Ragmash

Join Date 04/2006

[FE][.86] Fieldnotes from a "noob"

Through the Lens of Ignorence -- AMA

Hello FE Community! I've been following the development of the Elemental Games since they were first announced. Disappointed with everyone else with WOM's initial release and reception. Tried it out myself (to my extreme consternation) was entirely lost. Just purchased FE the other day after watching some playthroughs on youtube and pouring through the posts. There's been some extreme overhauls!! I can actually see FE becoming what it was I imagined it could.

So, what am I doing here?

I'm not new to the genre by any means and I'm not completely an Elemental virgin. But I thought for the sake of development, that I would play my first game through the lens of someone that doesn't know any better. Placing aside as many inherent intuitive notions I've gained over the years and the collective insights I've gained from following this community, I jumped in.

And here's what I witnessed.

THE TUTORIAL

First thing in, I hit up the tutorials. Just for the sake of checking them out, and because WOM didn't have them initially. First impression: the UI was /significantly/ improved. Dare I say, pleasant to interact with (upon first blush). The directions were clear and straightforward. I did notice that the screen-captures that were instructing me where to click were outdated; I could see buttons in places that were not reflected in the tutorial. -- my only critical comment regarding this experience. I didn't play it all the way though -- I got too impatient to play! -- so I resigned after maybe 20 turns.

THE FIRST GAME

...was incredibly short-lived!

Allow me to explain.

Setting up the game was an unintimidating process. I liked that the deeper tweaking was hidden under the surface (in the realm of Custom faction creation) and that if I was a real noob, I could just click on some pretty pictures, click 'next' a time or two, and be on my way. I left everything on their default settings, because I imagined that this is what most introductory folks might do.

AAaaaand, POOF, I'm in the world! Oh, lots of stuff to read.... time to play! Oh, I was so excited! Awesome gfx, an untouched land ready to conquer! Sick. My sov was placed near a black widow, so, because I know I've gotta be pretty bad ass (I've got a beard!) and I should probably clear the area before I build a city (so I thought!) I attacked the thing.... I.... had been mistaken.

I lost.

I died.

Gameover. ("Defeat by Conquest" -- lol)

Surprising to most of you, this was not something made completely explicit to me. (Warning -- I'm cheating by admitting I relied on previously acquired information!) I knew that Champions came back upon death in combat. Nothing anywhere told me that game over was when your sov got whacked! (Although I imagine for most any strategy vet, this would be expected, I'm pretending I'm not such a vet!) I feel that the tutorial should have at least said something to this affect.

Alright, you dust yourself off and get right back on!!

THE SECOND GAME

Spoiler: I'm not dead yet. I got better.

Kind'of.

So again, default settings all the way, and POOF! I'm there again. Sitting on some greenish/purpleish land with stuff all around me. Got some iron, got some shards, looks like a champion over there. From what I've heard, unlike in Civ, you're supposed to have time to run around a little before settling your first city. So I did! Whacked some easy mobs, grabbed myself a nice hunk of Champion, looted some loot aaaaandd..... uh oh. I can't find any grain. Double uh-oh... what are those lines over there... ... that's an outpost! Hi, creepy-ugly-man! You sure got busy! So I rushed back and grabbed some (I think?) decent-enough land to settle right as another outpost went up nearby. From another creepy-lookin Empire thug.

Okay. So I guess there still is a bit of a land-rush that's supposed to happen. Now I know this!

My city is now level 2, but I haven't been able to level my sov much because all the baddies are only giving me like, 2xp each, and I'm too afraid to risk attacking much else because of my first game! I'm working on some better pokey-sticks to further my military to clear out the AIs that are near me. I'd like some breathing room plz! And I've got an outpost of my own now (woot!).

As I continue playing, I intend on updating this. But these are the thoughts that have arrisen thus far.

THOUGHTS

-- What land is good land?? (There's a good post out there already about this by MalSqueek here https://forums.elementalgame.com/420050)

-- I feel trapped by the sudden (within 20 seasons) abundance (3 empires in my vicinity) of land competitors on the default settings. Maybe tweak these standard settings?

