Thoughts after beating Insane AI on a huge map.

from Elemental Forums

That was insane...  }:)

The AI is hard as hell, spamming units all over the place. If the champion AI gets improved, I'm not sure if it's possible to beat it. But the bonuses seems a tad bit off regarding score at least, it fluctuated wildly from 1200ish to 3-4000 randomly. Dunno if it's a bug or "lag" after I beat armies. 

My tactic was gathering up as much mana as quickly as possible while trying to stay alive at the beginning. I had custom faction and custom sovereign of course, and picked wraiths for that new shiny dodge. (a big lifesaver!) I also used death worship with infest to spam blind and graveseal on everything. Excess mana was used to paragon my champion with. (and I only got 1! Krax stole like 10 champions on the map!) I got pretty much owned in the start since I started between Krax and Altar, so I tried to flee to a corner and stabilize, but the map wasn't exactly optimal for that. I had at least 2 openings to cover all the time so beelining Breon's letters was a necessity for Call of the Titans. (It says 10 turn CD, but it gets available again sooner than that?)

The early game was very close, and I was saved with getting Sacrifice reasonably early so I could trade some poor citizens for much needed mana between fights. (I could not fight without spam blind on everything) I got some item luck, spectral plate and that firebolt staff, so I could throw free firebolts. Free Firebolts on gravesealed stuff is awesome ^^. I think I would have quit if not for those items in the beginning. But man, I went on the offensive and thought: "This is going great!"; But the AI goes batshit insane mid game. It techs so insanely fast that when I was barely done with Breon's Letters and could do some teleporting to push back, THEN the AI started mass producing stuff. I think it got done with the civic three or something around that point. And OMG does the AI spam units. I pushed out a bit and was suddenly attacked on 5-6 fronts at the same time, with units that were not possible to beat other with my heroes. Again getting enough mana was the key. Freeze and Tremor everywhere to buy time for me running in between. I stopped midway in the arena quest to get my 3rd hero, and he had Earth magic as well, so spam Tremor everywhere. This was when the game got very tedious...

Why did you nerf Curgens Volcano? 2k mana and 10 turns CD? :( I could SOOOO have used the old one to plug holes in my defenses. When I used the first one I already had killed 2 AI's and was on the way to winning the game. Well after a long mop and a 30ish Sovereign (new record obviously.. lots of fighting) I won. My Champions were both 100+  thanks to paragon and became gods. I don't know if it's intentional, but the +spell damage traits stack with the green abilities. So going mage and assasin after defender means they do insane damage. (Sweeps with 600+ crits? yes please) It's fun but I think paragon needs a looking into, you don't need the old DG spam when you can paragon instead for tanky skills and hp as well. 

Well thats how I beat the game on insane, it was loads of fun.. but took fricking ages. (16 hours or something ingame time) If I'm going to do Insane again, I will have Masters's quest or Spell of making on, because conquest was really really hard. ^^ The AI did very well attacking me everywhere and punishing mistakes, and the bonuses made every army super good. I couldn't just wipe them off the map with Tidal Wave etc. They had too much HP and they scattered reasonably well, even though there were a couple of 16-25 stacks that I softened with the Falling Star spell. (was on epic pace btw, don't know if that slowed the AI or not, it didn't feel like it anyways ^^)

TLDR: 

Abuse Paragon, Death Worship and Wraiths for blind and dodge abuse. Sacrifice to get mana for more abuse. Evoker stacks with green skills for imba damage. Lots of cleaning = conquest win. \o/   (MQ and spell of making is for sissies!)

 

 

 

13,236 views 14 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

Lol, awesome.  Possibly not exactly how it was intended - but seems like fun.  I haven't abused/used paragon much yet.   Doesn't it hit your sov for -5 permanent max HP or can you still hide him in a city to avoid it?

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

It hits for the 5 hp, but it seems to only count the base HP, so anything you get from abilities (Hardy, Adventurers) will be the minimum, so after a while it's "free".

Oh, and this is probably the most fun I've had in ages. It was awesome "living on the edge", props to the FE team!  B)

(please unnerf Curgens Volcano and leave Paragon alone ok? :P )

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Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top


How many AIs did you have in the game? I like huge maps with 15-27 AIs. I never make it into late game as I am always out-teched. I can't make Heroes either. I suk.

Love to know what I am doing wrong. I get tribute, tech and trade treaties, am told how handsome I am (*sigh* redundant), then I get the pimp sword on my crown.

I play team against team. Maybe I should make a video so you can have some laughs at my awesome impotence! :meow:

(Someone has to hold up the bottom of the totem pole)

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

Aha, that explains it.  it was kind of fixed then ;)   

It was quite annoying when the enemy AIs had literally thousands of tradable tech points.  Its much better - now if I have a "buddy" AI I trade my tech to, he usually has around the same amount (variable by difficulty) rather than .... you had 0, I have 0.  Now you have 5000 and I have 200...wth?

I need to find the settings/mod/something so that when that big rush comes a) it doesn't get monotonous in terms of combat  b) when I defeat their assault their entire empire isn't left completely undefended c) when they go to war with me they don't go to war with multiple others and get dogpiled d) something prevents me from immediately beggaring myself to have the highest AI I can afford declare war on them to take heat off me  (sadly, I've done this)

 

I rarely get to the actual end nowadays since it seems to drag on and I find the first 200 or so turns the most fun. 

