Madcatter

I think a solution to the pioneer spam would be pioneers not placing down a city immediately, but rather a base improvement that would then need to be built up using their home city's build queue while consuming growth. These pre-settlements would also cause nearby monsters to attack before they were complete, so throwing up cities in frontier territory is dangerous unless you're committed to their defense. This method thus makes expansion more gradual and the only early-on cr

There's been something for a while that prevents you from building over plots that have been razed. Basically, if you don't beat the AI to the pioneer rush you either lose the spot entirely (Razed) or have to deal with the conquest penalties.

My first impression? Well, let's see... https://dl.dropbox.com/u/38820453/MonsterParty.png From Tarth's expansion I see that the rather unfun pioneer spam phase of the game is still there, and now I've got a bunch of strong/deadly monsters from the SW who've decided, for whatever reason, to form a conga line through my territory. Even though these problems are older t

[quote who="Heavenfall" reply="6" id="3156943"]Isn't that how it works now?[/quote] Right now some weapons get an inherent initiative bonus (e.g. daggers) while others get an inherent malus (e.g. hammers). His intent is to simply make hammers have a higher weight value and the initiative penalty will come directly from encumbrance, allowing it to be mitigated if the wielder is particularly strong.

If you pre-order Fallen Enchantress you get into the Beta as well. Get FE.

Late game you get access to a few methods. There are two spells. One (Devotion iirc) is an Enchantment and while active on a city it reduces Unrest by a flat -10%. The other is one of the late-game "boost" spells (Blessing?) which costs a /ton/ of mana but permanently lowers Unrest by 5% and can stack. Later on you also gain access to Prisons (Level 4 upgrade, -1 Growth to this city, -10% Unrest in all cities) and the Ivory Throne (Level 5 upgrade

I'm a bit worried about the No Free Defenders penalty for conquered cities being permanent. As pointed out, it strongly encourages razing over keeping a (relatively) dead weight city on your hands. Couldn't this restriction be placed on cities depending on unrest levels or something that eventually will go away?

Can't wait to give this new version a spin. [quote]When a large, battle-scarred trog warrior falls in love with a rhinoceros......[/quote] In the immortal words of George Takei: "Oh my"

[quote who="agmar" reply="18" id="3155847"]You know what? I'm beginning to feel like the OP. It's not that the AI is hard, quite the contrary. But some of the things that were awesome and fun a month ago, like exploring, doing quest and clearing the surrounding of my capital, are now frustrating. I need an army to kill most "weak" monsters or at least 2 or 3 champions, and I can't find quest that don't get me killed in the beginning of the game.[/quote]

[quote who="Lord Xia" reply="4" id="3154975"]Oh yea, it's a Diablo day today. Are there any other nerds out there that don't "get" all the Diablo love? I feel like I'm alone in this. [/quote] The more I read about it the less interested I became. I was all about D2 and its multiplayer but this version stinks of exploitation and a lot of design choices that denigrate the gameplay I enjoyed.

[quote who="Sunjah_Kahn" reply="4" id="3154908"] Quoting NorsemanViking, reply 2I like the pace now, so radical changes in pace is not needed, and would make your early decissions less valuable. Better add a super fast mode for those not blessed with any patience..... It is not a matter of patience, it is a matter of boredom. If a setting is marked as "fast", then it should be fast. 17 turns to get one building in the very beginning of the game is not fast.[/quote] &n

[quote who="Satrhan" reply="31" id="3154883"]Don't like it, see my post above.[/quote] Assume the bonus from roads is with a supply chain and locals aiding the travelers. Armies outside of friendly territory have to either hunt for their own food or raid nearby homes to supply themselves in enemy territory.

