This was a big gripe in AOW Shadow Magic! You could kill off the AI's really quickly!
And this is something else I agree with. Too many of these fantasy games allow you to build up some gawd awful powerful character or unit. This kind of retarded design always leads to if/when you lose this character it is usually game over (what I am against) and I am kind of tired of this all powerful one single unit on the map.
What I would rather see is predesigned characters that are balanced and nobody gets any bonuses or experience. That way if you do lose a leader it's not game over because you put so much time into him/her that you'll never be able to build another one back up again.
Already this game sounds just like another remake of all the rest. Build up ONE POWERFUL HERO/WIZARD and win or lose based on usually ONE SINGLE BATTLE between your wizard and the opposing wizard. The rest of the game becomes pretty moot of just trading cities and castles and resources until one or the other is willing to commit to the FINAL BATTLE.
In a nutshell playing against the ai with this type of design is a push over game after game, series after series, expansion after expansion. The ai never protects it's best characters. Even in Warlords it would have a powerful hero and eventually march around the board with that hero alone and I would just pick it off. MOM did the same thing more or less, but, not as bad. ALL of the AOW series heroes did it (worst of the bunch really) and of course HOMM, though I will admit HOMM II has the best programmed AI and AI settings of ALL of them. Other than MOM it's the only other one I'll play.
So, there needs to be a CHANGE from this ONE HERO, ONE WIZARD being the main focus of the game. I'd rather just have leaders like in a HOI or a PANZER GENERAL SCORCHED EARTH that have established stats and spells and items.
Of course from reading this group I'm pretty sure they won't like this idea either because they are too used to OLD FASHIONED ways of playing. Same ole same ole. We've already played the HERO/WIZARD rules all focused games somebody PLEASE make something NEW and DIFFERENT! Put the emphasis on controlling territories and mana nodes and castles and towns not on a single unit.
Nope I wouldn't because that's what I want I want the game to REMAIN CHALLENGING even if I beat a very strong channeler by the seat of my pants...why would I want him/her out of the game? The best part of wargames and strategy and tactics is the CHALLENGE why eliminate a CHALLENGE just because you beat it ONCE? Doesn't mean you will beat it the next time around. That's what is wrong with most games, once you get to the middle game and the tide turns one way it's pretty much game over for the rest of the game because you killed an all powerful character out of the game. I'd 100% rather see that sucker back in the game. Make him goto his rear most castle or town or city after a few turns but don't end the game or make the game less challenging because he/she got beat once.
His "spirit", "essence" or w/e needs to travel back to the tower. It is invisibile and un-attackable, and can travel thru ALL terrain squares. It should be one of the fastest if not the fastest unit in the game. But if it had travelled FAR from the tower (across the world) it should still take significant time to return.
Until the spirit returns and reunites with the corporeal body, the player is in a Sauron state (as he was during the LOTR trilogy). He cannot cast spells himself or imbue or do anything directly, however he is still able to control his troops completely and exactly as always. His cities and armies, heroes, etc remain his. He just cannot take direct action until the spirit returns.
Now I like this idea of a spirit walker and a lot could be done with this idea to make it faster or slower. It can't be attacked but with spirit sight (a spell I just made up) other players could cast slow spells on it or random teleports stuff like that.
This is pretty much what you had to do in DAOC, you were a spirit like a ghost and you moved flying over terrain and pretty fast as I recall. Once you clicked on your tomb you got your stuff back with a little loss of experience but never a level.
Like I said anything except total loss if you lose your channeller is probably going to be ok with me. But, I'm pretty tried of kill the wizard win the game games.
Excellent suggestions Denryu.
So, to clear this up, the tower is also (or contains) a sort of portal? Works for me!
Also, the Channeler will only die IF he is killed AND he no longer has a tower/portal to recorporialize in. Works for me!
As for the penalties a Channeler pays for 'dying/returning', I think losing all the essense and/or the stats he got with his last level is one way of doing it.
