The Radiant Guard feedback

[kanban42]

Others noted already that it isn't hard (on Noble difficulty at least) to conquer Bastradam, kill 100 enemy units and raze all infernal cities. But then the game ends with Basium's victory and the next scenario won't unlock.

After reading through this thread, I learned that Hyborem's death should have ended the scenario. It didn't. Is an old bug showing again that used to be fixed already? The latest patch (0.41m) is installed.

By the way, wouldn't it be nice if Bastradam were given to Capria instead of being destroyed? Without that city, the ships can't sail east and look pretty stupid.

EDIT: The problem is that Hyborem was among the first 100 units killed. Maybe someone should add a check for this condition?

 

[blueparrot1966]

I wouldn't usually add to a thread this long, but it seems to me that no one has summed up the biggest single thing that's wrong with this scenario, though many have said parts of it.

The heart of it is that you've got a defensive force, and a defender friendly map, but your enemies generally won't attack you. Unless you've got them totally blocked, they just slip on by to the west, especially if you're actually in a good defensive position where your puny troops might have a chance.

Others have mentioned the general weakness of the forces, the lack of laborers to build forts or clear forests, that sort of thing. And they're right. This is an interesting scenario, but most of the more intuitive options are not available. Of COURSE the first thing most people are going to think of is building a defensive line and digging in. But you can't, and you shouldn't even try.

I hadn't figured out that Basium gets angels when your guys die, and indeed, that's the best use for more than half of your units. But I finally took a peek at the map with WB, 20 something turns in (on my third try). A vast horde awaits me at the three eastern cities. I mean, ANOTHER vast horde, besides the one that consistently pounds my defenders into Cheese Wiz.

The heck with this. I like a challenge, but it's time to move on.

I like the idea of this scenario, it's a great setup, but a terrible execution. I've played Civ since the original in 1991, and I've loved FFH more than most "official" Civ's. D&D flavored Civ. Mmmmmm... And my hat's always been off to Kael and company. But I'm afraid I'm going to have to put this one in the "whiff" column.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

One thing that I can't understand is why Basilum is so useless?
Surely they could code some sort of script forcing him to attack his single arch enemy.

 

[westamastaflash]

I'm not really sure how I'm supposed to defeat a stack of 13 profanes, 12 beasts of agares, 56 iras, 5 liches, 6 immortals, not to mention the hordes of crappier units...

(and 12 balors too)

 

[westamastaflash]

Heh, well i guess i just run around them and kill Hyborem!

 

[blueparrot1966]

You've still got to kill your 100 units first, though. I turned down the difficulty to finish this one, but I don't think I had to do it to win. Now that I understand it better, I think the problem with this scenario is (mis)information.

It's a mistake to think this is a "defend the Alamo" sort of situation. Understanding that your troops SHOULD die through attrition is crucial. Trying too hard to keep everyone alive is a sure recipe for defeat, since Basium winds up defenseless against the inevitable units that get through. On the other hand, being more free with their lives resulted in 5-6 angels on defense for me.

Pretty quickly, the infernals coming through will be too much for your forces to handle, no matter how good you are. At that point, you've hopefully bagged your 100, at which point the game becomes to ignore and avoid the attackers, and get to Hyborem to kill him.

As several others have mentioned, the up front information for this scenario is incomplete and misleading. Also, I think it's almost impossible to win "cold"- that is, just loading and playing, knowing nothing about what's going on. But once you know what's where, and what's going on, it goes from impossible to fairly easy.

I'm very excited to hear that FFH is going pro and independent (though I've still heard no details on that), and I hope that feedback like this helps tweak the design of that product.

In spite of any criticisms I might have, I'm totally in the tank for the FFH team. Just as a labor of love, you guys have made one of the best PC entertainment products I've played in years. I can't wait to see what you can do when you're actually getting PAID to do it, lol.

