You can advance through the market, did the tech appeared? Let me know please!
Sorry if I didn’t write it in the hints but there wasn’t space anymore, most of the time I can’t condense everything so maybe I’ll ask Devs to widen the hints table.
Where’s the signpost for the cave that leads up to the chapel and relic in the center of the map? Was able to get the horses out but now that the chapel quest started, I can’t get anyone up there because I’m not seeing a sign.
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Yeah that one is tricky. If you want I can spoil you:
Basically you need to find a sign in the “island” on the center where the dubeleni village lies (the one with the jarl and axemen), go south from it and you’ll find some mines along a cliff, there’s a sign at the center.
However this sign does not trigger the passage you need for the chapel (and relic), rather another one, this time between the bulgar village (the one surrounded by a swamp) and the avar city so north east. Precisely it unlocks the last of three passages, maybe you noticed that secrets area on a cliff while exploring, it has a chapel near an orange canoe.
So you should go there and select the sign on the cliff there to unlock the first passage, then you’ll get on the cliff and if you already selected the sign near the mines I told you, you should be able to get to the top and select the last sign that will finally open you the passage you want to open. However remember you need to also reselect those signs if you want to take back the units you teleported otherwise just delete them.
It’s kinda brainy ahah but it’s not by any means necessary to win the scenario. You just get some monastery techs you couldn’t get otherwise. Remember that porga must remain alive until you completed the quest!
Thanks! Was not having any luck with that one.
On another note, I got all 5 relics and a relic victory countdown started. Also, when I tried to make the Monastery in the southernmost town a Fortified Church, the building vanished but no foundation appeared. I’m guessing it’s due to the relics being in the way after being ejected, but I’m not certain.
EDIT: Looks like the foundation of the new building and the old building are slightly misaligned, leading to the foundation not appearing unless you move the relics after ejecting them.
Also, I can’t seem to place relics in fortified churches.
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They should be 6 in total, I put one in an area that you can’t unlock until the final battle so you can’t start the countdown before that. If the countdown started after the arrival of Dagobert is all intended otherwise I don’t know how you managed to take the one blocked by the rocks and the forest near the orange village initially attacked by grey (maybe with onagers? I should probably prevent that)
When I tested it worked but yeah try to always remove relics just in case since it’s really enough that you put anything on the foundation for the AI to give up building it.
That’s apparently a game bug, I informed Devs on this forum and they said they are tracking it. Same for the bridge, even after you send a signal to build it in the south west yellow/cyan village units cannot walk on it. I reported it to Devs and they need to fix that too.
(maybe with onagers? I should probably prevent that)
Yep, currently nothing stopping you from onager cutting it. I must have misremembered the number if it was 6, but I had all of them before Dagobert got there due to using an onager.
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Ehi did you manage to win the scenario? I still didn’t get feedback about the last battle but I personally think it’s way too easy (specially for my standards lol) because at that point you have so much gold in store and so many unique units and techs…
Was it a decent challenge nonetheless?
I don’t know that I have good feedback for the final battle. I made a number of changes to the scenario for myself that probably altered the balance later on which I wouldn’t necessarily recommend as balance changes because they were just to let me play in a more relaxed fashion, like removing enemy access to siege weapons (they’re attacking every couple minutes, do they really need to be doing it with rams and even trebuchets to boot?) and reducing the number of upgrades the enemy gets if you don’t tribute.
Actually, on that last one, I do have a comment. The scenario makes it sound like there’s some kind of benefit to not giving the king any gold, but from looking at the triggers, all enemies get the same upgrades no matter whether you pay or not. It’s literally a choice between paying Dagobert and giving your enemy upgrades or stiffing him, getting attacked, and them getting the upgrades anyway.
The flood of units and constant attacks made things difficult enough without the enemy also getting better and better equipment and siege weapons, so I got fed up and nerfed them because I was more interested in playing out the special mechanics and side quests than I was in fighting like three AI armies simultaneously in three different corners of the map every time Dagobert didn’t get paid. I may or may not have replaced the free rams with free trebs to deal with the Lombards too…way to many towers, Donjons, and castles in a small space to destroy with nothing but rams.
