Eternal court and the Elven betrayal

[cathartic]

I've now attempted the 4th story mission, "The Eternal Court" twice, both times playing as Cinren Tolriath. In both games, I lost in a similar fashion, which makes me wonder if either I'm doing something fundamentally wrong, or if my troubles were scripted.

The world starts with the other factions far more established than the player - they aren't going down quickly. I meet, make friends with, and eventually form an alliance with my Elven neighbour, Sylvani Laurel. Meanwhile the undead factions are all hostile, with Arachna always declaring war as part of the plot.

Establishing my early empire, fighting monster dens, and maybe taking a city or two from Arachna dominates my early game. After this, I'm typically stronger than Arachna, and on par with the other AI factions. Then things start to go wrong.

Around turn 70ish, Meandor completes the pre-requisite for a magic victory. The three sites he has to defend are pretty deep into his territory. Then a few turns after that, my ally for most of the game, Sylvani, changes sides. If he was at war with Meandor, he peaces out. Then he breaks all treaties with me, and declares war, going from ally to enemy in a couple of turns. In my second game, I hit his forces so hard he will was willing to settle for peace if I paid a few hundred gold - but the next turn he broke the truce and declared war again.

What is going on? Stopping the magic victory would be a challenge, but doing so in the face of a betrayal from Sylvani, feels impossible. What prompts the betrayal? Is he scripted to be untrustworthy? I notice his personality says he doesn't like other empires bigger than his own. So does he declare because I grabbed one province too many?

This feels a little difficult. Maybe I need to focus more on the plot quest and the war with Arachna - but the short time scale before an AI magic victory and the betrayal seem to leave very little room for suboptimal play, which doesn't feel right given I'm playing on normal, not hard difficulty. Any suggestions?

[I pity the fool]

"Maybe I need to focus more on the plot quest and the war with Arachna - but the short time scale before an AI magic victory and the betrayal seem to leave very little room for suboptimal play,"

This will also be quite challenging. To win the so-called "Eternal Court victory", I gather you need to:

(a) conquer Memory of Sylvanas (ruled by Sundren's brother)
(b) conquer Eternal Throne (ruled by her father)
(c) beat the tomb wonder (I think her mother is in there) and
(d) conquer Arachna's capital.

That's quite a tall order in 70 turns. Especially if they're past enemy territory or in a distant corner of the map or something. You'd need to have enough doomstacks to ward off invasion and enough to travel across the planet.

[SomeGuy1]

Originally posted by I pity the fool:

"Maybe I need to focus more on the plot quest and the war with Arachna - but the short time scale before an AI magic victory and the betrayal seem to leave very little room for suboptimal play,"

This will also be quite challenging. To win the so-called "Eternal Court victory", I gather you need to:

(a) conquer Memory of Sylvanas (ruled by Sundren's brother)
(b) conquer Eternal Throne (ruled by her father)
(c) beat the tomb wonder (I think her mother is in there) and
(d) conquer Arachna's capital.

That's quite a tall order in 70 turns. Especially if they're past enemy territory or in a distant corner of the map or something. You'd need to have enough doomstacks to ward off invasion and enough to travel across the planet.

Its not as bad as it sounds. The two Free Cities spawn fairly close to you and are lightly defended, they go down quickly if you go for them. The tomb Wonder is cleared by having any Affinity at 7 or higher without a fight--note that this is the ONLY way to clear it, there isn't even the option of a battle. And Meandor and Meletis won't declare war on you if you don't start hostilities. You can focus pretty solely on Arachna.
Note that you should make sure you have a big pile of Mana saved up before taking the Eternal Court, you need to select the option to prevent the follow up army from spawning. If you let it do so and kill it, the quest bugs out (or at least it can, it did for me).

