the next scenario will not unlock. There's also another scenario you have to win first.

As for taking the Infernal cities, I sent out a razing team consisting of the archmage, the arquebus, Threepwood, and a radiant guard. They were able to raze every infernal city, since most of the defenders clear out periodically.
 
Maelstrom followed by fireballs works rather nicely. I like to kill weakened enemies using mages so that they can have empowered fireballs. And it helps to keep the mages moving so that they can all concentrate their fireballs on a single stack at a time.

Double maelstrom knocks an axeman to about 4 ... which I still can't kill if they are in woods without trading a radiant guard each. And there are far too many units to spend maelstrom, maelstrom then fireball, fireball. And that's before the horsemen just run right by me. Last attempt I had a big stack in the north not that far from the city. I was blinding and maelstroming 3 stacks, and I still couldn't get decent odds on any of them.
 
Already had the latest patch..
K, I played through it a second time and this time I won, got the end of game text, and next was unlocked

It turns out that AFTER you get to 100 kills you no longer have to prevent bad guys from going west.
I had no idea and the scenario never tells you.... someone should think about adding in a message to tell the user that after they get to 100 kills they no longer have to keep protecting a long line

And also, it turns out you don't have to take any enemy cities, all you have to do is kill that demon/dragon guy in their main city AFTER you got to 100 kills, and then it says you win.
Again, why doesn't the game tell you this? Should be made more clear.
 
Ah, that's most of the problem. I somehow got hold of an old patch, that was before Radiant Guard had bronze weapons and other changes. I downloaded it from CivFanatics, so I'm not sure exactly how it wasn't up to date.
 
I played it in Monarch level

First, I saw Basium's city from moment zero, so I knew what to defend.

I started by spreading my troops in three groups with hunters running around to scout rouge unit I may have missed.
The guardians stopped some close calls with the blind spell (one of the best spells in the game).
After getting the mission to destroy the city I moved the bulk of my troops, hero trailing them. The two arcane ships helped until Ira's started to unleash. I though I was a gooner, pit beasts showing up and all kinds of nasty beasts... and yet, I used my troops to tunnel in until I got close enough to wipe it out. The guardians stopped all the nasty beasts and I had the opportunity to kill them one by one (Guybrush killing Iras... my hero!)
Anyway, after I killed that large stack and almost missing a few horsemen that tried to get through on the north end of the map, i advanced everything I had on the evil cities, destroying them one by one (south to north). The evil dude didn't stand a chance.
BTW, once I got the order to kill him, I left Basium to manage himself, not guarding the passes anymore.

The ending was very moving, loved the entire story.
 
I am having some problems with this thing.
I killed the 100 units and took the coastal city without too much of a problem. (Without loosing a single unit in fact). I proceeded to take the northern and southern demonic cities without losses as well.

The problem is that Hyborem has this one huge stack made up of something like 200 units at least 50 of whom are the high priest guys that summon wraths. They keep cruising the BFC and chasing me out of it. And they wont pursue out of it.

How am I supposed to defeat that with only the few units I have?

PS. World Builder and Restarting are out of the question.
 
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