Oh hey! a hero select scene! I haven't seen this since . . . Mezekesh. And this is the last time we'll ever see it.
I'm bringing Sawu instead of Arri, because Bellasarri's heal is to important to give up, but Sawu is finally in a workable state, and his bonus timonium is going to come in handy.
This mission is supposed to represent a guerrilla action-we start without a base, while Czin controls five, four in the corners of the map and one big one in the capitol. We're going to need to take over his outlying outposts before moving on his capitol.
There are also several scattered fallen sentinels units scattered around that can be taken control of when you see them. These don't have any reward associated with them, which is good, because I have no compelling reason to hunt for them-the tech level has advanced to the point where scrappy resistance fighters flatly don't compare with anything in either sides arsenal.
Upon approaching the first outlying stronghold we get yet another side objective-knock out three supply caravans (further proof that the energy system wasn't started until later in development.)
Now, the first stronghold is guarded by two death spheres, which is a shocking amount of force. In response, I use the mind control dominance that we took from shok's capitol, and steal one. This is pretty much the best dominance in the coutl campaign, especially if you save it for Czin's death spheres.
The outer strongholds are unusual. Despite being labeled as cities on the mini-map, these are actually capturable sanctuaries, accompanied by a capturable fane. These buildings all give you a large amount of resource income when captured, letting you start up an actual military.
Immediately after taking control of the sanctuary, Czin shows up with a massive attack force. This gives us the ability to show off that Sawu's glass prison power is, in fact, as backbreaking as it looked in Mezekesh. 10 units, including Czin, get frozen for a frankly unfair amount of time, leaving my entire army to clean up the rest. We can't actually kill anything in a prison without freeing them, but that downside is much, much smaller than it looks on first glance It's a much better deal than the prototype of this ability back in the original starcraft, where frozen units were completely invincible. Of course, if the AI was more intelligent, it could also try and break the prisons themselves, which gives it an interesting tension.
Regardless, glass prison is likely Sawu's best ability even when he can summon a bloody dragon. Crowd control is really easy to underrate when you don't play RTS's heavily, but it is almost amazingly good when used carefully.
Our third side objective is to take over the other four sanctuaries around the map, but doing so is a massive pain in the ass as they're all heavily fortified and we have to hold off more attacks on all of the sanctuaries we control, whittling down my available forces.
So, I weigh how much one last hero point is worth to me, and after wasting another charge of mind control holding off an attack, I decide I don't actually care. A massive army of defenders and Sun Idols is massed up to take the bloody capitol, and the other outposts can rot.
At first, the assault goes well, but most of the enemy was off retaking the northwest outpost, or harassing my troops in other locations. Cain calls everyone back before I can topple the city. Should have brought some cannons.
But, things slow down, and my troops get whittled down as a a death sphere crashes into my back line, and more troops pour in. I get really close to abandoning the mission.
Then I remember that I have a massive pile of resources and start pouring in the reinforcements, and spare heroes until I slowly grind out advantage. It's a tactless display of attritional tactics, but it works in the end.
And, since all these caravans go to the capitol, we can polish off at least one of the side objectives actually gets accomplished! Who needs to get them all.
Oddly enough, this is actually a good and interesting mission, despite being at the end of the Coutl campaign. There are objectives, multiple ways of approaching it, side objectives and a compelling premise.
Despite it's theme of a guerrilla operation, this tends to be a bigger fight than most skirmish maps, because the sanctuaries give a ton of resources and you'll have to leave Czin alone. Strange.
Ugh. I'd wanted to finish this LP this update, but things didn't work out. We're only going to get to the lunar scars in our slow movement to Czin's capitol. This is a place where the the land is ravaged by the crash of the Coutl ship so long ago-not that we'll ever see any of that.
On the technology front, we can finally fight fire with fire as we pull out our own death spheres for the first time. The odds of me making these things in game are vanishingly small, but considering their relative cost compared to idols, loading up your starting army with them is a bit of a steal. Death spheres have the same cost and space in the strategic layer, but they are easily twice the cost of Sun Idols in game.
