meh, two cannon, a flame tank and two engi's can handle most AI defenses. At least if you aren't dealing with fucking Tigran Enchanted Threads... some of the damage based defenses can also be annoying once you mod for up to three activations but before that they kind of suck.
Mr_Stibbons plays Age of Wonders 3
- Thread starter mr_stibbons
- Start date
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Chandagnac
Broken Robot
- Location
- Nowhere
Thank you for your advice. I did my best to take it to heart.
I restarted "The Sapphire Archipelago" and went for a strategy of 'ignore the fleets and conquer Isabella's cities as quickly as possible'. It paid off. By turn 28, I'd conquered all of her cities except the last one: the one inside the volcanoes. I then sat on all her income-producing structures and used 'incite revolt' to make her last city deeply unhappy. I then watched her fight off a revolt that killed almost all of her remaining units. After that, I left her alone for forty or fifty turns while I went all around the map and explored all of the dungeons, sunken cities, ancient ruins, and other structures. Following your advice, I built cities on every scrap of land I could find (but not the island to the north-east; I explored it, but left it too late to colonize it) and built up a massive economy. At various points, I had more than 200,000 gold.
Eventually, Isabella had built up a large enough army that she felt able to come out and try to retake the cities she'd lost. While she was doing that, I sneaked an army of gryphon riders past her and conquered her last city. After that, I picked her army to pieces, a little at time, as she sent out raiding parties to try to capture fortresses and cities I'd left sparsely defended. It got to the point where all she had left was a single hero unit (herself) and a single unit of grimbeak crows. I finally put her out of her misery on turn 112, when I was sure I'd got as much out of this map as I possibly could.
Here's a picture:
That was fun!
EDIT: Still, I'm disappointed that I didn't find any more fire wyvern eggs. I found a fell horse, a hunter spider and a unicorn sire, but no more flying mounts. Alas.
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that's a relative term.
Slaying a False God part 2
- Location
- Canada
Welcome back everyone! Sorry for the delays, but I'm buried under my last semester of undergrad, so updates will be sporadic until May or so.
This update we will be handling the traitorous orc rogue Sulthor before turning around and finishing our little political dispute with Leonus Desgrace. Here you can see Ed and Valery sweeping aside the riffraff on one of his two cities. unfortunately, the garrison on his capitol was far larger than I had expected, so this sideshow may take some time.
If you are disappointed in the lack of screenshots, I actually thought I couldn't win this fight, so I pressed the auto combat button as a last desperate hope. Somehow, neither hero died. I think the AI may actually be better at this than I am.
And after that, this little vassal state gets a visit from the wyvern riding doom brigade, along with some doggies they picked up from a site.
Meanwhile, my actual army is headed into the eastern mountains to do grunt work for a draconian city state. With the roadblock of units at sulthor's capitol, I think it's time to actually try and get an economy running on this map, which means pacifying the independent cities on my half of the map.
Further south, a quickly assembled taskforce is helping suppress rebellions and gaining the alliance of another city that I had missed in my initial drive to the west.
However, that's a sideshow to dealing with this mess. I need to kill Sulthor now before Leonus uses the extra cities that I accidentally gave him control of to turn his lands into an unbreakable fortress, and in the five turns since his betrayal I might barely have enough troops now.
It doesn't look like he's cleared the dungeon in the top right of the shot though, which might give my the edge I need.
Two units of teleporting cavalry. I can work with this. Yes I can.
Ok, here's the plan. Ed, the unicorn riders, the cherubs (You can tell that I'm in a desperate state when scouts are part of the battle plan) are lined up against a unit of bards and a trebuchet. Their job is to roll them over as fast as possible and then swing into the centre. They've got a unit of swarm darters for cover fire.
Meanwhile, Valery and co are in charge of taking arrow fire from all of the archers that make up the enemy centre, and if possible convert one of the enemy. Valery herself will support Ed in his wall jumping plan.
Lastly, all this cavalry is solely in charge of keeping Sulthor busy, since they can't do squat in a siege, and Sulthor is the only actually dangerous unit on the enemy side. I need to remember to make heroes who are about to betray me drop all their gear at the end of the mission beforehand.
Dwemus is going to ditch this front and try to help in the centre.
They do that job admirably. Sulphur didn't just flub his mind control attempt, he also moved to the far right flank of the battlefield, which should keep him away from the main assault for a turn even if he books it back afterwards.
Said assault goes pretty well. Bards are dead, orc priests are also dead to a lucky musket shot, trebuchet and archers are tied up. So far so good. Slightly worried about that pike unit's retaliation against my flying and cavalry force.
And, in a stroke of luck, I land not one but two conversion attempts on the enemy archers. Walls offer no protection from the word of the gods, after all. Not that orc archers are great troops, they're one of the worst racial units in the game, but I prefer them on my side than the enemies, and it remove about 80 HP from the pile I have to chew through.
Sulthor about faces to deal with the traitors immediately, and wow I forgot how fast levelled up rogue were. That pike unit I was worried about flanked the cherubs on the battlements but, I'm not the kind of person who expects scout units to survive a fight. They won't survive much in that position.
After mopping up the stragglers on the left flank, Sulthor get's jumped by Valery and Dwemus, who finally picked up a flying mount. Together they bring the orc leader down, and the battle is basically over.
One unit of converts didn't survive, but in all casualties were much lighter than I though they would be.
I'm rather proud of how that battle went, though landing both conversions helped swing the battle more than my brilliant tactics, if I am brutally honest.
Rest in peace, Sulthor. You died for your ideals, unlike everyone else on this battlefield. Hopefully we'll get to know you better in a different timeline.
----
Next time, I hope you all have strong noses, because we'll be showing off some disgusting cheese.
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Chandagnac
Broken Robot
- Location
- Nowhere
That's not the first time you've mentioned that orc archers are one of the worst racial units in the game. I hadn't used them very much, I hadn't really noticed how bad they were, so I was curious enough to look them up and find out why "they're one of the worst racial units in the game".
Elven longbows are good because they don't take range penalties.
Goblin swarm darters are good because they don't take obstacle penalties (and they do blight damage, which can be useful against enemies with physical protection and/or blight weakness).
Orc razorbows take range and obstacle penalties. But even without penalties, they do less damage than any other archer unit that I know of. This is supposed to be balanced by the fact that they have a chance to inflict bleeding wounds and they're slightly better in close combat than most other archer units. However, bleeding wounds is not a very useful status effect: it adds a little bit of extra damage over time, which can be enough to kill a unit that's already close to death. Better than nothing, but not great. Also, even if their close combat skills are slightly better than most other archers, they're still not very good. If they have to fight in close combat, they're likely to get creamed.
Anyway, this is a comment I meant to post weeks ago. Sorry about that. If you're still out there, @mr_stibbons, I've very much enjoyed reading your Let's Play and I hope you'll continue in future. Bring on the disgusting cheese! I've got no sense of smell anyway!
Slaying a False God Finale
- Location
- Canada
Welcome back everyone. Exams are done, university is done (hopefully), and I now have time to pick this up again! In addition, I'll be starting a second LP at some point in the near future to celebrate my new deadbeat lifestyle.
Last time we dealt with out traitorous ally Sulthor and gained the allegiance of one of Leonus' generals for our coup. The first thing that happened after that was the capture of my capitol city by a pack of giant spiders.
I may be a little rusty at the moment.
But who cares about that. We'll have somebody deal with that minor issue later, we need to stay on the offensive. I promised you guys cheese last time, and I plan on delivering. It's been a running theme in this lets play that hero units are busted, so to make a final statement, I'm going to finish the rest of this map with nothing but my three hero units. (less some mop-up operations in my back lines)
Then again, I didn't try this out just for kicks: due to the mountain range and swamps between Sulthor's old territory and Leonus' land, getting my troops back from to the front line in a reasonable timeframe wasn't feasible. Having my heroes on their flying mounts ditch the rest of the army and fly west at speed lets me press the offensive only a few turns after I took Sulthor's capitol thanks to some well placed haste berries. The cities that were retaken from my scouts have only a single stack or so guarding them, and I can take them over easily.
After seizing the northern city we fly south wiping out the garrison of the last piece of property held by general Baradir.
And on the next day we crush the other city that Leonus controls.
Then we have to take it back on the turn after from a passing patrol, but whatever. Saves me the trouble of tracking them down.
Now, all that left to do is to take Leonus' final island fortress. There are five cities, including his throne, with garrisons of varying strength but all stronger than the outer layer of defences, which should let our three heroes do a fair amount of damage by preying on the stragglers while my actual army gets build and marches across the map. But, with a bit of cleverness, we can also steal an easy victory with a decapitation strike.
Said actual army happens to run into poor city less Baradir, and his pile of low level dwarves. They are summarily cut down by my much more experienced troops. Which is kind of useful, since eliminating him is a victory requirement.
Since holding these cities long term is out of the question, once I take a city here, I'm putting it to the torch. We haven't been evil enough in the evil path anyways, and I think that this is a sensible contingency plan if my heroes can't pull out a victory here, reducing Leonus' production capacity.
In pretty short order two of the five cities fall, and I get some reinforcements from conversions. However, the garrisons of the northern cities are slightly too fortified to reliably attack without losing any of my heroes aka losing the game. And it is looking rather unlikely that I will be able to outfight Leonus in the long game.
For one, there's actually a sixth city in Leonus' area, underground, with a frankly absurd garrison. In addition, we don't have a very favourable class matchup in the first place due to the ineffectiveness of spirit damage based theocrat units against machines. So, the risky knockout strike looks more and more favourable.
First, we make a very risky strike on Leonus' throne city. Leonus isn't here himself, and the garrison is relatively light, but as you can see all of my heroes are badly beaten up by the attack. It's a bloody process of cutting down ranged units one at a time while under a hail of fire. Thankfully they can hide in the water from reprisal and they have enough healing abilities to get themselves back into shape in a couple turns.
Then, to make sure Leonus dosn't just retake his capital while my hero units are licking their wounds, I take advantage of a spellpoint pickup to power out the Scorched Earth spell. This rather infamous destruction magic spell is a city enchantment that causes the target to be instantly razed when it's captured.
It's infamy is exactly because of the tactic I'm using here: if you either pre-charge the spell or have enough spell points to cast it in one turn, you can capture a city, start plundering, lay scorched earth on it, and then run away, and the enemy is going to have a very hard time capturing the city back intact. They need to get lucky on disenchantment rolls, which is not a very high priority research in the first place, and have the mana and spell points to even try.
So, after Leonus obediently triggers the magical booby traps on the undefended city, I make a patently suicidal charge into the guns of Refellax where Leonus himself is holed up. My odds of surviving that many cannons and wipe the enemy is remote, even with three overleveled heroes. This won't be an issue however.
Because I don't have to wipe out the enemy. Leonus just lost his throne city, and he hasn't had enough time to establish a new throne in one of his remaining cities. So, for possibly the only time in this entire let's play, I get to turn the frustrating instant loss conditions back on the AI. Once the level two Leonus hero unit dies, then I win the mission on the spot. And that is frankly trivial. After baiting him into using his ranged attack, Edward cuts him down personally.
Dwemus: Leonus is gone and his crimes have been exposed to the public. The people are behind you. They will follow a true leader who is destined to do them justice. Come and claim your crown, Edward.
And there we go. Edward Portsmith has come from his humble beginnings to the throne most powerful country in the world through the tried and true method of raw military force. Where once the commonwealth chose it's leaders from the will of it's member states, it now gives it to a bloody usurper on the word of a militant priest. Hopefully he can do a better job than his late predecessor. It's not like his growing paranoia and uncompromising jingoism are going to be a problem.