HOWEVER, there is a problem with this method. What happens if a Channeler NEVER uses his essense on himself or hoards it? What if he always invests his entire essense into his heroes/buildings/armies?
That would mean he could die repeatedly and never have to worry about losing essense or his stats = cheap lame strategy of using Channeler in all sorts of risky ways because there is no penalty for dying.
The only way around this would be to make Channelers pay a certain amount of essense immediately when they die. If they don't have that amount hoarded up, then they don't get to transform into a spirit and the game is over for them.
I still really don't like the idea of the game automatically providing a safety net. If you send your channeler out carelessly and lose him without having created your own safety net, you should lose (IMHO). I think that would be so much more fun. If your channeler is in combat and it looks like you might lose him, there's already a fairly simple way of remedying the situation - retreat. Depending on retreat mechanics (if they make it in at all *crosses fingers*), you could just send your channeler running and get him the hell out of there.
My thoughts on this are kind of like my thoughts on Obama's healthcare bill. Forcing people to pay for healthcare who don't want to is the wrong way to go about things IMO. Forcing a safety net on people is not the right way to go about things. If a default, perpetual safety net is in place it essentially forces everyone to pay for it - channelers would have to be limited in some way to compensate for it. On the other hand, if safety nets are optional, then you could choose to forego it and thus retain whatever power/essence/mana/whatever you would otherwise have spent on your safety net. It becomes another strategic choice to make - and a very important one! And different people's play styles might be more conducive to one method or another - there's no point in forcing it upon everyone.
That said, your suggestions for how such a safety net could work would still work even if safety nets are optional, and I think you've got a lot of great ideas there. I'm still particularly fond of there being different types of safety nets with different advantages and disadvantages, though - and each should function differently in how it returns the channeler to power.
Elemental is all about player choice. The point is to give the players many many ways of playing the game. Making your channeler, or champions, or anyone, "some gawd awful powerful character unit" is intended to be just one of many viable strategies. If you choose to invest the majority of your resources into a few extraordinarily powerful units and then lose one or more of them, you should pay for it heavily. But the point is, no one is going to force you to play that way. If all goes even remotely according to plan, you could forego creating such a godly powerful unit in favor of amassing huge and powerful armies. Hopefully there will also be mechanics in place such as supply lines to limit the "stack of doom" problem where you simply mass all your military in one place. The combination of all these things would mean that sometimes against some opponents there might be one major, decisive battle. But sometimes, against some opponents there might be a whole series of battles, none of which individually determines the outcome of the conflict.
The only real problem with having all powerful single units on the map is that in most games where such a thing is relevant (ie, heroes exist) that tends to be the most viable strategy, rather than one of many. The all powerful unit isn't the problem, the problem is that there is no real alternative. So if a game like Elemental comes along with the intention of providing not just one, but many alternatives then you have to re-evaluate your prejudices. I guess you don't have to, but you should.
That would be so amazingly boring and I would never forgive Stardock for making such a dismal decision as that. Canned, non-customizable and unimprovable heroes and channelers would completely defeat the purpose of having them in the first place.
No it doesn't. There are so many things different about this game than any other ever made that a statement like that just highlights how clear it is that you have no idea what you're talking about. Especially when you say that while arguing against an uncommon feature. Most games where losing your wizard results in game over provides you with built in safety nets to bring your wizard back from the dead even if you were totally unprepared.
This is perhaps the silliest of your arguments so far. Saying an idea is bad because outdated, inferior AI (even for the time!) isn't capable of handling a feature is just stupid, especially when the game is being developed by Stardock which has a reputation for having some of the best game AIs ever made.
If I ignore the second half of your statement, then Elemental is just the game you're looking for! The intention is not to have the "ONE HERO, ONE WIZARD" being the main focus of the game. Rather it will (hopefully) be one of many equally viable strategies. Like I said before, the problem isn't crazy powerful units, the problem is that most games fail to provide other viable options.I'd rather play a game where I can choose whether to go the crazy powerful team of champions route, the crazy powerful channeler route, the expansionist industrial/military power route, the isolationist questing route, and any combination of the above that I feel like at the time than a game that forces me to play one way with no other options. The former is more fun with longer replayability and a lot more strategy. And for someone who tries to come across as some tough guy whose main concern is how strategic the game would be, your arguments seem to be rather hypocritical.
