[983] This is wrong wrong wrong

You can lower the world difficulty and the monster density in the start-up options.

This is what is making the game interesting to play...at least it is for me. I love being boxed in, having to earn the right to expand your empire.

I like that the world can be destroyed by monsters.  It probably can't, but they are something to be shit scared of.  Had an ass ton of dragons last game.  Lost a city to one, killed about 4, but they were thick.  Fun

I'm aware of that and I've turned the density down already but there are still very strong monsters station close to my 1st settlement.

Oh I agree, I love hard games. I finally broke though and started expanding but the enemy empire has over a 700 power rating to my 150 now.

I've seen a NPC settle right next to a Strong speder group and several turns later the spider wandered away from it's station and attack one of my cities. Doesn't mkae much sense that if it wanted to attack a city it would not attack one right next to it and instead wander 7 tiles over and attack mine.

I decided to test something.  Set the overall AI for Easy and the monster density for Sparse.  Started up a new game, and found two dragons (one of which I'd never seen before; nice artwork) within twenty squares of my first city.  Now, I'm not saying this shouldn't happen--but I'd expect this to happen on Challenging or higher, which is my usual play setting.  Easy?  Really?

I tend to be on the side of the dragons on issues like this. I love the thought of some juicy new players fattening up my wonderful dragons. Balance be damned. 

Yes, but you gain the souls of new players that languish in horror after facing your modified enemies, which you in turn feed to your boss and master, Don Cthullu.  Stardock is supposed to gain money based on offering a balanced product that draws in suc...potential customers.  Different matter, altogether.

This is my real problem. I have no problems with hard monsters, I try to stay clear and plan the settlements accordingly (e.g. no monuments or town halls, or by staying away completely if it is a real civ killer like a big dragon). But all that gets destroyed by the AI just happily ignoring all lairs while settling and not getting punished for it.

My last game in 982, I had a dragon (with some mites he picked up on the way) come over from over 15 tiles to my cities. Straight like an arrow, ignoring all AI buildings that got him lose in the first place... Gotta say, that really is a backbreaker for me...

Same thing here... I saw the AI settle a city next to an elemental in 0.983. Only to see it being cut loose from it's location and leasurely walking counter clockwise around the city to god knows where! I mean really?? I love this game, even in it's beta state, but that's some stupid monster behaviour....

The de facto truce between AI and wildlife has been an issue as long as I've been playing the game. In some builds it wasn't a problem - monsters were challenging but manageable and the fact that they didn't attack the AI was minor. Other builds, including the current one, monsters are exceptionally tough and there are lots of them guarding the available fertile land. It takes time to build enough strength to defeat them. I wouldn't mind if the AI was progressing at the same rate but, as others have pointed out, the AI can ignore the monsters and safely establish settlements without clearing the wildlife first - in fact, monsters released from their lairs by the AI become part of the players problem! This can be REALLY frustrating.

I don't expect the interaction between the AI and the wildlife to be the same as the interaction between the player and the wildlife. The AI is, after all, a computer program and there are limits to how intelligent it can be. The key is finding a balance point that creates an enjoyable game. I think the developers have been close a few times - but the current build is a step in the wrong direction.

Given that the community includes both enthusiast and casual players - those who want to sweat blood on the road to victory and those who simply want to escape to a fantasy world for an hour or two instead of watching commercials on TV - I think the game needs to put more of the balance options under player control and the default that greets the beginning player shouldn't bring him face to face with a dragon in the first few minutes of play!

Same thing here. monsters don`t attack AI towns near them, but travel 7-8 tiles to attack mine towns. And that`s monsters that town with double-triple upgraded walls cannot handle.

One time i build city near wild grounds, and ALL monsters including Dragons, Lords and pack of Elementals start to target my town - ignoring AI town from other side, that was closer to wilds. I managed to kill Dragon with 3 heroyes 6lvl 5lvl 5lvl, but it took like 20 Load games, all my resources, and i was 100 kingdom power against 280 of AI`s. (which i kill next anyway becose AI not using magick propertly i think).

Something wrong with this...

I really like the struggle against the monsters, AS LONG AS......The AI has the same struggle.

You are misunderstanding the game mechanics. The dragons does not make the game difficult or easy based on where they are. As long as you dont settle next to them, they will leave you alone. 

I noticed more wandering medium-strong monster attacks within my territory than ordinarily occurred, same settings, in 982, forcing me to maintain my primary force domestically instead of exploring. This is kinda good because I felt it was decent balance for progression at my chosen difficulty level, but bad because my neighbor, with whom i have a trade agreement, still co-habitates with wandering epic and deadly dragons, in a addition to their own share of medium and strong incursions, and is maintaining a noticeable lead in expansion and points.

edit: This was at 4 cities for timeline perspective and I push expansion to match AI.