Next time, we bring the fight to the elven court, for the first time since that little bit in mission two. That fact is a reflection on the nature of the war so far: the Court has done what it can to fracture the Commonwealth, use it's internal divisions against it, rather than try to fight their much larger neighbour head on. But now that he has taken command, Edward is able to bring the forces of the commonwealth to bear against their enemy directly. It almost feels like a sideshow compared to the internal struggles that have dominated Edward's story on this path of the story. We have reached the climax of the story already. The final battle against the court is almost an epilogue, only included because the writer can't leave the war open ended.
Last time we dealt with out traitorous ally Sulthor and gained the allegiance of one of Leonus' generals for our coup. The first thing that happened after that was the capture of my capitol city by a pack of giant spiders.
I may be a little rusty at the moment.
But who cares about that. We'll have somebody deal with that minor issue later, we need to stay on the offensive. I promised you guys cheese last time, and I plan on delivering. It's been a running theme in this lets play that hero units are busted, so to make a final statement, I'm going to finish the rest of this map with nothing but my three hero units. (less some mop-up operations in my back lines)
Then again, I didn't try this out just for kicks: due to the mountain range and swamps between Sulthor's old territory and Leonus' land, getting my troops back from to the front line in a reasonable timeframe wasn't feasible. Having my heroes on their flying mounts ditch the rest of the army and fly west at speed lets me press the offensive only a few turns after I took Sulthor's capitol thanks to some well placed haste berries. The cities that were retaken from my scouts have only a single stack or so guarding them, and I can take them over easily.
After seizing the northern city we fly south wiping out the garrison of the last piece of property held by general Baradir.
And on the next day we crush the other city that Leonus controls.
Then we have to take it back on the turn after from a passing patrol, but whatever. Saves me the trouble of tracking them down.
Now, all that left to do is to take Leonus' final island fortress. There are five cities, including his throne, with garrisons of varying strength but all stronger than the outer layer of defences, which should let our three heroes do a fair amount of damage by preying on the stragglers while my actual army gets build and marches across the map. But, with a bit of cleverness, we can also steal an easy victory with a decapitation strike.
Said actual army happens to run into poor city less Baradir, and his pile of low level dwarves. They are summarily cut down by my much more experienced troops. Which is kind of useful, since eliminating him is a victory requirement.
Since holding these cities long term is out of the question, once I take a city here, I'm putting it to the torch. We haven't been evil enough in the evil path anyways, and I think that this is a sensible contingency plan if my heroes can't pull out a victory here, reducing Leonus' production capacity.
In pretty short order two of the five cities fall, and I get some reinforcements from conversions. However, the garrisons of the northern cities are slightly too fortified to reliably attack without losing any of my heroes aka losing the game. And it is looking rather unlikely that I will be able to outfight Leonus in the long game.
For one, there's actually a sixth city in Leonus' area, underground, with a frankly absurd garrison. In addition, we don't have a very favourable class matchup in the first place due to the ineffectiveness of spirit damage based theocrat units against machines. So, the risky knockout strike looks more and more favourable.
First, we make a very risky strike on Leonus' throne city. Leonus isn't here himself, and the garrison is relatively light, but as you can see all of my heroes are badly beaten up by the attack. It's a bloody process of cutting down ranged units one at a time while under a hail of fire. Thankfully they can hide in the water from reprisal and they have enough healing abilities to get themselves back into shape in a couple turns.
Then, to make sure Leonus dosn't just retake his capital while my hero units are licking their wounds, I take advantage of a spellpoint pickup to power out the Scorched Earth spell. This rather infamous destruction magic spell is a city enchantment that causes the target to be instantly razed when it's captured.
It's infamy is exactly because of the tactic I'm using here: if you either pre-charge the spell or have enough spell points to cast it in one turn, you can capture a city, start plundering, lay scorched earth on it, and then run away, and the enemy is going to have a very hard time capturing the city back intact. They need to get lucky on disenchantment rolls, which is not a very high priority research in the first place, and have the mana and spell points to even try.
So, after Leonus obediently triggers the magical booby traps on the undefended city, I make a patently suicidal charge into the guns of Refellax where Leonus himself is holed up. My odds of surviving that many cannons and wipe the enemy is remote, even with three overleveled heroes. This won't be an issue however.
Because I don't have to wipe out the enemy. Leonus just lost his throne city, and he hasn't had enough time to establish a new throne in one of his remaining cities. So, for possibly the only time in this entire let's play, I get to turn the frustrating instant loss conditions back on the AI. Once the level two Leonus hero unit dies, then I win the mission on the spot. And that is frankly trivial. After baiting him into using his ranged attack, Edward cuts him down personally.
Dwemus: Leonus is gone and his crimes have been exposed to the public. The people are behind you. They will follow a true leader who is destined to do them justice. Come and claim your crown, Edward.
And there we go. Edward Portsmith has come from his humble beginnings to the throne most powerful country in the world through the tried and true method of raw military force. Where once the commonwealth chose it's leaders from the will of it's member states, it now gives it to a bloody usurper on the word of a militant priest. Hopefully he can do a better job than his late predecessor. It's not like his growing paranoia and uncompromising jingoism are going to be a problem.
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Ending the Old Ways (Commonwealth Loyalist Mission 6)
- Location
- Canada
Alright, we're back. This doesn't count as slacking off, since I was updating something for the last couple months. Just not age of wonders. But now that's done and we're back.
Before we start, I have two confessions to make. Firstly, because trying to beat the final map in the campaign after not playing for months is not conductive to updating in reasonable timeframe, I am turning the difficulty down to normal for this one map, while I get back in the swing of things. Once I return to other paths of the story I'll set it back to hard.
Secondly, I'm actually playing this map blind-I have never played the evil paths in this game before, because I am a terminally nice person.
The war is finally on in full, and the commonwealth is winning by a landslide. Between this mission and the last the Commonwealth has been rolling back the court past their fortifications at the Pool of Origins back to their original borders.
Commonwealth Supreme
I need no historian to tell me the significance of this moment.
We turned the Elves plan to attack us through ancient gateways against them. No, we mount our final assault on Sylvanus, the High Elves woodland sanctuary that has never fallen to men. Soon the Elves' only refuge will be surrender. My most faithful allies accompany me. How will the Elven Court react when they see Valery fighting her own kind? With Dwemus at my side, the faith these High Elves place in their immortal king and queen will waiver. My machines are in place, stocked with the mana-power that I invented, ready to show the High Elves the price of impeding the progress of our Great Empire.
Time and again ancient kings have proclaimed an age of men, only to see their dream of humanity fail. I shall break down this ancient lie. No single race shall conquer here. All people will be united. We are the Commonwealth and together we shall be victorious. We shall bright the whole world under one banner, and forge a new era of peace. The rebellious High Elves shall bow to me.
The bit about teleporting elves is a reference to the elven court loyalist mission, which we'll get to. However, it implies that the other side loses that mission.
Plotwise, this is a strange mission. We are finally, after five straight missions, getting a full scale battle against the elven court. This seems odd, but the plot of the game is a character piece more than a war story, and the elven court is a bit of a footnote in the story of Edward Portsmith. The narrative of this mission doesn't even make it sound like the court has a chance. Instead, the impression is that the sleeping giant has woken, that finally after a lot of sabotage and internal struggles the industrial might of the commonwealth has been mobilized and nothing can stand in it's way.
Leana the huntress: Halt! If you try to enter these woods, you shall die!
Edward: You can't stop the Commonwealth from advancing, you misguided Elven Court rebel! You should not have provoked our Empire. Now you will face the consequences.
Leana So be it. Your remains will be overgrown by the roots of the trees in this vast forest. You'll nourish them for years. My fellow hunters, reveal yourself.
An interesting conundrum comes up with the way the plot works. How do you represent the greatest military campaign in the history of the world on a single map?
Easy. You make the map ENOURMOUS. We're in for a slog. There are four enemy factions on this map that need to be dealt with. Leana the huntress, a high elf warlord who's commands the border guard of sylvanus who will be our first opponent. In addition, both King Sardias and queen Julia command an enemy faction, the king is a sorcerer and the queen is a arch druid. Lastly, there is a faction of draconians from Ralikesh, under the command of the evil theocrat Fai Dural.
So, to represent this massive push into the heart of the enemy, we start with three and a half stacks of human dreadnought units, including a flame tank, a cannon, and two juggernauts, basically on the border of an enemy city that can be taken over. We are frustratingly light on engineers though, which is going to be an issue.
Upon entering Leana's territory she spawns in nine monster hunters, which are more of a way to let you take this mass of troops for a spin then a meaningful obstacle.
The main thing to test out is the juggernaut-the previous two times Edward was running the show were both pretty short maps and we didn't get a chance to break these out before. They are . . . an interesting unit.
The primary weapon on these things are their heavy mortars, which do a large amount of normal and fire damage in an AOE. But this can only be used every other turn, and starts on cool down. If you can't use it, they can fire a broadside once per battle, doing reasonable damage to anything within two spaces. lastly, theres a token ram attack, which does decent damage, cannot be retaliated against, but can only be done once per turn. This also means that Juggernauts, like cannons and flame tanks, cannot make retaliation or opportunity attacks, making cheap melee units more of a threat than you might expect.
Statwise, these thins are almost as tough as a gold dragon base, have two element immunities like all machines, but are only moving at the speed of infantry. They're also the only ultimate unit that doesn't ignore terrain with flight or free movement base-they need two promotions to get free movement. This can be very frustrating on matter or mountain heavy maps-but can be worked around with enough upgrades.
They're a finniky unit to use compared to the normal flying wall of meat that you see in tier four, and while I'm not willing to call them bad, I haven't played dreadnaught enough to feel like I know what I'm doing with them. A pet engineer can improve their performance noticeably, keeping them fixed up and letting them fire mortars every turn.
After blowing up the monster hunters with juggernauts we walk into the elven settlement and migrate it to humans-there's a lot of industry that needs to be build up and we want to get moving fast.
One frustration on this map is that our reliable heroes have left our side and now serve as AI controlled allied factions. They both start with a similar amount of stuff to us, though they can't replace the dreadnought units. Sadly there's no way to direct the AI in this game, and I'll be largely screwing them out of treasure and territory every chance I get under the principal that I know what to do with them better than they do.
The other gimmick on this map is that, like the last one, there's a large amount of wild animals lurking around the forests. Makes sense, this is the pristine elven wilderness that we are trampling with giant landships. These are much more aggressive than normal, and will run straight into my troops. This is a nuisance, but it's a good way to add some levels to your troops.
As the second turn comes around, Dwemus pipes up with some actionable intelligence.
Dwemus: Lord Edward, I've sent missionaries to my cousins in the north, warning them of the Elven threat. I know they aren't too fond of the elven court, but they have never had cause to go to war with them. Now with the Commonwealth advancing quickly, I bet the Elven Court will reach out to them too.
Edward Why should we?
Dwemus Well, my Emperor, because my cousins have some very powerful allies. In the snowy regions of the area there is a Giant's keep called Coldwind Alcove. We will have a huge advantage if the Giant's keep were to join us.
This is helpful, since I don't know where everything is on this map for a change. Of course, I'm going to basically ignore his advice, and instead go west, where I'm more likely to encounter the enemy. So I can crush them with my juggernauts before they have a time to tech up.
In addition to our large land army, we also start with a pair of fancy new ironclad warships on this level. These are a 'bonus' dreadnought unit in that they're a naval unit in excess of the usual roster space of a class. Which sounds fun, but then you realize that you're getting this unit to compensate for your complete lack of flying units and then are sad.
Now this isn't a water map, but the warships have a lot of speed and vision range, which makes them pretty good at scouting. A few tunes of sailing down the western river, and lo and behold, elves. If Dwemus is intelligent he'll be swinging around here, but that's a fever dream.
We also find a hostel independent elf village in the middle of the forest. Waiting for this place to become friendly will take too long, and Valery would almost certainly take it over if we try, so we move in to conquer it.