If you kill a strong channeler by the seat of your pants, then yes the challenge posed by the remnants of his empire will be significantly diminished (defeating an enemy channeler should not amount to conquering his kingdom, though). However, the same is true of you - if you let your channeler die, then you lose. It's not so cut and dry that the challenge would just go down, because it gives you another thing to worry about at the same time.
And regarding reaching the middle of the game and knowing you're going to win and just having to clean up, we and everyone here agrees that that should be avoided. Gameover on channeler death could actually help prevent that (and there are many other methods of doing so, there are entire huge threads about that if you're interested). It means that even if you're a huge mighty empire, you can still be taken out if somebody outthinks you and takes out your channeler. And regardless, gameover on channeler death at the very least does not at all exacerbate the problem - killing an enemy channeler will not turn the entire game in your favor unless you're playing against just one other player, in which case killing the enemy channeler will result in victory anyway and thus the problem is avoided anyway.
lol now I know how ignorant and silly you really are. Stardocks ai isn't any better than the other ai's out there. I have stomped it's ai relentlessly and easily since it is so stupid in the diplomatic department. I have won every game buying the ai off to attack another ai and go in and get my share during each and every war until it comes down to the final two of us and that is such an easy pushover finish.
I can march fleet after fleet right up to an enemy planet and the ai does nothing to stop me. Destroy the handful of ships in space around the planet and then march in with my troup transports maxed out with infantry power and land based attack power and totally destroy any ai opposition.
Stardocks ai is just as dumb as the rest of them out there and the only way it can compete or make the game challenging is if they give it overpowering resources and income. Not one level higher than tough makes the AI any SMARTER on tactics that I've ever seen. Same old ai no matter what higher level you play it on.
Elemental ai will be no different and if you give the game such detais like most of the other ones have except Warlords you're going to find the ai in it will be the same pushover as all the rest.
There's only a handful of games that the ai is sound and actually an AI not a glob of extra resourses or things that stifle the human player. War of the Lance was one of them many many years ago.
Throughout the years and I've played many 35 years plus now I haven't seen much in the way of ai improvements only ai ADVANATAGES and CHEATS. Sorry pal but that's not ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE that's behind the scenes cheating and coverup of a lousy ai.
One of the biggest issues btw of GalCiv2 is when you're inspecting an ai down at the bottom on the MISL row it will tel you what the ai is researching and how many turns before complete WITHOUT HAVING TO USE SPYING. That's the other thing I can destroy the ai with as I will always tech up in those techs first and then sell them to the ai's when they are within 1 or 2 turns of completion. Just another way of showing you the programming was bad for the ai of GalCiv2 as well and I even brought this up on the GalCiv2 forums when patching was being done and they never did anything about it.
So don't go giving me I don't know what I'm talking about. I've probably been gaming a lot longer than you have and played more PC wargames than you'll ever see. I was a beta tester for SSI for years as well. I've seen it all and once again it's rare to see any games AI that is any good nowadays. Giving them 100x more resources or having them see the entire map vs humans is not AI it's cheats and handicaps nothing more.\
But one thing is for certain using the "kill the wizard the entire race dies" is the worst design idea ever as AOW:II and AOW:SM proved that. The single player solo game is so easy even with all the ai's maxed out because once again diplomacy rules and it is so easy to make peace, march your stacks up to the place where the wizard resides and declare war and game over for the ai. Stupidiest most retarded game design I ever saw.
Once again the idea is fine for multiplayer games to get them over quickly, but against the ai it's a horrible design idea.
