Game is too frustrating to test

I am still playing, for sure, but for the record, I pretty much get my arse handed to me by umberdroth, dragons, or hoarder spiders every game.  I have recently been trying to scout and settle away from those areas, but it is likely just a matter of time before all of my cities except main city are destroyed.  Once they even raged to my main city right after hittting my second city, but that seemed like an anomoly. 

The thing is, I like having to clear the world, the danger, and the need to scout and choose settlements wisely.  However, when Deadly and higher creataures start rampaging when my heroes are level 2-3, I have zero chance.  Literally, no chance from that point on.  I don't rage quit, but I do generally quit most games at this point because they camp outside my cities and close me in, unable to expand at all (not to mention having just killed all my soldiers, summons and champs).

Try beastmaster and recruit all those spiders and uberroths to guard your village.

Holy crap you can recruit an Umberdroth?  Har....seriously, though?  He one shots any of my characters when I run into these things.

There is a quest that nets you an Umberdroth but the Umberdroth you get is rather weak.

I think a big green light lights up over a city when you capture it, telling all nearby monsters "The player just captured this city.  Come stomp on him"  Otherwise they just wander around aimlessly.  It is amazing how many times I capture a city and the next turn some Drake that has been there all game comes along and destroys it.   I feel the OPs pain and "what's the point" frustration.

If I may be a bit rude to the OP, I would say you should go for Nintendogs

To be more serious, its a beta. Wait until gold version and test if its your thing. I am playing this game cause for me this is the best game available to play right now.

Dude, Nintendogs is freakin' brutal!  When those umberdroths show up and massacre my loved and cared for animated pooches, it tears me up!

I have to agree with the OP.  I have no clue what to do to fix the nasty monster spawn problem, but shouldn't the opponent have to deal with the same problems I am?  If my pioneer goes close to even a wimpy monster it dies.  Why does the AI get a free pass?  I can see this being a way for the AI to be tougher at higher difficulties but playing normal and lower, they should have to fight the environment right along with me.

I played another game tonight and I am wondering if they actually test the gameplay changes they make or if they tweak values and hope it turns out alright. Things are tweaked all the time and the changes don't seem to be cohesive. Things that used to be fun like exploring and leveling up your heroes aren't fun anymore. The game has been made much harder, but in a let's throw annoying mobs at you all the time and make it take forever to get powerful kind of way. 

The version numbers are creeping up to 1.0 and I am worried that this is almost the final product. There are all kinds of flow and pacing problems.

What you are seing is a bigbug in path finding got fixed. The ai didn't change, but it's ability to do as commanded changed. It'll take some rebalancing to deal with the changes.

Frogboy, is it possible for you to elaborate a little more about this bug that was fixed ? How did it change gameplay so much ? What was it failing to do in the pathing that suddenly made certain aspects of the game more efficient that it changed so much in the gamepay ? It's hard to comment on the current dynamic without understanding that  problem a little more.

It sort of sounds, from what you describe, that the comp was able to get from a to b and from b to c, but organizing a move from a to c was getting interrupted along the way - so things were added to make the move from a to c more efficient - but then the problem was discovered and fixed, but the extra efficiency coding is still in there - so now we have a big performance boost on ai that was unintended.

anyways, glad you fixed the bug

Please do not nerf them if anything make the monsters harder .. i still can wander away from my village at games beginning and leave it defenseless while i loot the countryside.  i like having the world overran by monsters and the big ones are all the more satisfying when you down them.

I too would be interested in the intricacies of the bug and what it means to have fixed it, in plain terms.

Where is my Beta 0.915?  It's Thursday and I don't have my Beta 0.915.

I need my Beta fix or there is no telling what I may be capable of.   

I don't think anyone said there would be an update every week. Maybe they are getting ready for the second stage of beta 3 and it takes longer? *shrugs*

Sorry Tattyhat, doesn't look like we get our fix this week.  Maybe this will help.

Perhaps we can be co-capable of something of which there is no telling 

Destruction.

You know what? I'm beginning to feel like the OP. It's not that the AI is hard, quite the contrary. But some of the things that were awesome and fun a month ago, like exploring, doing quest and clearing the surrounding of my capital, are now frustrating. I need an army to kill most "weak" monsters or at least 2 or 3 champions, and I can't find quest that don't get me killed in the beginning of the game.

I'm not asking to turn the game into a cakewalk but right now the pacing of the first turns is horrible. After founding my capital and wandering a little bit, the only thing I can do is to sit down while I wait to have enough money to recruit a low level champion or until I have a few militia to serve as meatshields. Everytime since 0.913, I'm surrounded by powerful monsters with too few resources (including easy quests and goodie huts) to do something. I feel the pacing was better in the 0.912 beta even if it was not perfect.

