I was really unlucky with Hades invasion

[twan]

(Title changed as after reflexion I mostly had an incredibly bad luck to 1. have the monument so far from me and 2. encountered only dispossessed spirits as invaders in 10 years of event ; the only real problem and probable result of some bug is finally the "hades moving" processing time)

Seems I'm really unlucky with fun ruining events, after aborting several games on big maps tired of getting demon invasions or EI apocalypse by midgame everytime, and having to use a mod (thanks Xelos) to make them less frequent. I now have Hades invasion in the game I started on my huge Europa map.
As I was tired restarting games due to stupid game breaking events I decided to continue to play this time, and about 10 years after the invasion started (and a whole week end wasted fighting boring dispossed spirits) I'd say it easily qualifies as the most game ruining random event I've ever seen in any game, FTL included.

Facts about this event :
- when the event is announced, while there's some little delay to prevent it, there's no goto command revealing you where the statue is built (which at least exist for some of the inferno events, iirc), you basically know someone is building something somewhere but have to explore all the map to see where it is and have a chance to avoid the event, and while it's announced ten or so turns before the invasion starts, if you are playing on a big map and it happens when one third is explored you have very little chance to stop it before years
- scrying rituals are of no help to locate the statue, I"m playing a team of 4 including a necromancer and a cultist, who have rituals supposed to show me tiles with threats to their security or linked to death, after an hundred or so uses they still have to show me where the statue is, they just show me random armies or graveyards
- the event itself is terribly boring, consisting of repetitive and stupid attacks by the same kind of monsters (dispossessed spirits) happening in many places every turn, only succeeding to take barely defended locations most of the time (once in a while there's a massive spirits army taking a fort, and then leaving it undefedended to go roaming in random directions, that's it) ; and as repetitive ambushes by same monsters once they are roaming on elysium ; even demon invasion is funnier
- even worse than that, these efforts the game makes to turn into something terribly boring take insane processing time, I'm speaking of "Hades is moving" phase taking 3 to 5 whole minutes a turn, and then having to watch ten of pointless dispossed spirit attacks if I don't just skip them (I have some well garrisoned citadels with 50+ archers inside being attacked by 5-6 suicidal spirits turn after turn after turn, completely pointless combats to watch) ; to compare even the strongest AI players turns don't take more than one in this game (once you learn dwarf queen and trolll king should never be given to an AI on a big map, AIs processing time are reasonable)
- AIs just do nothing to stop it ; my game is a 4v4v4v4 with teams of 4 AIs including 3 count difficulty and one duke level, just every one of them have armies strong enough to destroy the statue if it popped near their territory (and by the year I'm in all the map is controlled by one or the other team, it's not like there are remote wild lands where it could have appeared) ; it's now about 10 years after the event started and they still have to destroy the statue (and me to locate it)
- instead what they seem to do is bringing back their big armies to the heart of their territory, probably to take back some villages they have lost to 10 puny dispossed spirits with their 500+ units stacks of doom, which means game dynamic (like having teams actually fighting each other, opponents invading me, etc) is completely ruined and remplaced by a general dispossed spirit whack-a-mole
- as AIs don't seem to know how to split their troops to deal with spirits it doesn't prevent them to lose far more than me to their attack.the factions I play manage to keep a stable income with five or six patrols retaking lost settlements every turn and one or two medium specialized armies each to get rid of the bigger concentrations of dispossed spirits ; meanwhile AIs have lost about 50% of their iron and gold income since the event started, as they don't split their forces enough to retake all their lost villages and mines
- the only fights I had against my real AIs opponents in the 4 last years (yeah that's 48 turns without having any place attacked by AIs teams despite most of them having stronger armies than mine) were because I explore with many medium armies in hope to one day find the statue, destroy it and make the game return to a normal enjoyable state ; ... and as I advance in the middle of their territory I encounter the AIs players stacks of doom who seem to do nothing but roaming in circles retaking some farms when I'm not there, which attack me despite I want nothing else than to help them by ending an event handicaping them more than me. I even tried not to take any settlement from one of the AI teams, in hope we stay at peace and I'd be able to quietly explore their territory but of course when my expedition came near the big army of the team demonologist it still attacked me. I also tried to explore with stygian paths, in hope the statue would be visible in Hades so i know where to reappear, but it just ended with me losing some vampires armies as I reappeared near doom stacks in the middle of AI lands.

