Frogboy

This came up over the weekend when a friend of mine was talking about the forum poster quality here on Fallen Enchantress versus your normal "game site" forum. The question was, why is the "signal to noise ratio" so good here? As some of you are aware, we barely moderate. I can't remember the last non-spam account we banned. Locking a post is so rare that it's a big deal when we do it. So my question to you guys, especially those of you who are on lots of g

[quote who="PocusFr" reply="26" id="3291426"]+1 on Nick-Danger post. The pathfinding from cities to cities is terrible, and I think everyone, Brad included, suffered from it at least once. Quite often, the unit will pop up in the wrong square and travel extra days to reach the 2nd city whereas a path existed which allowed a 1 turn move. Anyway, thanks for the hard work on the AI.[/quote] I've complained about this quite a bit myself. At least your units weren'

[quote] + Fixed bug that prevented AI from casting strategic attack spells on enemy units[/quote] Just a reminder.

Just checked this in: ---------- 12.07.12 ---------- + Moved AIEvaluateAreaThreat to AIfaction + AI looks for enemy defenders sitting on top of targeted improvements in AIFindClosestEnemyImprovement + AI trait weighting reduced from 1000 to 100 for researching techs purposes + AI checks to make sure a given unit isn't a city guardian unit before doing AI on it + AI calculates the battle rank of its champions and sovereigns each turn afres

More details in what's in that build: ---------- 12.07.12 ---------- + Moved AIEvaluateAreaThreat to AIfaction + AI looks for enemy defenders sitting on top of targeted improvements in AIFindClosestEnemyImprovement + AI trait weighting reduced from 1000 to 100 for researching techs purposes + AI checks to make sure a given unit isn't a city guardian unit before doing AI on it + AI calculates the battle rank of its champions and sovere

Updated

This is a good post to make this comment: We DO read all this stuff. 99% of the time, we don't respond. But we do read it and talk about it. Thanks!

I'd really love to hear your ovearll thoughts on what you think would make the AI play better.

Yea, the map pack has completely changed our design for the expansion pack's campaign. A Fun map can make a huge difference.

In the modding area there's a copy of my own build you can try which has a lot of these fixes in. As for "competent" AI, if you find 1.02's AI "incompetent" then you're probably out of luck and should just turn up the difficulty level. I plan to have significant improvements in the AI for v1.1 but it's not going to satisfy anyone who finds the existing AI that bad.

My suggestion would be to lower world difficulty.

My jet fuel doesn't pay foR itself. ;)

[quote who="Lantec" reply="43" id="3285846"] Quoting BigBad, reply 39Overall.. liking the Volt.. I really don't understand all the bad press. I think the bad press comes from the fact that tax payers are footing a LARGE chunk of the bill for other peoples personal transportation. You used the term subsidy....I call it my tax dollars.[/quote] That is true. However, I can't help that. My solar panels at my house had a lot of subsidies as well. If it's a

[quote] As great as that sounds.. its not as if the gaming industry is an island. These attitudes etc are things that permeate society. That certainly doesn't justify it, but does allude to the larger issue that no amount of changes in the game industry itself are going to solve. I mean its all great to discuss a perfect world, but "reality bites" and the game industry does, and will continue to reflect the society it belongs to.[/quote] I very much disagree with

[quote who="Lord Xia" reply="34" id="3285882"]Sucks that Brad will probably wear the albatros of stereotypical misogynist bosses in game development forever, even though it's far from the truth. [/quote] I think that unlikely. I think what is more likely is that it'll be a case study of the excesses of Internet "justice" when the facts come out. I don't plan to be quiet regarding the outcome and highlighting the hate and abuse that's been thro

[quote who="Xan" reply="27" id="3285859"] Quoting Fistalis, reply 26 Quoting Xan, reply 26 For the sake of argument are you saying that it's ok to be sexist, racist and homophobic as long as you "don't allow that to get in the way of business"? Isn't that the problem with the industry in the first place? What you're saying is there isn't enough thought police in the industry? I'm not saying that. But Brad do

[quote who="Xan" reply="26" id="3285853"] For the sake of argument are you saying that it's ok to be sexist, racist and homophobic as long as you "don't allow that to get in the way of business"? Isn't that the problem with the industry in the first place?[/quote] The problem I've seen in our industry is what people actually DO. I can't read people's minds. My point is that people who have disgusting attitudes shouldn&#3

[quote who="Glazunov1" reply="16" id="3285545"] He's right about automatic decisions of improving cities. There's a thread here named Slums that goes into a few of the particulars--but in general, the feeling expressed there (and I've read, elsewhere) is that these are choices without meaning, since in most city level-ups there's only one good choice. Perhaps I'll start a thread just on that.[/quote] I think that would be a worthw

[quote who="Alstein" reply="15" id="3285540"] Quoting Frogboy, reply 11 Quoting Alstein, reply 1I think you guys do need to tackle the balance issues at some point. I'm hearing more criticism of the balance from friends/boards over criticism of what's under the hood. The fundamental problem is there are too many automatic decisions. How many free copies were claimed BTW? Curious on that.

[quote who="Alstein" reply="1" id="3285451"]I think you guys do need to tackle the balance issues at some point. I'm hearing more criticism of the balance from friends/boards over criticism of what's under the hood. The fundamental problem is there are too many automatic decisions. How many free copies were claimed BTW? Curious on that. [/quote] I'm not sure what automatic decisions there are

[quote who="Tuidjy" reply="7" id="3285483"]Word of month is just getting started. There are VERY positive threads on both of the gaming forums I frequent (I did not start them. I am trying to be very supportive, though). As Stardock fixes problems, the threads will become more and more positive, and if the modding community picks Fallen Enchantress up, there will be a steady trickle of sales. And later DLC, true extension packs, maybe a sequel. I a

[quote who="rvgr" reply="2" id="3285452"]How many players can the Anthys map comfortably fit?[/quote] I suspect it could handle a couple dozen.

[quote who="TorinReborn" reply="10" id="3285511"] Quoting Frogboy, reply 6 Quoting TorinReborn, reply 1 And it is only going to get worse. Women are shown as pretty brainless people. There are many good documentaries about this. I don't think so. Gaming has become such a normal activity that I think in a decade it'll seem peculiar to think of gaming as a male-only thing. It has nothing to do with there being more female gamers, b

[quote who="eobet" reply="19" id="3285190"]Outlines is what gives the game its charm. Without them, it's just a mediocre looking game. I'm amazed that anyone would even consider removing them. For other examples on how stylized graphics can create a success, take a look at early development screenshots of Team Fortess 2 and the original Borderlands, if you can still find them.[/quote] Still has outlines. I am just messing with the unit ones.

So any thoughts on which you prefer?