[Orion Invictus]

Originally posted by I pity the fool:

"Maybe I need to focus more on the plot quest and the war with Arachna - but the short time scale before an AI magic victory and the betrayal seem to leave very little room for suboptimal play,"

This will also be quite challenging. To win the so-called "Eternal Court victory", I gather you need to:

(a) conquer Memory of Sylvanas (ruled by Sundren's brother)
(b) conquer Eternal Throne (ruled by her father)
(c) beat the tomb wonder (I think her mother is in there) and
(d) conquer Arachna's capital.

That's quite a tall order in 70 turns. Especially if they're past enemy territory or in a distant corner of the map or something. You'd need to have enough doomstacks to ward off invasion and enough to travel across the planet.

Tip/Warning: There's a bug where if you conquer those first two territories before getting the quest, it won't count. I had that unfortunate experience the first time I played that mission and decided to rush the nearby enemies (I spawned right next to them).
This issue had already been fixed by the time I posted this and I didn't realize.

[Azunai]

The time scale isn't that bad. You have to clear one silver landmark (in my run that was a free win because it allowed an order affinity check for which I had 100% chance), conquer two free cities (one of them was literally my next door neighbor and was conquered within the first 10 turns or so) and then the other free city on the wrong side if the map and defeat arachnae

The biggest issue was travel time, really. The elf guy started casting the victory spell on turn 65 or so, so the game over woukd have been turn 80. I think I finished the map on 68 or so in first attempt.

I didn't realize that there would be a time limit so I kinda wasted turns clearing my backyard and building up cities instead of focusing more strongly on the goal.

[cathartic]

It's clear some people have had a different experience to me, for one reason or another. However there's also a lot of misinformation in the replies I've received.

> (a) conquer Memory of Sylvanas (ruled by Sundren's brother)

There is a separate quest for this, but I'm not sure if it's actually required for victory.

> The two Free Cities spawn fairly close to you

False. In my current game, Memory of Sylvana has spawned half a map away.

> And Meandor and Meletis won't declare war on you if you don't start hostilities.

Also false. I've had both declare on me.

[Raelic]

You should be able to befriend the wife of the couple and the living elf. That just leaves Meandor and Arachna. Arachna starts underground. Arachna is also ultimately the only target unless you want the achieve. Then you have to kill Meandor as well.

[Mechalibur]

Very strange, I've never seen Sylvani change sides before. Here was my strategy to beat it on normal:

1. Focus on Melenis as soon as you have your starting cities set up. Arachna is underground and, in my experience, somewhat far away. As always, to beat an AI ASAP, go straight for their throne city - they'll usually defend it with their ruler which lets you completely wipe them out. Unfortunately for me, Melenis was in my territory when this happened, so I had to spend another 7 or so turns hunting her down, but it's still easier than going for every city one by one.

2. Afterwards I focused on Meandor. This isn't necessary to beat the map (you can complete the other objectives to defeat him), but I wanted the achievement. I sent my best 3 stacks toward him, while the rest of my army played defense, and took out about 4 waves of attacks from him. If you get seriously hurt, build an outpost as close to his throne city as you can to recover, but in general you want to use replaceable summoned units (either from spells or hero summon skills) to take the brunt of the damage. It was a long process (I must have killed around 70 of his units total), but after taking out his throne city the game was pretty much over.

3. Went for a magic victory to beat Arachna because she was far away and I didn't feel like any more sieges.

It's possible I got a bit lucky. Sylvani spawned between me and Arachna and the two of them spent most of their time fighting over a single settlement that kept switching sides.

