Three strikes and you're out

from Elemental Forums

OK, I finally got the game to work. The last  thing I had to do was disable my firewall. That's when my nightmare begun. I'm guessing the game will be playable (at least for me) some time in the second half of 2011.

STRIKE 1: I, too, experienced the dodge/block mightmare. The stats of the units are misleading. I started the campaign and after ~4 hours I had a battle with a drake. It took alomost 15 min to win because the enemy kept dodging and blocking. I had 8 units total with two of them being squads of 8 upgraded peasants. They had 40 attack, 50+ defense, and the drake had 25 defense and 15+ attack (or something like that). But the game obviously doesn't care about the total att,def of the units because thay didn't land a single hit. All the damage was done by my sovereign. Apparently the game compares attacker's att with defender's def and if it is higher, it MAY HIT. If it is the same value, I'd say it hits 10% or lower. If it's lower, don't bother.

Another example is a squad of 8 armed peasants (that's how I named them) with 48 attack and 64 defense facing a Umberdroth with 19 attack and 6 defense. My peasants were barely touching him, doing 2-4 damage whenever they hit, and it was doing 10-14. From that I get that when the programs shows the squad's stats, is calculating the total of the units, but in combat the squads are too weak. I only use them as cannon fodder because they have high HP, until my sovereign takes the enemies out.

STRIKE 2: Another problem I had, is with a ship I get at some point, because its captain doesn't have the same destination as I. It refuses to go where I want and after a while it stops moving. Then it only goes backwards .

STRIKE 3: Many small things, like:

1.When a city upgrades I can choose to get some random guardians. OK, make it random, but I hate it when a city of humans gets spider or darklings guardians.

2.The Auto Expore doesn't work.

3.I believe it would help a lot if I could see the destination I set for a unit, connected to the unit with a line (Red, blue, I don't care)

4.In the tactical map, there should be a way to tell from the icons on the left which unit  is selected.

5.In the world map, most of the time I can move mycharacters by pressing the destination on map. When I no longer have moves, I press again on the map to continue moving. Sometimes(especially when I have more than one parties on map) the game won't let me move my characters unless I press the End turn, or even worse it won't let me press End button unless I move all my characters.

6.When I select a party and hover over the icons of the units, the information I see for the unit doesn't change if I move between same units.

7.IMO, the development of the city from LV4 to LV5 is too hard. If I count right, you need 20 huts to get the population to level up the city.

I haven't played yet in scenarios, so I don't know if the problems I faced are encontered only in campaign

7,075 views 21 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

So wow... If you have problems, you can hust ask a beta tester friend.

Don't play the campaign Cuz. Scenarios don't have most of the problems you describe. GC2 couldn't even get the campaigs working for like three years.

The UI issues seem like flavor more than valid points, did you criticize other games for such little things or is this one just special? Not sure any one of them deserve a strike. And on that note, baseball is kind of a bad metaphore to use, doesn't really correlate.

You should really take a look at how groups of soldiers work before you put all your money on them. It clearly says on the attack card that it will do the damage of each INDIVIDUAL unit times the number of units in the party. So 8 attacks of 4 damage cannot hurt a unit with an armor rating of 7. It used to be the way you assumed it would be, but the game got stupid in the late game with that kind of damage doable by a bunch of frakking peasants.

Get some spears, get some leather armor, kill things. Easy as that! :digichet:

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

1.Personal Choice Issue

2.Works fine for me, i'm more annoyed when i teleport sov, who had a destination and move points. When he lands he moves to that target, instead of reseting destination

3.I like this idea

4.Isn't the unit's icon highlighted, ive seen it with enemy monsters...

5. Only have this issue, if i select from left side, and don't click off/on them again. seems to be an issue with selecting them from the side.

6. Never built parties, i mainly use combat champs with all magical equip for my fighters.

7. Heres a good idea, upgrade housing. You only need a few villas, especially if you do 1 or 2 of the 10% housing upgrades. most of my cities are libraries, not housing. You'd need 13 villas with no research, to get a lvl 5 city.

 

 

Multiplicity - Control multiple PCs using one keyboard and mouse
Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

Yeah, I don't think you can legitimately be mad that 8 peasants can't hurt a dragon :) Time to design some new units with actual weapons.

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

This post is funny. You should learn more about the game before you complain so much.

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

I can relate to a bunch of these issues.  However, yah... peasants fighting a drake?  can't expect that to go well. I mean, they don't even have pitchforks, they only have little clubs!

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

I think he said he upgraded the peasants, so even though they were named peasants, they were armed soldiers, probably with spears and leather.  

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

So let me get this straight. It used to be that parties actually just did their straight up dmg, but now they do their (individual dmg - enemies defense) * group size? This sounds like a big improvement. When was it changed? Although I have to agree that it should probably be displayed as say 7*3 instead of 21.

Reply #8 from Elemental Forums Top

They changed it with 1.1, I can't remember when Carielf was first talking about the change, but it's been a long time ago, I like the change actually.  Makes Champions actually champions compared to soldiers and monsters real scary, as they should be.

