Cult of Pleasure; HOW do I do this exactly?

Brianfowler713#6329

I've tried the Cult of Pleasure Vortex Campaign THRICE now. And every time, EVERY time, it keeps kicking me in the balls.

First I have to secure my province and destroy the Bleak Holds, fine. Except there's an imminent rebellion EVERY several turns because public order's at rock bottom and I have to build it up WHILE I'm rebuilding my towns AND build up my military AND trade resources. And EVERYONE's demanding a defensive or military alliance but NOBODY will give me a trade agreement.

Oh, and for some reason, there's a flipping Tomb King right behind me who's declared war on me twice, rejected a non-agression pact, THEN demanded I pay for a non aggression pact and, predictably, after I told him where to go and what to do when he got there, declared war a third time. Oh, and one more thing; As soon as I'm about to march on the Bleak Hold with a mediocre army, a Beastman Horde popped up and razed Iron Peaks.

HOW, exactly, are you supposed to do this campaign?

SakuraHeinz

well, I didnt played them since Amethyst update but the first building I made after upgrading the city is the religion building, there is also a nice rite for public order after owning the whole region, I always played them on very hard and never had any public order problems after conquering the complete region there is also the wine building which gives a lot of public order, but I didnt even need that.


Edit: Oops I forgot vortex campaign exists, Im talking about Mortal Empires campaign

Sephlock

You could rush the Shrine of Asuryan immediately and build it asap, thus earning all of Ulthuan as your allies (assuming you don't attack them more).

khyron

Out of the Dark Elves Morathi has one of the harder starts. Thanks in part to her causing chaos curruption and thus spawning Chaos rebellions. How ever she dose have a Unique building in her capitol that reduces the impact of curruption and gives decent income.

I would recomend playing Malkith to learn the Dark elf mechanics as he has a more forgiving campign. Important things to know when playing Dark Elves

Slave mechanics are powerful but frustrating to learn. Best to turn off accept slaves in any provance but your capitol until you learn its mechanics. There are several threads about dealing with Dark Elf slave mechanics on these forums.

Build walls at your capitol as soon as it can. Dark Elves have possibly the strongest Garrisions with walls in the game as rebellions are an increased mechanic they have to deal with. You will have slave rebellions often and the walls are needed to give reaction time to get an army back there, Spawn a defensive army, or once you get the hang of it crush the rebellion.

Black Arcs are an important aspect of your empire. Dark Elves do not get Global recruitment. However they can recruit from Black Arc(s) that are in "Dread Expanse" Stance. Dread Expanse gives support to armies within its bubble (circle visible) Recruitment, replenishment rate, increase end battle loot/slaves, in battle bombardment abilities. They are currently Immortal once killed they are only wounded and can be re deployed after a few turns. A fully built Black Arc can reach 90% upkeep reduction for troops on it.

For playing Morathi the tips I can give may not work for how many believe Dark elves should be played.

Morathi and her hero's spread chaos curruption and no one likes them because of it.

Send a non assassin hero up to make contact with Malakith he will most likely be the easiest person to get trade with.

I believe in Vortex Morathi Starts with an Assassin. If yes Build him for map troop/garisson assault. Have him move to the rebelling capitol when you are approaching a rebellion and have him assault the rebellion as the first thing durring your turn. Then bring in the army and crush the rebellion. You kinda want to crush rebellions quickly for loot/slaves and also the rebellion frees slaves building up quicker and more powerful.

Set starting Provance to request more slaves, any other provance you take a settlement in turn off slaves. Keep the recruitment building in the capitol and build the special building. Try to find room for the Slave pens, they are needed to activate the Black Arc Ritual. Once avaliable build the walls at the capitol. The other 2 settlements have other unique resources, Wood and Iron with one being a port. Build special resource/port building (slot 1) then Walls (Slot 2), Slot 3 is resource in port town and a building of your choice in the other.

Now we Turtle and play wack a mole with Morathi. Build your internal economy, raid/sack your neighbors, smack down those rebellions. Deploy the Black Arc when it becomes avaliable and try to keep it safe and in Dread Expanse to support your starting provance. The A.I. will try and snip it, Avoid to large of a Garrison on it, as you want a Second ground army at least partial army to deal with rebellions and let Morathi off the leash she has.

Plan ahead your conquests. You will want the Black Arc to support your conquest but spamming Black arcs may count to the increase all army upkeep. Target complete provances you can take efficently.

Morathi's legendary opponets in Votrex include.
Mazdamundi to her south.
Cylostra Dyrfin to her east. A source of Vampiric curruption.
Trench Craven tail to the north east who always in my game seems to head toward her.

Katep the Grand Heriphant. Tomb kings and the often annoying you killed two of his armies well 3 turns later her are 2 more.