You may also notice the trail of fallen trees through the forest. That is the result of the tree crusher ability on the juggernaut-any forest tile it enters is converted to barrens, and we get a trivial amount of gold. On this mission it's quite helpful, since the map is absolutely covered in forests. It really is more of a thematic ability, and it really is thematic gold. Nothing like trampling ancient and untouched forests with our giant steam belching landships to make you feel like the bad guy.
So, on our third turn the AI decides that they need to embark most of their army right beside my two ironclads. I have no idea how this looked like a good idea, but it's not an opportunity I want to pass up.
Ironclad warships function very similarly to juggernauts, trading twenty hit points for a far faster movement speed, while being half the cost because sea units. As a result, even though I can't bring both to bear in the narrow river, they are plenty dangerous to low tier units embarked in transports. We''l just have the first warship bail after it gets too shot up.
After taking out the first stack with broadsides and ramming, we get the mother of all morter shots, which sinks three transports at once.
On the other hand, storm sisters do pretty good damage to lightning vulnerable machines, so this ironclad is bailing after taking out four units, so it can die another day.
Now the other ironclad can swoop in and finish off this little army. This will give me a bit of breathing room.
Also, their hero was killed by the first ironclad, but he's back alive now because were on normal mode. He has some nice pants, which get shipped to Edward, bringing his defence to a comical 25, ten points higher than a juggernaut.
Then my ferocious navy gets their wounded ship sunk by a kraken while exploring a shrine of the fickle mermaid. Probably a waste of my ship, all ths shrine does is refill my movement.
Further upriver is the first real city that Leana controls, and another stack of troops running around in the river that is quickly sunken by my ironclad.
Up north, there's a small pass through a mountain range which a sign says leads to dwarven territory, where the ever present spy drones will be heading up to check out, while my army heads to battle the actual enemy.
I end up being a little turned around, with some troops considering heading north before realizing that they don't want to go in that direction. Edward is waiting for everyone to catch up hopefully along with some of Dwemus' troops. Along the way we see a heavily fortified independent city, which we may or may not be visiting later.
To end the update, here's the first . . . sixth of the map, to provide some context. I've been building roads from Edward's Landing behind my advance, under the optimistic presumption that there will be reinforcements coming anytime soon (there won't be.) I'm also settling an extra city in a promising little spot by Valery's territory.
Secondly, I'm actually playing this map blind-I have never played the evil paths in this game before, because I am a terminally nice person.
The war is finally on in full, and the commonwealth is winning by a landslide. Between this mission and the last the Commonwealth has been rolling back the court past their fortifications at the Pool of Origins back to their original borders.
Commonwealth Supreme
I need no historian to tell me the significance of this moment.
We turned the Elves plan to attack us through ancient gateways against them. No, we mount our final assault on Sylvanus, the High Elves woodland sanctuary that has never fallen to men. Soon the Elves' only refuge will be surrender. My most faithful allies accompany me. How will the Elven Court react when they see Valery fighting her own kind? With Dwemus at my side, the faith these High Elves place in their immortal king and queen will waiver. My machines are in place, stocked with the mana-power that I invented, ready to show the High Elves the price of impeding the progress of our Great Empire.
Time and again ancient kings have proclaimed an age of men, only to see their dream of humanity fail. I shall break down this ancient lie. No single race shall conquer here. All people will be united. We are the Commonwealth and together we shall be victorious. We shall bright the whole world under one banner, and forge a new era of peace. The rebellious High Elves shall bow to me.
The bit about teleporting elves is a reference to the elven court loyalist mission, which we'll get to. However, it implies that the other side loses that mission.
Plotwise, this is a strange mission. We are finally, after five straight missions, getting a full scale battle against the elven court. This seems odd, but the plot of the game is a character piece more than a war story, and the elven court is a bit of a footnote in the story of Edward Portsmith. The narrative of this mission doesn't even make it sound like the court has a chance. Instead, the impression is that the sleeping giant has woken, that finally after a lot of sabotage and internal struggles the industrial might of the commonwealth has been mobilized and nothing can stand in it's way.
Leana the huntress: Halt! If you try to enter these woods, you shall die!
Edward: You can't stop the Commonwealth from advancing, you misguided Elven Court rebel! You should not have provoked our Empire. Now you will face the consequences.
Leana So be it. Your remains will be overgrown by the roots of the trees in this vast forest. You'll nourish them for years. My fellow hunters, reveal yourself.
An interesting conundrum comes up with the way the plot works. How do you represent the greatest military campaign in the history of the world on a single map?
Easy. You make the map ENOURMOUS. We're in for a slog. There are four enemy factions on this map that need to be dealt with. Leana the huntress, a high elf warlord who's commands the border guard of sylvanus who will be our first opponent. In addition, both King Sardias and queen Julia command an enemy faction, the king is a sorcerer and the queen is a arch druid. Lastly, there is a faction of draconians from Ralikesh, under the command of the evil theocrat Fai Dural.
So, to represent this massive push into the heart of the enemy, we start with three and a half stacks of human dreadnought units, including a flame tank, a cannon, and two juggernauts, basically on the border of an enemy city that can be taken over. We are frustratingly light on engineers though, which is going to be an issue.
Upon entering Leana's territory she spawns in nine monster hunters, which are more of a way to let you take this mass of troops for a spin then a meaningful obstacle.
The main thing to test out is the juggernaut-the previous two times Edward was running the show were both pretty short maps and we didn't get a chance to break these out before. They are . . . an interesting unit.
The primary weapon on these things are their heavy mortars, which do a large amount of normal and fire damage in an AOE. But this can only be used every other turn, and starts on cool down. If you can't use it, they can fire a broadside once per battle, doing reasonable damage to anything within two spaces. lastly, theres a token ram attack, which does decent damage, cannot be retaliated against, but can only be done once per turn. This also means that Juggernauts, like cannons and flame tanks, cannot make retaliation or opportunity attacks, making cheap melee units more of a threat than you might expect.
Statwise, these thins are almost as tough as a gold dragon base, have two element immunities like all machines, but are only moving at the speed of infantry. They're also the only ultimate unit that doesn't ignore terrain with flight or free movement base-they need two promotions to get free movement. This can be very frustrating on matter or mountain heavy maps-but can be worked around with enough upgrades.
They're a finniky unit to use compared to the normal flying wall of meat that you see in tier four, and while I'm not willing to call them bad, I haven't played dreadnaught enough to feel like I know what I'm doing with them. A pet engineer can improve their performance noticeably, keeping them fixed up and letting them fire mortars every turn.
After blowing up the monster hunters with juggernauts we walk into the elven settlement and migrate it to humans-there's a lot of industry that needs to be build up and we want to get moving fast.
One frustration on this map is that our reliable heroes have left our side and now serve as AI controlled allied factions. They both start with a similar amount of stuff to us, though they can't replace the dreadnought units. Sadly there's no way to direct the AI in this game, and I'll be largely screwing them out of treasure and territory every chance I get under the principal that I know what to do with them better than they do.
The other gimmick on this map is that, like the last one, there's a large amount of wild animals lurking around the forests. Makes sense, this is the pristine elven wilderness that we are trampling with giant landships. These are much more aggressive than normal, and will run straight into my troops. This is a nuisance, but it's a good way to add some levels to your troops.
As the second turn comes around, Dwemus pipes up with some actionable intelligence.
Dwemus: Lord Edward, I've sent missionaries to my cousins in the north, warning them of the Elven threat. I know they aren't too fond of the elven court, but they have never had cause to go to war with them. Now with the Commonwealth advancing quickly, I bet the Elven Court will reach out to them too.
Edward Why should we?
Dwemus Well, my Emperor, because my cousins have some very powerful allies. In the snowy regions of the area there is a Giant's keep called Coldwind Alcove. We will have a huge advantage if the Giant's keep were to join us.
This is helpful, since I don't know where everything is on this map for a change. Of course, I'm going to basically ignore his advice, and instead go west, where I'm more likely to encounter the enemy. So I can crush them with my juggernauts before they have a time to tech up.
In addition to our large land army, we also start with a pair of fancy new ironclad warships on this level. These are a 'bonus' dreadnought unit in that they're a naval unit in excess of the usual roster space of a class. Which sounds fun, but then you realize that you're getting this unit to compensate for your complete lack of flying units and then are sad.
Now this isn't a water map, but the warships have a lot of speed and vision range, which makes them pretty good at scouting. A few tunes of sailing down the western river, and lo and behold, elves. If Dwemus is intelligent he'll be swinging around here, but that's a fever dream.
We also find a hostel independent elf village in the middle of the forest. Waiting for this place to become friendly will take too long, and Valery would almost certainly take it over if we try, so we move in to conquer it.
You may also notice the trail of fallen trees through the forest. That is the result of the tree crusher ability on the juggernaut-any forest tile it enters is converted to barrens, and we get a trivial amount of gold. On this mission it's quite helpful, since the map is absolutely covered in forests. It really is more of a thematic ability, and it really is thematic gold. Nothing like trampling ancient and untouched forests with our giant steam belching landships to make you feel like the bad guy.
So, on our third turn the AI decides that they need to embark most of their army right beside my two ironclads. I have no idea how this looked like a good idea, but it's not an opportunity I want to pass up.
Ironclad warships function very similarly to juggernauts, trading twenty hit points for a far faster movement speed, while being half the cost because sea units. As a result, even though I can't bring both to bear in the narrow river, they are plenty dangerous to low tier units embarked in transports. We''l just have the first warship bail after it gets too shot up.
After taking out the first stack with broadsides and ramming, we get the mother of all morter shots, which sinks three transports at once.
On the other hand, storm sisters do pretty good damage to lightning vulnerable machines, so this ironclad is bailing after taking out four units, so it can die another day.
Now the other ironclad can swoop in and finish off this little army. This will give me a bit of breathing room.
Also, their hero was killed by the first ironclad, but he's back alive now because were on normal mode. He has some nice pants, which get shipped to Edward, bringing his defence to a comical 25, ten points higher than a juggernaut.
Then my ferocious navy gets their wounded ship sunk by a kraken while exploring a shrine of the fickle mermaid. Probably a waste of my ship, all ths shrine does is refill my movement.
Further upriver is the first real city that Leana controls, and another stack of troops running around in the river that is quickly sunken by my ironclad.
Up north, there's a small pass through a mountain range which a sign says leads to dwarven territory, where the ever present spy drones will be heading up to check out, while my army heads to battle the actual enemy.
I end up being a little turned around, with some troops considering heading north before realizing that they don't want to go in that direction. Edward is waiting for everyone to catch up hopefully along with some of Dwemus' troops. Along the way we see a heavily fortified independent city, which we may or may not be visiting later.
To end the update, here's the first . . . sixth of the map, to provide some context. I've been building roads from Edward's Landing behind my advance, under the optimistic presumption that there will be reinforcements coming anytime soon (there won't be.) I'm also settling an extra city in a promising little spot by Valery's territory.
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Ironclads are actually ridiculously good on the water, it's honestly a little silly just how much damage they can inflict even sans engineer reloads on even flying units/naval monsters.
Juggernauts are kind of bullshit btw. Mostly because they are your only useful ranged AoE, Cannons LoE behaves awkwardly on a hex grid and it's harder for your opponent to make the mistake of aligning his units for you to blast than it is for him to not. Occasionally they can punish a touch buff but even that tends to be hard to pull off. Flame Tanks are pretty much your only other AoE, and while they cna do things with their flame not even dragons can do(no dragon breath while engaged, and only every other turn) they do share the primary limitations as well (low range and dmg is ridiculously low if anything is in the way).
ALSO ALSO, Human Juggernauts are kind of meh. They really only get that +10 labour to every city, which is nice for getting buildings up and units out but doesn't help alot with the Juggernauts biggest problem, keeping his specialized forces where they can do the most good and support each other.
Dwarven Juggernauts are kind of bullshit on the other hand. the defensive bonuses and the advantages having the entire line up of both class and racial units benefit from Dwarven and Juggernaut armor bonuses is really kind of bullshit.
