Empire Aflame campaign feedback.

[Jean-Luc]

Heya.

I've done 6 missions so far with Stop the Invasion being the last and one I went for right after the game "opened up". I'm on Veteran with scaling on.

1. I took Drain Manapool and now after 6 missions I have 2 Deathdealers and 1 Fire Archer. Without that skill this would've been impossible since you're not given any liquid mana by this point and the only way to get some would be to transmute a rare item if you happen to have one (still wouldn't be enough anyway). Feels like this skill makes a huge difference in terms of how your army ramps up. I'm not saying this is bad, just noting it. Makes me wonder if it's a must have skill.

There's a price though. Since Moira spends so much time running between Mana Pools to get them asap she misses out on fighting and is lagging somewhat xp wise.

2. The "time limit" feels even softer compared to Invasion since you're often getting close to or even more gold per turn from setlements than you'd get from finishing the mission early. The real time limit lies in trying to loot all the goodie huts before region wealth is drained which is fine by me.

3. Death Dealers. Force March feels odd on them since they don't care about morale and, on this unit specifically, it doesn't even get drained by FM from what I see. DDs are not a spear unit, they don't have shields, maybe they should just have 3 speed and no FM? Maybe then they'd be too strong, I dunno. They have little health for a top tier unit (less than lower tier archers) but are also immensly powerful if used well. They feel more like an alternative to the Phalanx rather than a straight up upgrade.

4. Getting the upgraded Armored Pegasus in The Lion's Den map was kinda annoying since I'm doing an "evil playthrough" and wanted to go for the left side upgrades but it's stuck with the right branch and I can't even hire new Pegasi yet. Now I don't want to upgrade it since I'm thinking of dismissing it later so I can get some flying Nazgul instead. :P Not a big deal, just minor annoyance.


Overall it's been really fun so far and I haven't noticed any bugs. Swamping enemies in sacrificial skeletons is pretty effective and AI armies haven't had much in the way of magic damage so far. The amount of Air Cavalry in Stop the Invasion is quite nasty but I was lucky to find the Band of Crows before then. Summoned Crows are really effective anti-air meat shields since the AI loves attacking them. I guess they make for attractive easy kills while doing little dmg in return.

I "allied" with the Harpies and they seem great for an evil themed army based around magic dmg. They seem to be the only flyer that can explore and capture locations which is very handy (hope this isn't a bug :P). It's a shame they have no upgrades but that also makes them more easily replacable.

Unless I get lazy I'll update my impressions as the campaign goes on.

[awolfe59]

The heroes in Empire Aflame provide fairly useless Training Ground bonuses compared to what the heroes in Invasion give. Filos, for example, requires 2 weapons to give Formation. It's overpriced and by the time you can afford to spend weapons on training rather than on upgrades you probably will no longer have Filos in your army. Plus you lose the Governor/Merchant after Synor at the same time that you gain the Training Ground, so you can't buy weapons for training. Hopefully you'll gain resources or new merchants in the following missions. And 200g for Siege Engineer is also a bit steep. It might be worth it for 100g, though your gold is better spent on recruiting and upgrades, so by the time you could afford to spend gold on training by Filos he'll be unavailable.

[oddball]

I’m shocked how much more fun this is than the barbarian campaign

[oddball]

Honestly my only regret is taking the harpies. For a good character they’re totally worthless. I guess now I know for the future that if I’m going for the good path don’t do the things the bad guy suggests

[awolfe59]

RE: Harpies,

Downsides:
1. Cannot be upgraded
2. Prevents you from allying with the centaurs in the Stop the Invasion! mission
3. Low health and armor 4 makes them fragile (keep them away from enemy missile troops)

Upsides:
1. Flies, so terrain is not an obstacle
2. Can capture/explore (riderless pegasi cannot capture/explore)
3. Can shriek and charm
4. Decent attack (comparable damage to the armored pegasus plus adds AP4)

In summary they're pretty good to send off exploring, but avoid combat. Under the right conditions -- that there are no hostile missile troops that can get within firing range of the bird-woman -- you can use them to break the morale of enemy units. Then use them to chase down routing enemies and charm them.