Anyways, the lunar scars is yet another skirmish map. In fact, it's a skirmish map we've played before back in Ha Seb, which is a step above the usual levels of laziness present in this game. It's still quite a challenge despite my advanced techs and army. Czin starts with two of his own death spheres, and brings up two more as the initial melee runs on.
By the time the dust has settled, I'm down to a single sun idol, sun cannon, and a couple infantry squads out of my starting army. I've also made some death snakes to try and counter the death spheres, but they took too long to make. Now that the wall of heavies are gone, we're back to making infantry to plump up my ranks.
It doesn't take long before there are yet more troops knocking down my buildings, which required floating off my fane to save it before my victorious faces can get over here.
After those initial attacks have been fought off though, the map plays itself. A couple rounds of reinforcements later, and after I bring Giacomo back up. We're able to fight through the extra troops Czin brings to bear, and march on his capitol.
To finish things off, I summon in Sawu, as a glass dragon is a very useful siege unit. One last skirmish map down. One more update to go.
So, to tide you guys over, how about we talk about the city of vengeance. (No, I'm not playing that bloody map again. This is a skirmish game.)
The city of vengeance has a tendency to be a bit of a utility piece rather than a straight up beatstick like the glass dragon or the leviathan. For one, it has a large transport capacity, which is a nice way to not be using expensive fanes.
The things in the back are cave bats, a neutral unit that was probably an air unit from a cut faction. As far as I am aware, they never show up in the campaign.
There are three abilities on the city, like all master units, but these cost several hundred energy each to use, making them a little less spammable. The first is a disintegration ray that does an incredible amount of damage to enemy buildings.
The second is the usual master unit self heal.
Also, though it isn't listed anywhere the guns on the city cause plague.
It's last ability is a gravity pulse, where the city flies up and does damage and stun to anything anywhere near it.
In all, winning master unit duels with the city is an expensive and risky prospect, but that doesn't make it useless. It has a transport capacity for a reason-use it to support your army. The gravity pulse is one of the most powerful tools on any master unit in a big engagement, and the disintegration ray can quickly eliminate cities and fortresses that get in your way.
It's time. This will be the final update of this LP.
I've got one last round of purchases to make in the assault on Czin. Reinforcements will come in on this mission, so throwing up every district possible near Kahal is the first step. I spend the last hero points to get Damanhur to level five, and am left with a tough call on the research front-I can either upgrade my Sun Idols, or my jaguars and death snakes. I end up breaking for the jaguars and snakes, which was a debatable move.
Lastly, due to the nature of the mission, the fighter and cannon get dropped from my army and replaced with another snake and jaguar.
There are no cities in Kahal. Instead, the entire province is dominated by a massive construction project ordered by the death god, a mouth to speak to the stars. Or, from an out of universe perspective, a country sized parabolic dish. All the false gods wanted to do was call for help after their ship crashed. It's almost sympathetic-if not for enslaving a third of the continent, creating an endless horde of glass monsters to destroy the power they couldn't fight themselves, and propping up a brutal dictator.
We can see the antenna at the centre of the dish, as well as the talisman that had powered the dark Alin providing power. Czin sits here, protected by powerful electromagnetic shields.
Now, oddly enough, there's no hero select screen before this battle.
But not for the reasons you may expect. This is the final battle, and it's all hands on deck. We start the game with every hero in our arsenal on the field.
We have returned to the two army control scheme, since Yontash has finally gotten ahold of the extra vaccines he promised at the start of the campaign. The entire Alin army that stormed Mezeksh is back, and it's just as nasty as it was when marching against the moon god.
(Obviously if you picked the Vinci heroes back at the start of the campaign, you'd have your Vinci army from the first campaign.)
So, our forces are separated by Czins giant forcefield gate, which is somehow completely impassible even to air units. The Coutl force is accompanied by Bellasarri, Dakhla, Sawu and Kakhoola, while the Alin are lead by Arri, Andromolek, Damanhur, and Yontash. Thankfully the useless Coutl heroes are evenly distributed, though I'm a little annoyed that Andromolek is on the Alin side, since Dark walkers don't benefit from Alin upgrades.
