Thanks for the efforts. I hope you agree that a challenging ending would elevate this game to a new level of awesome, and better units will help as long as they aren't misused too noticeably. It will be interesting to see what you can do once you see what Frogboy is hatching for the next update. I look forward to the day when the programming is tweaked so well that the "AI" won't need large artificial bonuses to compete.
[quote who="Frogboy" reply="35" id="3468462"] I think the best path to take is to assume what I do for 1.7 will break the game, make it suck and cause cancer to your pets. That way, if it merely catches your computer on fire, you came out ahead. 1.7 won't do what you're looking to do with the factions. I'd have to do a full on major update (probably around 40 engineering hours) to do that. For 1.7, I have 16 hours total. The DLC is wha
Heh, people are like rats (only sometimes more clever). If you leave behind a habitable place, they will stay there and breed and resent you, so if you really want to wipe out their entire population, you must salt the earth, so to speak--that's the nature of true razing, making the spot uninhabitable. This is the one of the few things that makes razing in game a slight tactical choice against keeping the city and dealing with its defense/unrest. The diplomatic hit never
Frogboy, I warn you that you're getting our hopes up, especially for vets who dream that the FE factions will someday act in varied, clever ways like the GalCiv2 factions did. So much of the challenge and enjoyment comes from how the AI uses the resources it's given. Squandering them = endgame letdown, whereas using clever tactics = endgame hustle/reaction strategy. For example, I think Tarth ought to use lots of guerrilla tactics (which matches their
[quote who="DsRaider" reply="44" id="3467450"] One of the things I really tried to do with this mod was fix the low Initiative thing. I did this by adding and changing a bunch of unit designs for every faction to include the Fast trait and swords mostly. I made a lot of changes to archers in particular, by adding Fast and Soldier's Boots for +3 Initiative. I think the average Initiative of AI units is a fair bit higher with this mod. Without it they tend to build a lot of 12 I
Just tried this mod (my first non-vanilla game in a year or more), and it's a step in the right direction. A Challenging/Hard level start now better lives up to its name, though it's still fairly easy to fend off attackers (more aggressive AI that's incompetent isn't much different than AI that is passive--I guess this is something that must be addressed with core AI rather than modding, which I view much like using bandaids to "mend" a broken bone). Great effort s
Though I burned myself out during the betas, I occasionally return to this game, amusing myself with different custom builds and oddball actions. Yet, the fun is still stymied by terrible AI and the often tedious endgame--problems that drove me back to these forums after many months away. Happy to see some clear thinkers still chipping away at the problems. I hope devs/modders have been digesting these ideas and figuring out how to convert them from theory to implemented. Brad s
Had I not had a Strong-rated army, this "Weak" quest would have destroyed me, so consider marking it at least "Medium" (2 nice fights of 4 monsters that are quick and poisonous--the second fight also includes a nasty caster). Also, the quest offered no reward for completing it (should at least be able to make some cure poison potions or gain a small resist poison (20%?) to the quest group).
Another suggestion would be beefing up diplomacy to make it as meaningful as it is amusing. A good and simple start was discussed here .
Great points. The lack of smoothly upgrading weapons tends to make me stick with spears (they are first and also the smoothest to upgrade, and the lightning pike is a joy to use on troops who have seen lots of combat). If other paths were as smooth and rewarding, then it would be a much tougher call (and encourage more variety). Even though most traits now are roughly equal, I disagree with your 3rd point in this way: We need more traits later on that are worth resea
Hopefully the devs balance with this in mind: when you take the edge off everything, and the game becomes dull. Gamers will have no incentive to try other paths/options. For example, if you take too much of the special power from essence, then it no longer becomes a resource to build around, to hunt for. Honest questions here: Why is it OP when everyone can use something (like essence) equally? What would be gained by making it less worth having? The same can
I checked 3 pages of bugs and saw nothing on this, but pardon if it's a repetition. *When casting Pillar of Flame on enemy armies, it often reduces their health (say, from 200 health to 40) yet makes them immune to attack, where my unit will be stuck in a running/moving animation until I cancel that order. This happened with multiple armies, even against a unit I did NOT cast Pillar on (I cast it on one unit and it bugged, then went to attack a different enemy
As much as the clumsy sovereign deserves it, a miss-hit should probably not trigger a counterattack from his own guys.
