immanuel1

Nibelung, you sound just like me. I started a thread just like this and "infuriating" featured prominently. Anyway, this is apparently a long-running issue and the vast majority of posters agree that the 5-turn delay needs to happen (personally, I'm against ALL razing but never mind). Not sure if they plan on changing this in 1.1, but the devs seem to be trying the address the equally-infuriating "salting of the land" that takes place after a razing. The problem is

Heh - I liked your first set of experiments, I'll enjoy this one. I'll tell you, though - everyone complains bitterly that the AI has too much research, yet I have yet to actually see the impact of this. I mean it's not like the AI *ever* fields late-game technology units, right? Is everyone just mad that their buildings are more advanced?

I'd say AI of Sovereigns just stinks in general. If they would spend less time smashing their faces against my walls and more time just walking around their own territory looting abandoned lairs, they'd be a lot happier.

I kind of like how the roads are semi-random. Seems more "organic" instead of each road being a State Development Project. But yeah does it ever irritate my OCD.

jjkrogs, basically you're right: expand as fast as you can. On harder difficulties you will need to be VERY worried about monsters coming and razing your cities if you over-expand, but in my experience there is simply no other way to keep up with the AI. And you need to keep up with the AI, otherwise they'll see you as weak and dogpile you. You should have a pioneer ready to go at all times - prioritize them over any other building. It took me a couple of gam

[quote who="Nakisisa" reply="12" id="3287002"]In 1.01 I found and reported that the tiles that a city had any buildings on remained "city tiles" on the map after the city had been destroyed by a monster To build on them I had to build and raze an outpost on the tile to return it to normal. The rejuvenation spell, or any terrain spell, did not work as it can not be cast on or effect city tiles. Nakisisa[/quote] Nakisisa, thanks for this explanation - I

Mistwraithe, how did it change in the most recent patch? The land is still getting salted, no? When did Stardock actually comment on this? It's good to hear, because I've become convinced that not only is this working as intended (that is to say, retardedly), but that it's so insurmountably hardcoded that Stardock is no longer capable of changing it.

I agree completely with Poko8. The "tipping point" phenomenon is well established in 4X games, and there's no easy cure. As far as I'm concerned, it's the defining problem of the genre. Fall from Heaven 2 tried to introduce some late-game uncertainty through the Armageddon Counter and associated calamities - very innovative, and it did indeed help keep things interesting. For a little bit, anyway. In FE, once I'm ranked #1 in power, I&#39

Ephafn, I'm just the same way. I only play on Epic because I like a slower game. Your observations are spot on, I hadn't noticed the issue but you're right - the ONLY rate limiter for production of units on Epic speed is production time, material supplies are always in such excess that they don't matter. Ditto on the cost of rushing - it's really negligible. Not the way it should be. I really like the idea of limited strategic materials, but

Apart from whether it's an exploit or not, the practical problem of kiting giant monsters threatening your cities is (1) Cost. Ok ok, scouts are cheap, but in my experience on harder difficulties you really need a couple of dedicated "kiters" to protect your little empire in the early days, when even a Medium pack of wolves is too tough for your sovereign and can doom a city. And in the early days, you don't have a lot of production so kiters are comp

Yes, it's very good and getting better all the time. Play vanilla to warm up, then look into some of the mods - there are some great ones that really fill out the game. Biggest problem is lack of documentation - you're pretty much on your own. Be sure to read the stickied Beginner's Guide by Tuidyj here on the forums.

As far as alternatives are concerned: since it's the salting of the earth that I hate most, I'd be content if invading bears knocked down every single building and killed all but a single survivor in a city, as long as they didn't fully raze it. But that sounds almost as silly as bears burning down a whole city, right? So here are some alternatives: (1) 5-turn delay on auto-raze. This remains the most faithful to the current state, but do

You sir are more courageous than me, I would be afraid that I'd accidentally wake up that drake by autoplacing a building and expanding my domain that way. Delicately placing my buildings so as not to disturb the local fauna is more micromanagement than I prefer, but whatever. The real question is what would you do if a Strong army of Elementals showed up right next to Sandraka from the northwest, and attacked the next turn. Would you have enough tro