Reply #9 from Elemental Forums Top

After playing a scenario, I have to admit that 70% of the problems I mentioned didn't bother me at all.

For those who said I shouldn't fight the drake with peasants: In the campaign I didn't get other units. I just had a couple basic units and I could create new units by loading them with equipment. I wouldn't like it either if 8 peasants could kill a dragon, but the squads I used had 8 fully upgraded "peasants" with the best equipment I had at the time, and they would never hit even for 1 damage.

So what is the point to show stats like 68 def enseand 40 attack? They should say that the squad acts like a 15 att and 20 defense, so I can plan the battle. In real life a group of weaker predators can kill a larger prey. Just watch a wolf pack, or lion pack attacking a larger prey.

About the problem I mentioned about upgrading the city: In the campaign you can't research tech, so I couldn't build houses, which isn't a big problem as I saw when I finished the campaign. At the time I wrote the post, I wa trying to gain access to new units and I thought that upgrading the city would be helpful. Really short campaign.

Overall, the impressions of the game are better after I played the scenario, but  with so many bugs, this wasn't a game that should be for sale when it was, and I still think there are a lot problems they need to solve.

Reply #10 from Elemental Forums Top

I agree that there should be some indication that the group is doing (individual unit) x group size rather than just the base attack.  It is definitely misleading.

Also, ships in general are acting weird for me, and I can't seem to delete the unit either.  It gives me the message to confirm, click yes, and the ship is still there, it's a bit wonky for sure.

Reply #11 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting mentalinstra, reply 4
This post is funny. You should learn more about the game before you complain so much.
End of mentalinstra's quote

 

This reply is funny, you should properly play the game before mocking the poster.

Reply #12 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting brycex99, reply 10
I agree that there should be some indication that the group is doing (individual unit) x group size rather than just the base attack.  It is definitely misleading.
End of brycex99's quote

Yeah, I made a request about showing a better value ages ago. Hopefully they will someday change it, but I'm not holding my breath. People are now accustomed to seeing the summed up value for squads. As far as I know, that value is not being used for anything at all. It's just misleading the player. I guess in some way you could think of it as being a helpful indication of the total value of the group, but as the experience of OP points out, it really doesn't accomplish that at all.

Reply #13 from Elemental Forums Top

1.The adventuring part of the game is by far my favourite. However, I don't like that many dungeons, crypts and other locations are visible on the map, but the game won't let you explore them before you research several levels in "adventure" research tree. It would look better if the locations became visible after the research was done. They could also place them on mountains (if they are caves), inside forests (if they are abandoned houses and laboratories, or even swamps. That would justify the adventure level that is required.

2.Also, I belive they somewhere lost it with the research tree. I mean it so analytical it's taking ages to research the parts that interest you. Every research unlocks too little tech. In the scenario I play now, I control over 80% of the map, I have 10 cities and it takes 20+ turns to research Bokk of air (6th research in magic tree).

3.Another annoying thing is that they use seasons(4/year) to count turns. I mean come on. My champions would be toothless old men, and I wouldn't even have a 2-3 cities. They should change it to days, weeks ot just leave it turns/rounds. I don't really care what season or year it is (unless I'm missing something)

4.I would like it better if the champions had classes. As it is now, I get a guy with 8 strength, 13 Intelligence (obviously should be mage or something like that) and he can't even cast a spell if I don't use Imbue Champion, which costs 25 mana and 1 extra to maintain. Ridiculous system. It just killed the magic.

5.Something else about the magic system is that although I get many spells to research when I start the game, each time I research a spell book(Air, Earth, ...) I only get 5-6 new spells. And since some of them require high Intelligence, you can benefit from only 2-3. It just feels that it's not worth the research time (compared to Adventure research tree). They should distribute the spells better. I mostly use Arcane arrow which is cheap and does decent damage when used by my 29 Int wizard.

By the way how can I increase the mana points I get each turn? I'm stuck at 2 and I use Imbue Champion I drop to 1/turn.

Reply #14 from Elemental Forums Top

Naruto, in terms of research and tech, there are quite a few ways to bump up research to high levels.  If you make the jump to libraries (6 or 7 in Civ tech), you effectively double your research output (give or take a little bit) and tech starts flying from that point forward. Also, make sure you're using Schools effectively, and put them in settlements that have a high amount of studies or libraries in them. I've been able to pretty much research a new Tech every 3 - 5 turns (except for the early game), which sounds a lot better than 20 turns :)

 

For mana: Shards give you 2 mana per turn.  So, if you have a fire shard and water shard, that's an additional 4 mana per turn.  If you research Shard Harvesting > Expert Spellbooks > Shard Mastery your Element Shrine gets bumped up to a Greater Shrine which adds an extra 1 mana per Shrine, so that fire and water shard you have is now producing 6 mana per turn.  In addition, you can now create the Temple of Essence which will give you an extra 3 mana for every settlement you build it in with a Shrine. So, let's say you have two settlements with one greater shrine each, plus a temple of essence in each, you have now bumped up to 12 mana per turn.  Early on it's better to hold off on casting too many enchants, so you can build up a good solid base of mana... well, at least in my opinion :)

Reply #16 from Elemental Forums Top

You should get the techs that let you use the resources available first. Harvesting, quests, the magic ones. Then get equipment, leather armor, and weapons. The hard part of the game is now over.