My suggestions :
- either remove this event, and from now on actually test events (more than a few turns and on every size of map) asking yourself if they make the game more or less enjoyable for players before including them
- either add a "no game breaking events" start option checkbox (would also disable demon invasion)
- either offer a cheating console to edit savegames to allow the player to fix the consequences of this kind of events (there are a few events nearly as badly designed as that in some Civ fantasy mods, but they are not a problem as you can easily edit the map removing or adding units as you want in cheat mode) ; having a save editing feature or at least saves easy to manually edit is also > to modding as you don't have to know from the start what fixes you want to make (I don't know why publishers still use crypted hardly editable saves, when Paradox games have been showing the good way to make saves -fully undestandable and editable text files- for decades)
- or at least offer an easy way to remove events by modding (something like "selectevent "Hades invasion" disable", period, not crazy manipulations involving the knowledge of dozen of commands and tables of bitmasks and units numbers and an undestanding of the inner workings of the game Xelos may be the only alive human being able to use)
- or if for unknown reasons you absolutely want to keep an event turning the game into a boring and frustating ghost whack a mole chore and enlighting all the weaknesses your engine may have (from AIs stupidity and unability to split troops to deal with small invading stealthy forces to overlong processing time when some special players with insane numbers of armies are active)
* show where is the statue with a <goto> link when the message saying a ghost mage started to build it appears and give a delay corresponding to map size (reminder : crossing a 90x90 map take a minimum of 30 turns for a non slow army, and usually far more, not all terrains being plains, and opponents being likely on the way) or at least make scrying rituals detect it in priority (would be logical for both astrology supposed to show threats and dark knowledge supposed to show places linked to death)
* teach the AIs how to deal with it, destroying the statue should be the highest priority for everyone, and creating small patrols to retake lost territory rather than gathering huge armies the way everyone adapts to the spirits attacks
* and/or reduce by **a lot** the number of attacks / moving squads of dispossed spirits appearing each turn but increase their size and include more interesting monsters* in the invasion (if there are any other the event make able to invade elysium I've still to encounter them after 10 years, why no ghost mages, wraiths etc... if a gate from Hades to Elysium is opened they should be able to cross) ; event would still be frustating but at least a bit less repetitive and boring (more on par with the demon gate one) and less stacks would improve performance
* make an event ending the event at some point (after 2-3 years or soà) in case nothing else works ("a courageous group of adventurers finally managed to save the world"), on random maps it's possible the statue appears on islands not linked to continent making it extremely hard to destroy for non amphibian factions

* ps : Just as I relaunched the game after writing this wall of text (no I won't abandon before I destroy the damn statue), I encountered one lone tartarian spirit under Hades control on elysium, so seems it's actually possible that other units than dispossed spirits join the invasion (or I don't know how that tartarian ended there), but considering it's the first I see after 100+ turns of invasion it would be a good idea to include more undead variety a bit faster.

[Althaea]

There are a lot of valid points in here, such as those regarding the game's AI and its ability - or lack thereof - to properly remember and assess threats. I can also agree that the game should indicate where the Statue of Hades is being built - as, IIRC, it indicates where the Infernal Portal is created.

I also agree that the threat should ramp up to become more interesting quickly - I'm not sure what controls it at all, but I've never even seen anything beyond dispossessed spirits even though the event description indicates that such should eventually occur.

