Wages of Sin feedback

[Grakor456]

This map is still unnecessarily cruel to the Sheaim, due to Basium being spawned right off the bat. I did manage to win this one, though it required that I "abuse" the Great Engineer that was mistakenly given to me instead of Hyborem to rush the Pact of Nilhorn and send the giants to my capital, where they caused Basium to stall long enough for me to build Rosier the Fallen. While Rosier was no match for Basium, the big angel got himself mostly mauled on the free longbow I started with, and Rosier played clean-up. Once the initial rush was destroyed, I got far enough to start making mages and ritualists, which made the scenario much easier.

But definitely, definitely Basium and Hyborem need to be taken off the map and be manually built. They're way too powerful right now with those guys on the field at turn one, and it took me ten or so tries before I finally survived the first hundred turns.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I rather like having Hyborem and Basium on the map already, but moving them back to their capitals could be a good idea. It also seems odd that Basium has immortal in this scenario, when normally only Hyborem does.


Thematically, shouldn't the Amurites be on this map? I rather like the idea of adding a weak and falling Amurite nation under the control of Valledia the Even with The Order as its state religion, as the pedia clearly shows Valledia inviting the Order into her lands right after ordering the murder of Einion's wife. (Perhaps this should be set as the state religion at the beginning instead of just given the holy city and encouraged to convert, as I believe she could still be neutral that way. She is definitely not a good person, and chose to adopt this religion for purely pragmatic reasons after committing a horrible sin for the same cause.) It doesn't seem right to me that the Elohim are following Junil. I believe that Nikis-Knight said that the Elohim were given the Order Holy city just so it wouldn't be spawned randomly. The Infernals also seem to control more cities than the intro text would have you believe they should by that time. I think I'd reduce them to one city, but give them a decent sized army on the brink of conquering several enemy cites. (That would also mean they would get all their free buildings there, which I believe are missing in at least some of the cities already given to them on the map. I think that the Infernal City that the Mercurians usually take at the very beginning would be better if given to the Sheaim, and maybe given a Tar Demon or something to defend it. Also, I think the Great Engineer should either be given to the Infernals or moved closer to the Sheiam capital.

 

[cabbagemeister]

Spoiler :

Advanced start-up again allow's you to just boost away and use your foothold to get into an early steamroll.

*embedded GM in capital
*used supplies for library & training yard in capital
*settled most cities around the lake next to you; due to random resource placement. I had no iron, only copper.
*only had 1 mana node. I knew I would only be using Vampire's and Ritualist's as my main troop's (the battle could be over long before I could get Mage's on tap) so I only made a single Adept and upgraded it to a Death node (just so my vamp's Spectre's get a bonus).
*adopted Godking/Nationhood/Slavery/Conquest/Undercouncil

With my starting troop's, I cleared the few enemy that start near you. Lightly defended my 3 starting cities and got into whip mode. Used Ranger's to quickly get Subdue Animal promo so I could get wolves den, dancing bears and War Elephant's from all the natural gift's running around. With the Slavery civic, I quickly got heap's of Slave's from the barb's. I just love this civic for rapid start-up's!

With the Malakim on my right and Elohim and Basium on my left, I immediately set out to destroy the Malakim to free up my eastern flank. I put my best starting troop's (Vampire with Decius attached etc.) on the ship and sailed it along the coast. You start with a Vampire and an Assassin on a Caravel up north. I dropped the unit's off on the Malakim coast and used the boat to make contact with the Svartalfar. You also start with a Moroi just north of the Malakim cities. I moved him away from the Hunter danger to link up with my forces as they later converged. Made sure my vamp's killed a couple of barbs en route to give them the summon Spectre. I caught the Malakim with only 3 lightly defended cities (eg.capital only had a Longbowman and an Archer). The Longbow's were tough, but the summoning Vamps, Assassin and fodder managed to just pull it off. There were a couple of key 60-70% do-or-die combat's that saw me through. Only a couple of now nicely promoted troop's survived and I had to raze everything as the maintenance would have sunk me. With the Malakim desert emptied, barbarian's took over the area and simply fed me with endless XP and slave unit's.

As I revealed the map, I regularly passed it on to Hybo, the Sheaim and Svarts to hopefully guide them to battle. I ended up being allied with the Svarts, but the other's never really cared about me. I just held against the Elohim while I built up; they just trickle fed unit's to me. Parking my ship outside their only coastal city made them spam Galley's etc.

I had to convert to AV to please my allies, but mainly for the Ritualist's. However, when the hell terrain spread to my land's, it shattered my economy. From here I just spammed Vampire's and Ritualist's from my 5 cities to push west into the 2 remaining civ's I had to eliminate.

