Droghar

I'm not sure what the formula for level progression is, but it's definitely nowhere near as exponential as you've listed it. 6 million xp for level 21??? you're orders of magnitude off there. It is quite easy to get to the 20s, you'll tend to stall around 25 It's also important to remember that levelling up gives benefits other than the new trait, especially if you've taken abilities that give you a bonus per level. In general though, I'll take

Impulsive archers do the job too

In my experience it's the tactical AI that really cripples computer players - I was walking around with a pet Ophidian last night and it's ridiculous the number of spells targetting him.. there seems to be no consideration of resistances, high dodge, etc, when picking targets.

[quote who="Trojasmic" reply="27" id="3303629"]I would like the OP's LH men to do battle against my 14-attack (+1 fire ring, +1 cold ring, +3 fire amulet, +3 ice amulet) ice staff mages. One shot ... pop! But you don't see me creating a post that 14-attack ice staff mages are OP'ed do you? The game is full of OP'ed strategies ... or at least it was until people started posting crap like this and Derek started listening to it. Argh. P.S.

One real weakness with tactical AI is that if you have a unit adjacent to an AI unit, the AI unit will never move to attack a non-adjacent unit. It makes it very easy to pin AI with strong defensive troops while the vulnerable firepower sits safely behind. Some more work is needed to make it harder to protect back-line troops.

Different is good, but abilities scaling with level are always going to be hard to balance.. It either needs a cap or a different mechanism. To be honest lightning hammer inbokes Thor to me - I'd like to see it have a moderate damage but to have a throw ability too, so you can do a ranged attack with it every X turns. Maybe limited in distance like the knives, not sure.

Agree, it is much too strong for how easy it is to get.

Can I suggest that prior to adding new weapons, a bit of a clean-up of existing weapons takes places? Currently rarity / cost and effectiveness aren't well matched in a lot of cases. I'm afg and can't find a reference, but there are many times that a more expensive item is completely inferior to a cheaper one. The biggest example is how powerful the lightning hammer is compared to other bashing weapons when used by your sovereign or another high level champion. It is

[quote who="Ephafn" reply="15" id="3288348"] 2- The Charge trait is quite situational, as only a few units (cavalry) can use both the extra movement and the extra damage. Archers only use the extra damage, and footmen only the extra movement. But Impulsive is the same, so I guess that's not as big of a deal as the first issue. [/quote] In quite a few tactical maps foot troops can strike with charge on first round, it is very advantageous. And in a large tactical ma

Good call on the Destiny's Gift nerf. I've never really played with it before, when I tried in the betas it didn't work properly. However, in my current game with a high mana income early I gave it a shot and was stunned how big the improvements were. Since then I'm prety much spending all my mana buffing my sovereign with it and it is insanely overpowering (given a big mana income). My sovereign is just waltzing through empires and wildlands on expert.

What difficulty are you playing on? The major deterrent to expansion is the capacity to defend it all, and AI opponents not liking you settling right up next to them. On the lower difficulties it's not such an issue, but I've learnt to be very wary not to overreach too early - it works at first and then suddenly you are fighting wars on two fronts that you can't handle.

I agree with a lot of your UI issues. In terms of difficulty of gameplay, other than reducing difficulty, some things to consider are: Don't settle cities too close to monsters you can't deal with Your sovereign will often need accompanying troops early on. If you're lucky you may find a sand golem or something useful, otherwise a militia or two if you have nothing better can make a lot of difference Explore as much as you can. Ther

Because high level champions don't necessarily have a lot of hit points. You can make them very tough to damage though, so the odd heal is all that is needed to keep them killing everything in sight. Even for normal units, while it will rarely win you battles otherwise lost, the odd heal spell is the difference from a unit dying or ending up the battle heavily wounded instead, with more experience and quick to heal.

Would making none of the perks that effect the whole army (trainer, shieldwall, leadership, etc) stack fix this and other issues?

I see ranged shots miss quite frequently - note that with archer groups, it will show a hit if any of the archers in the group succeed, you may be dodging most of them.

I trialled Adventurer with Betrayer and Master Scout a few days back, stopped it when I had explored most of the map, had about a dozen heroes and the AI had next to none. As long as you find a couple of heroes early it snowballs, you can cover so much ground to find heroes, and naturally you prioritise the techs to hire them. I think the denial of heroes to other civs is more powerful that the benefit you get from them, which diminishes with higher numbers.

If you're in defensive battles you can use Cull the Weak on militia. I feel guilty using it it's such an effective way of acquiring mana if you're hosting lots of inferior armies.

Can you please clarify what you mean by the 'Elusive' line?

I build it very rarely, it's barely worth it just for the xp bonus, but if there are some level 7 or 9 champions I'm planning to pick up the cost saving helps to justify it.

I think assassins are great as long as you have some way of generating a decent base damage in the early to mid game. A really good weapon, Might, some Lethal traits, burning blade with a couple of fire shards, etc.

employee salaries aren't a tax deductible expense on income in the US??????

I really like the suggestion that the beast only stay controlled with the beast lord. The concept of a wild beast being easier to tame when injured and in pain I don't really buy.

lots of pioneers to bump your score?

Sometimes if I'm very short on mana and need to make the one spell count

34, first stardock game, played AD&D