There already is a way to buff and debuff unrest directly. What would make this loyalty thing any different from that in order to make up for the additional complexity? What can you do with loyalty indirectly that you can't do with unrest directly? What would the difference be between the assassin you are discussing and some assassin with death magic casting antipathy (or whatever the death spell is that increases unrest)?
If I get an early 2nd/3rd hero and I know I am going to ditch it sooner or later then I will often put Healer on it. I don't usually put Healer on my main hero these days except in really unusual circumstances. If, for whatever reason, I don't have any magic spells on my sovereign, I often put Healer and First Aid on my hero in those times, for example. OTOH, I do usually dump 2nd and 3rd heroes when I can make henchmen, so I will put good early game stuff like H
This idea would make things more complicated, but to what end? I haven't played Sins of a Solar Empire before, so you will have to explain to me the benefit you get by adding the additional complexity.
I usually just sacrifice heroes and remake them as henchmen with full gear and bonuses. That being said, I basically never use warriors or rogues. Only Commanders, Mages, and Defenders. Commanders can be really good, because they can counter their own exp splitting with army wide exp bonuses and they can command your most powerful units to take extra turns. Having +INIT for the whole army is great too. If I don't sack new heroes to take their spells, I
I never was a big fan of penalties, because they are always advantageous to the player. If the penalties are too harsh and they aren't worth taking, then the player will just skip them and if the AI takes any the player will be better off. If the most lenient penalty is too lenient then the player will always take it and have an advantage that way instead. Penalties are power gamer heavens I have never really liked them in any games. I use them when they are
I don't think I would use the calming trait very often because I am not an ICS kind of player, but all the AIs are ICS AIs so it should help them a lot, especially since they produce many more units than I do. It just seems like Cleric would be better as a unit trait than as a building. If I am playing with henchmen, I will often make lots of commanders and put them in cities to keep my unrest down. I usually play humans and I do often end up going that route, but
Correct me if I am wrong here, but AFAIK the wild monster difficulty is a completely different setting than the AI faction difficulty. You should be able to keep the wild monster difficulty at normal and put the AI difficulty at ridiculous or whatever. If you do that, the main difficulty increase remains intact and you can exp as usual in the beginning of the game. The beastlord profession is usually going to be a good choice anyway, but it's especially helpful when th
I would agree that the AI does generally try to go really wide and the game does greatly punish that. Anywhere they can find a settleable space they generally settle in it, even if it is a horrible space and no player would ever put a city there. I can understand the idea behind that, because given enough time cities usually pay off and because AIs can't really be taught complex strategy like the kind you would need if you wanted to teach an AI where not to build cities.</
The people who are getting attacked, are you having non-stealthy units in the group being attacked? Maybe the whole group has to have the stealthy trait in order for it to work? If you have a bunch of Aragorns and Legolas's moving through the wilderness and one Willie Sanderson along with them, it would make sense to me that the enemies would be able to detect Willie Sanderson and immediately want to smash him into paste regardless of the fact that he was surrounded by peo
[quote who="Twentyslashdash" reply="65" id="3397557"] Some things that I'd consider 'staple' for a genre such as this, but don't see in the game: "template abilities" i.e. all summons have X, or all constructs have X abilities. How about 'absorb' damage of the same element? I do see some immune out there. Undead is another great template... half damage from piercing? full damage from blunt? etc. Along the same line
[quote who="willie sanderson" reply="5" id="3419123"] Just another way to exploit the ai. Does anyone play a challenging game anymore? Must it always be for FUN? Yeah it's fun exploiting the AI isn't it? lol[/quote] If you are here, you aren't playing a challenging game. Just another of the masses playing unchallenging games. Not the same in that you are much more whiny than the rest of the people, though. - Edit -
I think Willie Sanderson is in a group of players that constitutes roughly 0.0001% of all players. I think Willie Sanderson believes he is in a group that constitutes roughly 99.999% of all players. I think that is the major disconnect here. I think if Stardock implemented his ideas, it would piss off the 99.999% group that he thinks he is in while making the 0.0001% group more happy. I can't think of any better reason not to use any of his ideas.