Also, Meteoric Iron Armour Juggernauts. it's dumb.
EDIT: also Tigran Juggernauts for those athletics Engineers, it won't help you get them places strategically, but Tigrans are probably the only juggernauts who can accept having a seperate engie stack.
Juggernauts are kind of bullshit btw. Mostly because they are your only useful ranged AoE, Cannons LoE behaves awkwardly on a hex grid and it's harder for your opponent to make the mistake of aligning his units for you to blast than it is for him to not. Occasionally they can punish a touch buff but even that tends to be hard to pull off. Flame Tanks are pretty much your only other AoE, and while they cna do things with their flame not even dragons can do(no dragon breath while engaged, and only every other turn) they do share the primary limitations as well (low range and dmg is ridiculously low if anything is in the way).
ALSO ALSO, Human Juggernauts are kind of meh. They really only get that +10 labour to every city, which is nice for getting buildings up and units out but doesn't help alot with the Juggernauts biggest problem, keeping his specialized forces where they can do the most good and support each other.
Dwarven Juggernauts are kind of bullshit on the other hand. the defensive bonuses and the advantages having the entire line up of both class and racial units benefit from Dwarven and Juggernaut armor bonuses is really kind of bullshit.
Also, Meteoric Iron Armour Juggernauts. it's dumb.
EDIT: also Tigran Juggernauts for those athletics Engineers, it won't help you get them places strategically, but Tigrans are probably the only juggernauts who can accept having a seperate engie stack.
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AKuz
Been Better
- Location
- A Rising Tide of Horrors
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Ending the Old Ways part 2
- Location
- Canada
Welcome back. First thing that happens in this session is that my one surviving ironclad gets chased down by a pack of griffons and is torn to shreds. It does manage to take a longbow and warg unit with it. Attacking the Krakens was a mistake.
Our exploration to the north reveals the first dwarf settlement, but they aren't interested in talking to us now. We'll have to wait a couple turns before Dwemus' missionaries get over here offscreen and get us our foot in the door. Until then, there are a surprising amount of unguarded resource pickups up here, and a spy drone or two will make a tidy profit.
But onto the main event. I decided against taking the independent city in favour of crushing our enemies. On the way over said city swore allegiance to Queen Julia, but Dwemus is in position to move on it soon, and I'll let him take it.
Leana's troops are out of position as is usual for the AI, and this gives us the opportunity to shred her troops.
This city doesn't even have walls, which makes it a slaughter.
And then it's easy enough to wipe the rest. To be fair, it isn't like the AI could have packed their troops much tighter-this is the difficulty in using basic tools against elite ones-there flat out isn't enough space to really swarm an enemy, especially if the enemy has the initiative.
However, after routing the Leana's troops, she's getting bailed out by our second enemy, Fai Dural. Despite being a draconian lord, he's leading a large amount of elven troops, with only a scattering of draconians. However, he hasn't seemed to be ready for me to move this fast, and I can eat some of his troops while they're scattered around.
While I'm running wild in Dural's troops, Dwemus takes this enemy settlement. Despite my resolution to screw him out of everything, he will manage to pick up a couple cities that I don't have time to attend to personally. Valery does much more poorly-she seems to have a reluctance about passing throuhg my territory, and can't reach the enemy.
Next turn, I advance into the forest in pursuit of Dural's troops. This reveals Leana's throne city and the griffon force that had taken down my ironclad. Also a random independent assassin who is standing in exactly the wrong spot.
Since Leana was downed in her last city, if she loses this city she loses the game, and any surviving troops and cities go independant.
After a bit of tree trampling and the removal of the assassin, we are in position to break Leana's last major force and take her off the map.
Unsurprisingly, juggernauts are pretty good in siege battles. The mortar ignores terrain penalties and will damage any wall sections in the AOE. And, as a bonus, you can actually shoot it before the defenders are on top of you because of the increased distance between then lines.
Because of this, Leana's troops don't try to win a shooting war, and the most of their troops are flying out to meet us, though they probably shouldn't be sitting in fireball formation like that.
On the east flank there is a bit of trouble, due to the lack of a juggernaut or Edward. My golems get shot up badly in a brawl with a griffon, and then get destroyed by a volley of lightning bolts-all machines have some degree of shock vulnerability, and the elves are merciless in spamming their initiates and storm sisters to take advantage of it.
The rest isn't much of a threat.
On the start of turn twelve, Dwemus finally gets through to the dwarves. Six dwarven towns of various sizes all go from hostile to peace with us, and we get a quest to make them join us-killing five elven stacks scattered across the northern mountains. The reward is probably worth it, but there are powerful units like manticore riders and warbreed as part of the quest, so we'll need to dedicate a non-negligible amount of troops a long way from the front lines.
Leana respawns on her capitol, just in time to die. She's got three other units with her, and gets run over by juggernauts.
Edward: So where are your powerful trees now? I will tell you, beneath the wheels of my landship, broken. Like the entire Elven Court will break.
However, taking the city reveals yet more scatted stacks from Fai Dural, so any attempt to get an army up north is going to be delayed by at least one turn while we swat some flies.
Some flies are more dangerous than others, though. These vague purple blurs are nightshade fairies, the third and final tier of fairies. They're only a tier three unit, but as the best unit produced by a fairy ring they have some pretty splashy abilities to play around with. They're invisible, making them concealed on all terrain types, are immune to four of the five elemental damage types, can teleport, and are the only third tier archer unit in the game.
This particular pack demonstrates their status by one-shotting a unit of engineers by teleporting into a flank. That loss will seriously impede operations by these troops for the next couple turns.
After that, my troops form up in a defensive huddle, and the rest of Fai Dural's troops start to retreat again.
Fai Dural: The wrath of gods will soon be upon you. You have made a big mistake, entering these woods.
Edward: Pray to them.
I'm going to be stopping my advance here, but I do send a spy drone onwards, taking a fortress from Fai Dural, and revealing stacks under the control of Juila and Dural.
It also causes Dural to make the above exchange as you enter his territory. The phrasing, 'wrath of gods' is a little awkward on first glance, but makes sense in the context that Dural is a pure evil character. The gods he is a theocrat of aren't widely accepted as 'the gods'.
(This would make a hell of a lot more sense if we'd done the good path first, but roll with me. It'll make sense later.)
So now, Edward is taking a stack to the northeast, to hunt down those five stacks and get the dwarves on my side. Meanwhile, the rest of my army is keeping an eye on things, and intercept a flock of exalted that have flown over the river.
Rather ominously, we see a stack under Julia's flag sneaking about to south lead my the druid ultimate unit, a horned god. This may be a sign there's going to be a storm coming, and we may have to cede some territory to preserve our troops.
I ignore the signs, however, and send my army south to take one of Leana's former cities before it could be a threat. This could be valuable, but it could also leave my vulnerable. I'm relying on the AI to defend my territory, never a good plan.
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Horned gods are IMO not particularly good for tier 4 units, but their lightning blast special is uniquely suited to nuking the hell out of Dreadnought mechanical units. That said, one by itself isn't a huge threat since it starts on a three-turn cooldown AFAIK, if you can nuke it down before it goes online you can save yourself a lot of pain.
Ending the Old Ways part 3
- Location
- Canada
Ok, Last time I mentioned that there were some quest stacks that needed to die to gain the allegiance of the dwarves settlements of the north. Things go smoothly, firstly steamrolling a stack of monster hunters, and later engaging a pair of manticore riders. Edward is able to thrash one easily, while the second goes for the flame tank. Then my cannon finishes off the first rider, while the rest of the army surrounds and kills the second one.
Then disaster strikes, as the third quest stack jumps my troops while Edward is away getting loot. A pair of warbreeds and several infantry units makes for a tough fight, and I end up losing my flame tank and one of the swordsmen units to the maces of the warbreed.
At this point, I decide in a change in strategy. We've taken out the scariest quest stacks, and the other two are a ways off to the east. Thus my now mauled troops are going to head back south, while Edward flies east to solo the last two targets.
Down in the south, that stack I was worried about earlier has snuck around and taken a city, which we will now be taking back. It's not the scariest stack in the world, despite having t4 unit in it.
Horned gods are a pretty flexible unit, being decent in melee and having a long range AOE lighting blast they can use every other turn. The real danger is that both the lightning blast and their melee attacks have a stun chance, which like all stuns are devastating when they go off. If the RNG is against you, a horned god can massively over perform.
This one doesn't, and gets surrounded and cut down by musketeers and swordsmen.
Next turn starts with the auspicious message that Fai Dural has pushed Dwemus out of his new city in a bloody battle. On the bright side, Dural won't be attacking me anytime soon with those casualties.
On the home front things are slightly tense. A hero bearing the flag of king Sardias and two more Horned Gods are lurking around and have taken and outlying fortress. It might be a turn or two before I can finish chasing them down with the fresh troops that are rallying here.
Now, the real question is what the justification for Sardias, a sorcerer, using druid ultimate units is. Presumably he was given them by his wife, but does that mean that he's in charge and his wife is supporting him, or that the war turning against the court has increases his wife's influence to the point that he has to beg her for troops?
With a bit of effort I'm able to chase the raiding stack into the arms of my B team, a bunch of hellhounds and newly produced units. In theory, this should be a winnable fight. However, Saradias apparently really didn't want to lose his wife's presents, and pulled out all the stops to help out-hitting my army with one chain lighting using two magic fists to finish off weaker hellhounds and engineers.
Add in some unlucky stuns on my weaker troops, and things go south quickly.
Maybe I misplayed somehow, but when the dust settled I'd traded a stack and a half for one and a half horned gods. Not the end of the world, but not something I can repeat without consequences.
Edward, at least, had some success while his troops and allies were being tossed around by the court. After scything through a pack of scoundrels, he just had to hunt down a small stack of assassins to secure the dwarven alliance.
He couldn't just charge in to a pack of assassins safely, so the fight actually turned into Ed flying behind trees to keep them away while throwing firebombs. Cheesy, but effective.
Dwarf: Thank you Emperor Edward, for helping us. We will join your cause. Long live the Commonwealth!
Edward: Great!
Ander: Hmm… You've shown the Dwarves that you're worthy of trust. Maybe you little humans aren't so bad after all. We have a test for you. Defeat the dragon in the cavern below the city and we will join your cause.
So, I now have control of the dwarf cities in the north-five of them are a little remote to be major manufacturing centres, but Goldridge is within spitting distance of Fai Dural.
The front giant quest is something I'm going to be doing at a point later-I don't know where the dragon is, or what nasty surprises may be waiting in it's cave, so I'll be sending Ed back to the front. Once things have stabilized I'll send a task force up north to clear it. I don't value the one giant dwelling that highly.
In addition to the surface territories, the dwarves also give us control of this underground cavern via four fortresses. There are plentiful gold mines and mana nodes down here, but they are guarded by independent dwarf stacks, much like the surface. To deal with them we have some scattered dwarf armies of low level units. The dilemma is whether to secure more economic gains by clearing the north, or to group the dwarves now and cross the mountains into enemy territory.
I basically mulligan the decision for a turn, but suffice to say that after a couple terrifying turns, I decide that most of the dwarves will be held back to clear the north.
In the first bit of good news, Saridas didn't move the army next turn, and the A team was able to finish this squad off.
Due to my usual incompetence, Leana's old capitol flip-flops again, but what I see when I return is terrifying. Julia has decided to put some effort into her assault, sending in two and a half stacks of basic elven units and t2 druid summons, lead by herself and a horned god. They could probably overwhelm the stack that's holding this city, even with the walls. Some of my best troops are grimly preparing to take as many elves with them before they die.
And Julia is a moron. She bypasses Finrel, leaving her out of position on a bridge and staring down a larger force than the one she had ignored.
Julia rushes me immediately, and I respond by retreating my flank, letting me engage her two stacks separately. Then I blow all of my cool down abilities in one turn, trying kill off as many targets as possible.