[quote quoting="post"]So why? I was thinking this has the potential to solve many issues. First champions would not be able to fight wars alone against other civilizations(taking cities etc.) which imho they allready can't, but some seem to be able to... dunno.[/quote] It's very easy. It seems every character I get to Level 14 or higher tackles entire armies by themselves and I wonder what use a military is besides as garrison for when my heroes aren't aroun

I'm with those who favor improving militia and more options for improving them than some "Eternal Guardian". The EG simply doesn't fit with the game as well, imo. As for the 4/4 start... well, there are other ways one city can be better or worse, such as access to a river or forest. I kinda like how things stand where I get to drop the city where I please. Perhaps instead the first city would increase tile Grain and Material to a minimum of 4? Since the highest

There are a few traits that are really lacking imo, but Quick/Fast aren't among them. Finesse I think is among the most worthless of upgrades. +3 Accuracy if they have a lower initiative? Even though I often create initiative monsters this is practically worthless. It really needs to be changed drastically. +10 to +20 range, not +3, and even then Accuracy tends not to be a problem later on unless you're fighting other heroes (although with how the AI plays, they don't create 50+ D

It's been suggested elsewhere (can't remember where I first heard it) but one idea I liked was to display spell information with the combined effect of all shards/powers instead of the X + X per shard we have currently. It's more immediately pertinent and the actual effect for having more shards can be contained just below. I'd like it if I didn't have a long snake of quick select icons to always scroll through once my empire has grown large. Perhaps

[quote who="Malsqueek" reply="5" id="3152909"]Based upon what I've seen, Fire is pretty much the only Spell School whose Tiers 1-5 are all useful. Earth 1 is pretty well worthless Early game because of Mana requirements, Water in general until T5. Air T1 is great, and then not again until T4. I would like a reason to play with all the schools, and not "Fire and one other after T4"[/quote] Earth 1 provides an elemental resistance buff and city production b

[quote quoting="post"]The current Magic system lacks information - Even in the Hierge-whatever, the giant list of all spells doesn't say word one about WHICH level of WHICH elements of magic you need to have to be able to cast it.[/quote] What's the little symbol/text under "Prerequisites" then? [quote]The current Magic system lacks Choice - Every single time you choose Apprentice level Fire talent, you get exactly the same set of spells. I can&

[quote who="Jairone" reply="13" id="3152056"]You have to do all the sub-quests for the dragon statues, and return to the one that sent you after the eyes of the other two. This will cause the master quest battle sequence to happen. The fight is indeed likely the toughest you will face in a normal game (Unless the AI is set to a really high difficulty, and even then it might be.) It has very good rewards, however... and wins the game if master quest win mode is enabled.[

While I love Multiplayer as it allows me as a user to share my experience with others, there should foremost be a solid game underneath that I'm glad to share. It also cannot be tacked on as an afterthought or else it'll end up being a frustrating experience for everybody. So imo it seems bundling a well tested Multiplayer in a later expansion after there's a strong core game would be the wisest course of action if you're running on limited resources.

[quote who="SeraphLeviathan" reply="37" id="3151477"]I've already seen it. Queen Procipine walks right up to a Forest Drake and... nothing. If I did that, he would have instantly attacked me.[/quote] My most recent game had a Forest Drake that literally walked over AI Kraxis and proceeded to meander about until my sovereign came along. The walking over may be due to the movement oddities, but the drake certainly didn't seem very interested in the fellow despite

I'd prefer if development focused on adding more ways to deal with it. To use a game analogy: we're playing Barbarian Hordes mode Civ4 with no Warrior unit. Given the disparity in power between certain units like Umberdroths and what you can build in the first several turns it's rather impossible to do anything about them when they do appear, even if you're being very careful about triggering them. ------------------------------------------- Solu

I've encountered the exact same issue with her. Not sure if it's intentional or not.

[quote who="ChungasRevenge" reply="1" id="3151176"]5.9MB bmp? Could you not have converted to jpg before uploading? he does have a lot of greaves however[/quote] Ah, my bad. Pulled an all nighter so my brain was even more scattered than it usually is.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/38820453/MagnarAILovesGreaves.jpg A picture says a thousand words. Not really sure how that happened. Large Mountainous Map, all settings normal. Not a graphic problem as I sold them at a store later on. I did reload a bit during that game so it might be a factor. I tend to notice a lot of things go haywire when reloading a save. [BUG?] I'm not sure