sweatyboatman

[quote who="Nibelung44" reply="10" id="3286959"]Insta-Raze: On the same trend, an AI took over my city and instantly razed it. Why they don't have to wait 5 turns as me? Don't tell me this is a technical issue... And as this is not, if you add the fact that Brad tells us regularly that AI has no cheat code, then I guess this define this instant raze as a BUG, right? [/quote] AI insta-razing cities is definitely a bug. It's been well reported, bu

I know there's some wonkiness in tactical battles around changes in initiative. The tactical initiative calculation is (ahem) borked in that all turns are determined from the start of battle. That is, if you haste a unit after a number of turns, it will get all the turns that it would have had if you had cast Haste on it on the first turn. Which, if you cast it after a number of rounds, can lead to that unit getting multiple turns in a row. I'd bet that this

are you autocalcing your battles? because you probably will get better results (and learn more) running tactical battles yourself. #1 design your own units. make sure that you buff them with three attributes (the last tab) as those just cost a little more time and make the units significantly more powerful. the +3 defense one is a good one and the +2 initiative. I like Charge which gives the unit extra moves and extra attack on the first turn. #2 the wi

working as intended

Great post! Thank you! I pretty much agree with every nit. This can be a confusing game at the start (though not as bad as some I could mention). Good rule of thumb: everything has a tooltip. Random answers to some of your questions: Essence is the city resource that allows you to cast spells on your settlement. It's the third/blue number in the tile yields. (I almost never found a city on a tile without at

[quote who="Fistalis" reply="85" id="3286279"] Quoting sweatyboatman, reply 75Monsters in FE are not completely random Seeing as their actions are based on dice rolls i'm not sure you know what random means. [/quote] Yes, that's the ticket. I don't know what random means. [e digicons]:\[/e] [quote] If they want to leave the initial player experience to be determined by dice rolls they are more than welcome to. They can leave i

Seems like flying units should be immune to tremor, eh?

Yes. FE is all that WoM should have been and more.

[quote]Out of curiosity, I turn off FOW to check on my neighbors -- my closest neighbor (in this case, Kraxis) has ONE city with four measly improvements, a number of unrelated external resources, and a "Research" rating of some 800 ?[/quote] there is definitely something wrong there. there's a couple places where you set difficulty. is it possible that you set the world difficulty to Challenging but that the AIs are set to Expert or Insane d

[quote who="Xardon963" reply="26" id="3285887"]I still don't get why when a rock spider attacks my militia won't defend, but if a giant Krax army attacks me they will hopelessly defend.[/quote] That sounds like a bug. I have never had a city defense where the militia didn't show up. Do you have a save?

[quote who="stein220" reply="77" id="3285940"]this is older in the thread but i have to take issue with this. If this is indeed the #1 basic strategy (which it may be, I'm not saying it's incorrect) then I find this extremely non-intuitive. I had thought the whole concept of this game is taming the land and clearing monsters, not shoo-ing them toward your neighbors. it also seems like a cheap game mechanic to me if this is how it works. I will try this and see if I can live with it (a

[quote who="Khorak" reply="78" id="3285947"]You're a moron. See that? That's called having the balls to insult someone instead of being a snide pussy trying to insult someone without getting told off by moderators.[/quote] I'm sorry, who are you?

[quote who="cselmes" reply="76" id="3285920"]Thanks for the link Fistalis. I also have to say that with the new understanding of how things seem to work, it takes a good part of the fun for me. [/quote] Which is probably why the explanation for their behavior is not included in the tutorial or game manual. The obvious take-away is "stay away from monsters", but what's not obvious is that you can't and still hope to win on the higher difficulties.&nb

[quote who="Fistalis" reply="74" id="3285895"] Random is unpredictable. But Unpredictable isn't random. Random monsters are random. Sure you can call them unpredictable.. but doesn't make them less random.[/quote] Monsters in FE are not completely random (e.g. Frogboy has said that "smarter" monsters take into consideration their opponent's strength before they attack). However, their behavior is not completely predictable. They wander around an

Multitasker I,II,III: boosts production from non-elemental resource tiles by 10/25/50% Thieves Guild Leader: 50% of lost production is converted into gildar. Warden: Deters monsters from attacking the city/group Efficient Manager: Provides +2 movement for all units within the city's ZoC

[quote who="Tom Selleck" reply="62" id="3285604"] If this thread is getting this much attention there is probably a problem. It is very annoying when a monster pack roams into your territory from another computers territory and destroys your city (cities). So annoying in fact that some people might stop playing, why not just fix it so the monsters attack all the same... How can someone argue against fair play?[/quote] Sigh. There is nothing to fix. The monsters

[quote who="dwilson" reply="57" id="3285318"]I left a settlement spot alone because there was a dragon near it. Dragons, and other monsters, shouldn't be moving randomly. They should have goals (protect their base, raid for food) and move to accomplish those goals. They should leave the base once in a while, walk in a circle (hunting behavior), chase easy prey (pioneers), flee from stronger fights. Resources are prime targets then. Generally poorly defended, yet still have some peopl

[quote who="SOLOSOL" reply="9" id="3285135"] The OP complains that monsters quickly razes his city, and you suggest that they should build a lair also???? Come on... [/quote] Guess you missed the part where I said the monsters should at least abide the 5-turn limit on razing. [e digicons]:P[/e]

Can we get an overlay icon above the head of any caster who is working on a multi-turn spell? I know there is some subtle animation, but it is damnably hard to notice when the AI is preparing a spell. It doesn't have to be fancy, I was thinking something akin to the stacked unit icon on the strategic map. Though it would be cool if the icon of the spell they were preparing were up there. Alternatively, and even cooler, you could go Dragon-Ball Z with it and hav

they should at least abide by the 5-turn raze thing. you should have an opportunity to recapture the city. after the city is destroyed, though, the spot should become a spawn-point for those same monsters. which would suppress any attempts at immediate resettlement. any time a monster destroys ZoC (towns & outposts), the result should be a new spawn point for monsters.

[quote who="HaaS76" reply="2" id="3284597"]We really need it.[/quote] More control is better, I agree. But I struggle to think of a reason we would really need it.

The monsters do not give preferential treatment to the ai.

Since we already get notifications when a city is taken in battle, makes sense. I think the game could do a lot more to inform the player of what is happening in the world. As it stands now we get the bare minimum of information to manage our empire with just a sprinkling of outside events. Also, an event log would be nice.

[quote who="Epitagh" reply="17" id="3282843"] I don't even understand how the diplomacy in this game works. I have people declare war on me in what feels randomly and almost always feel like I am outnumbered.[/quote] It's tricky, but it's not hard to figure out. The key is to keep your faction power competitive. The best way to do this in the early game is to spread your production out so that you are building useful units early on -- not just buildings.&n

[quote who="Ben Yeoh" reply="14" id="3282798"] Like I've mentioned before, it doesn't really matter whether the monster AI is actually "fair" or not as Frogboy claims, but that the players "feel" that it is being fair.[/quote] This "the customer is always right" sentiment is pretty much what is wrong with game development today. What players feel is fair is when everything breaks their way, everything goes according to plan, and all risks are