That being said, I'm pretty sure Illwinter didn't even think about maps larger than what you can access through the regular UI in mind when they made their events, nor do I think you can fairly judge the event with that in mind. CoE went from seven (eight?) player slots to 16 mainly because a number of players requested more slots, not necessarily because Johan or Kristoffer thought it was a good idea in terms of gameplay or performance. (From my memories of the beta - which I was invited into fairly late - the feature was added a couple of patches after I joined. They were probably looking at easy-to-implement fan suggestions and throwing them in at that time.)

Keep in mind, the developers consider a map size of 78*60 enormous. 90*90 is nearly twice as big. If it feels like a civ fantasy mod, keep in mind that you're basically adding a mod yourself when you play on maps that big (whether you download someone else's or force the game to generate one through the commandline).

And as a sidenote, a minute on the turn processing from a single AI alone is a lot more than I've ever experienced (even later on I usually find the AI timers the fastest part of turn generation). I'm not entirely sure if you're playing with Populum based on the context, but if you are, you should note that the large number of events it uses themselves have a serious performance impact.

On a normal sized map I find the Statue of Hades event a touch frustrating, but not terribly so. You can usually find the statue in the normal course of exploring the map and eliminate it, or else win the game outright, before it becomes much more than that. I find Infernal invasions far more frustrating if I don't happen to have access to lots of fully fire-resistant units.

[Juz]

There should just be a toggle on or off for world events such as meteors, demon gates and the hadies event

[twan]

128 turns after the start of the event, if I counted well, I think an AI or demon group finally managed to destroy the statue as Hades processing time has gone from 3+ minutes to some dozen seconds, and number of attacks from twenty+ a turn to 5 or 6 (I guess from the spirits already on elysium).

A fun thing is that there's now an infernal invasion the demonist AI having likely opened a gate (or several ?) as it appeared without an event message (but at least I know where to go this time).

[Orpheus]

Originally posted by twan:

...crazy manipulations involving the knowledge of dozen of commands and tables of bitmasks and units numbers and an undestanding of the inner workings of the game Xelos may be the only alive human being able to use)

Even if you have no programming knowledge whatsoever, you could have easily solved this for yourself in a lot less time than it took to write that post!
It's mind-blowingly simple to effectively disable this event via a very small amount of code. Create an event that runs once per turn (as in per month, not per player's turn), which checks every possible location to see if the Monument to Hades unit is present there. Since AFAIK it can only spawn in a Necromancer citadel or Old Castle Ruin, that won't be many tiles to check even on the largest map. Then, in any square where a Monument to Hades is detected, kill all units with the type 'Monument to Hades' (that might not actually be its name in the game's code, but it wouldn't be hard to find out).
Et voila - the event will now be snuffed out instantaneously, each and every time it occurs. You don't need "dozens of commands", bitmasks or the Tao of CoE - all it takes is two or three lines of code so simple that anyone could do it in minutes (in other words, I've told you what to do - go and look up how to do it yourself if it's that important!)

[twan]

First considering illwinter modding require knowledge of an useless out of a particular game commands (I was about to write "language" but it would be an exageration) I don't really see the link with "programming knowledge". If modding Illwinter games was like modding Mount&Blade or Civ, using Python scripts and Xml tables, I'd understand the remark (and there would be some hundred times more mods around, too).

Secondly the method you suggest doesn't really look like something someone with programming knowledge would do, or could do without knowledge of the inner wotkings of the game...
- an event firing every turn checking lots of locations just to fix one thing happening once in a blue moon (good processing optimization.......)
- .... requiring to know that the exact name of the thing you want to destroy (and fail to find and so to see) is "Monument to Hades" (if I called it statue, it's because I have the vague memory it was one from a previous game, no idea if it was called Monument "to" or Monument "of "Hades or something else when I wrote my post)
- and eventually to know on which terrains the statue can appear... and so these terrains bitmasks (if it's true it can only appear on old castles and necro citadels it's a news for me, as this information is not on the wiki and it's only the second time I remember I have this event in 400 hours played I had no idea - pfff considering I was playing on my own custom map I could easily have checked all old castles had I knew ; I made big efforts to send armies to the two haunted cities in case it was there, but didn't think about doing the same for all the old castles)

A simpler method (if possible, I don't know this game modding well, but it's how I'd do in dominions, to take an illwinter game serie I actually made mods for at some point) would be to selectunit Monument to Hades from the start and replace it with another unit copy not having the property to open that gate between planes (imagining it's linked to an unit property, not hardcoded to that unit number, something I can't know not knowing the inner workings of the game).