[oddball]

Sounds great right? Then you run into shades and they’re not helpful at all

[Virgil-SKY]

Empire faction do have this advantage on time limit, the gold they get from remaining region wealth is multiplied by their gold income, not a fixed 25 if the income is greater than 25, so you can really take your time to do whatever you want and still get a bunch of gold in the end.

You will be able to hire Pegasi later iirc.

While sounds evil, harpies leave you when Filos leave, if you want to progress with Moira I would suggest simply kill Arylis before even listening to her, and Filos, well Filos always get the harpies even if you refused as Moira.

Draining Manapool is a must, there is no other steady sources of Liquid Mana in Empire Aflame.

[awolfe59]

Besides not getting harpies, and being able to try to recruit centaurs, what else happens if you kill the harpy queen? Any morale bonus or malus, or anything else?

[Virgil-SKY]

Originally posted by awolfe59:

Besides not getting harpies, and being able to try to recruit centaurs, what else happens if you kill the harpy queen? Any morale bonus or malus, or anything else?

Kill her before listening: nothing happens.
Kill her after listening: Filos get -1 Moral, unhappy with the result.
If you killed Arylis in any way, Filos would argue about Moira not care about his feeling when he betrays, however his betrayal itself is set to always happen.
Btw, allying the Centaurs causes another -1 Moral on Filos, he hates centaurs, consider them lower than human and don't worth to be talked with.

[washtana1]

**Spoiler***


As info if you don't want to take the drain manapool skill you can get the Master's Mask which does the same thing.

[Sloul Des Tucs]

1. +1
2. I wish there was a mod to share xp map-wide (maybe at the cost of lower experience), because this mechanics for you to always move around your troops like ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ only to gather the precious xp. Of course, this is min/maxing.
3. Also agree
4. You can be evil in shining armors. Although I do understand your sentiment. As a note, imo, the armored pegasus are better than their ''evil'' counterpart, only because you can give them a ''fear mask'', so they get both the feat aura and the protection against archers for your troops.
Not only that, but I tend to prefer physical + armor piercing weapons over magic, because the Alchemist hero can turn your phys weap. into magic ones (free action, 1 mana, 3 turns) and they keep the armor piercing on top of magical attack, which is incline.

Some of the Tier 3 Pegasis can also capture and explore points, but beware they cost 2 supplies points.

[Sloul Des Tucs]

Originally posted by washtana1:

**Spoiler***


As info if you don't want to take the drain manapool skill you can get the Master's Mask which does the same thing.

Where do you find that?

[Virgil-SKY]

Originally posted by Sloul:

Some of the Tier 3 Pegasis can also capture and explore points, but beware they cost 2 supplies points.

Hapies also cost 2, so that is not a problem.

Originally posted by Sloul:

Where do you find that?

In Strike Behind Enemy Lines (or maybe something similar), the one you raid Marcra's supplies. At the start of scenario Filos and Moira would talk about the former Master and the last battle in Invasion happened here, and metioned that you may find his mask somewhere. The loot event should be in the top-left ruins, if this was not changed in the release version.

[Sloul Des Tucs]

Thanks for the info

[oddball]

Originally posted by Virgil-SKY:

Originally posted by Sloul:

Some of the Tier 3 Pegasis can also capture and explore points, but beware they cost 2 supplies points.

Hapies also cost 2, so that is not a problem.

Originally posted by Sloul:

Where do you find that?

In Strike Behind Enemy Lines (or maybe something similar), the one you raid Marcra's supplies. At the start of scenario Filos and Moira would talk about the former Master and the last battle in Invasion happened here, and metioned that you may find his mask somewhere. The loot event should be in the top-left ruins, if this was not changed in the release version.

Its there, I got it too. Dunno how much of a value add it is given that the life suck 4 mana power and the "boost yo army with like 10 free dudes" powers are all in the same tree.

[awolfe59]

I found the Master's Mask in Strike Behind Enemy Lines in one of the drained mana pools.