I am not against a good campaign, in fact I am all for it. However, if the question is where the Devs should focus their efforts, I'd rather they focus on the sandbox play for the simple reason that I'll play the campaign once or twice at most, whereas I hope to play and enjoy hundreds of sandbox games.
That's totally understandable. Thank you as well for starting an interesting discussion. (edit: Oh, and perhaps I just coined the term "flame-baited," it just seemed like an accurate description for what was happening with some of the more poorly thought out and articulated posts. [e digicons]:grin:[/e] )
[quote who="Huw the Poo" reply="58" id="2773842"]Fair enough! With regard to cwg009, I have to say that digital download will never, in its current state, supplant physical media for me. With things like bandwidth limitations, traffic shaping/throttling, etc. having an effect I don't see downloading a game as either fast or convenient, and I'm still old-fashioned enough to prefer a nice shiny box, even if they are generally less attractive these days than th
RavenX, throwing a temper tantrum isn't helping anything, even though I sympathize and would be irritated too if I was getting flame-baited by a few people like Lord Ebonstone who clearly hasn't read the thread or carefully considerd the arguments. There are others of us who are expressing concerns very civilly and I think thoughtfully. I still think you haven't adequately addressed the concerns of those of us who are worried this change would be detrimental to the quality of the 
Wow. A lot of long and emotional posts in the last couple pages of this thread since I last looked at it. I feel compelled to address some of the points raised. Firstly, I am going to stay away from the word "epic" because, like it or not, there is a legitimate semantics issue in the use of that word. The battle between Gandalf and the Balrog in LOTR most definitely qualifies as an "epic battle" and involves only 2 individuals. The word is far too vague so let's stick to the specifics
Well actually several people in this thread referred explicitly to wanting Total War style battles. So at least you can be reassured that they're reading this thread and considering the ideas in it. Personally, I agree with him that fun, exciting MoM style tactical battles are the way to go.
Problems like these are why I gave up on buying physical boxes long ago. Whether it be from an actual Canadian retailer or shipping direct, every game seems to have nothing but delays, delays, delays. Direct download is fast, convenient and hassle free. Until the Canadian retailers realize that their business model is completely outdated and actually arrange to have the product on the shelves for release day, they aren't getting any of my money. I don't think they really care though, all thei
[quote who="Jandurin" reply="139" id="2773236"]I have to agree. I'm not sure I want epic battles like is being suggested. That's not really MoM esque, it's... well, total war esque. [/quote] Agreed, that's not the kind of battles I'm looking for either. I also wanted to add that you've got my repeat business Brad (even though I can still kick the pants off your AI currently without farming the mobs for gold at all --- sorry, I couldn't resist). [e d
[quote who="GaelicVigil" reply="10" id="2773173"] But the "epic" setting doesn't mean the game will last "longer", it just means it will be more exciting and dramatic, right? [/quote] Yeah, I'll just bite my tongue on that one. [e digicons]:grin:[/e]
Try the epic pacing setting, it definitely helps, especially on large maps.
I find the impulse client to be quite polished and it works well. No complaints there.
Oh, goodness NO, not another debate about what makes a game "epic." As if us asking the devs to make the game feel balanced wasn't vague and subjective enough, now you want them to make it feel epic as well? When people can't even agree on what the word means (despite, I might add, the dictionary definitions staring them in the face)? How exactly are they supposed to quantify and operationalize "epicness"? It's just a vague adjective where half the people arguing for it aren't even cl
Why are you knocking him for trying to help other new players? It's a good, helpful post for people still learning the game, even if the advice isn't 100% accurate.