Finally if I only suggested modding as the very least desirable method to fix this event, it's because I think lots of players may be interested in playing (including eventually on big maps) but not as much in making mods, and may like a way to avoid havng an "Hades is moving" phase taking 3+ minutes a turn and their game dynamic destroyed by an ultra repetitive random event

And about why I made my rant post (out of the pleasure of ranting), it's because if instead of encountering this situation after hundreds hours of coe (and more of dominions) play, it had happened in my very first game (or even my very first on a big map), my relations with all their works would have likely ended with a bad review and a refund as it make their game look broken. So I think it's good for them to know, before it happens to someone not being already a fan.

[Orpheus]

See, what you're doing now is pretending it's difficult, to give you an excuse for not being bothered to find out how to do it.
You can get the terrain codes in-game by pressing Ctrl+I while the cursor is over a given terrain. There's lists and databases of unit info, and numerous other details, readily available on these forums and elsewhere, which would give you the name of the Monument unit. You don't need the event to check lots of locations but only a few. It will literally take seconds to run, if that. Optimization isn't necessary if the process is that quick to begin with.
Once again, you could have solved the problem for yourself in less than the time you've spent complaining about it. It seems like you don't actually want to solve it, you'd rather just whinge about it.
I'm not a big fan of the game-changing Invasion events either, I think there should be a facility to toggle them at game setup. But neither of us has any right to expect or demand that a developer should make games a certain way. They make their own design decisions for their own reasons, and if we don't like those decisions we can either throw a tantrum, suck it up and accept the fact that there are game elements that we dislike, or fix it ourselves. The whole reason why games are moddable is to allow people to change them, to make a better game from that player's subjective viewpoint.
I'm going to bed, because I'm very tired, very grumpy and your attitude is annoying me. Tomorrow I might write the tiny script to solve this problem, just to get you to stop whining.

[twan]

In the same logic you could have avoided to read my post, if it was going to annoy you and make you grumpy.
You had an easy way to mod me out of your life in far less time than writing this post and then making a mod, why are you complaining on a forum ? :)

Anyway, joke aside, thanks for your help, if I don't completely share your philosophy.

[Orpheus]

I think I disabled the event, check the Modding forum. Hope this helps!

[Althaea]

Reporting back partway into a game with a Hades event, and now I'm more confused than ever. I remember mostly encountering Dispossessed Spirits forever much like the OP. However, now, only two years into the event, I'm seeing packs of Umbrals and Ghost Warriors running around.

Not really sure what's going on here.

edit: A wraith, too.

edit2: Banes and Bane Lords. Seriously, seriously confused right now. Vaguely suspect Illwinter may have done something in the latest patch. Twan, do you have the latest version?

Maybe it's linked to map size, or some other non-obvious factor?

Alternative theory: the event is broken on Windows but not on Linux. Wouldn't be the first time something like that slipped by unnoticed for the longest time.

[Orpheus]

Event might be scaled to player's power? Or time that passed before initiation? Or since dead Elysian units can spawn in Hades, maybe it's related to what units have died in Elysium? In that case, you could end up fighting against (the souls of) your own troops who have previously died, including those killed by Hades!

[Althaea]

I considered all of those, and while I'm pretty sure the units are drawn from Hades (and so would include the Spirits generated by your own dead), that doesn't match up with Twan's account. He had a hundred turns into a much bigger game with (presumably) far more casualties from all involved.