But as I said: that was due to my interest being more in having fun completing objectives and exploring than it was in challenging myself against the AI. So other than thinking there needs to be some benefit to stiffing Dagobert other than keeping your gold, I don’t think I can give a fair assessment on balance in the later parts of the scenario.
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Ok thank you for the feedback.
There’s a difference if you pay Dagobert or not. If you don’t pay you get attacked by alemans and Lombards while if you pay you don’t get attacked but your enemies obtain further upgrades they wouldn’t normally get, like Teutons and Franks receiving bracer, bloodlines etc.
Despite this I still think the final battle against them is too easy but eventually someone will tell me.
Personally speaking, I didn’t notice enough of a difference to matter. Prior to nerfing them I got extremely frustrated at the spikes in tech the enemy got even when I didn’t pay them. I think that if the player is going to have to weather those increasingly brutal attacks by the Alans and Lombards, there should really be more of a gain in exchange, like the AI not getting siege or losing out on additional upgrades.
I found it very hard to keep up with the enemies’ tech progress while completing quests to unlock more villages and trying to build enough army to fight off the penalty invasions at the same time, and by the third missed payment, I was so far behind technologically that the Lombards overran me. I simply did not have the gold needed, at that point, to train units and research the needed techs, much less pay Dagobert- especially since what forces I could afford were busy in the east and couldn’t be used to deal with the ambushes on the road.
Thinking back on it now, I do have a couple more points of feedback: the town where they want you to retrieve a rock needs its defenses moved, and badly. The Donjon and Castle there are both entirely worthless at defending the market from the Lombards due to their positioning on the wrong side of the town. I’m not sure who that Donjon is supposed to defend against given that it’s in the back seemingly guarding a dead end. The castle can at least be excused by saying it defends against the north, I suppose.
The Donjon in the southeast at the town that wants the relic cart is similarly problematic because the AI likes to send army over the other shallows north of it, doubling the amount of territory the player has to cover against a single enemy. It would help a lot if it was placed to cover both approaches.
And the ambushes preventing the player from just sending the gold to Dagobert feel unnecessarily cruel to the player. Maybe make those Hard only or at least do so for their siege weapons. In fact, I’d say to at minimum halve the enemy siege weapon spawns on Standard difficulty and cut the trebuchets entirely on the same. The player needs to defend from so many directions already that forcing them to also sally to cut down trebs every couple minutes is painful.
I know you’re going to say that you just use pause to handle it. The pause button is really not meant to be used the way you use it, and the more experienced a player is, the less they’re going to think to resort to it, because you don’t pause in multiplayer. I’ve said it before, but if the pause button is a requirement to clear an encounter, the enemy needs to be nerfed.
That doesn’t mean the entire level needs to be stripped down and units removed, but it does mean more of the spawns should probably be gated by difficulty. I’m not kidding when I say that, bar none, your scenarios are harder than any other mod dev I’ve encountered in AOE2, and it’s entirely because the AI just gets way too many free units and way too often.
The only scenario I can think of that was harder was the original release of the Bari campaign level " The Rebellion of Melus" in Forgotten Kingoms (in AOE2 HD) where the AI had infinite resources and Imperial Age while the player was stuck in Castle Age and couldn’t build trebs or castles. That scenario was entirely rebuilt for a reason.
I want to reiterate, of course, that I don’t mean anything I say in a harsh way. I appreciate your style greatly and wouldn’t put this much thought into it if I didn’t. I’ve love to see it if you could eventually strike a balance between challenging and too easy, which I acknowledge isn’t a simple task. I think the first step is definitely progressive difficulty levels, which could easily be achieved with the same number of triggers by locking some spawns with a conditional that checks for the difficulty level.
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Thank you for the feedback, I agree about the krepost and castle in the carantanian village not serving their purpose, I just thought it looked cool up on the cliff but it’s not very useful to defend that’s true.
And the village at the centre of the map is the hardest to defend if you don’t program to defeat the Avars sooner or later but it’s also the one that gives you the better upgrades and more gold.