Our objective is to destroy six power nodes scatted on the rim of the satellite dish, then kill him. We have an hour to do so before Czin sends his message-if that gets out, then it doesn't matter if we kill him, we're doomed when his backup arrives.
Each side also has a entrance here more reinforcements can be brought in through. These are of the respective faction, though there are some notable and baffling exclusions of the units on offer-no fire elementals, death spheres, sand dragons, quetzal fighters, or glass spiders can be purchased. However you have a limited population cap, and the free units from the heroes put us way over on the Coutl side. The Alin have Damanhur, who provides a hundered bonus population space, so they can throw as many troops as they can afford at the problem.
Scattered across the map are these dish hatches-little sites with mostly ignorable guns that will slowly spawn in enemy troops. They are pretty fragile though, so I would advise against investing in dedicated siege units. Taking control of all of them is recommended.
The other oddity on this map is that there is a scavenge effect-all enemy units provide you some resources when destroyed. As you're actual income is sharply limited this is going to be your main source of income. It tends to give you more energy and wealth than timonium, so expect to see lots of sun units and glass golems. The map seems to be bugged because Dahkla is supposed to raise the resource cap, but isn't. If he was, then I'd get slightly higher timonium income from Sawu.
However, as we advance there will be attempts by Czins forces to retake the dish. If either of the entrances fall, then you lose immediately (Really stupid rule honestly, you could still do a ton of damage with the remainder of the troops you have, or just have the other army do the heavy lifting)
So we break out some powers on the heroes. Like a pack of sand horrors.
The power nodes are usually pretty well defended and always have a hatch right near them. If you have paid attention to your army buildup, then there isn't going to be much in the way of resistance at the first two power nodes.
I actually like how the dish is overgrown around the edges- it makes it feel more like a real place than a final battle arena. Czin is more than a little desperate, so he's sending a message without this place being strictly complete, and it was never in the best shape to begin with because it was constructed via slave labour.
The next major problem you'll run into our these monsters-moon gorillas. These giant animal mechs don't have any giant laser guns-instead they just beat the tar out of their targets. By the name, we can infer that these were the late Ix's design, but he never deployed them before his death. I guess his speciality was mechanical engineering instead of the exotic talents of the other gods. It would explain why he so quickly resorts to melee in the little we see of him.
Strength wise the gorillas aren't quite at master unit level, but are noticeably better that a fully upgraded top tier unit. To deal with these two I break out Bellasarri's and Sawu's ultimates, though they still do enough damage to stall advances on this flank for a bit.
Once things get rolling again, the next major obstacle is a massive air fleet defending the final power node. Thankfully glass prison shuts down most of it, because this is a scary amount of troops.
On the other side, the final node is guarded by four elite sun idols. Not as tough, and they get taken apart by judicious use of andromoek's glass prisons.
These idols get followed up on by yet more moon gorillas. In response, I bulk out my forces by dropping some similarly powerful units, Damanhur's fire golems. These obstacles vanquished, the final tow power nodes are free for the taking.
With the shield generators down, we start the second phase of the mission. Giacomo and our normal coutl army (yes, the army got duplicated somehow. I'm not quite sure how that made sense) get spawned in near the gates to launch a surgical strike against Czin himself. This is all we get, no reinforcements, so we'll have to be careful.
Standing against us are several elite sun idols and defenders, which would be a tough fight with just my basic army. This is a good time to blow any of the remaining dominances that are relevant to the battle.
Star blast, the one you get from Xil's capitol, is useful. It's a powered up version of the normal star bolt, instead of being a blast from the super weapon that you find on the map. It's simultaneously disappointing, since it will do good but not great damage, and frustrating, since it proves that the normal star bolt isn't bugged, the devs really felt that it's damage output was appropriate.
After that, the last charge of mind control can be used to take over one of the sun idols, which should be enough to tip the scales, but we can get a bit fancy. Despite the inability of even flying units to get into this little areas where Giacomo and Czin are fighting, Belassari's ultimate ability has a global range, and can be used to utterly blow out Czin's troops.
