1.08b the first 25 turns

from Elemental Forums

ok, so, no organized.  fine.  I'll go with merchant profession + wealthy & green thumb.

 

In the first 25 turns:

I've explored approximately 3 tiles radius around my initial settlement.  7 in one direction. (this is a really small area to explore)

Two AI sovereigns have already found me on a medium map.

One AI has given birth to a child.

I've managed to recruit Muvueratha.

My starting location was fortunate: Library, farm, gold in 1 tile radius.

I've built a Farm, arcane Lab, Study, Hut, and workshop.

I've made 1 pioneer.

I've researched Fire Dart.

My reputation is 0.5 ; my net income is 2.8 (last time I tried to marry this early in the game, the npc had a reputation of 1 and thus refused).

I've chased a wolf for 4 turns (it moves one tile, i move one tile, it moves one tile, i move one tile...).  I finally killed it on the 5th turn of chasing it and got 4 gildar.  I'm 50% towards level 2.  It's the only thing I've managed to fight, let alone kill.  The battle was autoresolved without giving me the option to manually battle.

 

My pioneer spent 7 turns  across an empty plain to build my next settlement next to an earth shard.  Spending it's last move to reach an unremarkable, empty tile, I was told that I could not build there, and needed to find an empty tile.

 

I currently do not have enough gold or materials to do anything else.  I am literally at a point, 25 turns in, where i am simply pressing next turn over and over to get anything done....such as moving.

 

This is a game those "dsl is faster than dial up" turtles would love.  Because it has slowed.  tremendously.

elemental
14,770 views 14 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

in addition to removing Organized,

...Teleport is now cost 15...so unusable.  This spell was crucial to allow early Sov to roam and gain adventure/combat exp.

and starting Sov stack goes like 1 square like you said.

then we add the inevitable (at least on hard+ difficulty) bandit group that spawns early and goes DIRECTLY for nearest city and must be defended against.

The Sov cannot really move far in my early game experience.

 

I would like to BACK OUT 108b...sheeesh. This patch has killed my Elemental experience (the 100% miss bows, etc.)

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

Well it does sound like a whole lot more then usually goes on in the first 25 turns of Civilization (and probably MoM too? It's been awhile). Traditionally a big part of 4x games is hitting next turn while you wait for things to be done.

Object Desktop - Get all of our enhancement utilities in one suite
Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

Personally would prefer to see teleport at about 10 mana - had to level before I could use it in my last game - not nice.

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting FadedC, reply 2
Well it does sound like a whole lot more then usually goes on in the first 25 turns of Civilization (and probably MoM too? It's been awhile). Traditionally a big part of 4x games is hitting next turn while you wait for things to be done.
End of FadedC's quote

 

You get nowhere comparing games to other games.  You need to compare elemental to itself.  Where it was and where it is.

 

Hitting next and doing little to nothing is hardly a fun way to spend leisure time.  Regardless of whether this was true in other games of the genre.  Because elemental didn't used to be that way... but now it is.

 

Of note in my 25 turn log is the fact that the AI's have mystically accomplished more.  And in some cases (childbirth and marriage) done it before players can.

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

Not sure what turn i'm on, but I've got 11 cities, plenty of resources, 44gil/turn, 4 shards (think i played my first 10 games without seeing a quickly accessible shard).  

I kind of like the new changes.  I made a new sov, specifically didn't choose organized (have a version from a mod still), did not spec for movement.   My first/common unit was a 3 move, 6 attack, 5 defense footman.   Had a couple of those so my stack was 3 move, slower, but at least guaranteed 2 tile/turn..i think.    Summoned a familiar, ditched him because I couldn't figure out how to get him to 3 move and he slowed my stack down.

Had to spend all my mana to teleport to the other end of my influence because a bandit army showed up at my door and knocked out my solo 6/5/3 guy.   Lost a couple times, then ended turn and got lucky till i had 5 mana and could chain light the group...and then still barely won. 

Found 2 AI, both empire so I killed them after stealing their cities.   City 5 and 8... they had a sweet resource layout, but had done nothing with it.   I AI had started their 2nd city while I was on city 7.   Doesn't seem like they'll be much of a bother.