And one more thing Pigeon all of your statements and comments reek of MULTIPLAYER ideals and if you've been around as long as I have you KNOW the AI will never be able to hold up to those kinds of rules and stipulations you and others want to impose in this game. It never has and it never will where DIPLOMACY is involved. The AI has ALWAYS been a pushover piecemeal when diplomacy is involved and then the rest of the issues it still has never been programmed to really adhere to the rules of the game. Like in the AOW:SM series the ai wouldn't use it's pioneers. Many of the ai's ignore the explorables. Theya re programmed with certain objectives to keep or get and they do stupid things like move back and forth up and down roads and don't attack when it is a sure win if they did or would letting the human player get away with a lone hero after a severe battle where his hero barely escapes and there's an enemy ai stack not 3 clicks from it and they just act like he's not even there.
You want to make a strong ai game stop putting so many variables in the game for players sake and demand. The Warlords series is probably one of the best at this save for Warlords IV and it allowing you to take leaders with their equiment over to the next battles or save them for skirmish mode. Well that little programming feature allowed me to build an invinsible leader vs the AI and he could take out stack after stack solo even on expert mode (although I did group him with those nice 3 headed fire dragons) But, this proves my point about overpowering the middle or end game. Stop with the unlimited ability for a hero/wizard/leader/whatever to grow into an invincible form.
And finally if there is no change and the same comes out of this Elemental as the rest I will certainly be back to tell you "I TOLD YOU SO" But, if they can pull it off and create an AI that can handle ALL THESE THINGS YALL ARE HOPING FOR I'll be the first to Apologize and bow to Stardock, but, I haven't had to do that yet with any game or developer so I'm not too worried about this time either.
Things they must do to pass grade:
1) No grunt rush ability
2) No middle game overpowering characters/wizards/anything
3) An AI that is an AI and not full of cheats and handicaps
4) Slow play tech leveling or building upgrades (too many games bypass the low end units for the rush to the high end units)
5) The ability for the player to tweak and adjust the AGGRESSIVENESS OF EACH INDIVIDUAL AI against him. (AOW1 did this and that was a smart move. But the ai has so many other flaws it didn't really matter) (Civilization IV does this but it is for ALL AI not INDIVIDUALLY) GalCiv2 allows for these kinds of choices I believe, but, custom made AI's are pitiful compared to ingame programmed ai's I've found.
6) No ally diplomacy with the human player. Ai's can ally with each other but never with human player.
7) Ai realization that the human player is winning and allies to form a mass alliance toward the human player to take him down or out.
8) An ai that PLAYS TO WIN not to merely delay the inevitable.
Do all these things and you might have a NEW type game to deliver. Anything less is the same as the rest.
Psychoravin. I think what you want is a different game from the rest of us. Something without RPG elements. Something that is NOT what the developers have clearly stated the game IS going to be. I can see where you're coming from. Although I strongly disagree with disallowing diplomacy with the human player. In any case, maybe you should be looking at a different game.
[...]
Elemental ai will be no different and if you give the game such detais like most of the other ones have [???] except Warlords you're going to find the ai in it will be the same pushover as all the rest.
So don't go giving me I don't know what I'm talking about. I've probably been gaming a lot longer than you have and played more PC wargames than you'll ever see. I was a beta tester for SSI for years as well. I've seen it all and once again it's rare to see any games AI that is any good nowadays.
[...]But one thing is for certain using the "kill the wizard the entire race dies" is the worst design idea ever as AOW:II and AOW:SM proved that.
And one more thing Pigeon all of your statements and comments reek of MULTIPLAYER ideals and if you've been around as long as I have you KNOW the AI will never be able to hold up to those kinds of rules and stipulations you and others want to impose in this game.
[...]And finally if there is no change and the same comes out of this Elemental as the rest I will certainly be back to tell you "I TOLD YOU SO" But, if they can pull it off and create an AI that can handle ALL THESE THINGS YALL ARE HOPING FOR I'll be the first to Apologize and bow to Stardock, but, I haven't had to do that yet with any game or developer so I'm not too worried about this time either.
