merlinme

[quote who="parrottmath" reply="57" id="3412039"]The occupation penalty only lasts 5 turns[/quote] Yeah I thought it was something like that. In that case a building which reduces occupation unrest is pointless unless it's a global reduction. (Perhaps the Prison could reduce this globally?) I guess I notice it because by the time I get to the stage of the game where I'm taking AI cities I'm taking one a turn, so that means at any one time I have five cities which a

I personally don't think there is a problem with calling the next iteration Elemental: whatever. Heck, call it "the Enchantress strikes back" if you like! Seriously, the original Elemental fiasco is so old that of the target market, 50% will have no idea what Elemental was, 25% will own Legendary Heroes and think it's awesome anyway, and 25% will think "Elemental? Wasn't that a really bad game a few years ago? How on earth did that get a sequel?" Even in the case o

As I move into the end game I don't bother settling new cities unless they have Essence or helpful resources close by. More Mana is always nice. Up to that point (i.e. with 50+ turns to go) I will tend to settle any except the most marginal cities. This is as much to claim the territory as anything else, but also on the principle that I have time to build everything I need to make it productive. High level cities captured from the AI are almost always worth keeping because they wi

I still don't think this is a huge issue. The biggest problem in my experience is not the number of cities penalty it's the occupation penalty. My own cities have manageable unrest of about 40% on a low tax rate (with shrine + town hall), but when I conquer an AI city it can be 100% plus because of the occupation penalty, which makes them unusable without using a Commander/ Bless City/ Rushing buildings. However at the point where I'm conquering one AI town every turn or

Has this been fixed? Checking the forums I found this: [quote who="parrottmath" reply="2" id="3365353"]Yeah, I think now Morian gives you a longsword instead of that bonus...[/quote] I got the Heart of Morian in my last game, it claimed that it was going to give +50% hit points to trained units and +50% town growth. As far as I could tell it only gave +50% growth. I couldn't see any hitpoints bonus in the list of bonuses for trained units; there were a lot of bonuses to ch

1: Hero Nen Ratcatcher has a 5 turn cooldown on Summon Darkling Warrior. After five turns it says... "This spell has already been cast on this unit". Is this working as intended? If this functions like tactical summons then Nen would only be allowed to cast the spell once, in which case it's pointless having a cooldown. 2: Death Demons that actually cast Summon Demonic Ally and have Fear working at the start of the battle: Holy F**k they're scary! One Death Demon plus two Assa

[quote who="Apheirox" reply="5" id="3405741"]I'm saying this based on 1.4 which is supposed to make monsters more aggressive, but I still don't think they're aggressive enough[/quote] What difficulty level are you playing on? On high difficulty levels the monsters do head straight for my cities. I've had a Deadly Fire Elemental stack head straight for my city. When the same city's zone of control expanded over an Ophidian lair, eventually they headed

[quote who="Frogboy" reply="169" id="3405716"]I wanted 1.4 to be mainly about UI for instance. But the resources for doing that aren't entirely free so there's a delay on some of that.[/quote] Thanks for replying. I'm very happy with the continuous improvement the game receives. But it is a bit puzzling when we're given a roadmap (UI = 1.4, Diplomacy = 1.5) and then 1.4 clearly isn't about interface improvements, without an explanation.

I believe this is more or less as designed. At one point the Wildlands actually tried to actively expand their borders, I think this has been toned down or eliminated now, but it's not that surprising to me that a Wildlands can take a city.

Nice! Is that your army or the AI's? I can sort of see how the bug could happen if "all" units were ejected from the city at the same time.

