I'm lost :(

Definitely. Dragon is most awesome unit, it can wipe all enemies singlehandedly on turn one with his abilities.

No. You transfer essence from sov to champion. Champion becomes channeler himself and can raise his essence. Sov loses these essence points permanently.

I usually spend most of my time in the Civilization and Warfare tech trees until I find a shard (magic tech treE) or decide to start messing with Quests (adventure)... I've only used Diplomacy to get Caravans and not really done much else with that tree yet.

The backstory of the game is that the world is recovering from near destruction. You are trying to rebuild your civ from nothing.  And since you (your character) think that your way is the right way (and because of the many victory conditions there are many ways) you need to do it before your opponents do.  Finding the "right" balance for a city or tech or spells is totally up to you.   Try something.  If you lose, try something different.

Whatever happened to the days when people learned by doing?

 You need adventure tech to visit sites higher than level 0. You can see your current level and the site level in the tooltip when you hover the mouse above the site.

City balance is really dependent on the resource sites nearby. For best results, build cities next to libraries, temples or mines and specialise them in whatever they're producing. There's no point building a monastery in a city which doesn't have an ancient temple.

The reason your sovereign is naked is because you didn't select any equipment when designing him. Since they can improve their stats, it's also possible to boost your individual heroes to the kind of stats you only see in units of multiple troops, hence why equipment is expensive. And of course they can chuck around spells, which makes them even more powerful.

Questing is useful because you can get everything from a purse of coin to permanent stat enhancing potions or magical equipment.

Usual early game for me is to build a city next to some fertile land, then scout around looking for resources. Train up pioneers and lay claim to any resources you can find. Research goes into warfare until I get bows and the ability to train the first squad level, design a troop armed with a longbow (no armour) and use squads of those as garrisons. At some point early on I buy a club for my sovereign - you can rely on magic to deal with most early game threats except Darklings, which the club is good enough to take care of. Once I've got the warfare tech I'll nip into the diplomacy tree to get caravans, the civilization tree for a couple of levels to start specialising the cities and then the exploration techs from the adventure tree for bonus resources.

yes, EWoM has many optons, and is like an adventure, but takes a few turns for things to happen.  Start your city next to fertile land.  Get the court scribe to join you.  Go visit as many of the level 0 goody huts nearby, scout the area for resources.  tech?  I go civ until I get irrigation.  War, go for bows.  When resources are found, send a pioneer to settle there.  Lots of options.  remember, when you raise the level of the notible sites, you also raise the level of the 'monsters' roaming around. Buy better equipemnt (or find some).  magic research for level 2, then for the summonable companion creature.  Summon it and keep it with you.   Go kick some monster fannys.  level up.  Choices unfold and are better determined based on who you meet, and what resourecs are near by.  Remember, specialize your settlements.  If you get a message that a city is 'ripe for the taking' - take it seriously... defend it.   use your teleport spell to get your Sov back to defend.(that means always keeping enough mana in reserve.  - but don't cut it too close -or you may lose a city.  Finally, make a plan, begin implementing it.  And adjust it constantly based on new information.  I just love it when a plan comes together (A-team!)  BTW, some "friends" will go cold on you if their military is "larger' than yours.  They will eventually wage war on you, so keep checking the diplomacy screen -and monitor their attitude towards you.  If you need to stop your current plan and build units in your cities to earn their resepct again.  Do so - unless you want a war.  I save the higher quests for later -as I usually need to take an army in the some dungeons with me to survive. I won't say which dungeons because that is part of the fun.  However, if the message on the site says its 'safe', it probably is.  Those 'old' spiders are quite nasty (read deadly).  My two cents - hope it helps you.

HAHAAH You got us on this one!

I'm pretty much always lost in these sorts of games.  For Elemental, I have a core strategy that is victorious against the AI so long as I can get my economy off the ground, and then I try to do a few different things each game.

I haven't found adventuring particularly useful either given the opportunity cost required of taking your sovereign away from the action.  The rewards from adventuring seem unexciting, and the quests are off to a good start, like "Wild Goose Chase," but could be more entertaining.

It seems though the focus of the current build is victory by conquest.  Mainly, you build up an army and defeat your foes.  There have been a couple of times I was able to use diplomacy to get to factions to destroy one another and then I went through to clean of the last remnants of each side, but that requires a little luck.  Those are my two overarching strategies: brute force and playing the AI against one another.  I did a magic victory condition once but really had to go out of my way to do that, and haven't even been close on adventuring or dynasty victory conditions.