Haven't been able to build much, primarily been doing troops/defense.   Although I finally just capped my 3rd shard.  On 3rd tier of research on all trees, maxed out adventure to get crystal.  Pretty good setup so far.

Slower game, which is fine.  There just has to be a way to easily "upgrade" movement over time.   I think this can be done with boots/cloak/magical forging to get the base 2 move guys up to move 6.   Should be a talent/enchantment that gives +2 movement to the stack.   Then another one further up the tree that gives +4, +6, etc.   +6 might be a bit much, unless it was single target.  

Horses are a pain to find, luckily got a mod that gives the ability to build a building at level 2 or 3 that produces a horse every 4 turns.  Royal stables or something.

More fun/strategic, although haven't faced the big mob spawns yet or an AI that's built up at all.

 

edit: turn 102

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

Found a save at turn 31 with the latest patch.  Playing a pretty blah sovereign/race: Irane/Tarth.  Medium sized ridiculous world with 5 ridiculous opponents.

  • 6 cities (2 taken from opponents)
  • 3 techs (warfare -> equipment, diplomacy -> caravans, adventure -> gold mine)
  • 2 spells researched (hurl bolder and imbue champion)
  • 6 food
  • 4.2 gildar/turn (and 3 more gold mines coming online over the next ~5 turns)
  • 14 materials/turn
  • 8 research/turn (2nd llibrary coming up next turn)
  • 3 spell research/turn

All opponents have 0 or 1 settlements and at most 1/3 the population.  One opponent (Umber) actually has more tech, but I've found his borders and will be taking his city in the next 5 turns or so (defended by one 3/1/21 unit).  My power rating is also about 2x the closest (11 versus 6).

Here are the things I've exploited this game:

  • AI cities are weakly defended (if at all) throughout the early game.
  • The AI does not participate in the early resource/city grab.
  • Sovereign's wives are a great source of free XP.
  • Being able to get off 2 spells in tactical combat before the opponent does anything.
  • The AI does not know how to utilize terrain defense bonuses.
  • Caravans remove any reason to care about food.
  • Pioneers are still very high benefit/cost and there is no downside to spamming cities on any and every resource node available (and then some, if so inclined).

Things that have actually slowed me down:

  • No metal mines to be found.
  • Higher teleport cost means less mana for hurl bolder.
  • Accidentally autoresolved a battle with my sovereign and lost all my mana (against a 0 CCR target).
  • The extra materials cost of the pioneer delayed the first one, but subsequent ones have still been trival.

 

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

Get better? I personally have had no problems with the new pacing. If there is an AI even remotely close to me they get wiped out in the first 30 turns. Procipenee's learning of magic spells from turn one guarantees this. Combine it with infusing Jaskar (or whatever his name is, hes of no importance other then as a donor) and marrying him to begin mutant production. By turn 97 of my last game on a medium map with all 9 ai's I quit because my power rating was already over 170 with the nearest ai rated a measly 37. Perhaps i should turn up the difficulty...hards not hard.

Reply #8 from Elemental Forums Top

If you've met your neighbour, why don't you conquer him?

I had killed 2 civilizations by turn 57 in my last game. It doesn't take that long to summon a familiar and a fire giant.

Reply #9 from Elemental Forums Top

Haven't followed that city spamming thread, but many cities > fewer cities every time.   There are way too many resources and plopping a city down even for the cheap 1 resource via the workshop is worth it.   Then once food comes in you build merch, then when a few gold mines are found you spam studies... game over.     AI needs to focus on economy/resource usage much much more quickly.  Let alone how they build/use their sovereign. 

Still wish for the days where it cost essence to build a city...  essentially you could have a bunch of cities and/or casters but your sov was then gimped.   Unfortunately at that point, there were no real alternatives so it wasn't an attractive prospect. 

Reply #10 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Jingseng, reply 4



Quoting FadedC,
reply 2
Well it does sound like a whole lot more then usually goes on in the first 25 turns of Civilization (and probably MoM too? It's been awhile). Traditionally a big part of 4x games is hitting next turn while you wait for things to be done.