Reply #17 from Elemental Forums Top

Don't forget level up bonuses. 20+30+40+50= 140% bonus. That's a lot of tech. I once had a city with around +240 tech production!

Reply #18 from Elemental Forums Top

Early research priorities can vary depending upon playstyle, but some things are pretty useful regardless of your goals for a game, so it's often useful to start off with (not necessarily in this order...):

-civic's harvesting (for basic resources like mining, etc.)

-warfare's equipment (to get the over-powered oak spear, and padded armor)

-diplomacy's trading (gives caravans, which you don't need until you get a second city, but you should get a second city fairly early).

-magic's shard harvesting allows you to build on shards to get mana.  Even if you go mostly weapons over magic, 'heal' for tactical battles, and 'return'/'teleport' for moving your units around the map, are very useful -- heck, the latter are critical).  If you go the magic route (favor int for your Sov) then arcane arrow (I think that's the name) is a very useful addition to the previous spells.

-adventure's exploration (basic special resources)

(I think I have the tech names correct...)

The above give you some basic troops for protection, some basic resources and gold to get your economy going, and some info on where good city placement sites might be.

A bit later on:

-civic's civics for markets (gold is always useful), production for materials (great mill, especially if you have a city site with materials special resources), and construction (for the bonus to building times)

-warfare's weaponry (for the over-powered war staff) and armor (leather armor)

-magic's shard mastery if you need more mana

-adventure's lost bounty (more food resources) and lost maps (more special resources)

This will get you up and running (generally speaking).  There are other options, depending on play style and likes/dislikes, of course.  For example, I don't use diplomacy at all, so I ignore the other diplomacy techs.  If you want more magic then add in various spellbooks or the tech to add in spell research, if you want more military then head for edged weapons (great axe is over-powered) or whatever.

Reply #19 from Elemental Forums Top

For my research priorities, these are the things I try to hit first and in this order:

Warfare > Equipment - Level 1 Warfare

Usually the first Tech I research because, like Nick said, it offers you some fairly powerful stuff for early game, and they're not too expensive and require no metal. It helps you create a small force to go about with your Channeler to pick up all the goodies around you without risk.

Magic > Shard Harvesting - Level 1 Magic

This let's you start building up mana reserves in case you have some unlucky fights come up early and need to burn a lot of mana.  I've had it happen a few times, and having attack spells without any mana is a horrible thing to discover too late.

Civilization > Harvesting + Adventuring > The Lost Bounty - Level 1 Civ + Level 2 Adventuring

This is nice in conjunction with one another, because you get more food sources (potentially even on already established settlements) and then can get a boost in production to your Capital, which will have a Farm, and then any additional settlements that find an Apiary, Fruit Trees, or whatever else.  Plus, if you're lucky enough to start near a Mine of some kind, it's worth getting early. I don't have a preference over which one I get first, they're both fairly interchangeable. One piece of advice: it's nice to have some Pioneers ready beforehand to take advantage of the new food resources, just in case they don't appear within a settlements boundaries, otherwise the AI seems to know exactly where the food is at and will build there pretty quick.

Diplomacy > Trading - Level 1 Diplomacy

This is one you should start researching as you build your first pioneer.  It's nice to have it ready by the time your second settlement is built, then you can make your first unit out of the settlement a Caravan and get your gold surplus started.

Civilization > Economics - Level 3 Civ

I like getting this as early as possible because it unlocks Houses, and extra population to work with is always nice. At this point Economics is a little off balance because it also unlocks two Level 5 city upgrades... which is pointless this early in the game.  Still, I like getting Houses, so it's worth it.

All of this is just my personal preference and order, and as I've found in my games, it's never a bad thing to have more food than you need early on.  It can be a killer to recognize you need more food and/or population, but have to then start researching to get it. Plus, the more food you have early, the more you can expand early on and get access to special resources like Mines and Shards and more Food, not to mention have the ability to either create a large army or increase tech by a lot.  In 1.1, early expansion is strongly rewarded. Also, in the midst of this, my first 3 or 4 settlements I give the bonus to Tech and create mostly studies.  Tech also seems to be heavily favored over needing all of the spells.

Reply #20 from Elemental Forums Top

I find my early research order very similar to Bryce's.

I don't go to heavy magic early because my Sov is not high enough level to have a high Int.

I prefer getting to at least light plate then look towards Cedar Long Bows (for Sov/Heros) and use built units as blockers/tanks.

 

 

Reply #21 from Elemental Forums Top

Sovereigns can cast any spell regardless of int. It's very misleading I know. They need to work on documenting things for people.