As soon as I have time I wanted to make proper difficulty scaling for all my scenarios but time is a big issue, specially without money 
I’m also working on a new campaign so that takes a lot of space too.
For the moment I can suggest to make a lot of carts to trade with slavic villages, I never had issues with gold personally and finished the scenario with something like 8000+ gold even by paying Dagobert. You can just convert those carts to war wagons for free (from the market) so it’s VERY useful to make them because they can defend when you’re raided.
The comparison to the forgotten Bari is quite disheartening ngl ahah. More than it was hard it was really frustrating but as I said I program to make things easier for standard difficulty (even if I still think this scenario’s final battle in particular is easy).
As for paying or not Dagobert consider that if you had troubles with raids is because you missed some payments so if you pay him every time he asks your only enemy in the scenario are Avars and Thuringians. Avars use trebs only if you let them in the game for more than 2 hours but you can (and probably should) defeat them sooner while thuringians only send rams after 1 hour and a half I think and they ask for peace at 2 hours in game. So in this regard honestly I don’t know if it’s reasonable to ask to totally remove siege weapons from 2 enemies that makes them so late in the game and only one at a time anyway (and again grey just send a single ram every 5 minutes, just spam 4 boyars and you should be fine).
Maybe I just test my scenarios so much before publishing that I grow bored of them and they look to me easier than they are but this last one seemed really easy to me compared to others. I agree that instead Dihya as a whole for example is very difficult.
But apart from this which may be just subjective I agree with the rest, missing the Dagobert payment could have more trade offs and paying more advantages. Initially if you never payed him neither him or any of his allies never get ANY upgrade but that made the final battle soooo easy it felt sad lol (at least to me).
Again if only I had more than one or two feedbacks it would be EASIER for me to judge ahah! It’s not to disqualify your personal experience but it’s only one and ideally the more are the better.
For the moment I can suggest to make a lot of carts to trade with slavic villages, I never had issues with gold personally and finished the scenario with something like 8000+ gold even by paying Dagobert. You can just convert those carts to war wagons for free (from the market) so it’s VERY useful to make them because they can defend when you’re raided.
I’d like to point out that you’ve placed an ambush for the ox cart squarely in the center of this suggested trade route. So not only does paying Dagobert make the enemy stronger, but in exchange for not getting raided by the Alemanni you instead have enemies appear on the cliffs in the middle of your trade.
As for paying or not Dagobert consider that if you had troubles with raids is because you missed some payments so if you pay him every time he asks your only enemy in the scenario are Avars and Thuringians. Avars use trebs only if you let them in the game for more than 2 hours but you can (and probably should) defeat them sooner while thuringians only send rams after 1 hour and a half I think and they ask for peace at 2 hours in game.
Isn’t this forgetting about the Lombards? Also, I’ve noticed that if you delay making an enemy of the Thuringians for too long, they never seem to sue for peace. I think I had nine or so villages when I trigggered their attacks, and the peace offer never happened.
Avars use trebs only if you let them in the game for more than 2 hours but you can (and probably should) defeat them sooner
They have four castles. From the perspective of someone that knows the scenario inside and out and knows exactly what to expect for every encounter, sure, maybe that’s a reasonable expectation. Personally, I found it difficult to defend against both the Avar and Thuringian navies and armies simultaneously and was barely keeping my head above water when the trebs appeared.
So in this regard honestly I don’t know if it’s reasonable to ask to totally remove siege weapons from 2 enemies that makes them so late in the game and only one at a time anyway
To clarify, I only meant the trebs and the siege weapons that appear when you train an ox cart when I was saying to move them to a higher difficulty or cut them. Regarding the siege weapons in general I was unclear, but I was thinking of the missed payment raids and Byzantine attack when I said to halve the siege weapons, as the later raids have a rather unreasonable number of them. The rams and such used by the Thuringians and Avars in their standard attacks are fine.
I think this:
Maybe I just test my scenarios so much before publishing that I grow bored of them and they look to me easier than they are
Is likely a large factor. It’s been pretty consistent that your scenarios get feedback across the board saying they’re too hard, or even that they’re unwinnable.
