DGB246

Hey guys has the next beta release date been announced yet? I was under the impression it was this week.

OK here's a couple more: 4) artisan's workshop - available with builder's trait - allows you to build golem's - levels up with city so they start off as things like sand golem but then you can build others like steel golem, flesh golem, bone golem, crystal golem, rock golem etc - if you find champ equipment you can give it to the golems - special items can be sacrificed to the artisan's workshop to make special golems - no maintenance for golems 5) me

Hi Brad thanks for the video, nice to get some sneak peaks of what you guys are coming up with. OK you asked for suggestions for unique buildings so here's some you may want to consider: 1) Shrine of the avatar - This is a special mana bond that the channeler has made with the land that allows the channeler to make a guardian entity composed of mana to defend the channeler's city in time of need - it's bonded with the channeler and learns with him/her - it's a

@DarkGaldred I agree the economy system isn't great but it's too late in the day to overhaul it - the shop and current selling prices just make economic management totally irrelevant so it needs nerfing. I don't like the tax and unrest mechanisms either but at this stage it's a case of rebalancing them rather than changing everything. I personally think settlements should generate more money so then maintenance wouldnt be so crippling.

Some good stuff in this thread, I'm very interested to see how this affects the next beta. I'm glad that shops are getting hit with the nerf hammer; bringing them in line with the rest of the game will make the economic side more important

Sean, are you going to make a mod for the game? I would definitely be interested in trying it out. I don't like the economy model but I guess we are stuck with it now and the AI needs to be aware of maintenance costs crippling its performance - that applies to gildar and mana. The AI needs to be wary of these costs - personally I avoid building loads of units because I want to keep tax as low as possible to maximise research - the AI should aim to keep research high to tech up to

Another spell bug I've noticed is that spells like evade and regeneration don't update to take account of how many relevant shards you have e.g. if you cast regeneration with no life shards you heal 1hp a turn and this will remain the same even if you hook up some life shards later on

Tasunke, you're correct that you can spam pioneers and build villages everywhere and then just build money raising and pop raising buildings - I've done that too but the AI doesnt do this - it builds everything plus garrison troops so overall the settlement is making huge losses - the AI then raises taxes and gets productivity penalties. When you overexpand you're forced to make a choice between thin/patchy defences or building loads of costly units. Selling loot works at the mome

I thought I'd start a new thread focusing on the strategic AI so that we can discuss how to make it more competitive. I have seen improvements here across the betas although it still feels like a pushover on anything except ridiculous (due to big AI bonuses). If we start listing thoughts and observations here then this may help Brad with programming effective strategies for the AI. So, I'll start by listing a few thoughts: 1) The AI tends to overexpand too rapi

I always liked the random rolls for lairs in FFH2 - it made clearing lairs a real risk because your unit could be killed/afflicted and the lair could spawn even more monsters like big freaky flaming flying heads with freaking laser beams (OK, no lasers :) ) But the other thing it did was introduce the idea of escalation - the armegeddon counter meant that some really bad things could happen as the world sunk into hell - angels and demons also enter the picture and they sometimes becam

Your welcome :) Yep people translate into tax and research and I think it also affects production, but I don't know the specifics

Hi Henri, Prestige affects your city population growth - if you have 10 prestige you get 10 new citizens (split evenly between your cities) each turn - you can get even more citizens by building inns etc. So prestige is pretty important otherwise your cities will hardly grow. Food caps how big a city can grow (1 food per citizen) and you can check how much bigger a city can grow by looking at how much extra food it has in the details screen

Hi Progress just to let you know, mantle of oceans is in your spellbook - there's a button for it in the bottom right corner. The spellbook also has a button to turn the pages which is hidden in the top corner of the spellbook window. The UI seemed unintuitive to me at first but I'm used to it now - it took me ages to figure out how to scroll the tactical screen, to disenchant things and to change strategic cameras - there's probably functions I'm not even aware of after

I would like to see champs having bodyguards too (how have they survived out in the wilds all by themselves anyway?) I think it would be cool if you could hire their bodyguards with them too - they could be special units e.g. Janusk's tankard guards etc. Some colourful bodyguards could add to the identity of the heroes and would also allow you to get stuck in with them straight away rather than having to train a bodyguard for them. A few extra perks for the high level champs (to equate wi

OK maybe its a bug then? I've played 2 games using the latest beta and it's happened both times; not sure why though - has anyone else noticed this?

@drabhead troll [e digicons]:troll:[/e]

OK one thing I have noticed with this current Beta is that spells like pillar of fire and vetrars howl no longer kill units - they reduce a unit to zero hitpoints but the unit is not removed - in fact groups remain full size in tactical battles - I cant work out if this is a bug or a deliberate design choice but either way I hate it. Units definitely died in the previous beta and that was the point of it. Also Vetrar's howl is misleading because it refers to a radius of effect which

I have the world difficulty turned up as high as it will go - the AI opponents are much tougher but the monsters still seem pretty tame. They did attack my city twice and an outpost but then I also see deadly armies of drakes literally adjacent to AI cities and they just leave them alone. Is it possible to ramp it up to where the monsters will always attack if they have a chance?

Brad with regard to differentiation I hope that EVENTUALLY the factions reach a level of strategic variety comparable to FFH2 and Twilight of the Arnor - I realise this is a massive task and by no means do I expect that for FE; that's something for a subsequent expansion. It took years of work with GalCiv 2 and FFH2 to make their factions truly different but both are among my all time favourite strategy games for the sheer variation in strategies and identities. FFH had the religions

@ Tasunke Sticking armour on archers increases build time and maintenance costs alot so I think normally its best to keep em cheap - I haven't checked the exact costs but I wouldnt be surprised if full leather armour doubles the labour cost and maintenance of an archer unit. I guess if the AI is spamming archers it might make sense to stick armour on your archers

@ Alstein With regard to 2 & 3, they could ditch these traits I guess although I would prefer them kept in, as there is a role for low maintenance quick units I think - they just need to be lamer troops than they currently are. In the early game, I'll build conscripted spearmen - they take about 5 turns to build and have a maintenance of about 0.4 - I think that unit is perfectly fine as is but it is clearly inferior to the spammable weak conscripted clubmen. Similarly

I voted 'fair' for where I see the game at the moment. I like the game and want it to do well on release but I think it has to be stronger for the wider gaming market. It's not really me you need to win over as I'll happily buy Stardock games now and in the future; it's the more sceptical, disinterested gamers out there that don't identify with the Stardock brand. I've also had stability issues with the current beta - it crashes much more often with the cur

@ddd888 - I like the concept but it's a lame building at the moment - it's a per faction building available mid-game that takes a long time to build and costs maintenance. In return it gives champs xp so slowly that it's actually irrelevant at that point in the game. Additionally, the champ needs to sit in the city doing nothing to benefit from it so you are also foregoing the use of the champ too. Currently you could dump 6 governors in it and it still wouldnt be worth it I

Currently I think this is very weak - it takes ages to build, costs maintenance and offers trivial xp to champs - I personally think this needs a big boost, maybe 3 xp per hero per turn - even then it would take a long time to level up champs stationed there

Yeah the clubman spam is the most powerful strategy I think, primarily because they can be produced at astomishing rates (build and buy with each city each turn) and they cost no maintenance therefore there is no cap on how many you can build. Another response to these cannon fodder units should be to cast pillar of fire on em using the strategic map and then attack to mop up. There are some defences in that you can only cast some strategic spells in your territory but th