-- What gives me more mana? My mana production increased when I built a temple on a shard, so I'm assuming there is a connection ( ) but there was nothing that told me this. Maybe when I mouse-over my mana supply, it could tell me where it's coming from? And also maintain an account of the spells that require mana-upkeep? More meticulous mana management, methinks might make more mighty men. Maybe?

-- I hope my wife learns to love me loving this game!

(I'm sure I've got more thoughts hiding around up there! But I gotta go!)

Your thoughts on my thoughts are appreciated.

Sincerely,
~Ragmash

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Kongdej

Funny post.

I like your test. It's quite good in fact.

Keep it up

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Your game ended when your sovereign died because you had not yet founded a city for him to teleport to.

Teleport is a word, spellchecker.

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I too have noticed that Empires tend to be conveniently placed directly beside you on the start of a map. Yearly scouting reported that my capital city was indeed surround by 3 Empires. So I did the only thing you should do in such a situation and break out!. Declared war on Yithril and took 3 cities quite comfortable. Honestly I thought this was going to be a gimme there Sovereign was unprotected and I could soon have at him. Sadly he retreated through two other cities that blocked my path (I dare not over extend) and the hunt stopped. Now with the need to aquire a large force obliterate the thorn in the north I see that a semi siege is festering.

So I then go to check on some pionners in the South nearing a shard and to my surprise I see the king of Yithril with his small army nearing my capital. He had managed to go a long way around a mountain pass that protects me from the rest of my neighbours to come and enter the foothold of my Kingdom. My army is fighting a siege war up North and my Kingdom has not prepared for Empires to be able to conquer the horrid mountain pass.

GG Brad GG.

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+1 Awesumness to Ragmash, you are spot on on that post, and it have been bothering me that the tutorial is "inadequate" to teach even a gamer like me, basic hints to live through the first 1-2 gameplays without running into some really stupid mistakes.

And me being a gamer, what would the random "Noobie" do when they spawn, and theyre Sovereign is swarmed with bears and spiders, because for some reason, you woke up in a field FULL of monsters and thought: Oh what a nice place to build a city .

Would be good if the game had an "Estimate" in the outcome of a battle, that might be 20% off in any direction, but to help newer playerrs figure out what they might handle!.

- I have been playin for a while, and I am still to see a level 5 city, some parts of this game seems hard to acheive without supreme luck

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

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Publius of NV

Join Date 08/2002

+231

Quoting Kongdej,

reply 4

I am still to see a level 5 city

You need 7 grain to reach a level 5 city (including grain sources associated with a city via outposts), and many starting locations just can't do that. It can help if you choose the bakery as a city level up option, but you still have to have a good starting location.

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Quoting Publius of NV,

reply 5

Quoting Kongdej, reply 4I am still to see a level 5 city

You need 7 grain to reach a level 5 city (including grain sources associated with a city via outposts), and many starting locations just can't do that. It can help if you choose the bakery as a city level up option, but you still have to have a good starting location.

Thats just sad , but ty for the info

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

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This is all slowly making sense to me, but it's definately a leap getting to where I need to be to keep up with the average AI!

I'm realizing that I'm having to build a completely different kind of intuition to effectively play Elemental:FE .

The game described above ended in embarassing, palm-facing defeat after a number of severe tactical mistakes. As I'm learning, though the attack-value of your army can significantly surpass your opponents, this is by no means a metric by which to project military success. My champs must have been pretty hideous looking after all the abuse I subjected them to! =O

Quoting Greg__B,

reply 2

Your game ended when your sovereign died because you had not yet founded a city for him to teleport to.

Teleport is a word, spellchecker.

That would have been very beneficial to know! >.< On the flipside, I must say, it's very frustrating to kill the same sov multiple times and yet still be defeated. I will have you yet, Magnar!!

Things I'm still figuring out:

-- The importance of disabling AutoTurn. This should NOT be enabled by default, imho. Or it should be tweaked. I hate the turn rolling over when I still need to tell a shard to build a temple! Or a city to build something >.<

-- When to build additional cities and outposts.