But apart from this which may be just subjective I agree with the rest, missing the Dagobert payment could have more trade offs and paying more advantages. Initially if you never payed him neither him or any of his allies never get ANY upgrade but that made the final battle soooo easy it felt sad lol (at least to me).
Have you considered having the upgrades be delayed if you miss payments, instead of skipped entirely? For instance, having the first set of upgrades be delayed until the second one would normally happen and so on. That way the final battle still has the upgrades and isn’t easier, but the player has more room to breathe early on.
Missing payments could also reduce the number of enemy units spawns during the next payment period, so in exchange for having to fight off the large raids Dagobert sends, you then get a period where attacks easier to deal with.
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If you refer to purple ambush when you send the ox cart they appear between you, Moravia and Bavaria. So the plan is: if you plan to pay Dagobert you should avoid those two routes and use all the others you have with orange villages; if you plan to not pay then you should instead guard yourself towards Silesia and the southern villages more because that’s where lombards and alemans come but the route to Bavaria is fine.
At least this is what I do to avoid being raided and if I am I just convert carts to wagons and retrain them after the battle with the gold I didn’t give to Dagobert.
The Lombards shouldn’t attack you unless if you don’t pay Dagobert. If they attack you while you’re paying then it’s either a bug or you somehow attracted their units out of their base.
As for Thuringians I guess if you wait too much to trigger them you may miss the peace trigger (since they’re not aggressive to you) so I’m not sure what to do in that case… Should I make it able to trigger peace no matter how late you scout them?
Yeah water can be annoying to deal with. You should always keep some canoes or longboats to defend the nitran village, but as soon as you get to imp and helped Istria you should create two dromons to snipe Avar dock and a couple of castles.
I’ll delay the navy spam from both grey and purple on standard in the next patches anyway.
I think I could reduce the raids by alemans and Lombards in case you don’t pay, maybe removing trebs altogether on standard (but rams could stay I guess?)
As for the avar ambush to the ox cart they only get two mangonels and scorpions, I think they’re not more than a nuisance, if you flare Bavaria and Thuringia (when he’s allied) where they have the flags you won’t even noticed them cause their kreposts will immediately kill the avars spawning on the cliffs. Very important is also to sack Lombards at a certain point so you can train serjeants and build donjons to guard your trade routes.
Btw use trebs against green, rams get stuck too easily with the current pathing.
And for byzantines, I mean I think it’s enough the krepost you build in that village and a few boyars to deal with them, it’s just some rams and scorpions I think. Also you can decide when trigger their attack so it shouldn’t be that much of a bother (?) just do it when you’re ready.
Yeah I know I’m working on it (with Ornlu’s voice lol). I think this is way easier than Dihya and the campaign I’m doing I’m really trying to be mindful of the unit spam!
I also made possible to go to imp in Adrianople, don’t know why I didn’t from the start… I don’t know if you replayed it recently but now it runs much smoother imo. I think this scenario is easier than adrianople too anyway. What do you think?
I must repeat that this scenario is really about setting a huge trade route (you also have techs in trade workshop to make donkeys tankier and carts dodge arrows lol don’t know if you found them), after all you play as a merchant so try to play it while having 20 carts collecting gold at least (you have 200 pop limit and no villagers).
It makes sense but on standard I could revert it back to when they didn’t got any upgrades for the final battle if you never pay them, at the price of being attacked by Lombards and Alemans every 30 minutes (without siege on standard or with only rams). Would it be too easy? For sure it would make a BIG difference to pay or not.
As for Thuringians I guess if you wait too much to trigger them you may miss the peace trigger (since they’re not aggressive to you) so I’m not sure what to do in that case… Should I make it able to trigger peace no matter how late you scout them?
I think this would definitely help. As the scenario hints states, you’re supposed to think carefully about where to expand to next, and expanding in their direction is dis-incentivized by their raids beginning, so it’s not unreasonable to assume a player may choose not to make an additional enemy until they can defend against them.
Yeah water can be annoying to deal with. You should always keep some canoes or longboats to defend the nitran village, but as soon as you get to imp and helped Istria you should create two dromons to snipe Avar dock and a couple of castles.