I am hampered by terrible morale -Saridas put a dread omen on this city, which inflicts a -500 penalty to morale of any units within its borders, and having cities flip back and forth isn't good for morale in the first place. So there will be more than a few fumbles in this battle.
Round two has us easily finish off the horned god, and the rest of Julia's troops are far enough away that I can have the muskets and cannons reload themselves.
The second stack is mostly t1 units, which mean that they tend to get one-shot by AOEs. They get taken apart, and I regain dominance of the front.
Julia herself was bringing up the rear of the army, and is cut down. This is just icing on the cake, because she won't be able to summon anything for a couple turns. Every edge counts.
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holy shit they actually lined up diagonally!
Ending the Old Ways part 4
- Location
- Canada
Well, my computer is finally back from the shop, so it's time to get this train wreck back on track. I'm terribly sorry for the delays, but there was really nothing I could do.
It's time to go on the offensive. This of course requires knowing what our targets are and what is defending them. Heading east we come across one of Fai Dural's cities, but it has a rather fearsome garrison. The scout force and some extra troops are going to sit tight in a nearby fortress, which should keep the troops in the city pinned while I head elsewhere.
A more promising prospect is found to the north, retaking the city that Dwemus recently lost. It has a smaller garrison, and both Edward and a stack of fresh dwarves are able to reach it in a timely fashion.
One application of overwhelming force later, and Erume is mine and Far Dural will be spending the next few turns in the void. This isn't that much of a problem for a theocrat, but it'll count.
Scouts follow the mountain chain north and find yet another city, guarded by a single evangelist unit.
Ed can handle this problem himself, and more dwarves are in position to reinforce him later. The rest of my troops head back west, to deal with the other city.
Continuing north, Ed finds an unguarded fortress, and three independent horned gods. I'm not sure what is going on here, it's possible these were Leana's before she lost, or that the designers left them here to reinforce the magical nature of the area.
Everyone else swings back across the river. It'll be a bit harder without Edward, but I think I've got enough troops.
This one has wall, and it's a rather nice change to actually be able to knock down walls. Our priority is to take out the shrine of smiting before it has a chance to use it's divine vengeance ability and blow up all my machines with lightning damage.
This plan doesn't work, and I take a LOT of damage. But only one unit dies, because there isn't much to follow up on the AOE. Really AOE isn't the best in this game, because if units aren't dead, they can still fight and will eventually heal up.
After that nasty turn, it's easy enough to overrun the walls and take the city.
Everyone forts up, waiting for more troops and healing, but scouts show that we're a stones throw from Dural's capitol, which gives us the chance to take him off the board. There's also some troops from Saridas around.
In the meantime, we do some scouting in the northeast, finding what seems to be the entrance to the frost dragon cave. As expected, the dragon isn't the only thing in here. There's also a stack of yetis, far more dangerous than one dragon.
We also find a destroyed city watched over by elven units. It could be quite prosperous to rebuild, but I don't have any desire to bring enough troops all the way up here.
In addition, we get Finrel captured again, and blood some of our fresh troops fighting against them.
We also use al little trick to eat Saridas' force-attacking an enemy watchtower will drag in any nearby forces. This somehow works even if those troops are embarked, and I can force this stack into a fight without exposing my troops to Dural's navy.
Next up, time to finish off Dural. I'm a little concerned, because my troops are pretty shot up, but there are really only a few major enemies here, and a lot of chaff.
For the first time this map we've got a town guarded by a stone wall, which will actually take several cannon rounds to break down. But I have four cannons, which means that my project to break down this rampart will take about a turn.
And my knights charge up the battlements and are immediately converted. Bugger.
They turn about and kill off a champion swordsmen unit with the help of some fire support.
A cannonball to the face and a point blank musket volley scalpel out the evangelists, freeing my knights to charge after Dural himself. On the other flank, juggernaut bombardment and broadsides breaks down another rampart. This lets some angry robots crush the group of nightshade fairies and an out of ammo musket unit moves to tie up some draconian elders.
Now the only major threat left behind the walls is this group of exalted hanging out in the back. Thankfully I can abuse the absurd effective range of cannons to blow them to pieces. All thats left now is a bunch of cherubs and infantry, which is easy enough to mop up.
With that, two of our enemies have been defeated, and only two are left. Next up we'll hopefully catch some of Sardias' troops here, and make our next thrusts to the north and south. See you then.
It's time to go on the offensive. This of course requires knowing what our targets are and what is defending them. Heading east we come across one of Fai Dural's cities, but it has a rather fearsome garrison. The scout force and some extra troops are going to sit tight in a nearby fortress, which should keep the troops in the city pinned while I head elsewhere.
A more promising prospect is found to the north, retaking the city that Dwemus recently lost. It has a smaller garrison, and both Edward and a stack of fresh dwarves are able to reach it in a timely fashion.
One application of overwhelming force later, and Erume is mine and Far Dural will be spending the next few turns in the void. This isn't that much of a problem for a theocrat, but it'll count.
Scouts follow the mountain chain north and find yet another city, guarded by a single evangelist unit.
Ed can handle this problem himself, and more dwarves are in position to reinforce him later. The rest of my troops head back west, to deal with the other city.
Continuing north, Ed finds an unguarded fortress, and three independent horned gods. I'm not sure what is going on here, it's possible these were Leana's before she lost, or that the designers left them here to reinforce the magical nature of the area.
Everyone else swings back across the river. It'll be a bit harder without Edward, but I think I've got enough troops.
This one has wall, and it's a rather nice change to actually be able to knock down walls. Our priority is to take out the shrine of smiting before it has a chance to use it's divine vengeance ability and blow up all my machines with lightning damage.
This plan doesn't work, and I take a LOT of damage. But only one unit dies, because there isn't much to follow up on the AOE. Really AOE isn't the best in this game, because if units aren't dead, they can still fight and will eventually heal up.
After that nasty turn, it's easy enough to overrun the walls and take the city.
Everyone forts up, waiting for more troops and healing, but scouts show that we're a stones throw from Dural's capitol, which gives us the chance to take him off the board. There's also some troops from Saridas around.
In the meantime, we do some scouting in the northeast, finding what seems to be the entrance to the frost dragon cave. As expected, the dragon isn't the only thing in here. There's also a stack of yetis, far more dangerous than one dragon.
We also find a destroyed city watched over by elven units. It could be quite prosperous to rebuild, but I don't have any desire to bring enough troops all the way up here.
In addition, we get Finrel captured again, and blood some of our fresh troops fighting against them.
We also use al little trick to eat Saridas' force-attacking an enemy watchtower will drag in any nearby forces. This somehow works even if those troops are embarked, and I can force this stack into a fight without exposing my troops to Dural's navy.
Next up, time to finish off Dural. I'm a little concerned, because my troops are pretty shot up, but there are really only a few major enemies here, and a lot of chaff.
For the first time this map we've got a town guarded by a stone wall, which will actually take several cannon rounds to break down. But I have four cannons, which means that my project to break down this rampart will take about a turn.
And my knights charge up the battlements and are immediately converted. Bugger.
They turn about and kill off a champion swordsmen unit with the help of some fire support.
A cannonball to the face and a point blank musket volley scalpel out the evangelists, freeing my knights to charge after Dural himself. On the other flank, juggernaut bombardment and broadsides breaks down another rampart. This lets some angry robots crush the group of nightshade fairies and an out of ammo musket unit moves to tie up some draconian elders.
Now the only major threat left behind the walls is this group of exalted hanging out in the back. Thankfully I can abuse the absurd effective range of cannons to blow them to pieces. All thats left now is a bunch of cherubs and infantry, which is easy enough to mop up.
With that, two of our enemies have been defeated, and only two are left. Next up we'll hopefully catch some of Sardias' troops here, and make our next thrusts to the north and south. See you then.
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Chandagnac
Broken Robot
- Location
- Nowhere
Thank you for continuing this Let's Play, mr_stibbons. I've very much enjoyed reading it and I'm glad you haven't abandoned it.
I really like Age of Wonders 3. It's a game I keep coming back to, even if I've played other games in the intervening time. I'm not too keen on the official storyline, but I really enjoy the gameplay and keep wanting more. If your Let's Play encourages other people like me to want to play it, I'm all for that.
I have exactly the same problem. By now, I've completed both the Elven Court and the Commonwealth campaigns as rebels/Torchbearers. (The final map for both of those campaigns was exactly the same with only slightly different starting positions. It's interesting to see that the final map of one of the 'evil' campaigns is so very different.) I've also completed the Eternal Lords campaign by defeating both Melenis and Werlac and achieved the only 'good' ending (i.e. the non-canon ending). But I can't bring myself to play the evil paths through the game. Like you, I'm terminally nice. (At least, I want to be and feel guilty if I don't try.)
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Ending the Old Ways part 5
- Location
- Canada
Poking around the northern frontiers with my scouts, we come across several large stacks of spiders just . . . holding ground. The entire area is the first patch of blighted terrain on the map, and there's a wizards tower nearby. I wonder if this is a parallel to the neutral horned gods we found to the south-the gods trying to hold back the blight.
Like the looted city last update, it seems that the map designers have taken some effort to hide goodies, side stories or interesting little landmarks around the edges of the map. It keeps things interesting if the battles in the main fighting areas start to bog down. It reinforces the idea that what would be a centrepiece of an RPG could just be a sideshow in this giant wargame.
We also find some of Julia's territory. She's too fortified here for Edward to beat solo, and it will take some time before anyone is going to be in position to attack: I've got some dwarf tier one troops in the area, but they may not be enough, and will take a while to slog through the forest.
Back in the action, we're sweeping up some of Saridas' troops that were lurking about. I get another volley of spells backing up the troops inflicts some casualties, including a crucial engineer unit that I really needed to heal my beaten down force.
Saridas isn't idle, and he makes moves in response. Firstly a weak stack has snuck through the forests and are threatening to capture the cities on the elven side of the mountains.
He also quickly flipped the fairy ring that Dural had controlled not one turn ago. This certainly implies that there are actual units there, possibly lots.
Undergound, we have finally located the dragon that giants want us to kill, having snuck past the much scarier yeti stack. Given a bit to sneak in more troops and we should be able to swarm it to death easily, and claim the quite substantial amount of loot in it's cave.
Next turn rolls around, and we're in position to take the Fey Dwelling from Sardias, and free him from the burden of upkeeping a stack and a half of pretty decent summons and units. The rivers around this area make it rather difficult to get all my troops to where I want them to be, and I'm only able to bring two stacks and Ed to the fight. This time, it isn't a problem.
It seems that there's no path to Sardias directly from here: Sardias has been sending his mostly flying army in by the river, and he has an actual navy keeping an eye. I may have to rebuild my navy, unless the mountains are narrow enough to be crossed.
Further exploration of the blighted terrain reveals a razed settlement, Sweetscent grove. I'm not sure if this is more map filling, or if this entire area is a reference to one of the first games that I am not getting.
Actually, knowing some of the things that come up in some of the expansion pack missions, it could be a reference to pretty much anything.
In the same area, Saridas successfully takes one of my cities. A relief force of dwarf recruits is marshalled to take it back, but they get diverted by another roving stack that's lurking around this area.
I doubt the AI is actually going to target my new dwarf territories, but if they did it could be quite profitable-I really have little defending the area besides the neutral forts on the passes.
The reason I'm so confident about that statement is the giant army that's moving south on my new territories.
Ok, it's not that giant. Three horned gods, but nothing my A team couldn't rip to shreds. But they're over in the fey dwelling, and can't counterattack this turn. If Julia dosn't pick a fight, then it could be a long chase through my lightly garrisoned back lines.
Slightly to the south, there's another large city under Julia's control. The garrison contains three more horned gods, and has been making aggressive moves towards my stuff on occasion.