When the AC very quickly hit 30, the blight hurt me really bad as the hell terrain had wiped my healthiness. Once it's effect's eased, I cast my World Spell and then just kept the pressure on and walked through the Elohim who just seemed to make mainly Longbow's and Monk's. Their Homeland promo was frustrating; the frequency of withdrawal (10% odds only!) made me think all their Longbow's and Monk's were all on horseback!!! They, like most of the other's, blew their World Spell's from the outset, so there was no respite. I don't know what the hell my allies were doing because it just seemed that I alone was taking the fight to the infidel's; getting little to no support. I noticed the allied Svart's were building fresh cities to extend an already overextended empire!? I was the main guy fighting and razing cities before the AC got totally out of control.

I laughed when I got a truly menacing pop-up informing me that Valin Phanuel is after my head on a platter. 2 turn's later he's dead from suiciding into a far off city!

Basium had quite a few cities to get through. But the Angel's, though tough, were never going to hold out against stack's of Vampire's and Ritualist's with summoned Spectre's and rings of flame; Assassin's nipping at the edges. This simple combo just steamrolled them quickly and efficiently without adding too many more Angel's to his already swollen rank's. Basium himself had long been slain. He had some Crusader's in his last cities, but it was just more of the same by that point.
I was very lucky I had moved quickly from the outset.....Stephanos had appeared in the desert and was galloping rapidly toward's my few cities!

Very interesting to read this, seeing as how my game went almost EXACTLY the same, right down to winning two 70% battles with the barb-leveled eastern Vamp/Assassin to break the Malakim's defense for good. I must have been just a little bit slower than you because Stephanos showed up and razed one of my ex-Elohim cities five turns before I took Basium down and won the scenario. Too bad for Steph that he was right in the way of newly-immortal Losha, who was perfectly willing to "suicide" against him to knock him down to 2.5 str.

Overall, a very fun scenario. I think it would have been a little more challenging without the eastern units, who can easily level up on barbs enough to kill the Malakim by themselves.

 

[Kiwi Tyrant]

EXACTLY the same.....great mind's think alike!

I agree you should not start with the free eastern unit's. I could not believe I started with those key unit's, and immediately thought of a logical plan to use them. I guess Kael planned it that way....I suppose.

Take 'em out to hopefully maintain 2 immediate front's for direct pressure from the outset.

 

[Lone Wolf]

It doesn't seem right to me that the Elohim are following Junil. I believe that Nikis-Knight said that the Elohim were given the Order Holy city just so it wouldn't be spawned randomly.

Why not Basium's capital?

 

[Jabie]

Played as Elohim. Fun scenario. Two notes:

* They didn't start with a State Religion. Shouldn't they have started out as Order?
* Hell terrain advanced and changed the terrain to hell. Later on I captured soem Infernal cities and started using Life I to repair the land. Most of the land was restored, but in a few locations the Broken Lands (I think) just wouldn't disappear despite repeated (attempted) application of Life I and being located soundly within my borders.

 

[Izmir Stinger]

Have the fixes for this scenario been forgotten about? Basium still rapes the Sheaim on turn 10, the Sheaim still have the GE that was suposed to belong to the infernals, everyone still pops their world spell on turn 1, some of the Hell terrain still cannot be cleared...

Even with all of the problems (most negatively the Sheaim, my favorite civ) this is still a great scenario and I am looking forward to the final, tweaked version.

In addition to what has already been said by other posters, my suggestion is that seeing as it is supposed to be a major religious war, I think the civs should probably start with a state religion already selected.

 

[TC01]

Have the fixes for this scenario been forgotten about? Basium still rapes the Sheaim on turn 10, the Sheaim still have the GE that was suposed to belong to the infernals, everyone still pops their world spell on turn 1, some of the Hell terrain still cannot be cleared...

Even with all of the problems (most negatively the Sheaim, my favorite civ) this is still a great scenario and I am looking forward to the final, tweaked version.

In addition to what has already been said by other posters, my suggestion is that seeing as it is supposed to be a major religious war, I think the civs should probably start with a state religion already selected.

I agree. My first game as the Sheaim in this, I wasn't expecting Basium, and got crushed.

I also agree about the religions- as the Malakim, I completely forgot to flip to Empryean, because I assumed I already was Empryean...

 

[cirion]

I have a dumb question: do you (and/or your PA) need to kill the 3 opponents? Or does it count if someone else does the deed? I'm playing as Sheaim, PA with Faeryl (Decius beat me to the PA with Hyborem). I'm just trying to decide how generous I can be with Decius/Hyborem... I'd like to gift them all my tech, unless they can deny me the victory. Thanks!