[Shamandalie]

My best advice is to play holy with a bit of fire here, mana channellers and gifted casters. For the undead and frost rulers it works well to focus on mass awakening with holy, enchanting your ranged (battlemage and archer) units and spam Zealots to legends easily with experienced leader hero skill and boosting zeal and lvl 1 units. Condemn and ignite whilst kiting if you don't have a frontline and it works. I conquered and absorbed Eternal Court first that spawned next to me by turn 10, pretended to befriend the elf up to defensive pact and trades but she takes up a lot of provinces and you don't want to get into an alliance with her. Cash the elves out for all their gold to payout grievances as you don't want to declare war on her anytime soon (the only reason to need a legit grievance to not turn the whole free world against you). The elf will be audacious enough anyway and you don't want to follow their pointless wars, especially her 2 wars she tried to drag me into against Meandor before I finished the 3 quests for him.
Fairly early I got a couple of vassals, a couple of outposts for wonders and activated all watchtowers on the map.
I ignored the seeds rulers were making because no one has more than 2 yet. Don't forget whilst still in good relations to buy items from rulers or sell your low spares that fetch good prices. Around turn 60 I had to bully Meletis a bit because she kept fabricating grievances and trying to wage war against me and drag others in, but she's back in her cave now without me having to siege her. I left her for after the quests.
I rushed for Memory of Sylvaus and Arachna from turn 65 to 70 before I completed the last quest for Meandor's story, that didn't change anything as I had kept him happy throughout the game (very high-maintenance boyfriend) with gifts and buying out my 2 grievances (due to attacking Arachna late, after he allied her a few dozen turns ago).
Now whilst writing this I was wondering what to pick in the story choice, as 2 rulers would remain to beat, but suddenly I won at turn 71. woa.
*with this approach so far no one has reached far enough to invade my cities!*
PS: if you can find a Ring of Concealment to buy make sure your hero wears it out of battle to be invisible on the world map, that seems to cause the AI to miscalculate how much power they need to bring and they tend to split their armies :)

[Dorael021]

For this particular mission I did chaos horde orcs. Chaos works well once you get the perk that spawns tier 1/2 troops after a battle. Once you have that you can build up a sizeable army relatively quick without having to have tons of draft on your cities. Granted your armies won't particularly be powerful at that stage but strong enough to fend off most of their attacks. Also, if you don't build too close to the darkish green one, forgot her name she will mostly stay neutral with you. if you set up shop close to her she'll declare and wave your new towns like no tomorrow.

When I did this mission, I managed to stop Meandor from doing his magic victory, then the Elf one went for magic which counts as a loss per the way the map is set up, so I had to declare on her and kick her ass. It was definitely annoying.

Also, you can completely forgo all of the side objectives and do a magic victory to win. you don't have to do the other stuff at all if you don't want to.

[TofuFox]

Originally posted by SomeGuy1:

Its not as bad as it sounds. The two Free Cities spawn fairly close to you and are lightly defended, they go down quickly if you go for them.

Both cities spawned on the other side of Meandor's capitol for me, pretty far away. It is a random generation for them.

Originally posted by SomeGuy1:

And Meandor and Meletis won't declare war on you if you don't start hostilities. You can focus pretty solely on Arachna.

Meleteis declared war on me, though Meandor didn't join (despite being allied).
Sylvani Laurel frequently hated me but never declared war, though I did buy off grievances when she hated me too much.

In all 3 cases I think they're following the standard grievances system - Meletis declared war after grievances spiked (partly from vassalizing a free city ahead of her), Meandor had a slight disadvantage in grievances (due to trespassing) so he didn't join as it would be somewhat 'unjust'. Laurel had forward settled and I had scouted aggressively so I hit around 600 grievances against her by the end - any war of hers against me was always going to be marked as unjust, which dissauded her even when she hated me (though she might have declared war anyway if it hit like -800 relation).

Arachna basically got shoved in a locker by Laurel and wasn't much of a threat, so I was fine finishing her after the other objectives and while splitting armies.

[Holyvision]

This one been hard for me as well. I've tried so far a couple times also. In my games, Sylvani will go full ally and hard rush nature victory. The other three will be on and off at war at times depending on what else is going on. I keep having to invade Sylvani who would otherwise ally to stop his magic victory.

It's a hard map for sure on higher difficulties you get pulled all over the map (and under). I think if I lose again I may try hard chaos with some shadow and just scorched earth the map.