More disturbingly, the number of horned gods implies that Julia can summon them herself- we've seen six here, and another two earlier in the mission. I'm pretty sure that this is more than Julia would start the mission with, though I could be wrong.
While everyone takes defensive positions and prepares for a fight, back up north the dwarven taskforce has finally found the dragon. Through the sensible, if not terribly heroic tactic of having far too many men with large crossbows, the dragon doesn't have much of a chance.
While I end up losing a unit of hellhounds, the dragon doesn't offer up much trouble-it opens with frost breath, taking it off of guard. Then my many crossbow units can surround it, and chew through it's health with flanking bonuses.
Whatever, now we can supplement our focus with frost giants, which is helpful.
Ander: You have proved yourself a worthy ally. Our power is at your disposal.
Oh, did I say frost giants? Replace that with a frost giant: the keep has no structures prebuilt, and the stone giants in the border forts don't join us. We get a single frost giant, and if we invest a lot of gold can make more giants in a place that's incredibly far away from anything we actually want to get in a fight with.
I'll be using the one giant to clear off some of the neutral stacks in the dwarven lands that I didn't bother with earlier. If you are doing this mission and are pressed, get the dwarves and skip the giants.
Oh bugger that's a lot of blue transports.
Welp, it's time for maximum damage control mode. My main force is going to continue retreating to the safety of the city walls, which should hopefully prevent them from being attacked by all of Saridas' armada. The dwelling can be left undefended. Meanwhile, Julia is sitting in an isolated stack on the bridge, and we can probably beat her with some troops from the south and reinforcements. The horned gods on the river are going to be left alone for now-they're likely to take the nearby city and hold it, which should let my troops reach them next turn.
Now, in theory, this could be a hard fight. I've got a mishmash of siege, priests, knights and Ed, while the enemy has a fast mix of monsters and cavalry that is bearing down at an incredible rate. If they get to my lines there will be losses.
However, half of the enemy army lines up in front of one cannonball.
This quickly turns in my favour-the wargs get focused down by ranged elements, the cockatrice is tied up by golems, and the weakened cavalry and griffons are crushed by edward and his knights.
This is all the fighting I'm doing on the main front this turn-everything else is too concentrated or out of reach.
But I do finally get around to retaking this city. The troops concentrated here will be later moving to counterattack Julia in the north.
Saridas lands his forces near Calisqua, and flies over an Eldritch horror that certainly wasn't there last turn. My lack of flying units and the bridge chokepoint prevents me from engaging. It looks like I'm going to be retreating again in the centre.
As much as my gut is screaming to turtle up, that's not going to be the best idea. Instead we're attacking the city in the south, because it's a winnable fight, and these guys are out of position. If they linked up with the horned god stack guarding this city, or heaven forbid the troops rampaging around my new territory, it could be a disaster.
Now I just need to hope that I've given the AI enough rope to hang themselves with.
Yep, looks like I have.
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Ending the Old Ways part 6
- Location
- Canada
So, the AI has decided to put all it's troops in about the worst places possible i.e.: all within movement range of much larger groups of our troops. Like these shamans who are hanging out next to a stack of reinforcements. This means that we are about to embark on a long and bloody turn.
Or this skeleton crew sitting in my old city near two stacks full of siege units. Though now that I think about it, I'd like to know where the other two horned gods are hiding.
Up north, Saridas is being foolish and lets me fight two of his stacks by themselves on the bridge. Now the combat predictor says that we're going to lose, but it doesn't account for several things. Most notably, the majority of my army is at full veterancy, putting them about a tier up.
We can see a familiar face in the enemy army today-poor Sundren has failed in her quest for independence, and ends her life as a pawn of her father.
Like in previous battles, this one has an advantageous deployment for us. and the AI charges one stack into two, giving me the chance to slaughter them.
Then the second wave is broken up by my Juggernauts, and the rest is mopped up.
Just past those stacks, the other two stacks that were part of the attack force are easily surrounded by all three of my stacks. I lose a veteran musketeer unit to the eldritch horror, but I think I'm getting the good side of this exchange.
Down south three horned gods are holding fort against my armies, along with a smattering of trash units. Their ability to toss lighting bolts at us from atop the wall is slightly troublesome. I space my units out as best I can, but a hellhound unit is focused down in one turn.
However, the gods aren't intelligent enough to hold on top of the wall, hit Edward in the face, and continue tossing lighting bolts at us. Instead they charge a golem unit, get themselves hit with everything in my army, and fold in two rounds.
I'd say that was a good turn.
The two missing horned gods show up around these mostly useless cities, and are going to be spending a lot of turns chased around by reinforcements. It's a manageable problem, but annoying.
To the north, another of Julia's cities is about to fall, this time to a mass of angry dwarves. We don't really have much in the way of siege units, but we do have numbers, and an unexpected advantage-Valery has actually contributed to the battle somewhat by laying Dread Siege on this city. This spell drops the defenders morale by 600, which when combined with the various defeats Julia has been suffering leaves her units fumbling left and right.
The battle is pretty rough by my standards. All three of the enemy caster units are on one flank, and they roundly demolish and send running everything committed to that side. However, the other flank is guarded by only melee units, and after wiping them out with my mob of crossbows, we can slowly smash down the gate, and rush the surviving caster units.
Our last stop the pain train is mopping up Saridas' rearguard in Calisqua. Compared to his griffon and cavalry heavy army we crushed at the bridge, this one is noticeably lower quality, using scouts and infantry heavily to fill out his stacks. It should be pretty easy.
Upon starting the battle, I realize that there are going to be two things complicating this battle. Firstly, there are phantasm warriors bearing down on me, and almost all of my army does physical damage. Killing them is going to be difficult.
Secondly, Saridas has picked up the school of enchantment upgrade, which gives all casters inflict stun. Between these two factors, my right flank starts the battle in a quite hard pressed states. My knights get moved to hold the line as long as possible while everyone else runs over to relive the flank.
Things go from bad to worse the next turn-my knights get stunned, and Saridas warps storm sisters past them to stun and murder my helpless musketeers.
However, that does leave his phantasms and his fragile casters in mortar range. Mortars which do half their damage as fire.
In the end the battle is quite painful. I lose two musketeers and a knight, all at full veterancy. Perils of overconfidence, and a demonstartion of how dangerous innocent units can be with the right upgrades.
Less painful is the conquest of this city, as Edwards forces advance along the southern front. It seems that Julia controls two unconnected patches of territory with her husband in the middle for some reason.
This puts us in a promising position, we can see a lightly defended village, as well as the domains of two of Saridas' cities. One of them is the one immediately past the mountains at Calisqua.
We've been heavily making use of builder units to speed our advance-the elves aren't big on roads, and the general slow speed of dreadnought units makes the forest territory a hassle. To counteract this problem, we get an upgrade from Edward's specialties that make civilian units move faster, which lets the builder keep up with the advance even when it's doing all the slogging through forests. We've also picked up Superior Logistics, an expensive neutral tech that makes units go 50% faster on roads. On a map this big, your reinforcements will take forever to reach the front unless you make some efforts to support them.
Sure you will, Ed.
Meanwhile, our regular guys are going to be hoofing it across the mountains after all. This prompts some dialogue from Saridas, and is a good stoppling point for today.
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Call Lightning isn't really a "spam ranged attacks from walls" ability in the first place, it has a three turn cooldown.
- Location
- Canada
Nope. It has a one turn cool down in the current build of the game. I have screenshots to prove it, if you want them.
when the heck did that happen? meh, still not really a "stand on wall and spam ranged attacks" ability, especially since I am fairly sure gates and wals have no resistances.
Ending the Old Ways part 7
- Location
- Canada
Ok. I don't have a enough material for two full updates, so we're going to run a bit of a marathon update like old times to get this done. It's time to finally finish the game!
I mean, I still plan on getting the other endings, and doing the DLC, but it's a major milestone.
It's finally time to push into the elven heartlands. Ed has diverted himself south, but The remainder of our mighty army has engaged the enemy on the outskirts of his domain. This defiantly looks like the dregs of Saridas' forces, lots of relatively low level units.
There is still a single unit of nightshade faeries and a griffon rider mixed in with the chaff, which menace my left flank as the battle begins. This force I'm using is a little light on melee elements-not a problem in more common sieges, but it makes a field battle like this difficult.
On the other flank the pressure is much lighter, and we are able to take out two units on our first turn with knights and cannon fire.
Seriously, I don't know who decided cannons should be able to move and shoot, but they were a genius. It makes the unit so much more fun to use and skill testing. There are so many possible angles to consider before you can find that perfect shot.
On the left, we lose a unit of priests to the griffon as we retreat, and a valiant engineer unit sacrifices themselves to destroy the nightshade Faeries. Then the units in the centre finally get to the battle, and wipe out the surviving elven troops.
Just past that little speed bump, we find the city that's been shipping troops at as since last update. Now, the predictor screen seems oddly pessimistic, but that's partially because this stack got fried by Runes of Warding last turn. Runes is a spell that that hits any unit that ends their turn in the domain of the city that it has been cast on with a medium strength hit of lightning damage, which has left this army a little fragile. The shock vulnerability on most of my better units doesn't help. It's also nowhere near as obvious on the map as it should be for such an effect.
On the plus side, I have lots of siege ready, which should make this pretty easy.
The battle starts with Saridas finishing off three weakened units with a chain lightning attack. The victims are engineers, golems and a cannon.
The battle predictor may actually have been right here.
I still have a plethora of long range siege units, and we can take advantage of them by hanging back an bombarding the walls. Using the full range of the cannon template, we can actually outrange the archers with their wall bonus. This provokes the defenders to abandon the walls en masse, which is fine with me. If I can fight without being bombarded by longbows and taking wall penalties, I'm fine. We may actually have a chance.
Several turns of keep away and careful use of my two surviving cannons manages to wipe out the defenders piecemeal, though my fragile units pay dearly for the effort.
But, bit by bit the enemy is lured out and runs to their death. Five units survive out of the seventeen I launched the attack with.
Whether my weakened assault force can bring the conquest of the city home ends as a bit of a moot point-Juggernuats get free movement from their promotions and swoop in to mop up the last stack of defenders
Yes all the troops going over the mountains got fried by glyphs as well. That was a spell that made it's CP back and more.
Meanwhile, Edward is going to try and solo a small enemy city, after flying across a river. To assist in this effort, he's using some of the more unusual tools in the dreadnought arsenal, summon siege engine. This summons a random machine, in this case a flame tank, anywhere on the battlefield for one fight. I'm not sure how this is supposed to make sense, but it's surprisingly handy.
However, it turns out there's a sorcerer spell that can take control of any summoned unit. So my flame tank is mind controlled, and then Edward gets chain-stunned for several turns by three enemy caster units.
He manages to retreat as the mind control effect wears off after a few turns, but that just leaves him vulnerable to being chased down by the elven troops, and defeated.
We aren't going to be deterred by minor setbacks like losing two stacks of unit and our leader though. In the north commonwealth troops continue to make progress into Julia's domain. We're coming to the borders of her capitol.
It's finally time to push into the elven heartlands. Ed has diverted himself south, but The remainder of our mighty army has engaged the enemy on the outskirts of his domain. This defiantly looks like the dregs of Saridas' forces, lots of relatively low level units.
There is still a single unit of nightshade faeries and a griffon rider mixed in with the chaff, which menace my left flank as the battle begins. This force I'm using is a little light on melee elements-not a problem in more common sieges, but it makes a field battle like this difficult.
On the other flank the pressure is much lighter, and we are able to take out two units on our first turn with knights and cannon fire.
Seriously, I don't know who decided cannons should be able to move and shoot, but they were a genius. It makes the unit so much more fun to use and skill testing. There are so many possible angles to consider before you can find that perfect shot.
On the left, we lose a unit of priests to the griffon as we retreat, and a valiant engineer unit sacrifices themselves to destroy the nightshade Faeries. Then the units in the centre finally get to the battle, and wipe out the surviving elven troops.