Katep lives in hostile enviroment and I would sack then raze his settlements until you stabolise in mid game and can handle the increased development cost.

Mazedamundi often has his own troubles and can result in a NAP as long as you do not spread too much chaos curruption his way.

Cylostra is a Wild card sometimes she goes after Morathi, others Mazdamundi, others she heads for Katep. I would target her as the easiest for elimiation but you need to kill her army then her towns or you have no idea when she will show up with a doom stack.

Trench is always a wildcard not much of a challange but for some reason he can unite all the dark Elves against the player.

Keep an eye out for the High Elves Alith Anar will sometimes head down to attack Morathi, and every surviveing Elf on the Island once Tyrion completes his conquest, aliance crafting will take the war to Dark Elves.

doclumbago#6250

regarding Slaves:
Max out one province for economy and Public Order
Send all the slaves there. That maxes out your income

#326161

U need to scout en work on diplomacy asap where u need it, using a hero if possible.

Try and get things done and work your way back to the capital in time to crush the rebellion.

From there, things should be fine, build up the province and ambush where u can and push forward.

Brianfowler713#6329

Fourth time's apparently the charm. Somehow the flipping TK behind my back forgot to declare war on me, and the Beastmen that gave me crap last time actually asked for peace. Took forever, but I finally destroyed the Bleak Holds. Then I had to crush them again when they mysteriously came back and took over Vaul's Anvil (rather fortunate, as it allowed me to take the Black Coast without declaring war on one of my only trading partners).

Eighty Three turns in, but I got one Ritual, two provinces, and a Black Ark. And I'm marching two full stacks to deal with that Bloody Khatep once and for all. He may have forgotten about me, but I sure didn't forget about him...

Fossoway

Can't say about ME, but in the Vortex there is a little stretch of land connecting your capital with Khatep's territory. Beastmen tend to roam there too.

I'd say try to secure your starting provinces first, deal with your first enemy, then deal with Khatep ASAP. That's how the TK rolls, they are very weak early on but gets stronger over time. The more you wait, the more of a threat he'll become, and he'll 100% declare war on you. Just keep an eye out for any wandering beastmen too.

#606339

The problem is the sanctum of quintex doesn't reduce p.o. penalty from corruption before tier 5 now.
To think they used to get -60% p.o. penalty on tier3 yet still suffering from rebellions, now their campaign is kinda broken .

RodentofDoom#1703

Don't worry about Trade too much as Morathi, at best it's a tertiary income stream.
Slaves are where you get your main income.


Whilst confederation is an option with all the DE factions, you don't get any slaves that way.
Confederate the other 3 LL's
Enslave the other DE factions, it's all they deserve for being traitorous scum.

Tayvar

Brianfowler713 said:

I've tried the Cult of Pleasure Vortex Campaign THRICE now. And every time, EVERY time, it keeps kicking me in the balls.

First I have to secure my province and destroy the Bleak Holds, fine. Except there's an imminent rebellion EVERY several turns because public order's at rock bottom and I have to build it up WHILE I'm rebuilding my towns AND build up my military AND trade resources. And EVERYONE's demanding a defensive or military alliance but NOBODY will give me a trade agreement.

Oh, and for some reason, there's a flipping Tomb King right behind me who's declared war on me twice, rejected a non-agression pact, THEN demanded I pay for a non aggression pact and, predictably, after I told him where to go and what to do when he got there, declared war a third time. Oh, and one more thing; As soon as I'm about to march on the Bleak Hold with a mediocre army, a Beastman Horde popped up and razed Iron Peaks.

HOW, exactly, are you supposed to do this campaign?

Well many things are random in the campaign, and it's make the Campaign more interesting, sometimes you can have an hard time in the Campaign because you was unlucky, but in many cases you might have an hard time in the Campaign because of your own mistakes. The Cult of Pleasure is actually an Chaos Faction, so your best allies could be an Norscan Factions rather than other Dark Elves Factions.

endurstonehelm#6102

Brianfowler713 said:

First I have to secure my province and destroy the Bleak Holds, fine. Except there's an imminent rebellion EVERY several turns because public order's at rock bottom and I have to build it up WHILE I'm rebuilding my towns AND build up my military AND trade resources. And EVERYONE's demanding a defensive or military alliance but NOBODY will give me a trade agreement.

Oh, and for some reason, there's a flipping Tomb King right behind me who's declared war on me twice, rejected a non-agression pact, THEN demanded I pay for a non aggression pact and, predictably, after I told him where to go and what to do when he got there, declared war a third time. Oh, and one more thing; As soon as I'm about to march on the Bleak Hold with a mediocre army, a Beastman Horde popped up and razed Iron Peaks.