-- I WOULD LOVE to see a visual cue to show me which units still have movement points to use. After a long turn, I can forget and needlessly be clicking units that can't move. Maybe having a red-colored select-box when out of MPs, blue-colored for gaurding or immobilized, and green for ready?

-- That, actually, even though the Hiregammon tells me I can build caravans, I actually cannot build caravans. This, I just found out, is unique to this build thus far. This also led to much consternation on my part. Do I report this under "bugs"?

There's alot of intuition that must be cultured to play this, I am learning. Something that is honestly refreshing following all the hand-holding implemented in Civ5, but is still confounding to acquire. There should be a multi-choice test as part of the tutorial to make sure you're on the right track.

Quoting StevoIRL,

reply 3

-- I'm a turtler by nature. I tend to focus hard on economics in any strategy game I play. It's been a rather difficult transition for me getting into E:FE because I think StevoIRL lays out what is probably the only worthwhile beginning strategy from what I've played thus far. There should never be only one viable strategic option for a given situation. There must be room to do as you please. And at least on the default map-generating settings, there doesn't seem to be an economic or diplomatic option for empire building at game-start. Maybe that's the point? Maybe I'm too stubborn?

/thoughts

Sincerely,

-- Ragmash

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Publius of NV

Join Date 08/2002

+231

It should be possible to turtle in 0.86, you can win by casting the spell of making. I did that in my last game after exploring only about 40% of the map. At the start you'll need to found a city and train some clubmen (and later spearmen) to keep your sovereign and champion(s) from getting killed, and train some pioneers to grab resources. I'd say you'd need to expand to two or three towns so you'll have places to build the buildings you need for the spell. If I recall correctly, in .86 you don't actually have to complete them to start casting the spell, but you do have to start building them. Then research up the magic tree until you can cast the spell.

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Quoting Ragmash,

reply 7

Something like that would be useful, I agree.

Until they implement it, you can use TAB to activate the next movable unit. Unfortunately that includes units with movement orders, and there is no way to tell them to move along the set path (that I know of, and no, clicking the target again does not count).

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Thank you for the advice, Publius. I'll look into that for my next game.

All this is assuming you have enough starting room to establish 3 cities. That first game was just crammed! That, or I was a little too slow on expanding. What I'm sensing is the ability to be flexible to the situation at hand. This sounds like a "duh" kind of realization, but an important one when new and not knowing what "being flexible" mechanically means in a new game.

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Publius of NV

Join Date 08/2002

+231

While you're learning, you might want to use the option at the start to customize the number of AI opponents, to reduce their number. Or play on a larger map.

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Lord Reliant

Join Date 03/2006

+39

Love this post. Good to point out obvious issues to noobs in an entertaining way.

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Good read, and I thought the same thing about the good land thing and the mana accumulation.

I just started another game and immediately got the worst imaginable scenario:

My sov started on a small peninsula; just enough to create a first city if I really want to. Buuuuuut, the choke-point is nearly blocked by a Drake Army and something else with 100+ hp. All surrounding land beyond this peninsula was desert or swamp. Not a good first experience if this is what a noob would see.

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Lord Reliant

Join Date 03/2006

+39

Ouch. I know they've been tweaking the starting resources, so maybe this won't happen too much.

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Quoting Gammit10,

reply 13

Good read, and I thought the same thing about the good land thing and the mana accumulation.

I just started another game and immediately got the worst imaginable scenario:

My sov started on a small peninsula; just enough to create a first city if I really want to. Buuuuuut, the choke-point is nearly blocked by a Drake Army and something else with 100+ hp. All surrounding land beyond this peninsula was desert or swamp. Not a good first experience if this is what a noob would see.

I've had a few starts that were pretty abyssmal as well, and can't say that I think that's an acceptible scenario.

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Tricky. Variety in starting positions is nice because as they say variety is the spice of life (and you can always Ctrl-N to respawn). But at the same time a new player won't be able to cope with a bad start, possibly won't recognise it is a bad start, and probably won't know about Ctrl-N!

Probably should be linked to game difficulty. If you start an easy game then the start generator should try to make sure the starting position is nice in terms of both food/material and surrounding areas. If you start a difficult game then all bets are off...

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