I don't know about any of you, but I definitely build studies in my towns and fortresses, and often the upgrades of them. It is too simplistic to say build a study in Conclaves and skip it in towns and cities. Yes the conclave will ideally have many more research than what the fortresses and towns will be able to put out, but they still produce a decent chunk of research themselves. I am not entirely sure how much of a difference it makes that the AIs don't build t
The +25% damage Focus spell pays itself off in 5 unit-turns. It takes 4 turns for 25% extra to equal the one turn you wasted doing nothing and the fifth turn puts you 25% of one turn's worth of damage ahead. I have never cast that one before and I doubt I ever will.
Just demand surrender when they are down to 1 city. They will raze it and join you without you having to draw their units out and conquer the city.
You are greatly underrating the usefulness of monuments. You should be building them in every single city without fail. Zones of Control are really important and make a big difference strategically whenever you use them well. You move slower in somebody else's zone of control and they move more slowly in yours. You can cast own-zone-only spells over a wider area when you have more extensive zones of control and you can deny the opponent their ability to cast
I don't know if I mentioned it here or only in other places, but I have singled Haste out as one of the few really useful buffs because it often pays itself off in turns and because the mana cost of it is very low. It doesn't suffer from a lot of the drawbacks that other buffs suffer from. In that respect it is completely different from things like Giant Form. More whole turns is good in a way that more partial turns (Giant For
The problem is more that you have to give the AI some sort of guidelines for how to build and most of the time those guidelines are going to be wrong when applied to any given situation. The guidelines are just that, guidelines. They are plans that you deviate from as necessary and try to get back to. Teaching an AI when deviating is necessary is pretty hard. That is why the only real challenge comes from giving the AI bonuses that the player doesn't have to
Good job proving that I am not an idiot. You did that very well. Thanks. I never was trying to argue that I am an idiot or that I play like an idiot, but it is at least helpful for you to verify that I am not and I don't. We all very much appreciate your efforts. Run along, it's time for adults to talk to adults now. The key thing in all of this is to try to maximize outcomes. That mean
Try this one http://www.addictinggames.com/action-games/theworldshardestgame.jsp BTW, it's not our fault you exist.
Sounds like little willy needs to play some QWOP or maybe FTL.
I guess I can't remember the last time I had an Earth Archmage so I think I have only ever cast Diamondskin once and Giant Form never. Also Cloak of Fear never. I tend to play humans most often, so getting into melee isn't usually a problem. If not I am usually playing with horses, tireless march, and so on. I would rather see the AI casting something offensive if it can't get to where it can attack rather than having it buff itself. A successful
http://www.lifetimeprogress.net/files/SaraiTharana1.EleSav My starting location was Fortress just below the two Towns in the upper right. Second was Conclave just to the left of those two Towns. Third and Fourth were the two Towns. That was all the space that I had. Yithril had everything south and they were able to conquer my first city temporarily right at the beginning of the game, th
In almost all cases, a buff isn't worth the turn and mana spent casting it. Bloom's Taxonomy shows the hierarchy of thinking processes. The highest that anyone has ever been able to code into AI is Analysis. Synthesis and Evaluation are still solely in the domain of humans as of now. Evaluation, in particular, is what you really need in order to be able to determine whether it is worth the mana and the turn to cast a buff and the requisite synthesis framewo
I just don't think the game should force me to stay in the stone age when it lets the AIs advance to the space age, or whatever. Generally, I make my picks to try to limit how bad I could suffer from poor resource distribution. I picked Great Hammers and I was using hammer units specifically to reduce iron dependence and that was a good call because I had no iron until I managed to get +2 iron per turn from one of my cities. Whether I win or not really doesn't ha