First of all, thank you, Gents (in the non-specific gender usage), for your work on this game--may history praise your efforts! Perhaps 20 years from now, a game designer will call their game "the spiritual successor of Fallen Enchantress." ( 1 ) We know how critical people can be of a game with potential that falls short (I keenly remember the disappointment), so the more you can keep Elemental: WOM in the past, the better (except the hard-l
When building a scrying pool (adding an essence to a city), some of the per-essence buffs are automatically updated (like Hammers and Meditation) but Inspiration does NOT update. This makes the player have to cancel and re-cast the buff if they want that extra research point (which can be significant in the early expansion game).
I think it's silly to have someone so fast they attack 3 times for an opponent's single attack--IMO, that's impossible to justify. Since early beta3, I've never bothered with armor above leather, because speed did what armor could not (and my 32 init bowmen were true god-slayers). I find myself focused only on init, and that tells me armor is too underwhelming (we want everything to be tactical choices, not obvious ones, right?). Human's tend to go from o
I'm guessing it's there for us beta testers to quickly "finish out" a game so we can begin testing anew. I mean come on, we don't get some special perk or "games played" award or anything, so it's not really broken to avoid the far worse draggy endgame. I expect as a part of the balancing stage, this option will be balanced more like you mentioned, with it taking considerably more effort to bring them to heel (like destroying 80+% of their armies, taking half or mo
Seems corrupted games are an issue--glad it isn't just me. I won my first by playing solid for about 12 hours and speeding up the laborious conquest finish by bullying the AI into surrendering. My second game was played in smaller sessions over three days with the idea of a full clear (large map), but my plans were halted by non-loadable saves from the previous day.
The other factor you might not be consider, DGB, is how hugely variable your mana pool is from game to game. You expand near a bunch of shards (or play with the shard setting to "dense") and mana is far easier to come by (in one default-option game, I was getting 100+ mana per turn near the end, so I played around with those spells simply because I had mana to burn). That said, balancing will be a focus of the devs soon, and magic could certainly use some serious
Also, it seems cursing a city does not show up, except in the fine details, so I suggest making a graphic display on the affected city (changing the color of the city bar to something not in that empire's palate? a pulsing glow might be harder, but a really nice UI trick). The frustrated/impotent ranting from an opponent that's about to get beat is a really nice touch, though (she had no chance of winning, so she curses a city and brags about it, heh).
I believe the next major changes will include balancing, but it never hurts to get a head start, heh. Good points to consider, though I feel the AI opponents should ultimately provide a tougher challenge than most monsters; the wilderness critters exist because you have not come along to clean them out yet (and should not be on par with the might of another developing nation). Once our dedicated devs get the gameplay mechanics just right, they can focus on these kinds of balanci
***When I built an outpost with only one square of forest in reach, I could build the initial mill (or whatever it's called), but then it never gave me the option to upgrade that building (and it did for other cities near more forest--this is a guess at the reason of the problem). On a related note, I see the final buildings take more commitment to build (15-20 turns in a built-up city), so be careful you don't make them so steep with so little benefit that no one will even buil
Heh, SS. I've had 2 wildly different starts so far in beta4--both require different strats than what worked in beta3, of course. Good stuff, and makes for interesting testing (being a guinea pig never felt so good!).
A level 5 spell is now (appropriately) hard to come by with the higher xp/level curve, so the level 5 earth spell, even if it -did- perform this task, would not remove the poor mechanics of the lost fertility. A current workaround: It seems fertility is recalculated when a new structure is placed nearby. I've had several outpost placements reveal town sites that were not there before the outpost, so often when I go on a razing rampage (and I always dislike the
Another couple of things I noticed. ***It seems you can build multiple consular improvements from the same outpost and get the +1 bonus each time. This might have been from the fact that one of my cities had enveloped the initial outpost (it was the magical kind of outpost, if that matters), but I saw the consular option still available after completing the initial improvement, checking that the bonus was applied my fortress, and tried building another. It l