Things they must do to pass grade:[...]2) No middle game overpowering characters/wizards/anything[...]6) No ally diplomacy with the human player. Ai's can ally with each other but never with human player.7) Ai realization that the human player is winning and allies to form a mass alliance toward the human player to take him down or out.[...]Do all these things and you might have a NEW type game to deliver. Anything less is the same as the rest.
yeah, seriously. "no ally diplomacy for AI to human players"? That is exactly the kind of thing I want. Now I'm willing to go for a difficulty setting where the AI amasses against the human players, but I want to be able to manipulate the AI into attacking OTHER human players. I also don't want to be playing my game, happy as can be, when suddenly I cast a good spell or make a tech-breakthrough and suddenly every enemy lands on my island and starts to rape my face.
I'm not sure what you mean by "grunt rush" ability. This is not starcraft, its a TBS. Have you ever tried to "grunt rush" in Civilization? I mean, I guess you could back in MoM and MoO days, but there are standards for "fortification bonuses" and "castles" and other things that would give an unupgraded unit (where the scaling is a bit less shallow) a tough time. Also, the wizard is supposed to be pretty powerful in this game. If anything there would be "channeler rushing" where you run your channeler over to the nearest other channeler and start messing his stuff up. But on most maps that would be pretty tough.
As far as "kill the wizard = entire race dies" is concerned... I don't think we are going to just copy AoW's image. I would bet the default is something more along the lines of MoM's method of handling wizard death. Still, chances are though, that is only going to be one of several options related to victory conditions.
In AoW, the WHOLE POINT was that your wizard was a weak little wimp that could hurl great spells at remote. You wanted to move him close to the front line, so enemies would be within spell range, but at the same time, you were forced to do everything in your power not to let him be killed. He was like a chess piece (can be captured by a pawn, but wrecks havoc if left unchecked). The wizard is supposed to be able to lead the armies in this one, so something more along the lines of the Supreme Commander in the game by the same name, except hopefully easier to upgrade.
I'm all for not having the AI "cheat". Its a 'shortcut' that has been used for a long time. After games like "Enemy Nations" I figured we'd see an end of that sort of thing, but sometimes there isn't another way to compete with clever players.
Things like AI automatically knowing where I am, even though he should not be able to see me has always upset me. I do agree that is something we should watch to see, and suggest improvements when the beta comes out.
I think a lot of the "confusion" (see: fucknuttery) stems from Ravinpsycho's fundamental missunderstanding in thinking that this is a, I quote; "I've [...] played more PC wargames than you'll ever see." (which is interesting in itself, since apparently, he's got access to a vast number of wargames that no-one else in the gaming community have ever seen - is there perhaps an underground scene of wargamers? Will we even know? Will Ravinpsycho be hunted down and silenced by the mole people because he let it slip? Will we ever know?).
It's a 4x game where the hideously overpowered Channeler, diplomacy and grand strategy all play vital roles. I still think it's an elaborate trolling attempt.
Always annoyed the hell out of me, even in games where it's not a huge problem (most 4x games). In RTS' it's horrible.
Lucmann, it's the Solstice this weekend, not mid-summer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midsommarhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summer
Midsummer's Eve here in Sweden was yesterday. It's celebrated each year on a Friday/Saturday between the 19th and the 16th of June. Summer Solstice, the actual mid-summer, occurs at June 21st this year. It is my hope that it will one day share prominence with that of the Yuletide New Year's Winter Solstice - Midwinter.
Didn't the GC2 AI have to explore to act on its surroundings (at least through 'tough')? But yeah I agree - no fog of war for the AI is the single worst cheat to give the AI in an attempt to make it good because it doesn't just give the AI a bonus, but it actually removes a lot of options from the player. You can't sneak, or go around the back way, or anything like that because it will always see you coming.
And I give up arguing with our resident arrogant psycho. It's like arguing with a cow - it's incapable of rational thought processes, so you'll never make any progress and all you'll get by trying is the smell of cow soaked into your clothing.