 

[Breunor]

One unfortunate consequence of the improvements in the AI (obviously a good result !) is that some of the advice on these forums may be out of date since a large body of the strategy advice, coming from 'regulars', is based on older versions. For instance, I found this sceanrio rather easy - but that was before the AI got smarter. So, with a smarter AI, players may have to find new tricks.

Best wishes,

Breunor

 

[PPQ_Purple]

@blueparrot1966

I can advise to the exact opposite from my game.

At monarch level I had trouble getting my 100 at all, the AI seemed just to hoard them somewhere instead of sending them. And when they did come in, they came like bloody X-wings in pairs or alone and were easy pickings for a mage + RG combo.

I took the first quest city with only my hero, my archmage and 1 radiant guard leaving the rest to mop up anything that went through. Water elemental + hero makes for a win situation with most hordes. Brought the mages in once the waves stooped to blow the city up with fireballs.

Newer lost a single unit yet nothing got through.

Later when I got to Hyborem, I found his entire army, some 300+ units patrolling around his city. No way to get through. There you have to use some quite creative tactics.

 

[Hartastic]

I'm not sure if this is the appropriate place to post this...

I'm attempting this scenario for the first time, and I'm 84 turns in, 20some units left to kill. (I keep hoping the Infernals will send a few more out so I don't have to hit one of the giant stacks.) At this point, any time I click for next turn, Civ crashes. I've tried reloading from a few different saves and at this particular point it crashes to desktop for me every time.

Although that's very repeatable for me, I'm not sure what else to say about the problem I'm having. Any ideas? Anyone else having this problem?

 

[Breunor]

I'm not sure if this is the appropriate place to post this...

I'm attempting this scenario for the first time, and I'm 84 turns in, 20some units left to kill. (I keep hoping the Infernals will send a few more out so I don't have to hit one of the giant stacks.) At this point, any time I click for next turn, Civ crashes. I've tried reloading from a few different saves and at this particular point it crashes to desktop for me every time.

Although that's very repeatable for me, I'm not sure what else to say about the problem I'm having. Any ideas? Anyone else having this problem?

Post a save game the turn before a crash and i'll take a look.

Best wishes,

Breunor

 

[Hartastic]

Post a save game the turn before a crash and i'll take a look.

Best wishes,

Breunor

This should be it:

 

[Breunor]

This should be it:

The game crashed unfortunately becuase you lost the scenario. For some reason, it crashed instead of giving a defeat notice, the crash may have to do with the defeat message?

Anyway, there was an Infernal horseman who captures Bourne the Gleaming.

If you want to play, on, here is a save where I eliminated the Infernal horseman.

Best wishes

Breunor

 

[Hartastic]

Huh. I wonder why the defeat message takes it down.

Thanks for helping me figure that out -- I'm not averse to starting again and trying harder to make sure I don't let anyone past, I just had no idea that was what was happening.

 

[Breunor]

It may not be the defeat message for other reasons, it may have to do with the defeat message for losing Bourne the Gleaming.

Good luck on the next try!

Best wishes,


Breunor

 

[Twibs]

I'm not sure if it was pure luck or what, but I never saw those huge stacks. Biggest was like 10, and I had already practically won by then. Difficulty was Monarch, and I'm pretty sure it's the latest version. I only downloaded this couple of months ago from these forums.

First time I was confused and was even defending the wrong direction, I quickly established the basic facts, scouted a bit and found Bastradam. Started over and immediately sent solid attack force to take Bastradam. Hero, archmage, mage, hunter(or were those scouts that were on the frontline?) swordman and boarding party. Could've been bit of overkill. Took the city before the message and then proceeded to east with my fighting force. I then addd to that the priest dude from Bastradam forces. Got earth III to my archmage, haste for my mage and quickly proceeded to raze second city. It's not difficult to find the cities. Head east and when you see hell terrain pay little more attention to what direction you are going. Elementals can scout a bit, make sure to have mobility on archmage and combat. He doesn't need much else. Earth elemental + hero pretty much worked for wallbreakers and other melee scouped rest.