[SomeGuy1]

Originally posted by TofuFox:

Originally posted by SomeGuy1:

Its not as bad as it sounds. The two Free Cities spawn fairly close to you and are lightly defended, they go down quickly if you go for them.

Both cities spawned on the other side of Meandor's capitol for me, pretty far away. It is a random generation for them.

Originally posted by SomeGuy1:

And Meandor and Meletis won't declare war on you if you don't start hostilities. You can focus pretty solely on Arachna.

Meleteis declared war on me, though Meandor didn't join (despite being allied).
Sylvani Laurel frequently hated me but never declared war, though I did buy off grievances when she hated me too much.

In all 3 cases I think they're following the standard grievances system - Meletis declared war after grievances spiked (partly from vassalizing a free city ahead of her), Meandor had a slight disadvantage in grievances (due to trespassing) so he didn't join as it would be somewhat 'unjust'. Laurel had forward settled and I had scouted aggressively so I hit around 600 grievances against her by the end - any war of hers against me was always going to be marked as unjust, which dissauded her even when she hated me (though she might have declared war anyway if it hit like -800 relation).

Arachna basically got shoved in a locker by Laurel and wasn't much of a threat, so I was fine finishing her after the other objectives and while splitting armies.

I did that map twice because the quest bugged after killing the eternal court the first time. The two cities were really close both time. went 100+ turns on each with Sylvani allying me quickly due to story events, and Meletis and Meandor being at war with him but not me the whole time. Meandor had a city bordering one of mine, every province it claimed was a territory dispute. Had 7 stacks on that border, never declared war on me. Kept sending stacks across my territory to get to Sylvani.
Honestly, the worst part of that map for me was finding the entrance to Arachna's city. Damn random map generator had her section of the underground almost completely surrounded by lava and bedrock, with the only way in being one bridge across a lake that was literally one tile wide, and the entrance to it had to be excavated after taking the underground entrance.
What dialogue options did you choose when making first contact with Meandor? I went with the top one. The one that is non-confrontational.
I was playing on Normal, not Hard, I suppose that also makes a difference (they should get more grievances on Hard)

... actually, now that I think about it, I think I joined Sylvani's war against Meletis on the first run. And she never sent any units at me, despite me being in between her and Sylvani. And I didn't have garrisons in my city either.

[Theorden]

Gosh this Scenario is so annoying. I HATE timed maps almost as much as Escort Missions where the AI is a buggy bullet magnet.

Is there any penalty for simply skipping this map? I'm on my second playthru where I'm going to lose to a Magic Victory. It doesn't even make sense, it shouldn't even be enabled on this map.

[rumpelstiltskin]

Originally posted by Orion Invictus:

Tip/Warning: There's a bug where if you conquer those first two territories before getting the quest, it won't count. I had that unfortunate experience the first time I played that mission and decided to rush the nearby enemies (I spawned right next to them).

ok wait, so if that happens it's basically unwinnable? eternal court was right below me, so i killed it on turn 2 or 3 iirc. but now there's an "eternal court" quest pending and it says "0/1". am i fücked for good? or can i still kill meander to win at least?

[Orion Invictus]

Originally posted by rumpelstiltskin:

Originally posted by Orion Invictus:

Tip/Warning: There's a bug where if you conquer those first two territories before getting the quest, it won't count. I had that unfortunate experience the first time I played that mission and decided to rush the nearby enemies (I spawned right next to them).

ok wait, so if that happens it's basically unwinnable? eternal court was right below me, so i killed it on turn 2 or 3 iirc. but now there's an "eternal court" quest pending and it says "0/1". am i fücked for good? or can i still kill meander to win at least?

As far as I know, it permanently locks you out of the "story" way of winning. It shouldn't prevent any other win condition, but I didn't check, so take it with a grain of salt.
This issue had already been fixed by the time I posted that and I didn't realize.