Yeah, I know there are things I can do to mitigate the danger, and I don't want to sound like whiner. Kiting a monster in circles around your defenseless city is basically an AI exploit, though, and the number of early tech units you need to make to defeat an unexpected Strong army coming out of the woods is prohibitive. Basically, early game you just need to hope for the best - especially if you need to expand rapidly to keep up with a difficult AI. And later game, even

I just scrapped yet another game because some random nasty monsters strolled out of the forest and burned a city to the ground. WHYYYYyyyyy? Stardock, PLEASE do away with the auto-razing of settlements when an enemy faction, or more maddening bears , take it over. Putting all arguments of realism aside, it is an infuriating mechanic especially when combined with (a) terrifying, unavoidable, random monsters and (b ) the frakking salting

I agree with Martimus and Kalin. As a relative noob who has no real idea what snaking is good for, has never used it, and can't imagine taking the effort to manually place my buildings, I cannot fathom why I should care if YOU want to do those things. What are you all arguing about, here? That some people use "silly" city expansion to exploit the already-stupid AI for their own amusement? In a game that has no multiplayer support at all, but touts itself as awesome

Actually, I would prefer random spawning monsters to new lairs. I don't like how once you clear an area of the map it is forever tranquil and peaceful, even if it's not within your borders. The fog of war should always be uncertain, if not outright dangerous. Not sure about new lairs, I feel like at a certain level they would just be farming opportunities for high-level sovereigns.

Hey, sorry to resurrect this old topic but I have some combat-related questions and I feel bad asking them all in Tuidyj's guide thread like he's my personal assistant. Initiative . I always assumed that initiative was simply the number used to calculate move order among combatants, but I saw in another thread a suggestion that it affects damage in a much more direct way. Is this correct? Or is this damage effect indirect, and caused by a high

Yeah, bug or no bug they need to change this. Losing a city and having it razed is one of the few things that will make me reload a save in this game. There is nothing fun about having your prize city, developed over years and years, erased after one unfortunate battle. It's even worse because you can't resettle again because the land is "salted" after a razing. Given the dearth of good settling spots, this is not cool at all. Lose your city, sur

I too am amazed at the positive attitude on this forum. I'm surprised, in fact, given the rancor the original WoM generated, and (IMHO) the occasional shortcomings of FE. Where are all the haters? The XCOM forum is, as you say, just amazingly negative. I've never seen a forum more degenerate and full of bile, fighting over the same ground over and over again. It's like it's own circle of hell. It's such a pleasure being in the FE forum

Yeah, I too just had a Hard playthrough where I found myself rushing a nearby AI. Didn't mean to, but they settled a city in that great spot RIGHT ahead of my settler. Infuriating, they had to die. Anyway, yeah as the OP says the AI never gets any better at protecting itself against an early rush (or any kind of a rush, in my experience) so I rolled right over four cities before I even founded my second one. I too couldn't believe how quickly these cities had d

Yes, thanks for this read, Al. I actually find battling the world more fun than the not-so-bright AI, so your slogging war of attrition against the Wild kind of fits my attitude towards the game.

Thanks, Tuidjy, I was looking forward to your Monsters section in particular. Took me a while to figure out myself that monsters grew in strength over time, which is an important mechanic to understand. Got to clear out those nearby nests quick before they become something nastier! Two follow-up questions: (1) Can monsters spontaneously spawn in the in the fog-of-war? Ie, if I have an area that I've cleared, and it's entirely blocked off by my d

Seriously, though - what settings are you guys playing on? I don't ever see a proper stack of doom, the AI is very unimpressive in my Challenging games. Do I need to boost AI up to something more... Ridiculous? As an aside: Although yeah I think Diplomacy is lacking, I actually really love the "Influence" concept. Instead of just blindly guessing how many cookies an AI wants before it will give you X, it just neatly rationalizes and commoditizes the

You should try playing a game WITHOUT stacks of doom, and see how you like it. For some reason, in my games I have yet to see the AI launch a really impressive attack. They'll declare war, maybe send some raiding parties my way, but I can just go about my business until I'm ready to steamroll them. I WISH there were stacks of doom.