ben_sphynx

Is there a special shortcut you need to start the game using edited xml? That might mess up ins2's efforts if missed.

Hmm yes, Elemental definitely needs some big cats. Much more fun than dogs and wolves.

There was a stage during the beta where the 'hero stack of doom' was such a severe problem that one could easily win the game with them, without ever building any troops. I think the current situation is far more interesting and fun.

I quick test with some starting units (that had no xp at all) against a Banished Ogre. With 2 heroes and 2 soldiers: both heroes get 5 xp, both soldiers get 2 xp each. With a single hero and 2 soldiers: hero gets 10xp, and soldiers get 5 xp each. With a single hero who dies during the combat, and two soldiers, the soldiers both get 5xp each. With two heroes, and two soldiers, and only one hero dies, the other hero gets 5xp, and the soldiers get 2xp each. <

I had though that the xp given for normal trained units was half the xp that was given per hero; ie that having multiple heroes in the group reduced the speed at which your soldiers leveled up too. Will have to check.

Looking through the game files, I see quests that trigger from visiting the QuestLocation, and ones that have a chance of appearing after a given TurnNumber. Are there any other values that go in ? I'm wondering if building a building in a city might trigger a quest? Or if having a hero get to a particular level might do so? Or researching a particular tech?

Or possibly it would be better to pre-generate where the treasure is, so that each time you reload, it will be the same. That would remove the temptation just fine.

Personally I start each new game with a custom sovereign (often leading a customized race, too); I just like combining the traits in different ways. Also I like every race to be able to build scrying pools, because they are great. There is a wealthy trait that can be picked during sovereign creation, which provides +500 gold (in earlier versions it provided +1000 gold, which might account for the video). At one point, running with zero taxes was a very beneficial strategy - one could

If you put the extra heroes in different armies, and send them in different directions, they will level up faster. I try not to have more than two heroes in any army at once, because it really messes up the xp gain. Try with men, and train henchmen - they are very similar to heroes, except they do not cause the xp splitting, so you can stack lots together (possibly with a hero too).

Do you normally use auto end turn? If so, have you tried pressing 'Enter' to end the turn?

Wells are only diggable in towns (not conclaves or fortresses). Apparently only townspeople need to drink.

There is a setting you can change so that new troops stay in their city when they are first made. I think it should have been the default, and I have had no desire to change it once I had them staying in the city they were built in. And when you are normally exiting troops, don't double click them, control click each troop you want to select for exit, then click on a square outside the city perimeter to cause them to exit to that square.

Does anyone know if the population cost for pioneers is done in xml? I no longer have the 1.2 xml to compare with. I see in CoreUnits.xml that there is (and for the other races), with a cost defined in Resource &nbsp

Why I like pioneers costing population: It gives meaning to the population growth rate. It is an extra interesting reason to make a city a town, to build the well and subsequent growth buildings. It reduces pioneer spammage - extra growth is something one really has to work for, or to wait for. From an AI point of view, here are the times to build a pioneer when the cost population: 1 If your city has reached it'

Pioneers cost gold instead of population. It's not in the patch notes. I was quite liking the dynamic of them costing population.

Well, this is the sort of complaint that will mean that Legendary Heroes will be right for you.

Is it possible to have a building that reduces the metal or crystal costs of troops produced in that city? Might be interesting for high level fortress (metal) or conclave (crystal). Possibly could call them 'Legendary Smithy' and 'Enchanter's Tower'.

If you have the Raise Land spell (from earth magic), you might be able to make extra space to build on if the city that has no space is beside the sea. Similarly, if it is stuck up against mountains, try Lower Land.

"Most monsters won't enter the outpost's borders." means "Any monsters that are nowhere near this outpost (ie most monsters) won't enter the outpost's borders.". It's never done anything, there is nothing that defines it as doing anything in the xml. Please fix.

1 Bigger radius for allowing tile specific improvements on a city - piers and lumber. 2 Mouse speed//framerate when holding down control to multi select units. 3 Offers of tribute are horribly confusing. 4 Give us a way to control which city an outpost belongs to; I hate when outposts, and their improvements switch to being part of a new city. 5 Diplomacy; treaties can be broken by AI's, and they overvalue their resources. Their gold should never be worth t

I think there is one very significant difference you didn't mention, too. Henchmen, if they die, are resurrected with a negative trait, just like heroes. Sions, however, are just dead and gone.

Well, I saw this yesterday, and steam now says I've been playing it for 17 hours. It's good fun, but what happened to my weekend?

It is a horribly confusing 'feature' that traits are cumulative, but buildings are not. The two things should work in the same way. Either Evoker II should say that it increases the damage bonus from 25% to 50% (or is it actually multiplicative?), like buildings, or, buildings should say the amount they actually add, rather than listing the bonus of the requirement buildings included.

The rush cost is the easiest way of finding what the production cost of a building is. I tend to look at the tooltips for buildings to try and work out if I can optimize the amount of production to get a faster build queue, when I have options on building clay pits earlier in the queue, or casting or removing Set in Stone or that spell that gives +1 materials.

It's quite simple - the cost of a building is a number of production points. Each turn, the cost remaining is reduced by your production as you build it. When the cost is reduced below 0 it finishes building. The rush cost is the number of remaining production points needed to finish it, but in gold. And rounded up to 25g if the building requires less than 25 production. Except if you have a black market, which makes the rush cost cheaper.