The Apocalypse - 7 Seals 7 Questions

[1stHeretic]

Although I've never played as the Voice of El, this is what it mentioned in the CoE4 manual

"After the breaking of at least one Seal, minions of El will come to assist His church. The breaking of more Seals will bring forth more powerful minions and breaking all Seven Seals will unleash the Apocalypse."

7 Seals; 7 Questions

#1 Can the Apocalypse only start by the breaking of the 1st Seal & only by the Voice of El faction?
#2 Having said the above, can it be Stopped, Reversed, or Ended once the 1st Seal is broken?
#3 Does anyone know (or have a list) of what specififcally happens with each of the broken Seals 1 - 7 being broken in order?
#4 How can I tell how many Seals that freak show has already broken?
#5 Does the Apocalypse Event literally mean the end of the game?
#6 Can I still win even though the Apocalypse is taking place?
#7 Do those minions & effects created by the Apocalypse also target the Voice of El faction, too?

[Logos]

1.) There are seven seals in existence. Any Voice of El player can break a seal, and once a seal is broken it is broken for everyone.

2.) Once all seals are broken, there's no going back. Seals in general can't be repaired, but the effects largely only effect the Voice of El, or are neutral units that can be killed.

3.) The first seal broken enables the Voice of El players to gain freespawn units in their converted settlements. These can be flagellants, saints, or templars. Freespawn commanders are stupid; they will wander the map independant of player control, but are still aligned. As more seals are broken, up to the sixth, more and more powerful angels are added to the list of what can spawn.
Additionally, at specific seals a Horseman of the Apocalypse will enter the world, though I don't recall which seals correspond to which Horsemen. The Horsemen are hostile to everyone.

4.) When a Horseman enters the world, and when the Apocalypse happens, there will be a global message, if I'm remembering right. Otherwise, not much of a way to find out.

5.) No. It will set roughly everything flammable on fire, and let loose swarms of demon locusts to attack everyone, but it doesn't categorically end the game.

6.) Yes. The basic strategy for doing so is to bunker down in a citadel and wait it out until everyone else dies, though if you're feeling strong/bold you could attack your opponents during it.

7.) Yes, yes they do.

Hopefully this helps.

[Althaea]

I'm pretty sure the first Horseman (Pestilence) is released with the breaking of the Third Seal, so you get to keep track pretty early on of how many Seals there are left. I think the remainder are War, Famine and Death, in that order. Pestilence and Famine are very nasty but relatively easy to kill with a large enough army, though that army will probably die shortly after from disease or decay. War and Death are genuine threats that can be quite hard to deal with depending on your class.

[1stHeretic]

As a Non-Voice of El faction, can I see or find the other remaining Seals if I want to camp a giant army on it so that the Voice of El cannot break it?


How certain are you that Pestilence is released on the 3rd Seal being broken? I ask because Pestilence was released, then War, then Famine & just now Death. If Plague was the 3rd Seal then there is only 1 more Seal becuase all 4 horsemen are now running around.

[Althaea]

These Seals are not physically present on the world map. (Maybe that's an idea for CoE 5 though I'm not sure how appropriate the idea is.) So you can't easily stop the Seals from being broken other than by killing the Voice of El player. This can be quite tricky if you're playing against higher-difficulty AI:s who get resource bonuses that allow them to break the Seals much quicker than is possible for a human player, though human players often refrain from breaking the last few Seals to begin with due to the dual-edged nature of that.

And yeah, if all four Horsemen are running around, the apocalypse is just around the corner.

For situations like this, I tend to rely on the following idiom: Losing is Fun.

[Hand's Hermit Permit]

Are there alternate horsemen? I always see "plague" as my first horseman, but I usually get "Conquest" as the third horseman. Just now he was "Famine" instead. Is Conquest a CoE3 horseman and CoE4 has Famine and I've only just now seen the 5th seal broken in CoE4?

[Skull]

Originally posted by Logos:

6.) Yes. The basic strategy for doing so is to bunker down in a citadel and wait it out until everyone else dies, though if you're feeling strong/bold you could attack your opponents during it.

Well I tried. Game still continues. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1875039832

WTF???

[Hand's Hermit Permit]

Originally posted by 𝓢𝓴𝓾𝓵𝓵:

Originally posted by Logos:

6.) Yes. The basic strategy for doing so is to bunker down in a citadel and wait it out until everyone else dies, though if you're feeling strong/bold you could attack your opponents during it.

Well I tried. Game still continues. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1875039832

WTF???

Bruh, There's 2 cubes on the map. You can't win while they still exist. Go smash 'em.

[Phenian]

I think certain crisis events, forget the term now, will prevent the game from ending.

[Skull]

Originally posted by Hand's Hermit Permit:

Originally posted by 𝓢𝓴𝓾𝓵𝓵:

Well I tried. Game still continues. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1875039832

WTF???

Bruh, There's 2 cubes on the map. You can't win while they still exist. Go smash 'em.

Oh sorry lets try it. Never thought that this would be thing not to end the game

[Skull]

impossible to beat this thing. He is converting all my units -.-

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1875299440

[Hand's Hermit Permit]

Oh yeah. No, yeah. He's not fun...

I lost 3 huge armies to it before downing it.

[Althaea]

That's when all those "useless" morale and MR bless bonuses come in handy.

[ivangost]

I wouldn't consider MR useless by any stretch since there are too many things in the game that would be happy facing low-MR enemy. Play a Troll King and feel the pain of running with your "unstoppable" Behemoth into a bunch of mages or some strong monster like a Beholder. And that's not even counting what a lot of player factions can bring to the table, like more wizards with instant kill spells or more ridiculous monsters with instant kill spells and other fun stuff like stealing your units or what have you. That stuff is definitely pretty nasty even for factions that don't rely heavily on one super strong starting unit. The Troll King would really benefit if instead of making his skin imprevious to normal weapons (that already can't hurt him much), his Mum's late game ritual upped his defence against Fire and/or Magic.

[Althaea]

Quite. And this is another such situation.

However, any Voice of El player will be familiar with the situation where they invest their precious relics on their bless, hoping for something like Armor, or Strength, Fire Shield, Awe, or even Hit Points, and they get plus morale or plus magic resistance which they don't particularly need for anything.

Those bonuses are useless, until, of course, they're suddenly very useful.