All other way of winning are cosmetic IMO, since the AI is even less able to accomplish them than a regullar 'violent' victory. Besides how could you prevent that? If the AI really went for quests and decided to win with the mastery forge (or whatever it is called) or the spell of mastery (or whatever). How could a player prevent the AI sovreigns from winning that way apart from beating the hell out of the AI's cities?

Regarding the diplomatic victory it is even more absurd, since ONLY the human player can really accomplisgh that. In fact would you accept to be the last ally to a faction that is already allied with everyone, thus handing out the victory to them?

Or do you have to be the one to initiate the final alliance?

I'm kinda in the same boat.  I'm waiting for the "fun" to begin.  I hope when all the changes are in, it will be fun.  Right now, after a month of playing a large number of games on different levels, I"m still not sure of all the ins and outs of the game.  I just build groups of longbow men and afew magic guys(also with longbows) with incinerate and melting touch and that seems to be all I need to wipe out any opposing force.  I just finished a game last night that had over 800 turns.  Large map vs 5 factions.  I had -45 food while controling 33 towns. My people were starving, but I didn't care and it didn't seem to matter.  I won, but  the last half of the game was more of a chore than fun.  I hope that will change with the improvements coming.  And what does the number at the end mean?  Is 71 good or not so good?   I know I'll be around for all the changes coming..........

jandurin wrote:

September 29, 2010 11:18:02 AM

Quoting ElanaAhova,

reply 5

If you get a message that a city is 'ripe for the taking' - take it seriously... defend it. 

I've only ever received that message from heroes that want me to hire them.  I never take it seriously as they won't attack.  Never had a bandit or such say that.

Yes, jandurin, you are right, the message comes from a hero (who is available for hire with enough coin).  My experience has been that the city mentioned comes under attack fairly "soon" if I don't station a garrison there.  Am I just unlucky? (in the game!!)

BTW, how do you get the quote thingy to work?  Thanks

Anyway, lately I always garrison at least 1 archer in every city that I care about, just to be safe.

For quoting, just make sure all the text that you're quoting is within the quote brackets.

In fact, you can make your own:

[ quote who = "person" ] text [ /quote ]

Same without spaces:

Just play for a week and you will learn everything.
What is with people and needing someone to hold there hand?

If you are not having fun you are doign somethign wrong or have not learned everything yet, jsut stick with it and soak up all tha tthe game has to offer, stay relaxed and you will learn all there is to learn in do time bud.

I started the game by going to turn 100 then quitting and starting all over and going to turn 100. Later I went to turn 300 and quit and started over again...I now can get to turn 500. I feel this process has caused me to learn many different aspects of the game at the various stages of the game. That is how I learn things, trying them over and over to see what works and what doesn't.

I am now able to lose games at any stage of the game (opening phase, middle, end game). I have never actually won a game however so maybe my suggestion sucks....

Theres nothing ever wrong with asking , some need help and maybe others dont .It's not holding a persons hand its helping out , everyone processes information differently is all.

... and maybe it's just not the game for you - can't please all the people all the time - lots of alternatives out there.

Personally loving it though.

Good news, Good news... 

I have found you.  You must have travelled to far from your shack, you know.. the one under the bridge, or are you of the cave variety?

Different help needed.  Sorry if its the wrong place.  How do I search for someone's profile, so i can give them karma.  i did it once before, but now i can't figure out how to do it.  appreciate it.  Thanks.

Diplomatic victory should require all remaining factions be allied with everyone else. Then it is a true allied victory.

So I like conceptually (if not 100% in practice so far) the tech idea.

Right now, military tech rules all, closely followed by adventure tech and civ tech. Adventure tech creates new resources for you (!) so even if you don't have a gold mine to begin, you can get one by researching adventure. Similarly, pursuing quests and the adventure tree is a huge economic boost early on. Civ techs are more for an established empire.

Diplomacy opens trade (REALLY important, but only 1 point) and opens special monster spawns (I like umberdroths!)
Sorcery tech increases your essence pool, gives your sov/champions magic weapons/armor/items that make pursuing the adventure tree easier

Early game: Adventure > Military > rest imo
Midgame: Mil > civ > rest imo
Lategame: Mil > rest

I would like to see the trees balanced a bit better, but I love the concept.

Note that you can also give karma by mousing over a post, and clicking the thumbs up icon on the bar at the bottom of it. This method is generally preferable, because it requires less clicks, and is associated with the post for which you gave the karma.