Just past that little speed bump, we find the city that's been shipping troops at as since last update. Now, the predictor screen seems oddly pessimistic, but that's partially because this stack got fried by Runes of Warding last turn. Runes is a spell that that hits any unit that ends their turn in the domain of the city that it has been cast on with a medium strength hit of lightning damage, which has left this army a little fragile. The shock vulnerability on most of my better units doesn't help. It's also nowhere near as obvious on the map as it should be for such an effect.
On the plus side, I have lots of siege ready, which should make this pretty easy.
The battle starts with Saridas finishing off three weakened units with a chain lightning attack. The victims are engineers, golems and a cannon.
The battle predictor may actually have been right here.
I still have a plethora of long range siege units, and we can take advantage of them by hanging back an bombarding the walls. Using the full range of the cannon template, we can actually outrange the archers with their wall bonus. This provokes the defenders to abandon the walls en masse, which is fine with me. If I can fight without being bombarded by longbows and taking wall penalties, I'm fine. We may actually have a chance.
Several turns of keep away and careful use of my two surviving cannons manages to wipe out the defenders piecemeal, though my fragile units pay dearly for the effort.
But, bit by bit the enemy is lured out and runs to their death. Five units survive out of the seventeen I launched the attack with.
Whether my weakened assault force can bring the conquest of the city home ends as a bit of a moot point-Juggernuats get free movement from their promotions and swoop in to mop up the last stack of defenders
Yes all the troops going over the mountains got fried by glyphs as well. That was a spell that made it's CP back and more.
Meanwhile, Edward is going to try and solo a small enemy city, after flying across a river. To assist in this effort, he's using some of the more unusual tools in the dreadnought arsenal, summon siege engine. This summons a random machine, in this case a flame tank, anywhere on the battlefield for one fight. I'm not sure how this is supposed to make sense, but it's surprisingly handy.
However, it turns out there's a sorcerer spell that can take control of any summoned unit. So my flame tank is mind controlled, and then Edward gets chain-stunned for several turns by three enemy caster units.
He manages to retreat as the mind control effect wears off after a few turns, but that just leaves him vulnerable to being chased down by the elven troops, and defeated.
We aren't going to be deterred by minor setbacks like losing two stacks of unit and our leader though. In the north commonwealth troops continue to make progress into Julia's domain. We're coming to the borders of her capitol.
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Ending the Old Ways part 8
- Location
- Canada
Next turn our army advances deeper into Saridas' territory. My original army takes a couple turns to finish hiking over the mounatins, which leave the survivors of the first battle time to patch themselves up.
This catches Saridas himself in the sack of the city, sending him back to the void.
But the parade of success ends soon. The northern taskforce is wiped out to a dwarf attempting to capture Julia's capitol of Lillilake. They will be avenged, but first troops need to be marshalled, and a potential counterattack needs to be warded off.
We now have access to Saridas' capitol, and several small cities that ring it. I'm going to be meticulous about this and take them all rather than finish off Saridias right now.
We also send some task forces to take the mountain cities that Edward died to. Because I've basically won the mission, we're going to not migrate these cities to dwarfs or humans for a change, and just start absorbing them.
Edward is a man with a plan. He's going to be single handedly assaulting Julia's capitol, to make up for past humiliations and avenge some dwarves, with the help of a new trick called Destabilized Mana Core.
Eat sixty fire damage, elven fools. Tremble before the power of Commonwealth science.
So, that was the ultimate Dreadnought combat spell. It takes two turns from when the spell is cast until it goes off, but in a siege battle it's pretty easy to have it go off before the enemy can touch you. The main trouble is researching it. Combat spells coming into available research slots are done randomly, weighted to lower tier spells, and it can take a lot of turns spent researching spells I'm not likely to cast before it comes up
So, the aftermath-anything that isn't a t3 or above unit is dead instantly, and everything else is barely standing, after losing about fifty to sixty hit points. All the gates are busted open, but walls are immune to fire damage, and are thus fine. the city we're fighting in also takes a serious happiness penalty and loses fifteen percent of it's population, because we just nuked it.
Edward retreats after blowing everything up, and the rest of the army rolls in, crushing the nuked defenders and defeating Julia.
Edward: Ahh… I love to see the glow of mana fuel cells in the trees. We will light up the entire forest with it! It is the sight of imminent victory. Soon this war shall be at an end!
Yep, Pretty sure we did just light up the entire forest.
To defeat Saridias, we aren't going to nuke him. Instead we'll be using the good old dreadnought standby of overwhelming amounts of war machines.
For reference, this is what that many units looks like. Juggernauts are so big they clip into each other when adjacent.
The last stand of the Elven court is no glorious battle. It's a slaughter, as a tide of iron runs over their walls, and smashes them to splinters.
Edward: My destiny is fulfilled! Remember the day, friends. It is the day the Old Ways died. The Commonwealth is victorious! The Elven Court has been defeated!
There we go. We've won the war. The Elven court is finished, and the reign of Emperor Edward looks to be long and prosperous.
Epilogue: The Commonwealth prevails. I proclaim this war ended. The Elven Court is no more. Let them be remembered as fiends in the tomes of history. King Saridas is dead. The bodies of his court nourish the twisted roots of their dark woodlands.
The people celebrate this day when pomp and privilege died. With the destruction of the Elven Court, the conspiracy that caused such festering hatred falls apart. As I suspected, the fools associated with the Shadowborn have renounced their allegiances and I have been generous to pardon the mops of desperate High Elves who swear obedience to the Commonwealth.
The day of the Old Ways are forgotten.
With the worst behind us, I look to a calmer future focused on solving the problems of commoners. I have consulted with my most trusted advisors, and already we have a hundred new ideas. We will adapt the machines with their mana fuel cells to be capable of harvesting fields of grain. Imagine buildings of gears and mechanical arms dedicated to spinning homely cloth or baking pastries filled with sweet cream foe every child in the kingdom.
We shall build schools, and train every man who is capable to build and repair and create new machines-inventions for everyone's benefit. Thus begins a new era of prosperity, not for a few, but for all.
Well, that sounds like a fantastic agenda. How do you think that this is going to pan out?
. . . was this story ever going to end in anything but a tragedy?
Throughout this story, the commonwealth has been a shambling and creaking mess of a state, torn by internal divisions, class struggles, and conspiracy. The source of these problems was never the Elven court, and it was nonsensical to believe that their defeat would start a golden age. It was just a band aid, a slaying of scapegoats, and when the next crisis started, a shortage of mana to power these wondrous inventions, everything falls apart again, and the conspirators who were so generously pardoned make their move, and doom the world.
This all comes back to our central character, and his own flaws, his acceptance of the authoritarian, fascist narrative where he is the only one who can solve the problems of the world, which leads to this ending. He thought he could run the world for the better, and his hubris doomed it.
Join us next time, as we go back in time to the Elven court, and watch our other protagonist fall into fascist, racist evil, this time even faster.
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Sapphire Archipelago (Elven Court Mission 4)
- Location
- Canada
Welcome back to the elven court campaign, for the first time in … seven months. Ok, so if you recall, our rogue princess has been single-handedly winning the war through a combination of diplomacy and skullduggery. Which means now is a good time to go back home and actually attend her brother's funeral.
Funeral of Wrath: A cloud of despair looms over the Elven Court as we seal my brothers body in a tomb. My father thirsts for revenge. Immortals should not die. How can justice recompense a loss of life meant to be unending? Nothing matters to King Saridas and his advisors but the punishment of the Commonwealth.
Now that I am regarded as a hero among our people, I sense his disappointment. He dares not speak that regret I can never live down: Why couldn't I save Thannis?
Mother's eyes drown in tears. Before I could explain my reasons for running away, she apologized for trying to marry me off. Yet, something more troubles her. I see the creases of worry in her face. She started to tell me, but my father's advisors constantly interrupted us.
It's clear she wishes to tell me something in private. What is she afraid of? We High Elves are strong-getting stronger.
When I was young, my parents spoke gently to one another. Even as a child I could see they were in love. Now they stare at each other in silence like strangers that should recognize one another. I miss those old days.
I said the evil would be coming on quickly, and it didn't take long did it. Sundren's orders are explicitly to remove humanity from the Sapphire Isles. That's genocide, plain and simple. Where there was some moral ambiguity to the commonwealth campaign about whether or not to kill Laryssa, this one is much less so.
This is a big map, though using all of it isn't necessary-if you don't go hunting for loot you'll only explore about half of it. We start with all four of the elven court heroes, and like Commonwealth mission four, our main character is back in charge. Everyone is just offshore, and have all brought a thematic bodyguard-one unit of unicorn riders, one unit of draconian hunters, one of orc apprentices, and one of goblin crusaders.
We know the locations of the four elven colonies. We need to be linking up with them quickly.
Now, I have a bit of problem, because I only got one extra flying mount this game, and would have liked more. There's a wall of mountains between us and the elven colonies, so our two flying heroes, Reskar and Groshak, are beelining the elves. On the way, they come across a fire giant keep, who have a quest to give us.
We be peaceful loving giants. Dwarves pick on us. They wish kills on our kind. They boast to their kin to be "Giantslayers", because they short and we tall. They hide to the West and so small, hard to see or tell difference tween them and hairy jungle dogs. You kill them shorties, and we will gladly join you and help crush your enemies.
Both the frost and stone giants that we've encountered haven't been illiterate, I'm not sure why the fire giants don't speak the language.
When we do meet up with the elves, they join up immediately, giving us a small city and a token elven force. They then tell us that the next closest colony has been captured by our pirate enemies.
Sadly there's no production boosting sites anywhere near, which is going to be a running theme on this map.
Meanwhile, everyone else is doing some looting and heading towards the fire giant quest objective. On the way we convert some monster hunters to our side.
It's probably possible to liberate this city with just the free troops, much less two levelled up heroes. Our first battle is much shorter than the avalanche of dialogue that follows.
Elves:Thank you for freeing us! those troops belonged to a human pirate, Isabella. When she arrived on these islands terrible things started to happen. She is taking over everything and forcing everyone to work for her, on pain of death.
Sundren: We will help.
Nomlik: You again! Welcome! Yes, I see it now. This is our destiny. We have to prevent the war! every should is precious. Humans have the same capacity for good as others. Your father seeks revenge and I know he expects you to eliminate all Humans here, but if you do, it will change both of you forever, we must find a better way.
Groshak: Oh don't be so naive Nomlik. King Saridas is right: if we allow the Humans to remain we leave a door open for the Commonwealth, it will prolong the conflict and ruin the sanctity of these isles. We cannot afford to wage war in this remote corner of Athla. Better to send a clear message. Leniency now will only lead to more suffering later.
Sundren: Not long ago I wished for leadership and the responsibility that comes with it, but now it becomes painfully clear to me that it entails a lot more than I could foreseen. The choice here before me will affect thousands upon thousands of lives… My mother, my father, Nomlik and Groshak, even the wanderer. all have their arguments. But I have to choose.
Sundren: The time for peace is past. Thannis tried it, and paid with his life. I will be faithful to my father's wishes and destroy the Humans here. Its is time to act! In war we cannot shy away from what has to be done for the greater good. In victory I will be proven right!
Nomlik:I had thought you to be different Sundren. It seems I was mistaken. You are wrong and I cannot support your decision. Take your items back, I don't want them. I will say a prayer for you. Farewell.
Unlike the choice in the commonwealth campaign, which could be confused for a normal fluff dialogue prompt, the major choice in this mission is anything but subtle. It's probably better for this to be signposted than not, but some subtly would be appreciated.
Also, as a fun note, Nomlik is the only person who will give back his gear when he leaves-Groshak and Valery will take anything on them with them if you start to good campaign. (disregarding people you have to kill, who technically give you their gear back after you loot their corpses.)