Morathi's vortex campaign is the hardest of the original 8 vortex Legendary Lords. The campaign is also harder now than at launch. In addition to all of the threats in her neighborhood, including Alith, the Drowned, Tretch, and Khatep who were added after launch, her anti-corruption public order monument was nerfed since launch, it only reduces public order penalty when tier 5. It is also hard for her to get a trading agreement.

My general approach with Morathi is to turtle at Quintex. I keep Morathi's army near her capitol of Quintex until I have a garrison building in Quintex (which requires quintex to be tier 3).

Morathi gets a discount on agent actions and agent upkeep and has personal skills buffing agents, so I use my starting assassin on every turn, assaulting enemy units, enemy garrisons, etc..

The Quintex landmark is extremely valuable, and generates a ton of income. It also boosts the income that Morathi receives from slaves. I focus on keeping Quintex safe. If another city gets razed, its sad, but not a disaster. If Quintex gets razed, its a disaster.

The other LLs will eventually agree to confederate with Morathi when she is stronger then them, particularly if they have been wounded in battle. I'll send an agent to go spot Malekith and Crone Hellebron for diplomacy. I'll send a second agent (or a black ark if I have one) to spot Lokhir.

Quintex starts with the landmark building and a barracks for recruiting spearmen, crossbowmen, etc. Once my army is large enough, I might dismantle the barracks and replace it with a public order building or an economy building. When the public order building hits tier 3, it lets you recruit witch elves; the public order building helps public order in both adding public order, and increasing corruption, which decreases the lack of corruption public order penalty. Trade goods aren't very useful until you have a sea port that enables overseas trade.

jennifersbody1

This is easily my favourite campaign, not only because I really feel ÇA did Morathi justice in her characterisation, but also because it’s such a random challenge every time. If you play on Ulthuan, for example, you pretty much know what you’re going to get, but with the Cult of Pleasure there’s usually no telling how it’ll go. I’ve had games where Khatep has come for me straight away, ones where Tretch has embedded himself under my cities, and one memorable one where the Stone-horn tribe razed nearly everything north of S’ildra Tor barring my starting province, leaving me to pick up the pieces of druchii society; I fought so many beastmen in that campaign that Tyrion and Teclis were my best buddies by the time I’d finished the various tribes off.

psychoak

It's very easy to expand East with a small army, utilizing the advantage of an early Black Ark. You get the bombardment abilities to help with battles, and the fast access to heavily armored corsairs is invaluable against the early Skaven presence.

I rush out the Black Ark, send a short stack of archers and infantry East with a couple corsairs, pop a minor settlement for cash, add a few more units into the mix, and kill the AI army when it comes at you with a numerical advantage. As long as you got shielded shooters, it's pretty easy to kill off their AP ranged component with yours, and then tank it out in easy mode with Corsairs. Once you drop their stack, you run Morathi over and take out the main settlement with both armies.

jennifersbody1

How are you springing a Black Ark so early though? The only port within easy reach for Morathi is Arnheim, and by the time you’ve united your start province and finished off Bleak Hold, Khatep and the beastmen are normally trying to smash in your back door. To take Arnheim in the early game would risk you losing Quintex, which is a game over.

jennifersbody1

I do have a nice little pattern set up for the first few turns though.

First you pull Morathi back to NEAR Quintex and start recruiting, while your assassin attacks the nearby Bleak Holds army. They’ll then try to force march their way past you to the Moonshard, allowing to to pick them off in turn two. Head toward Ironspike and recruit some more. Use the assassin on Ironspike before you attack, and demolish the barracks in Quintex to replace it with the Cult building since Ironspike has a barracks already. Consolidate your wounded units and recruit some extras, then start looping round to the Moonshard. Same pattern again, assassin first, then attack. Once Moonshard is yours, head back up toward Quintex, where a rebellion is likely brewing. Crush them, then head into Bleak Hold’s territory. Set up in ambush just over the river, and pray their army leaves their city. Take the fortress, then obliterate Exarian if Arnheim haven’t done it already.

After this point is where s**t really hits the fan and you really just have to hope the beastmen head for Khatep instead.

psychoak

I think you're overestimating the difficulty in taking out Bleak Hold Fortress, it's a piece of cake even at Legendary.

You can actually ignore uniting Quintex and the enemy army, move into Black Coast, and take it on turn 3. It's a level 1 settlement without a defending army. Tiranoc kills the army for you.

This isn't a hard start. It's hard to split your forces and take Arnheim while securing Iron Peaks at Legendary difficulty, but it's still not impossible. Taking Arnheim first is easy though. It's much, much easier to take them out at their capital, and then secure yours.

Once you've got Arnheim, and popped out that first Black Ark, it's pretty easy to handle two directions at once.