I'm sorry guys, but you must be doing something wrong. 

The game has problems, including that sometimes a Umbradroth or a squad of knights will attack your city at turn 20.  And yes, the new AI will often cleanse the surrounding before you can get there (they start with move 3)  And yes, monsters go a bit easier on AI than on us.

But, and it is a big BUT.  This only happens sometimes.  Most of the time, the game is quite easy to win. I personally play only on Riduculous AI with all settings large/dense.  I play with restrictive home rules (.914, single city, single hero was my last one) I still win more games than not.

If you just can't start, maybe you should modify your pretender.  There's at least three viable approaches: self-buffing hero, all out fire caster, and custom race tuned for army production (no ranged, vulnerable to magic, master scouts, master smiths, level 2, one-handed spears) 

And this is for Ridiculous AI, where the enemy gets x2 growth/research/production,  x3 hps + move 3 on the pretender, 150000 gold to start, free metal/crystal, etc...

Seriously, the game needs work, but it is far from unplayable.  Try to understand the rules about what wakes monsters up, watch some videos, read some AAR.

Tuidjv but they aren't doing anythign wrong, you don't like hearing it thats your problem but i agree with the OP it's not the AI that makes it difficult its the exteremlly strong neutrals that decide to roffle stomp you in the early game of the 8 games i've played 6 resulted in me getting 2 or 3 villages taking on an enemy and then the hounds of heell descend upon me.

There is an issue there it isn't imagined and it isn't because we suck. I love stardock more than you Tuidjy and i have to say this is a little frustrating.

But if you want we can have a love competition and compare how much we like the game and stardock

I doubt most people here have even lost a game because of sudden monsters armies that awakened in the AI lands, perhaps lost a city or two around turn 70 ~ 120, but it surely is frustrating: you take every measure to not wake stronger monster mobs only to find that the AI did and you get to pay the price while they get away claiming even more land and awaking more monsters in the process.

it ins't hard, it is frustrating, it makes people rage when an obscure game mechanic punish them for "no reason".

I have found that my biggest problems early on were getting out paced by the AI in that my population lagged which creates a negative feedback loop and not putting out a decent defence when settling early cities.  The random maps tend to be really bad where either the player or AI starts in a bottle neck.  On large maps I don't think it is wise to have all races on the map, with mountains, ocean, and terrain that cannot be settled there tends to be a lot of 'dead' space.  Similarly with the city razing mechanics, especially when AI monster hoards raze, nice locations 4grain 4 material or 5 grain 3 material turn into barren wastelands, which only compounds the dead space problem.

I have found that early on you really have to focus on the civilation techs and get grain/food production up so your city/ciites will grow.  I play Capitar on normal with custom sov, with general, natural leader, scholar, air 1, life 2, and have been very sucessful.  It is really important to get a second city up and running.   Pioneer spam by the AI is really annoying and something that I have found necessary to counter in kind.

-GoC

What kind of Sovereign are you using? While the early game is the hardest, it passes rather quickly and once you get past the initial levels the game becomes a steamroll. At least that's been my experience. Very early on the truly powerful monsters pose a problem but they soon turn to your benefit once you can kill them and boost your level even more.

What is an extremely strong neutral? 

Here are selected solo leader kills from one of my last games:

Ignys - turn 11

Stalker - turn 13

Air elemental - turn 21

Troll - turn 24

Water shrill army - turn 28

Ogre - turn 30

Forest drake - turn 49

With my second hero, who came into her power later:

Ophidian army - turn 51

Fire elemental's army - turn 61

Earth elemental army - turn 65

Turn 50 is not that early.  By turn 50, there isn't much a slayer hero can't handle, and if there is, it's usually not running around unless the AI has released it.  Even then, there's tools to deal with anything.  "Freeze" will slow down even the toughest enemy to move 1.  Attack him with someone with "Haste", get a "Slow" to stick, and you will win the tactical battle even if it takes 100 rounds.

Once again, the game needs a lot of work, but it is far from unplayable.  If you are getting stomped by neutral monsters 6/8, you ARE doing something wrong.

wow, that's impressive, I don't come even close to this and yet I have to agree, with a good tactic you can defeat many early monsters, I always use "dense monsters" which allows for stronger sovereign quickly

what I do : stay one tile away from monster lairs, pay attention not to extend your ZOC over a monster lair and they will not come after you

monsters do attack the AI as much as they attack the player

also build crystals and use monoliths

early game is sometimes rough, but then that's part of the pleasure, I hope devs will find a way to avoid steamrolling during late game