 

Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting jutetrea, reply 5
I rarely get to the actual end nowadays since it seems to drag on and I find the first 200 or so turns the most fun.   
End of jutetrea's quote

 

Design the fabled 4x strategy game that is not this way and you will be rich.

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting jutetrea, reply 5
Aha, that explains it.  it was kind of fixed then    

It was quite annoying when the enemy AIs had literally thousands of tradable tech points.  Its much better - now if I have a "buddy" AI I trade my tech to, he usually has around the same amount (variable by difficulty) rather than .... you had 0, I have 0.  Now you have 5000 and I have 200...wth?
 
End of jutetrea's quote

I actually think the AI had techs in the 100000's in my game. At my bottom I was rocking 7 research or so from two cities, then I took back my old cities, and the AI had conviniently upgraded them for me and i was rocking 100+ ;) The tech and building was insane. (again this was on epic speed) I was fighting companies before I even got proper weapons. But in retrospect leaving my cities for the AI with the groundwork was good, conclaves with high production and Insane AI = superboosted tech cities.

Don't let that discourage you. You will still beat the AI's in combat ^^

 

Quoting Leeovold, reply 3

How many AIs did you have in the game? I like huge maps with 15-27 AIs. I never make it into late game as I am always out-teched. I can't make Heroes either. I suk.  
End of Leeovold's quote

I had 5 I think, one died early and I never met him. I was supposed to have lots of room early for my attempt. I would never have played it out if I had actually known how my start was. (yay for random maps!) The early sandwich was a nasty surprise, but it got hot under my feet from the straight up, so it feels like a better win :P

(I think the top AI had 18 cities or so at the top, the bottom one when we all fought it out had 8, and trust me they crank out units every 3 or 4 turns at the very least, their army was insane)

 

 

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Rhaegor, reply 6

Quoting jutetrea, reply 5I rarely get to the actual end nowadays since it seems to drag on and I find the first 200 or so turns the most fun.   

 

Design the fabled 4x strategy game that is not this way and you will be rich.
End of Rhaegor's quote

 

Ha, no kidding.  I've been playing econmental mod on lush lately - more spots is more growth but also more time to clean up :)  Going to be trying ravaged for the next few.

 

sjaminei - how long did the game take you?  

Also I kind of find it interesting that on a huge map at least one of the AIs only expanded to 8 cities - I would assume there were plenty of available spots.    Do you recall what settings you had and which mods if any you had on?

 

 

Reply #8 from Elemental Forums Top


Yeah I wonder how many SAVE/RELOADS the OP did before he got his optimum start and win? lol I'm sure he'll say none or maybe just one but I don't believe it at all. Those that BRAG usually are just inferior in life and need some game to puff them up. lol Seen it too often and read it in too many posts in too many game forums.

Reply #9 from Elemental Forums Top

O:) -- I must have read a different post, because I missed the whole "Bragging" thing. This is a forum to talk about the game, its mechanics, and player tactics? That's why we are here? 

 

Anyway, highlighting how the Paragon spell is abuseable was interesting. I've never touched it, because I treat my Sov as the most powerful unit... thus I never saw the appeal of weakening it to buff a champion. I'd expect SD to alter the spell so you can kill your sov if you cast it to much- free levels for champions is probably a bit much. I think the highest level I've achieved in my games was in the low 50's- and that was by abusing the quest map loop.

 

Glad you had a fun game, OP. :congrat:

Reply #10 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting willie, reply 9

Yeah I wonder how many SAVE/RELOADS the OP did before he got his optimum start and win? lol I'm sure he'll say none or maybe just one but I don't believe it at all. Those that BRAG usually are just inferior in life and need some game to puff them up. lol Seen it too often and read it in too many posts in too many game forums.
End of willie's quote

 

He was not bragging. Nothing in his post indicated this. He was just telling us about his expereance.  Are we a little sensitive this morning?

 

Reply #11 from Elemental Forums Top

You should probably be aware that while call of the titans has a 10 turn cooldown, your sovereign and each of champions can cast it.  So with your sovereign and two champions being active, you have three independent 10-turn-cooldowns.

I like to contrast this with whither, where the cooldown increases when you get additional active casters that can use whither.

Reply #12 from Elemental Forums Top

Ah, that would explain it. Thanks! :) We should really have a place where to see CD's and stuff like that. (I couldn't find it at least) I could have used that with Curgens Volcano, I almost killed my own champion twice when I was patrolling the area to not let anyone pass while the spell was casted ;)

Reply #13 from Stardock Forums Top

I can't play like the OP, though I guess I wish I could.  I would not have fun abusing/exploiting spells like Paragon in that manner.  I am of the opinion those spells are broken and need to be fixed/balanced.  Sounds like he had fun with this game though, so good for him.

Reply #14 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Rhaegor, reply 14
I can't play like the OP, though I guess I wish I could.  I would not have fun abusing/exploiting spells like Paragon in that manner.  I am of the opinion those spells are broken and need to be fixed/balanced.  Sounds like he had fun with this game though, so good for him.
End of Rhaegor's quote

The AI fights back though. In my 2nd Insane game I'm fighting Thundering Charges with 333!! Defense. Lord Markin went nuts on refined defense, and has a 660% :O   bonus to defense researched. But Curgen's Hammer still smashes them..... (if something needs a nerf that is it, it's not hard to get either) How are you actually supposed to counter overpower?

But yes, Paragon needs fixing, it's too tempting to abuse when you get pummeled early on. Still not sure how to actually balance it, but at least make it fail if you don't have health or even some sort of max cap.