When unable to fight back, it doesn't take long to sweep aside Czin's troops
Somehow I never noticed this until now, but you can tell what tech a Cuotl unit is at by it's size-every upgrade scales them up slightly. For instance, in the middle of the frame is an elite sun idol that I stole from Czin, while beside it is a normal sun idol. Note the smallness.
Once Czin takes about of third of his health in damage, he spawns in a death sphere and some extra troops then runs to the other side of his big antenna.
The reinforcements aren't much of a threat after all the troops get sucked into a black hole.
Cain actually talks once it's clear he's lost (err, bloops, but we get a translation) which I did not remember. This of course raises the question of why none of the other gods get any messages like this.
CUTSCENE TIME
Gicamo faces off against Czin inside the control chamber for the Kahal Array. The doge's death ray is on a central platform, charging a giant beam of energy. The two grapple.
Czin quickly gains an advantage in the brawl, and throws Giacomo over the edge of the platform. Giacomo's mech grabs the edge of the platform, barely holding on. Czin advances to knock him off.
Giacomo has his mech grab hold of Czin's leg and scrambles out, leaving Czin to tumble into the depths below.
A holographic message appears, revealing an alien face speaking a unknown language.
Giacomo advances on the death ray, and sticks his hand in it, short circuiting it for the second time.
Outside, Arri and Lenora looks over the Kahal array. A massive explosion erupts from the centre.
LATER, close up on a statue of Giacomo, Carlini, and a Vinci soldier.
Arri: What will you do?
Lenora: I've got a lot to do. A city to rebuild. There's been too much fighting among the city states. The Vinci should be united. Giacomo gave us the chance to do that. But there's still a dozen minor lords out there all vying for power. I don't know if I can trust any of them.
Arri: I should go
Lenora: Do you have a place? You helped save the world Arri. And they exiled you because you did it without permission.
Arri :The king was angry that I disobeyed.
Lenora: The king was angry that you made him look like a fool. You should be leading the Alin, not him.
Arri: Any word from Kakhoola?
Lenora: Yeah, the Coutl are . . . adjusting. They've got statues of Giacomo too down there. They call him killer of false gods. Come back sometime, eh?
Arri: I will.
And that's that. We get a little state of the world post at the end, which does a good job setting up a possible sequel. The Cuotl, having defeat the false gods, are following the path of so many other revolutions and falling into infighting over the use of the gods technologies. The Alin, finally free of the dark Alin scourge, are eyeing their less unified neighbours suspiciously. In vinci lands the empire carved out by Giacomo is fragmenting with the destruction of Miana and the death of Giacomo, and a return to squabbling and war seems inevitable.
Well, at the very least this troubled campaign ends well. This is an incredibly fun and climactic mission, and is really helped by giving you all the heroes at once. It's a little strange that the final mission is so unusual though, standard logic would be to give a final exam mission with all of the core mechanics available, instead of an offbeat one. But there's been more than enough skirmish maps, so offbeat is good.
All in all, I'm not sure if replaying this game has changed my opinion on this game. It's not a good game, but the high points are high indeed. There are some things worth looking back on, and others worth forgetting. The main takeaway though is the focus on the campaign and the idea of a casual RTS. I earlier badmouthed the game for not being terribly balanced or clear, but this isn't trying to be a competitive game and that can be a good thing.
I remember being impressed by the last cutscene. All in all, it's a pretty fun game, and I could forgive what it lacked due to rule of cool and gargantuant mechanical spiders.
LATER, close up on a statue of Giacomo, Carlini, and a Vinci soldier.
Arri: What will you do?
Lenora: I've got a lot to do. A city to rebuild. There's been too much fighting among the city states. The Vinci should be united. Giacomo gave us the chance to do that. But there's still a dozen minor lords out there all vying for power. I don't know if I can trust any of them.
Arri: I should go
Lenora: Do you have a place? You helped save the world Arri. And they exiled you because you did it without permission.
Arri :The king was angry that I disobeyed.
Lenora: The king was angry that you made him look like a fool. You should be leading the Alin, not him.
Arri: Any word from Kakhoola?
Lenora: Yeah, the Coutl are . . . adjusting. They've got statues of Giacomo too down there. They call him killer of false gods. Come back sometime, eh?