The problem here is that getting to Imp requires so many villages, or rather, that some of said villages are a bit of a hurdle. Unless I’m remembering incorrectly it was 10. That means the player must either: break through the Lombard checkpoint, which is well defended, make an enemy of the Thoringians very early to get them to sue for peace, or build enough army to simultaneously deal with everything else and defeat the Byzantines. Those three being rather difficult can make it hard to reach Imp before purple starts spawning trebs and dromons.
That said, I may try demo ships to kill the docks early next time or something, as well as your suggestions regarding the trade. This conversation is making me feel like playing it again.
It makes sense but on standard I could revert it back to when they didn’t got any upgrades for the final battle if you never pay them, at the price of being attacked by Lombards and Alemans every 30 minutes (without siege on standard or with only rams). Would it be too easy? For sure it would make a BIG difference to pay or not.
I think no upgrades on standard at all would definitely make it too easy. I’d suggest putting the upgrades on a timer when a payment is missed instead of activating them instantly.
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I like the Battle of Wogastisburg.
I have never heard about it before until @SamePorpoise303 recently wrote something about it. This forum is indeed good for exactly such things and gives educational expansion.
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At least in regard to this, you can get the village even if Alcek dies. Making alcek able to cross the Lombard camp will make stirrups and bagains available but it’s optional. Even if the timer ends and Bavarians kill Alcek, you still get the Rhaetian village (the yellow one that goes to cyan). Still it’s true that you need to wait 30 minutes anyway to get that even without saving Bulgars.
Thank you, I like to represent these obscure but very unique battles, specially in the dark ages which is my favourite historical era. Let me know if you decide to play it!
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Okay, I just finished the scenario with no modifications. Going into it with the level of foreknowledge I have at this point I can see why you think it’s easy, but that prior knowledge is kind of deceptive: there is absolutely no way I could have done it without knowing the scenario inside and out.
Because I knew where the horses and livestock were and what units the Alemmani had in their camp, I was able to very rapidly expand and absorb the nearest four villages in the time a first time player would have likely needed to find them. Then I was able to pull in the village Alcek starts in, the one closest to the Alans, and the one at the far south with primarily units I received for free.
Even with all that and 20 trade units I still didn’t defeat the Alans before they built trebuchets. I barely got to Imp before then, but using demo ships I was able to neutralize all the enemy docks before they became a problem and change focus to only land. Between that, 20 donkeys, moving armies around when they weren’t needed at the current moment, and spawn camping, it wasn’t much of a challenge to clear the level from there.
But a player that hasn’t run this a dozen times and read the entire list of triggers doesn’t know where the sheep and horses are, or where the attacks will come from, or that the Alans won’t react much if you raid them for the relic cart without taking the castles down first, or where to take Dervan. It was easy because I knew all those things and could preempt them; I was able to collect animals even before discovering the towns that needed them and start moving them there, and I could plant armies on enemy spawn points before they appear (particularly important for the Byzantines, who can easily wipe out the town they attack if you don’t know they spawn on both sides of it and overcommit to just one).
I also knew that attacking the Lombards for their relic wouldn’t prompt a counter attack and that the Alans don’t have a standing army to protect the relic cart, both of which are things I think someone might expect, causing hesitation.
So, ultimately, while you’re right that the scenario is a breeze if you know exactly what you’re doing, I think I can see a lot of points where it’s unreasonable to expect the average player to just do it correctly with no foreknowledge. So even having completed it without too much trouble, now, I think I have to stand by what I’ve said previously, primarily because lightening the number and frequency of enemy attacks, as well as reducing the amount of siege in the penalty raids, would give someone that’s still figuring things out the time they need to figure those things out and explore.
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Thanks for the input. I’m definitely trying to be mindful for the next campaign, for example having longer training time for enemy units and less siege.
It’s hard to pretend to not know anything when you play your own scenarios as the creator lol but that’s a side effect of not having play testers.
So the balance will probably be achieved gradually with trial and error methods, I know it’s not ideal but those are the means we have… I still think in this sense Wogastisburg is an improvement over Dihya and Adrianople who were made to be hard, at least now there’s the intention!