Empire Aflame - Last battle - Marcra, Dolos and Ailsa NOT appearing

[¤Templar¤ Soultberg]

Hello, I have played the Empire Aflame campaign a 7-8 times (always enjoyable!). Each time, I played the last battle without Marcra, Dolos or Ailsa joining my troops. It is only when I watched a playthrough on Youtube that I noticed that these heroes could show up to help you.
Normally, I had made everything right to have amicable relations with them (killing Harpy Queen, forging alliance with Centaurs against Marcra, refusing to kill Marcra's advisors, giving money to Imperials living in Sunken lands, agreeing not to drain the Heartspire). I just killed Marcra in "Strike behind the lines", but that doesnt seem to have an impact on the storyline.

Was there something I missed ? I would thank anyone who could provide me with an answer.

[Virgil-SKY]

I have to say that I NEVER saw them coming to help me. Since my first beta test run, until my last normal run after release.

[Kaysoky]

I've only played Empire Aflame (as Moira) twice, but both times, I had all three of them help me.

• I killed the Harpy Queen both times.
  
• I got the Centaur hero to join me both times, but in the first centaur encounter, I chose different routes (join forces against Marcra or remain neutral).
  
• I did not kill Marcra's advisors.
  
• I killed the imperials in the swamps both times, but only once did I get Szzlag to join me.
  
• I successfully defended the Heartspire both times.

I have no idea why there is such a difference. It seems like a bug and it does make a huge difference in your forces.

[yuggothone]

I have completed the games 3 times with Moira, I have always killed the harpy queen, allied with the centaurs and kept their lands against the merchants, allied with Ailsa and saved the Heartspire, refused to kill Macras ppl, allied with her and saved her during a mission. Allied with the Sasszkar.

It is the same everytime, got Tireas the centaur hero, Saszkar the lizard hero, Dolos would leave after the Forge of Light mission to manufacture the lanterns. Never got Ailsa, Macras or Dolos to come back during the final mission. I did notice an anomaly though. In Kanthas during the mission when you can recruit Tireas, I noticed 2 different response from Tireas. The first was something to the affect of:
"We are allied of course we are going to fight together." and she joins you.
I was so surprised that I reloaded to a previous save a turn earlier and I got the "Normal speech" where you have to choose the right response or she wouldn't join you. The correct speech to get her to join you is about how if we don't fight together, the shadow will kill everyone.
From the above example, I think there are events where you get random results.

[¤Templar¤ Soultberg]

Originally posted by yuggothone:

I have completed the games 3 times with Moira, I have always killed the harpy queen, allied with the centaurs and kept their lands against the merchants, allied with Ailsa and saved the Heartspire, refused to kill Macras ppl, allied with her and saved her during a mission. Allied with the Sasszkar.

It is the same everytime, got Tireas the centaur hero, Saszkar the lizard hero, Dolos would leave after the Forge of Light mission to manufacture the lanterns. Never got Ailsa, Macras or Dolos to come back during the final mission. I did notice an anomaly though. In Kanthas during the mission when you can recruit Tireas, I noticed 2 different response from Tireas. The first was something to the affect of:
"We are allied of course we are going to fight together." and she joins you.
I was so surprised that I reloaded to a previous save a turn earlier and I got the "Normal speech" where you have to choose the right response or she wouldn't join you. The correct speech to get her to join you is about how if we don't fight together, the shadow will kill everyone.
From the above example, I think there are events where you get random results.

Concerning the randomness of dialogs, it would be quite surprising. They are always the same for me. It may be instead related to some of your earlier choices, and the change when you reloaded the game may have come from a bug related to the reload itself.

Concerning the missing heroes, I have read somewhere that you would need to have a specific unit in your army (which is a bug for sure) to have them join you.

The only completed Empire Aflame playthrough I found on Youtube is in Russian: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvGYLgLTrTA&list=PLBbogAaV2LvxV3Cx3NieT5JNa1F0YQkCY&index=16

The player finally got all heroes in last battle.