[quote]Actually, I can understand exactly what is being said here and I think most of you need to sit back and think about it. As is right now, you can have 12 units on the field I believe. You can have stacks of up to 10 units or something right now, I forgot what the number was. Already that is 120 soldiers which is decent but if they increased it just slightly to say max of 18 for a squad, thats 18 x 12 units which equals 216 soldiers. That is not too bad for a single battle. It wont incre
[quote who="BlackRainZ" reply="117" id="2772044"] I'm sorry but when you have several cities with thousands of people living in it and have an army of 50 or 60 guys, it just doesn't feel real to me. [/quote] You need to learn more about logistics then. For every 100 soldiers there going to be at least a few hundred people working to give them what they need to actually fight, from the farmers producing surplus food, the cooks making their food, the carters hauling their junk
[quote]That's incorrect. For something to be epic, it must be large in scale. It is a requirement. The scale can occur with the number of units, the amount of drama, the amount of action, the amount of comedy, but they must all be large in scale to be considered "Epic". So, the scale of anything can increase it's epicness. In the case of this thread, the scale of the battle (aka the number of units) will make it more epic. You've just proven my point. Of course, making t
I'll just keep things simple and say that I don't think that the number of units in a battle necessarily has anything to do with making the battles feel more epic. Nor are more units in a battle in and of themselves sufficient to convey a feeling of "epicness." My sovereign all alone battling a dragon for survival, casting spells and resisting the dragon's fire abilities could well feel epic
I'll just keep things simple and say that I don't think that the number of units in a battle necessarily has anything to do with making the battles feel more epic. Nor are more units in a battle in and of themselves sufficient to convey a feeling of "epicness." My sovereign all alone battling a dragon for survival, casting spells and resisting the dragon's fire abilities could well feel epic to some people. Another possibility is that in a big battle with a
[quote who="Sethai" reply="6" id="2771291"]ultimately, i don't think anything will really cut it in 2010 - from both a visual and gameplay point of view - other than real time, total war style battles. i say this as someone who generally hates real time click fests like starcraft. if you don't believe me, play a total war battle. it's real tactics and a satisfying scale that's completely unabstracted and you can take ALL THE TIME YOU WANT. unfortunately i don't hold out any ho
To add to the above point, role-playing is a separate issue. We still need outstanding and well balanced game design mechanics that offer a range of interesting choices and viable strategies. The role-playing will take care of itself either way. I agree that it can be fun to get into character and try character/faction appropriate strategies. However we still need the basics to be addressed and I'd argue that the lack of a range of viable strategies is currently hampering role-playi
[quote who="Voqar" reply="127" id="2771758"] Anyone got a good reason? Quality strategy gaming involves decisions and choices. There should be factors that cause those decisions and choices to have weight and substance. City spam and empire sprawl should be a strategic element. There should be thought involved and "costs" tied to the benefits. That is, you get more production, more research, another spot to build units, a blocker, or a resour
I still think scaling needs to be part of the identified solution. At it's most basic level, I like something similar to what they did in Civ4: instead of a flat maintenance cost per city (e.g -4 gold/turn for each city, for the sake of argument) the more cities you have, the more maintenance costs per city go up (e.g. zero maintenance for 1 city, 1 gold per city at 2 cities (-2 net), 2 gold per city at 3 cities (-6 net), 3 gold per city at 4 cities (-12 net), and so on). <p
My assumption has been that the level 1 teleport spell is bugged and was only intended to teleport your sovereign only, not your whole stack. So enjoy it while it lasts!
[quote who="Kalin" reply="117" id="2771557"] Quoting eHandel, reply 115 Quoting Hadberz, reply 111 If you want to be serious about using Gildar as the driving force, you have to seriously up the maintenance cost for cities, and then adjust that adequately by giving bonuses on higher level cities. For example: Lv1 Outpost cost 20 Gildar to maintain a turn. Lv2 Villages cost 10 Gildar to maintain a turn. Lv3 Towns cos
As for the other debate, I agree with Falconne2. These are not exploits, it's just intelligent and strategic use of the game mechanics the devs have given us. And currently the AI on the highest settings is just not challenging enough. The AI needs to be taught how to use the existing mechanics better, and in addition the mechanics need to be better balanced and tightened up to make things more interesting, to give players more interesting choices.