[quote who="Fallenchar" reply="12" id="3405134"]So even though Parrotmath completely undermines his argument by admitting to only build 8 cities, he currently has the best arguments, leading 0 to -1/-1/-1.[/quote] Hey, don't I get a mark? [e digicons]:D[/e]

Fair enough, but I think you're making a bit of a mountain out of a molehill. There are plenty of ways to reduce the effects of unrest when you have 15 cities: 1) Build more unrest reducing buildings. Off the top of my head, shrine is -10%, Town Hall is -10%. There are others (e.g. Sacrificial Altar). High level Towns have an upgrade option to ignore unrest for number of cities. 2) Use Commanders or otherwise superflous heroes 3) Use spells; Oppression + Bless

[quote who="MechaGodzill" reply="14" id="3404275"]In my current campaign, several enemy AI armies have entered my borders, yet not a single one has had a chance to attack any of my cities. I'm a new player, so I don't know if this case is typical[/quote] For a competent player who understands how to use strategic spells, this is typical- but only up to the point where you increase the difficulty to "hard for you". [e digicons]:grin:[/e] At the point where the AI turns up

[quote who="Fallenchar" reply="12" id="3404236"]Conquer cities and outposts the same turn you enter enemy territory.[/quote] Yeah, I try to have my main stack movement four or five. The AI rarely has zone of control big enough to stop me, except maybe if the terrain is bad. In the worst case where you can't take a city in one turn, there are usually still options: 1) spam small armies for the AI to waste its strategic spells on 2) Cast Call of the Titans next to th

[quote]it does cause a strange glitch[/quote] I get exactly that graphics glitch since I've started the 1.4 beta when I put my mouse cursor on an inaccessible tile at the edge of the map. Sort of looks like there's a shard graphic going from the corner of the tile to the top of the screen. I'm assuming it's a 1.4 bug, as I don't have any mods installed.

[quote who="Primal_Savage" reply="9" id="3404050"]They have indeed their own cooldown timer.[/quote] Yeah, this is the only sensible use for a Familiar I've found. Familiars are far too fragile to risk in any combat with ranged troops, and in any case although they can cast all the spells your sovereign can, they don't get the tactical mana reductions (e.g. -25% from Path of the Mage) that your sovereign does, and they don't have the spell mastery or level your s

Ascian is cool. I don't normally bother with Assassins because they're too fragile, but Ascian has high hitpoints and can take some damage. Maul with high critical hit chance is pretty devastating. The other possibilities- well, maybe. If you can find them. Ongr is an interesting idea, he turns up in a lot of my games. But Ascian should always be around somewhere, and is well worth getting.

[quote who="Primal_Savage" reply="6" id="3403999"] Freeze cooldown: 5 turns Tremor cooldown: 1 turn[/quote] Well, one out of two ain't bad! Obviously I was wrong about the Freeze cooldown though.

I thought Tremor had a one turn cooldown? I don't have the game to hand to check, though. Freeze definitely has a three turn cooldown. I have previously raised it that the AI can cast multiple times on your stack. Not had a response.

From memory, in one version of Rats in the Ruins you have to fight at least one Corpse Spider, which is pretty dangerous with a starting army. I believe which quest version you get in a particular game is random.

[quote who="Tattyhat" reply="133" id="3403211"]Anything good enough to opt into beta for?[/quote] The main difference as far as I can see (apart from some bug fixes) is the promise that the AI will start using spells better in tactical combat, and will summon tactically. To date the only spells the AI casts which scare me are damage spells. It really loves to cast Burning Blade tactically, which is normally a complete waste of time, and I can't remember it

[quote who="Foraven" reply="136" id="3403242"]Just read in another thread that the AI just don't max out their units potential (ie don't design them with all the bells and wistles even if they have the resources for it).[/quote] This may well be true, however the AI does use designs which you have created yourself for that faction. So if you play as different factions and keep designing units then the AI should start producing better units. I have (for example) met my own Mounted Ligh

[quote who="Fallenchar" reply="3" id="3403157"]Infecttion is too slow[/quote] Hmm, interesting. I agree making the AI miss turns is better if you can do it. In the particular battle I struggled to win, casting Infection meant I could curse the entire enemy army (Curse, Blind, Slow, in that order) by casting Infection on Magnar. He had high initiative but fairly low spell resistance, so if I cast something on him it spread fast. I was low on mana, so as well as speeding up the process it

[quote who="MechaGodzill" reply="130" id="3403070"]Do you think it could hurt my saved game?[/quote] As I understand it changes are mainly made to the XML, which is saved with each save game. So in other words if you opt in to the beta it will have no effect, good or bad, on any saved game, it will only have an effect if you start a new game.

Thanks, it looks fun, but as a matter of curiosity what happened to the user interface improvements? Are they now planned for 1.5?