I don't think it was ever an attempt to make it better, though, as a cheat. I think it's just been easier not to deal with it at all. I think that making an AI that can prioritize it's scouting efforts ("I think there's a gold mine over there, it makes sense - let's send a scout to confirm") is a lot harder than telling it to "build this there" or "build x, attack y". Since it lacks the ability to reason.
So I think it's just a by-product of lazyness and technology. Not an intended advantage.
My 5 cents.
I think it's fine as long as it isn't pathetically easy to just toss together a huge army and steamroll to the enemy wizard and focus fire him, thus ending the game.
One of my biggest pet peeves with Age of Wonders was how your supposedly god-like wizard could be taken out by a couple of midget leprechauns in as little as two turns or by a single dragon attack. It made the best strategy rushing the enemy wizard all the time, everytime. Even stationing several stacks of cannons on a fully upgraded town wouldnt save you.
I have finally made my way through this entire thread We certainly are an opinionated, not to mention verbose, bunch
Personally I'm in favour of having some way back into the game when your channeler dies my reasoning for which is as follows. I like to view games, especially sandbox 4x type games, as having a narrative arc just like a movie or book. Now pretty much the most satisfying narrative arc (and hence the most ubiquitous in all areas of fiction) is one where the protaganist overcomes incredible odds and set backs to eventually come back and triumph. As such I'd be delighted if there was a way for the channeler to die and yet still be able to rise again in order to overcome that ultimate set back, whether this be via some all purpose safety net or something that you'd have to set up yourself (as advocated by Pigeonx2) I'm not hugely fussed about.
Looking at the problem in this light however can be instructive as to what sort of system would be most appropriate with regard to the actual dying/rebirth mechanics. What I want to see is death being a real setback, the biggest in the game potentially, but also something from which you can come back and not just limp on to the end of the game but, with good play, still potentially end up winning. As a result I would suggest something along these lines (which is fairly similar and could be fitted into the scheme that Denryu suggested earlier); the channeler dies in battle, you then play on as a channelerless faction with your existing infrastructure for a set period of time while your subjects cast the relevant rituals/your soul is drawn back to the Saurony ring, whatever. Now in ths period you will have no magic at your disposal (other than from your heroes, but nothing your channaler would usually cast), your cities have a massively increased unrest rate such that production etc is vastly reduced and there is a much higher chance of cities defecting to other factions with high influence levels. As a result your empire is really laid open and the channaler who has killed you gets a huge advantage and if they're organised and ready they can potentially make huge ingress into, if not entirely take over your empire. Now after this set period of time your channeler comes back (I'm thinking something like 30 turns for this to happen, I'm getting the sense that the empires in Elemental will be fairly small, say 10 cities or less, and this seems like a reasonable time for enemy forces to set about taking everything) and you begin to play as normal (although with no mana in the bank, as this was used up in whatever happened to bring you back). You then can attempt to fight back and hopefully reconquer your potentially hugely diminished empire (if the forces that remained whie you were away were even able to keep you in the game).
One thing I would say is that I'm opposed to any hit to your essence on being reborn, I think that having a potentially massively reduced empire, no mana store, and not to mention how far you'll be behind in terms of research etc having missed those 30 turns are more than enough sanction to make death a truly painful event. My thinking is that, though all these things are bad, they can still be overcome and replenished with good play in the future.. essence on the other hand cannot (as far as we're aware). As a result losing signficant amounts of essence on rebirth would for me mean playing the rest of the game with a gimped channeler and I think I'd find that so annoying that I'd never play through and would probably just reload prior to death :<
So yeah, to sum up, I think death should have huge drawbacks.. but they need to be impermanent and surmountable otherwise there's really no point in having your channeler come back and the game should indeed end on death.
I think that a lot of these fears will be mitigated by the relative power of the sovereign. In AOW, wizards weren't much better than lower tier combat units. From what Stardock has suggested, the sovereign will chew through combat units almost effortlessly.