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Glancing though ScenarioFunctions.py, it does not appear that how the civs are eliminated makes a difference.

 

[Corwyn]

I'm a FFH2 newb (just downloaded this game recently) and started immediately with the scenarios.

So far I'm liking the "Decius" scenarios.

There was a bug with this scenario though -- everytime I tried to play as Malakim/Decius, the game would hang.

So it forced me to play Elohim, which was probably the better choice, at least in terms of fun. Different civ (I'm brand new, so it's great to try out each civ), so it's a different experience from the last senario (in fact, I was a little disappointed I had to play as Malakim in the sequel scenario). Also, from what I've read in this thread it seems that playing Elohim is more fun because it puts you right in the middle of the action.

 

[Lord Yanaek]

Hello, i can't load this scenario (malakim path). If i try to load it through the ingame scenario loader, the game crashes, and if i try to load it directly (i copy it to the scenarios folder and select it), i get an error message telling me the game can't open it.

 

[Elyssaen]

Corwyn: I definitely agree. I originally started playing the Malakim but quickly decided that I'd have more fun with the Elohim. I've just finished a game as them, and I was right.

The first 50 turns were very slow, which made for some interesting micromanagement. I was able to (auto-)raze the Calabim's first city very quickly with nothing but what I started with. In the early game I found that the Mercurians were aggressive enough that I didn't need to build too much of an army to protect myself.

Once I had Valin I finished off the Calabim and took their cities. They screwed themselves over a bit by trying to build Pact of the Nilhorn (Hyborem finished it before them). I took a little time then to build up a decent army. I hadn't played the Elohim before and was surprised by how effective the monk was. I glanced over them on paper, but they're stronger than axemen, available about the same time on a different (more natural) route, have Demon Slaying and Medic I and can at least get City Raider I – this map wasn't big enough for the lack of II and III to be a problem.

Basium was also a very good ally in fighting Hyborem. The Sheaim were a bit of a bust. The AI seemed to have no idea how to use them, and in mid game I just camped Corlindale outside their kingdom with some mercenaries and hurled earth elemental after earth elemental at them, killing the odd adept or tar demon they had wandering around. The Svartalfar almost embarrassed me early on with a very strong assassin appearing out of nowhere, but later on they were leaving too many of their cities undefended – Valin took two alone, and a team of four paladins took three more with Malakim back-up.

'course, the Ljosalfar and Mercurians were doing the same, and I was delayed when I had to help them defend because they left only one unit in their border city.

It seemed near the end that the enemies failed to pick up any real momentum. I could have raised a second army to deal with the Sheaim or back up the first in attacking Faeryl, but it just wasn't necessary.

Spoiler Ending :

Ethne is dead! Curse it: though I knew little of the Elohim, I thought a female leader with an unusual (for the Elohim) inclination toward fighting would be a good idea. I had no idea Ethne would be that, and was dreaming of adding my own leader. It's difficult to see how the Elohim could survive in Erebus without someone like her – Einion Logos's ideas aren't going to cut it.

Overall I really liked this scenario. This one and The Splintered Court are my favourites so far. The scale of warfare is reasonably small and you have enough space and allies for it not to be completely hectic (hate The Momus).

 

[Corwyn]

@ Elyssaen

If you like strong and/or courageous female leaders, then you might like the story for the Bannor (with Capria) in the "Lord of the Balors" scenario. However, you might not enjoy the scenario itself if you didn't like the Momus. It can be a loooong slug fest on a large map.

 

[Gattamelata]

I'd like to re-emphasize how difficult this scenario is when playing as the Sheaim. I read through the thread before playing and thought I'd get a charge out of taking Basium out. I was right; it was hard and I had to sacrifice a few units, but he helpfully charged the fortress that starts south of Galveholm and hurt himself badly killing my Longbowman, Pit Demon, and a skeleton(!). I took him out with the Horsemen, who got 53 xp from the fight. I promoted the Horseman to combat 5 and got the Mobility promotions and one Drill promotion and figured I didn't come out too badly.

But he had the Immortal promotion, and so he respawned, charged right back at me, and showed up at the fortress again on turn 22, with the Combat 5 promotion (I'm not sure if he had that the first time).

That's pretty ridiculous.

Since it seems like this is a long-standing known issue, let me suggest an alternate fix: make the svarts the other playable race, instead of the Sheaim. I love the Sheaim, but this is not really a tenable starting position, at least not without some serious warnings about the difficulty.

I enjoyed my Malakim playthrough much more.