After that Groshak and Reskar head over to another island with the remaining to colonies on it. We can then use the troops the first colony gives us to take control of the next one.
Elves: We thank you for coming to help us princess. Have you already aided our cities on the other isle to the southwest.
And this is the point where the central issue of the mission comes up. right by the enemy city, there's a four-stack of frigates that will do their best to keep my troops from hopping to the next island. This will be another running theme throughout the mission. These ships will shred any embarked troops they get their hands on.
The best counter to these ships is to just sneak past them. I can embark this turn out of their movement range, and by the next turn I'll land, no need to actually fight them.
Of course, if you have flying units, dodging Isabella's navy isn't a problem at all, and Reskar and Groshak can easily take this city.
Really, when the pirate queen who enslaves everyone she comes across makes us look bad, then we may just be evil.
There is another small city on the island here, as well as an unguarded fortress. Groshak and Reskar are going to be taking them out and linking up with an actual army.
In addition, the ships ran over to chase my troops that were on the water. This gives the troops from the northeast island the space to go island hopping in peace.
While all of this is going on, we send some scouts in the absolute opposite direction. As I said before, the map is pretty empty of players, which mean that there are opportunities for lots of loot if we do some exploring.
Lastly, Sundren runs into the fortress of the Dwarven monster hunters. There are a couple of dwarf warlord units manning the fort. Now Sundren's cockatrice can't fly, but she does have shadow step, which can get her past the walls and killing folks. In addition, my resolution to use more combat spells leads to me putting a seeker enchantment on my hunters. This little trick turns anybody into a swarm darter, making them ignore any range or obstacle penalties with their ranged attacks.
After getting shot off the walls, the dwarves charge me, and get summarily flanked and slaughtered.
Thank you for destroying Dwarfs! We join your cause. Glad to smash for new friends.
We now have a pair of fire giants, which can fight their way through half the enemy armies if only we could somehow get them onto the right land mass.
In the "random scenery feature" category, there is also an out of place hostile ice elemental hanging about, which has frozen over a stretch of jungle. Oddly, the area unfreezes after it dies.
Next, we start the advance on the first major holding of Isabella in the Isles. Having two heroes, and the shooty happy elven army, should give us the ability to overcome the walls, next time.
Funeral of Wrath: A cloud of despair looms over the Elven Court as we seal my brothers body in a tomb. My father thirsts for revenge. Immortals should not die. How can justice recompense a loss of life meant to be unending? Nothing matters to King Saridas and his advisors but the punishment of the Commonwealth.
Now that I am regarded as a hero among our people, I sense his disappointment. He dares not speak that regret I can never live down: Why couldn't I save Thannis?
Mother's eyes drown in tears. Before I could explain my reasons for running away, she apologized for trying to marry me off. Yet, something more troubles her. I see the creases of worry in her face. She started to tell me, but my father's advisors constantly interrupted us.
It's clear she wishes to tell me something in private. What is she afraid of? We High Elves are strong-getting stronger.
When I was young, my parents spoke gently to one another. Even as a child I could see they were in love. Now they stare at each other in silence like strangers that should recognize one another. I miss those old days.
I said the evil would be coming on quickly, and it didn't take long did it. Sundren's orders are explicitly to remove humanity from the Sapphire Isles. That's genocide, plain and simple. Where there was some moral ambiguity to the commonwealth campaign about whether or not to kill Laryssa, this one is much less so.
This is a big map, though using all of it isn't necessary-if you don't go hunting for loot you'll only explore about half of it. We start with all four of the elven court heroes, and like Commonwealth mission four, our main character is back in charge. Everyone is just offshore, and have all brought a thematic bodyguard-one unit of unicorn riders, one unit of draconian hunters, one of orc apprentices, and one of goblin crusaders.
We know the locations of the four elven colonies. We need to be linking up with them quickly.
Now, I have a bit of problem, because I only got one extra flying mount this game, and would have liked more. There's a wall of mountains between us and the elven colonies, so our two flying heroes, Reskar and Groshak, are beelining the elves. On the way, they come across a fire giant keep, who have a quest to give us.
We be peaceful loving giants. Dwarves pick on us. They wish kills on our kind. They boast to their kin to be "Giantslayers", because they short and we tall. They hide to the West and so small, hard to see or tell difference tween them and hairy jungle dogs. You kill them shorties, and we will gladly join you and help crush your enemies.
Both the frost and stone giants that we've encountered haven't been illiterate, I'm not sure why the fire giants don't speak the language.
When we do meet up with the elves, they join up immediately, giving us a small city and a token elven force. They then tell us that the next closest colony has been captured by our pirate enemies.
Sadly there's no production boosting sites anywhere near, which is going to be a running theme on this map.
Meanwhile, everyone else is doing some looting and heading towards the fire giant quest objective. On the way we convert some monster hunters to our side.
It's probably possible to liberate this city with just the free troops, much less two levelled up heroes. Our first battle is much shorter than the avalanche of dialogue that follows.
Elves:Thank you for freeing us! those troops belonged to a human pirate, Isabella. When she arrived on these islands terrible things started to happen. She is taking over everything and forcing everyone to work for her, on pain of death.
Sundren: We will help.
Nomlik: You again! Welcome! Yes, I see it now. This is our destiny. We have to prevent the war! every should is precious. Humans have the same capacity for good as others. Your father seeks revenge and I know he expects you to eliminate all Humans here, but if you do, it will change both of you forever, we must find a better way.
Groshak: Oh don't be so naive Nomlik. King Saridas is right: if we allow the Humans to remain we leave a door open for the Commonwealth, it will prolong the conflict and ruin the sanctity of these isles. We cannot afford to wage war in this remote corner of Athla. Better to send a clear message. Leniency now will only lead to more suffering later.
Sundren: Not long ago I wished for leadership and the responsibility that comes with it, but now it becomes painfully clear to me that it entails a lot more than I could foreseen. The choice here before me will affect thousands upon thousands of lives… My mother, my father, Nomlik and Groshak, even the wanderer. all have their arguments. But I have to choose.
Sundren: The time for peace is past. Thannis tried it, and paid with his life. I will be faithful to my father's wishes and destroy the Humans here. Its is time to act! In war we cannot shy away from what has to be done for the greater good. In victory I will be proven right!
Nomlik:I had thought you to be different Sundren. It seems I was mistaken. You are wrong and I cannot support your decision. Take your items back, I don't want them. I will say a prayer for you. Farewell.
Unlike the choice in the commonwealth campaign, which could be confused for a normal fluff dialogue prompt, the major choice in this mission is anything but subtle. It's probably better for this to be signposted than not, but some subtly would be appreciated.
Also, as a fun note, Nomlik is the only person who will give back his gear when he leaves-Groshak and Valery will take anything on them with them if you start to good campaign. (disregarding people you have to kill, who technically give you their gear back after you loot their corpses.)
After that Groshak and Reskar head over to another island with the remaining to colonies on it. We can then use the troops the first colony gives us to take control of the next one.
Elves: We thank you for coming to help us princess. Have you already aided our cities on the other isle to the southwest.
And this is the point where the central issue of the mission comes up. right by the enemy city, there's a four-stack of frigates that will do their best to keep my troops from hopping to the next island. This will be another running theme throughout the mission. These ships will shred any embarked troops they get their hands on.
The best counter to these ships is to just sneak past them. I can embark this turn out of their movement range, and by the next turn I'll land, no need to actually fight them.
Of course, if you have flying units, dodging Isabella's navy isn't a problem at all, and Reskar and Groshak can easily take this city.
Really, when the pirate queen who enslaves everyone she comes across makes us look bad, then we may just be evil.
There is another small city on the island here, as well as an unguarded fortress. Groshak and Reskar are going to be taking them out and linking up with an actual army.
In addition, the ships ran over to chase my troops that were on the water. This gives the troops from the northeast island the space to go island hopping in peace.
While all of this is going on, we send some scouts in the absolute opposite direction. As I said before, the map is pretty empty of players, which mean that there are opportunities for lots of loot if we do some exploring.
Lastly, Sundren runs into the fortress of the Dwarven monster hunters. There are a couple of dwarf warlord units manning the fort. Now Sundren's cockatrice can't fly, but she does have shadow step, which can get her past the walls and killing folks. In addition, my resolution to use more combat spells leads to me putting a seeker enchantment on my hunters. This little trick turns anybody into a swarm darter, making them ignore any range or obstacle penalties with their ranged attacks.
After getting shot off the walls, the dwarves charge me, and get summarily flanked and slaughtered.
Thank you for destroying Dwarfs! We join your cause. Glad to smash for new friends.
We now have a pair of fire giants, which can fight their way through half the enemy armies if only we could somehow get them onto the right land mass.
In the "random scenery feature" category, there is also an out of place hostile ice elemental hanging about, which has frozen over a stretch of jungle. Oddly, the area unfreezes after it dies.
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Sapphire Archipelago part 2
- Location
- Canada
As expected, the siege goes well enough. For some reason initiates take 75% from walls, which makes this a bit of a slog. Reskar and Groshak provide the muscle to smooth things out.
My scouts get intercepted by roving frigates from the middle of nowhere.
South of the first major settlement, we find a small neutral human city. I reflexively agree to their offer of peace when the pair of fire giants arrive at their border, before I remember that this is a human city, and I need to get rid of all of those. (Yes, this is an actual mission objective. The mission doesn't end until their are no more Human cities on the map.)
Economically it's pretty worthless, and with how surprisingly barren this map can be I might have been better off just plundering it instead.
Just to the west we can see another enemy city, this one without any ships nearby, but with some embarked troops. It's tantalizingly lightly guarded.
If you want ships though, just look to the east. We've got two more cities, and two more ships keeping an eye on the narrow sea passages around them. Sneaking any transports around this area is going to be virtually impossible.
In the east, the embarked enemy army we saw earlier sails north to try and reclaim some of their old territory. Since I still haven't seen any warships the fire giants are going to be crossing the strait, while the elf troops that had been trying to capture this southern city will turning around to intercept the enemy landing.
I lose another flock of scouts to an enemy stack sailing up from the southeast, but not before the scouts capture an undefended fortress and give me control of a gold mine.
Next turn promises to be a big one, as it starts with fire giants making landfall.
Fire giants are pretty much the same a frost giants with an element switch, no real surprises or cool abilities to speak of. They do hit hard though.
Next, Reskar and Groshak, or the grumpy old man commando squad, are going to single handedly win the mission for us. That starts by swooping in to this city and slaughtering the guards.
This is accomplished by using the crows as bullet magnets, while Reskar tanks with his collection of healing abilities, and Groshak abuses his stun inflict and chain lightning.
Up north, a city flip-flops as the pretty much stranded elf army does some fire-fighting.
Then next turn, backed up by another flock of crows to bump the battle predictor up to probable victory, the grumpy old man team assaults another city. Pretty much the same defensive lineup, with the addition of a single orc archer.
This goes about the same -Groshak loses most of his movement points from curses and crippling wound procs, which leaves him outside the walls shooting it, while Reskar charges in and wrecks things.
In fifteen turns we've secured the majority of Isabella's territory from her and established quite the little empire.
Take note also of the the small island to the northeast. Just by sending some scouts up there you can find some unguarded treasure to supplement your economy, but there's also a Ziggurat to be looted if you have the time to get a real army up there.
Next up on the targets list for the old man commando squad is this mostly defenceless city on the south-eastern most island.
Unlike our previous cities, this one actually makes money, and is quite large. There aren't any other signs of where the rest of Isabella's territory could be found, but there is this teleporter to investigate.
This teleporter is the only way to reach Isabella's throne city-it's otherwise blocked off by impassible mountains. Now we could continue our advance, but there's a lot of map to explore and multiple legendary treasure sites to check for sweet loot that will serve us well in the last two missions. Thus we'll be using this teleporter as a chokepoint, holding Isabella in this city until we're ready to finish her off.
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