Darvin3

[quote]just use the faction creator to make a custom faction with the "Master Archer" trait[/quote] This is what I've been doing lately; this trait is currently broken and needs to be removed. It enables you to put your early research into adventure/domination to gather gold from quest sites, and then funnel that cash directly into archers without ever having to invest a single tech in military. The result is [i]absurdly[/i] fast military units on the field that the enemy has

I think the fact that it can take upwards of 40 turns to go from one end of the map to another is a [i]good[/i] thing. It makes it much more difficult to go around with a single stack of death and steamroll everything in your path, and forces you to actually think about deploying your troops ahead of time. Given the build times of units (ranging from 10 turns on the low-end to 50+ turns on the high end) move speeds are perfectly in line with the other factors in this game. <p

I don't recall any colossi attackers on hard mode, but seeing as I've only done two runs (one hard, one brutal) it's possible that it's an oversight on my part. In any case, the Protoss push much more aggressively on this mission, in greater numbers and with greater frequency. The net result is a steep increase in difficulty over what I experienced on hard difficulty.

The biggest problem in this regard is that the difference in effectiveness between the padded/leather armor of the early-game and the heavy plate armor of the late game is simply out of line. Archers are 1-hitting early enemies with padded armor, but can't even scratch late enemies with plate armor, and the maxed-out stacks can reach over 1000 hit points (mitigated somewhat by a ridiculously long build time). I think the exponential increase in equipment strength needs to be rol

This stuff is so rare I've never actually been able to create a unit with full legendary gear. If the high-level notables would actually respawn, it might be doable, but on anything short of huge maps there just aren't enough of them to actually get enough elementium to work with. Kinda moot anyways since I'm just toying around with the AI by the time I'm actually far enough into the game to use the stuff...

True, but the usefulness of such a feature depends on the intelligence and granularity of the settings.

I had a similar problem yesterday. I got the egg and returned to the dragon, but nothing happened.

[quote]This would allow players to quickly dispatch minor threats without depleting their mana. Better yet would be a slider for how much magic you want the AI to use like in NWN2 for the characters you are not controlling at the moment[/quote] Bad example; in [i]theory[/i] they had this, but in practice the "conservative" setting was indistinguishable from the "overkill" setting. Both dropped their most powerful spell at the start of battle regardless of how wea

Ranged attackers perform much more poorly in auto-resolve, because range isn't account for. In practice, you get at least 4 free attacks off before melee attackers close the distance, but in auto-resolve this isn't taken into account.

The problem here isn't necessarily the healing problem... the problem is that a bit of XP causes a unit's hit points to balloon insanely. Increase the amount of hit points at level 1, reduce the amount of hit points gained from leveling up, problem solved.

The problem with stacks is they grow exponentially more powerful as their size increases. A four-man stack is more than four-times as powerful as a four singleton stacks. This is made worse by the fact that you actually get a considerable training-time bonus for making bigger stacks. Once you get rolling, there's really no reason to build anything but the largest stack available, because it completely decimates the smaller stacks. Archers are another issue altogether

[quote]Defensive actions such as...?[/quote] Right now, basically just moving and buffing. Your channelers could cast non-offensive spells such as haste, so you'd at least get SOMETHING out of them before they get nuked. Certainly the addition of even a handful of defensive abilities would work wonders. I don't think that making the defenders go first or making it random would work. This still leaves the problem that whoever goes first has a [i]massive[/i] advantage,

One of the issues, particularly with spellcasters and archers, is the "first strike" the attacker gets, where they can often mop up the floor with the other side before they even get a turn. As a potential way to alleviate the first strike issue, I suggest that the defender be allowed to go first with one restriction: they cannot undertake any hostile actions on their first turn. This means the attacker still gets the first "real" turn, but the defender can at least move and tak

The problem with materials is that there is [i]nothing[/i] in this game that primarily costs materials. [i]Everything[/i] costs gold to build, so unless your gold income is absurdly high or your materials income absurdly low, eventually this becomes a complete non-issue. As it stands right now, this resource is only meaningful in the first few turns of the game, and quickly become meaningless. The resource should either be removed or further developed. Something as sim

The fact that you can't enter tiles occupied by allies, and it's very difficult to click on something that's behind a unit are both serious issues.

I think the biggest problem with bows is that they come too early in the tech tree, before there are any credible opponents that can actually survive a single volley (overpowered summons notwithstanding). Even sovereigns and champions are no match for archers if they get first strike. The point that archers have a first-strike issue is one I agree with, but I think the biggest issue is that the melee units that are of similar power appear much later in the game. Bows requi

Currently, I don't think there's an issue. So long as you have enough essence, you can make due with any amount of shortages on the other resources. With essence alone you can maintain a big army, conquer foes, and capture new areas. Go a few steps up the magic tech path to get an essence bonus and you're in business. If you're low on resources and feel crippled, this is the way to go. Theh developers have made clear they're going to iron this out, and that pre

Let's make getting a half-decent military a bit cheaper early on and bring back the hordes of monsters. That'd at least delay city-spam.

I'm really liking the "outpost" idea more and more. They wouldn't need to be devoid of economic potential, and probably could have all of the same upgrades available to level 1 cities. However, they'd be highly limited in how big they could grow, and their influence would never expand. We'd probably have the same number of settlements as we do now (perhaps even a few more), but the vast majority would be small outposts. Because outposts would have very tiny influence a

[quote]I recently had a game short on material [/quote] Seriously, [i]how[/i]? Early on I can believe it, but in the long-run I just don't see how this is possible. I don't think a scaling "settler" cost will solve the problem. This probably will have no effect on tiny maps, while crippling your expansion on larger ones. This is also pretty much a death sentence to anyone who loses a city early on, something that's already a pretty nast

I tend to agree that diplomatic victory needs to be reworked. All you need is one hold-out and it's impossible to do, and really the AI [i]should[/i] be holding out if it knows it will just be handing you the win. I've [i]never[/i] seen Diplomatic victory done well in any game. It almost always boils down to a vote. If anyone gets enough votes to win, then everyone else dies. Why would anyone [i][b]EVER[/b][/i] vote for anyone but themselves? Anyone who d

Unfortunately, the problem created by this is what happens when a female sovereign and a male sovereign set up an arranged marriage. Now who goes to the other side? Under your rules, a female-female negotiation and a male-male negotiation has no issue, in either case the child with the same gender as their sovereign stays with the faction. But how would you resolve the issue when a male sovereign negotiates with a female one? The male wants his son to stay with his fac

Hmmm.... really do need stickies for [i]all[/i] customization stuff... Anyways, to add to your's, we really need talents that help out melee sovereigns. Right now, melee is risky business and has low reward compared to other builds (like pure caster), so we need some talents that would be useful for these guys. Of course, I'm sure people could find good use for these talents for many other sovereign build. [b]Nine Lives[/b] (10 points) - whenever takes enough damag

I've noticed this as well, was gunna see if I could reproduce it today.

I got this problem the other day in a tactical battle. Wasn't able to reproduce it, and of course there's no way to pull up the menu in tactical battle so I couldn't make a save. Couldn't end turn [i]or[/i] issue orders to any of my units. I could still select units, see the highlighted tiles where they could move, got feedback when I clicked, but nothing happened. Had to alt-tab and kill the program manually. Reloaded and fought the same battle, but it didn't ha