It's possible (I guess?) that it might be something simulated on the Hades side of things. Maybe units other than dispossessed spirits have to come from the monument itself? It would explain why only dispossessed spirits seemed to spawn in my territory while nastier creatures seemed to mostly originate from the north-west. (Still haven't found the monument.)

[twan]

It's strange. In all the time I had the event (the event started in year 8, and lasted up to beginning of year 19 according to when Hades processing stopped taking ages) the only hades controlled monsters I had seen were impossible to count dispossessed spirits and one lone tartarian spirit near the end.

Some 2 or 3 years later I encountered one large hades army of bane lords, ghost archers and hounds I hardly imagine I could have missed as banes are not stealthy and they were in the middle of my territory. I'm now in year 27 and it's the only other time where I've seen Hades controlled monsters not being dispossessed spirits on elysium. On the moment I thought it was the result of a swap, as I'm playing a necro and there's also a barbarian in the game, but possibly they were from the event too.
Out of that 8 years after the event ended I still have an average of one or two (small) dispossed spirits attack every turn , so I don't imagine how many little stealthy groups were roaming everywhere.

Searching explanations, no idea. There hadn't been many big battles between players before the event started, just normal conquest of indies, it happened just when factions were arriving in contact. All factions are in play but the Witch, the Dwarf Queen, Troll King and Voice of EI, so likely all kind of units had died (it can't be that specific type of unit dying is required to have differents ghosts in the invasion I think).
And I'm playing with normal updated by Steam CoE and just a mod with commands copied from Populum to close early inferno gates (where I've also added Orpheus lines to close Hades event).

I've also started to conquer some places in Hades with necro summons and population there looks normal, there are still lots of every kind of undead spirit and banes there (I see no difference with the few times I explored Hades in other games).

On elysium, a consequence of the event (if it's not just the map size and richness) was to end with even more insanely powerful Warlock and Demonist armies than usual, those factions able to destroy hordes of spirits without casualties ended with the most enormous summon armies I've ever seen (I'm speaking of 4 or 5 armies taking 3 screens of powerful summons each). Makes for a very fun guerrilla game, where I have to use Stygian Path with the necro and water with the cultist a lot to avoid them, while I'm destroying their allies or searching the gates the demonist find fun to open. There are also several demons armies wandering around, but they are not that annoying for the moment, I think they are mostly taking lands of the demonist own allies..

Finally there's a last strange thing in this game : I now see several groups of 3-5 rephaim giants wandering under Horrors special player control (with no horror to control them and very far from the high priestess territory, she's in Italy and Africa and the rephaims appeared near Stonehenge in England, I don't think they were charmed). Don't remember having seen non horrors under Horrors faction control in other games out of the occasional confused/mind controled unit.

[Orpheus]

I'm not sure if adding my anti-monument script into another mod in an in-progress game would work or not. It depends how the game handles mod-derived code, it might only work if you started a new game with it already enabled. Also, I can guarantee that it won't stop an invasion that's already happening, because it's only designed to work preemptively - it targets the unfinished version of the monument only. In theory, it should fire on the turn that the event is first triggered (or possibly the next turn?). If you added it into a game with an unfinished monument on the map, it might work. But if the Monument has already been completed, the script won't recognise it as a valid target.

[Althaea]

The wandering Rephaim are an effect of Ba'al having been summoned. You should've received a message referencing the moon turning red as blood, but you might simply have clicked past it without registering it.

I'm not sure if there's anything besides roaming Rephaites associated with that. I don't think so, though they might appear more frequently with time.

[twan]

Yes got the Baal summon message, thanks for the explanation.

For the mod, it was just in case the event happened again. The first monument has been destroyed I'm sure of it (I've explored to all old castles since then).

ps : After reflexion, it's simply possible that other types of Hades parties did appear but far from me and were all destroyed by AIs before I encountered them, I spent my time losing exploring parties to stacks of doom and conquered villages to spirits when I was desperately searching the monument, so even if I had visited 3/4 of the map by the end of the event, most was under fog of war.