If I had mod powers in-game I'd sack one of their cities just on principle.

Me too, although the humies might make a better sport if some fliers was posted through they're training area about how to walk silently around dragon lairs, so they aren't as easy snacks, no dragon should have free snacks, they go lazy I tell you!

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

As I've mentioned before, I am actually very happy with the current build, and will support any change that makes life more challenging for me and my champion...

If another player settles near the dragons, the latter will start wandering.  And they won't necessarily attack the AI, as we both know, having played FE for a long time in beta on much harder levels.  I watched them last night go right for the jugular of my capitol in such a situation, bypassing the AI settlement.  Secondly, I'm suggesting that two dragons shouldn't be twenty squares distant from your capitol guarding the only fertile area within 60 squares of my first city, on Easy.  That suggests a degree of randomness in new game generation that makes a mockery of the idea of level choice.  And finally, of course you *should* have dragons, and others things that could snap even advanced stacks in half like a twig if the player isn't careful; but if you want to bring in new players to a game, putting them that close to any opening city and closing off access to growth on the Easy level probably isn't the best way to hold their interest and make them think it is a friendly product.  Just a thought.

Do three wrongs make a right?

Depends on who you talk to.

Some people like that, which causes complications, personally I like that parts of the world are dangerous, and I need to build up forces meaby even for a whole game to beat those dragons that is blocking the passage to the west.

That said it requires intimate knowledge of how the monsters react to anything to learn how to live with these monsters, so all I could suggest would be a slider that would set the minimum distance to your starting location for strong monsters, I know there are some lines of code that "Tries" to put stuff like dragons at least 10 (or something like that) tiles away from the spot your sovereign spawns in.

That said, most monsters are tame until you either walk to the square next to it, or hit your borders over they're lairs, so controlled border expansion and controlled unit movement is key to living next to a dangerous monster.

The current game gives a pretty complex mix of choices that will lead to high scores, (PS, the score means nothing in terms of power, it's mostly and income and amount of troops rating). Basically if you want to inflate your empire score artificially, try playing magnar and build tons of useless quick to build slaves (slaves don't cost upkeep).

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

Usually you have to sneak around such hard creature spawns, and level up your sovereign on the weaker units, if your sovereign is weak in combat (say you picked one of the pre-made sovereigns), then I recommend training an early unit with spears (yes you have to research the spears tech, but they will help tremendously).

Run taxes on "None" until your first settlement reaches level 2, since the tax from one level 1 settlement is pointless and doesn't get you anywhere.

Get accustomed to what kind of monsters are easy to kill, most darklings come to mind, if the world is dangerous, just walk around and look for treasure caches, these might drop the all important armour for your sovereign, which in turn gives your sovereign the ability to kill bigger monsters.

I recommend play either "Lord Relias, Lord Markin, Warlord Verga, or Emperor Karavox, to start out with, these sovereigns all have moderate to strong starting items, and are relatively simple to start up with.
When you are more familiar with the basic weapons and armour, Lady Irane and Magnar is also solid choices... Don't ever play "Queen Procipinee (Porcupine)" since her basic startout options are terribad.

Also another notion is if you create a custom sovereign with the "Hardy", and "Mighty" traits, and equipping the "Short sword" that will also give a solid build to start off clearing monsters.

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

Customize.  Make her Clumsy, and give her a shortbow.  (And make her a Summoner, so she can get a warg for early game damage.)  She'll function nicely as an archer, and a world class mage, plus you get all the spellbooks (except Death) and extra benefits for dropping outposts.  Also consider making her a natural leader.

Proximity has nothing to do with monster attacks.

The exact mechanism is that there are two types of monsters. Wanderers are spawned from lairs and wander around attacking anything within a certain distance of a lair, they are usually weak. Guardians also spawn from lairs but don't move, unless they are placed under ZoC from a outpost or city. They can be really really strong even early game, like dragons.

The problem with this system is how random the unleashed guardians are.  The AI constantly unleashes guardians from lairs by building cities in stupid places and then they wander over and attack the player. Players can also do the same thing and build city in stupid places and the monster will just wander off. This not only leads to random dragons sacking your cities early game but also to unlimited pioneer spam, as monsters don't hinder expansion at all. In fact sometimes building outposts next to dragons just allows you to loot their lairs for free, not that it's hard to build outposts around monsters.

The lair system needs to be changed so that monsters are far less punitive, random, and actually hinder expansion. Either lairs need to just prevent players from settling and spreading ZoC near them, or Guardians need to make a beeline for the source of the ZoC that disturbed them. All the current monster system does is encourages spamming, limit the early phase of the game, and is hugely discouraging because it punishes players severely and randomly.

You can also unleash guardians with enough traffic...
That is my experiences anyways.

Sincerely
~ Kongdej