My small SoD took care of southern troops, north never saw a single mob, so this time stationed all to the middle except few to south and couple to north, just to be sure. By the time I got 100 kills, I was sitting next to Hyborem and he was being defended by maybe 4-5 mobs.

Maybe that stack was in the middle, since I started getting liches to my defence line. At first I was confused because the wraith indicated they had 1 or 2 turns left, but they re-appeard again next turn. And they didn't care much about my radiatn guard spells.

 

[Superjebus]

I'm replaying this scenario after a very long time, to see what changes to the AI have done, and I've noticed that the Unit AI "Barbsmasher" seems to be causing the Infernals some trouble. Granted, I am playing on the Nobel difficulty rating, but thats because last time this one schooled the mana out of me. Anyway, it is turn 95 and the Infernals have only sent 46 units after Bourne the Gleaming. So I jump in the WB to have a poke around, and I see massive stacks of Beast of Agares and Pit Beasts and so on wandering around their end of the map all with this AI Barbsmasher. I destroyed the city to get the help from Caprica, has that trigured something to make all of the unit get "Barbsmasher" instead of "lemming"?

Anyway, so I give up waiting, and go looking for ugly. I raise the southern city, all is good with the world, no sign of this mega stack that I saw in the WB. So I march north to get Hyborem, and there is the stack. But the stack is stupid. I go to one side of the ridge, and it goes to cut me off, I change direction and scoot back the other way, and it stops moving because it can't see me?!? So I kill Hyborem, and raise Dis, the game keeps going. I mosey on up to the city in the north and start slaying to my hearts content, and I realise, that I still have to kill another 12 units before I get rid of that first "task". Not wanting to risk loosing it all on the mega stack, I sit around and wait for the city to spawn more units. And so sure enough, it spawns just enough that I can kill the last one as I raise the city. At last, I think, victory is at hand. No that would be a happy ending, and FfH2 is not about happy endings. As I kill the last unit, my 100th for the game, I get the message that Basium has been created, and the message from the blue guy about swapping side. I choose to go ahead and kill the bad guy's, hey I was right there it was too easy to pass on........

Basium wins a conquest victory. Are you Fraking serious! The guy has been in the world for the length of a bee's handle bar and he wins. I'm sorry for ranting and all, but.............

 

[Nylarathotep]

I wouldn't usually add to a thread this long, but it seems to me that no one has summed up the biggest single thing that's wrong with this scenario, though many have said parts of it.

The heart of it is that you've got a defensive force, and a defender friendly map, but your enemies generally won't attack you. Unless you've got them totally blocked, they just slip on by to the west, especially if you're actually in a good defensive position where your puny troops might have a chance.

Others have mentioned the general weakness of the forces, the lack of laborers to build forts or clear forests, that sort of thing. And they're right. This is an interesting scenario, but most of the more intuitive options are not available. Of COURSE the first thing most people are going to think of is building a defensive line and digging in. But you can't, and you shouldn't even try.

I hadn't figured out that Basium gets angels when your guys die, and indeed, that's the best use for more than half of your units. But I finally took a peek at the map with WB, 20 something turns in (on my third try). A vast horde awaits me at the three eastern cities. I mean, ANOTHER vast horde, besides the one that consistently pounds my defenders into Cheese Wiz.

The heck with this. I like a challenge, but it's time to move on.

I like the idea of this scenario, it's a great setup, but a terrible execution. I've played Civ since the original in 1991, and I've loved FFH more than most "official" Civ's. D&D flavored Civ. Mmmmmm... And my hat's always been off to Kael and company. But I'm afraid I'm going to have to put this one in the "whiff" column.

You're exactly right about the first part. They completely ignore you, almost as if the default setting for all units in this scenario is to go straight towards Bourne the Gleaming (you know how the AI gets when it's on a mission.) I played this game twice - the first time I had left about 8 defenders and send the rest on a mission to Bastradum which I razed. It was going well and then I realized that none of my guards were doing anything because the Infernal Units had so much movement they could slip by without me even seeing them. This was the worst part of the scenario - either take away their movement or give me Sentry II, but it's not fair that they can just slip by so easily unless you guard every possible entrance. I found out that I would have to "micromanage" every turn with the Eyeball just to see who was nearby, and that's not fun to me. I didn't even know that some parts of the mountains were entrances until after I got the game over notice because you can't go west and find out whether you could pathfind there!