 

You get nowhere comparing games to other games.  You need to compare elemental to itself.  Where it was and where it is.

 

Hitting next and doing little to nothing is hardly a fun way to spend leisure time.  Regardless of whether this was true in other games of the genre.  Because elemental didn't used to be that way... but now it is.

 

Of note in my 25 turn log is the fact that the AI's have mystically accomplished more.  And in some cases (childbirth and marriage) done it before players can.
End of Jingseng's quote

Every time you change something the game will be a way it didn't used to be, so that's a moot point. All that matters is if the change is good. The point of comparing it to other games here is clearly may people don't think hitting next turn over and over and accomplishing a small amount of things in your first few turns is such an innately horrible thing as you claim it is. In fact if not much is going on in your first 25 turns then they usually go by pretty quicky in terms of real game play time which is not such a bad thing.

If Elemental had been released a great work of art that everyone loved you could argue that they shouldn't go around making the game different. But it was released to poor reviews and in a state that requires large changes. Obviously though it may take a long time before they figure out what changes work well and what do not.

Reply #11 from Elemental Forums Top

I too noticed that in my current game someone gave birth to a boy after only about 20 turns. How is that possible.

Also teleport may be 15 but spirit dance for empire is 20 mana...totally unusable and makes the early game EXTREMELY difficult. Not able to adequitely protect my cities. I was exploring and settin up my 2nd and 3rd city early game. I had 2 groups of 3 observers built in my first city protecting it which i thought was pretty good. A wandering Sov attacked my citiy and was so powerful that he killed both groups of observers in one turn with attack spells. There was no way i could get back to the city in time to help defend it and there was no way in the number of turns i played that i could have had a better army defending the city unless i just hung out there with my sov and didn;t explore.

Teleport/ spirit dance is very important in protecting cities early game and needs to be adjusted again. I understand that mana thought 5 mana made it too powerful but 15/20 makes it useless. Perhaps 10 would give it the balance we were looking for???

Reply #12 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting ozzlok, reply 11
Teleport/ spirit dance is very important in protecting cities early game and needs to be adjusted again. I understand that mana thought 5 mana made it too powerful but 15/20 makes it useless. Perhaps 10 would give it the balance we were looking for???
End of ozzlok's quote

Perhaps an early 5 mana teleport spell that transports only the caster? That way you can have magic users assist where needed, but you can't have one army be everywhere at once. So you need a standing army at every location you want to defend, but your heroes can still help out at a moment's notice.

Then you can have a 15/20/25 mana "instantly move your super-stack to wherever you want" spell a few spell levels higher to cover late game transport needs.  

The early spell could also be "Recall": 5 mana, move the caster to any city under your control. That should limit any abuse while still allowing you to take your Champions/Sovereign out exploring.

Reply #13 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting ozzlok, reply 11
I too noticed that in my current game someone gave birth to a boy after only about 20 turns. How is that possible.

End of ozzlok's quote
thats cause AI civs start with a spouse.

Reply #14 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting me_myrmidon, reply 1
in addition to removing Organized,

...Teleport is now cost 15...so unusable.  This spell was crucial to allow early Sov to roam and gain adventure/combat exp.

and starting Sov stack goes like 1 square like you said.

then we add the inevitable (at least on hard+ difficulty) bandit group that spawns early and goes DIRECTLY for nearest city and must be defended against.

The Sov cannot really move far in my early game experience.

 

I would like to BACK OUT 108b...sheeesh. This patch has killed my Elemental experience (the 100% miss bows, etc.)
End of me_myrmidon's quote

Yes! I agree. I tried to teleport and the cost was 15 mana. Really? That's really pricey in the early stages of a game. Why have it? I guess I need to spend more points on the create sovereign screen? Even so, 15 mana? The nature's bounty & brilliance @10 aren't cheap but their use is not extensive and just in the early stages for me. 15 for the giants I get; that's well worth it. Teleport's benefits don't have the potential longevity of giants though.

I guess it keeps the game interesting. I think one of the best things about the games is the magic, but mana regen is slow. I guess the developers thought 5 mana for teleport made the game too easy?