I would love it that you would have to forge alliances and such before you can send your armies away. This also makes it such that you cannot just steamroll everyone because you will need to stay on the safe side to defend your wizard if the need arises.
Without knowing the strength of the channeler and the exact roles it fills, I don't know how a real opinion could be made. Supreme Commander's title character was a powerhouse unit early in the game, great at building and attacking. As the game progressed, it had to be used a bit more cautiously from the front as large numbers of Tier 1/some Tier 2 units could actually take it down fairly quickly. Towards the end game of SupCom, the Commander was generally made either into an assassin or builder (often the latter) by upgrades, and great deal of focus went to preserving your commander while trying to kill the other guy's. In that game, death of the Commander meant game over on default (with an option to make it not; though the Commander was a walking nuke, so it generally ended badly anyways), but he could provide a lot of his strength without having to even be on the front of battle (and thus no significant risk of one lost minor front line skirmish with a lucky snipe resulting in game over).
So again, it really depends all on how the channeler plays out, and I really think deciding (default) victory conditions without knowing all the little details would be a bit silly. There's also always options.
Personally I feel the setup should be done similar to the Dominions_3 method.... let me explain the details:
1) Every player chooses their image which fights to become the god of the realm which will be controlling a race/nation. This image might be one of many titans, one of many monsters, one of many mages, one of many immobile forms, etc., etc., . Each one of these forms has its own point cost and points can be used for other things which help the nation.
2) Once this pretender god is killed in battle it takes a permanent loss of magic paths and is effectively out of the game for many turns. The pretender may have one or more battle afflictions as the result of fighting as well. The pretender god is only returned to the capital after many priests have spent several of their turns doing nothing except the "Call God" action.
Needless to say the death is not game over, but it's a devastating blow. The blow can be made more devastating in Elemental by having some magic or other resource cost also associated with bringing back the sovereign.
If the game will have death as permanent game over then it seems unlikely someone will choose the Sauron(Titan) approach especially by mid and late game. Some of the wandering independents such as being unlucky to encounter a rare dragon would kill a new sovereign during early game.
Sounds sensible to me. If Sauron had kept his forces guarding his backyard rather than sending them off on a field-trip he'd have conquered Middle Earth.
Personally i see no difference in terms of gameplay either way.
I prefer the game ends if the sovereign dies.
If somehow people are able to rush and kill sovereigns in the early game stage, then i would think that is more of a problem with gameplay balancing issues rather than a gameplay mechanic issue.
I second NTJedi suggestion, this works pretty well in Dominions.
Well, if sovereign death causes game over, and soveregns are very powerful. what you're going result is build towards a sovereign rush of some sort that is basically a suicide. Either it works and you win, or you lose the game. But at the same time, it could a tough to pull off but high risk game strategy that is both plausable and risky. I mean we have to see how the game is once its out, since we don't know enough about the core gameplay at this point.
"In MoM, if you "died" you could cast the spell of return to get back into the game. It had a couple of caveats though:
1. you needed to have enough magic available to cast it.
2. You couldn't do any other magic while you are "away".
3. Casting the spell could take quite a number of turns during which your troops had to fend off the enemy without support."
I also feel this is the superior method of handling prime Avatar death. So long as there is some place left you control that you can be summoned back to, and provided you have the mana, you can get back in the game. Even when an enemy has a large empire, it is still worthwhile to kill him if you can, as the advantage you get from his being 'out of the game' for a few turns is signifigant. This mechanic makes the game feel more fair to the single player, and keeps diversity in the game. I always am a little dissapointed when an NPC slaughters several of our mutual enemies before I get the chance to take a whack at them.
Personally, the idea of weakening my channeler to strengthen my nation really appeals to me.. and as such, I'm very pleased with the idea that if he is killed, my nation will die, as it will be another thing to consider if I use such a strategy. If that were not to happen, I wouldn't see a point in making an ultra-powerful channeler. I would just spend all the essence I can to strengthen my nation, knowing that it could go on without that unit.
There are many great features available to you once you register, including:
Sign in or Create Account