This scenario frustrated me a lot until I went into WB, removed 2 or 3 units that had slipped by my guard, and extended the range of the mountains. After that it was easy. I think something could to be done about the fact that you can't even see units like the Wolf Riders go by. I chose to fight Basium for an unknown reason and that was really easy considering he didn't even leave the bulk of his guard in his city >.<

Despite my criticism, I like this scenario and it was an interesting and memorable experience. I realize that I may not have gone about it the right way and that's why I resorted to cheating, but the main reason I play these scenarios is for the story so it didn't matter to me. Thank you, FfH team!

 

[Joe Gev]

You're exactly right about the first part. They completely ignore you, almost as if the default setting for all units in this scenario is to go straight towards Bourne the Gleaming (you know how the AI gets when it's on a mission.) I played this game twice - the first time I had left about 8 defenders and send the rest on a mission to Bastradum which I razed. It was going well and then I realized that none of my guards were doing anything because the Infernal Units had so much movement they could slip by without me even seeing them. This was the worst part of the scenario - either take away their movement or give me Sentry II, but it's not fair that they can just slip by so easily unless you guard every possible entrance. I found out that I would have to "micromanage" every turn with the Eyeball just to see who was nearby, and that's not fun to me. I didn't even know that some parts of the mountains were entrances until after I got the game over notice because you can't go west and find out whether you could pathfind there!

This scenario frustrated me a lot until I went into WB, removed 2 or 3 units that had slipped by my guard, and extended the range of the mountains. After that it was easy. I think something could to be done about the fact that you can't even see units like the Wolf Riders go by. I chose to fight Basium for an unknown reason and that was really easy considering he didn't even leave the bulk of his guard in his city >.<

Despite my criticism, I like this scenario and it was an interesting and memorable experience. I realize that I may not have gone about it the right way and that's why I resorted to cheating, but the main reason I play these scenarios is for the story so it didn't matter to me. Thank you, FfH team!

There is actually no need to spread the lines or any of that. Knowing I'll get extra units and understanding that with every turn 3-4 new demons pop out (some very un-pleasant) I rushed Basterdam and sacked it in 7 turns. I then hurried to sack the city on the bottom of the screen (turn 20 something) and this triggered an interesting response - all the enemy units started heading back to the starting point, even the three units that somehow slipped past my lines. I did make some arrangements for protection by sacrificing a 1-2 radian units (turn into angles to protect the city), and since the units that did get past me were too weak to tackle them, I didn't lose.
After that I just gathered all my troops and started to look for loop holes in the very large enemy stacks, fending off the pesky summoned units and even killing the demon hero. it wasn't easy but with all 5 mages/wizards and Guybrush, it is just a matter of time. Big red ugly didn't stand a chance.

Word of warning - do not kill big red ugly before you finish off the 100 units, the scenario rules don't know how to deal with it

 

[megamanx06]

I'm not really sure how I'm supposed to defeat a stack of 13 profanes, 12 beasts of agares, 56 iras, 5 liches, 6 immortals, not to mention the hordes of crappier units...

(and 12 balors too)

I had twice that, not counting the wraith hordes that the liches kept summoning.

Heh, well i guess i just run around them and kill Hyborem!

That stack sort of follows me everywhere I go, and if they get to close the profanes bring everyone down to 50% strength.

Despite my numerous complaints about this scenario which I'll keep to myself, I think I would be happy if there was just a unit cap on national units for Hyborem. It would make it soooo much easier.

 

[Camulus]

I killed Hyborem before it was an objective and razed two Infernal cities. So I had to add more cities on world editor. Also recreate Hyborem and add more infernals. 6.9/10 because it was too long but a good theme.