I seriously cannot lose even on the highest difficulty. It was fun for a few games but then it just gets a bit boring knowing you will win every game, not to mention almost every battle.
I have only lost 1-2 cities EVER which I quickly recovered.
Now let me say that I have lost in enemy territory when my sovereign failed a couple defense rolls but otherwise, even if I lose a battle or two I am always able to recover quickly once my mana regens. Also if I park my sovereign in friendly territory and just imbue a bunch of Champions...
I feel like I have to intentionally gimp myself. Meaning NOT giving all my Champions bows, not researching archery. Not summoning creatures, not using magic in combat. All the things that actually make the game fun.
Other games on the highest difficulty are actually difficult. Meaning if you crank it up that high you should be prepared to lose and lose A LOT.
It should be a case of "careful what you wish for"
So, I'm curious to hear from anyone that has actually lost past turn 100 for example when employing even moderate strategy.
No, and I'm beginning to understand why, it's a bottleneck in the building queue. Basically, you can crank up the economy of the AI to very high levels but the AI can still only build so many units in x many turns. If you have a strategy that can overcome that production capability, you can beat the AI on any difficulty. What the difficulty setting needs to do is give AI bonuses to their training time and construction time. This way, they can pump out more units and build faster, and thus is able to field an army of fodder that might be able to survive your first strike onslaught. That is, of course, assuming you don't use cheap strategies that target their sovereign to make all their work pointless.
I've never lost and I play on ridiculous every time.
I lose all the time. I like to play a slow game and build my cities and here comes the AI with it's ginormous armies. This is on "novice", BTW.
well I feel like crap...
I have not won a game yet on normal mode, or any mode actually. I get spread thin in a race for resource nodes, money shortages make it so I cannot build any type of army. I race to lightening, then chain lightening, and summon some sort of familiar, imbue the first dude that comes along with a high int and start to chase monsters around for their money.
I probably COULD be more agressive, I always try to avoid conflict with the AI until I have some protection for my cities. I guess I am so enamored with chasing the quests and monsters that I neglect crushing the other AI guys. From what I read I definately need to be more agressive.
Never once, and I always play on "ridiculous".
Only in my first (non campaign) game. After that I was able to develop a strategy that worked.
Yes I agree completely with this. The fact that the game doesn't have a "buy it now" option for production seems like an oversight. When pressed the AI should be able to counter you by quickly building up a given city
I lost a game once. I forgot to turn the battle threshold option down after a patch that reset the value. So my sovereign got whooped in hostile territory.
If you play slow and try to develope really nice single cities you will get blown away, but if you city spam and just try for maximum output, you will win everytime.
I rarely, if ever, spam cities. Unless you consider building 3-4 cities the whole game spamming
For anyone watching this thread that can't win every time. Here is the no fail strategy.
Spolier alert:
1. take any random attributes when building your soverign, it won't really matter.
2. Build a tech and arcane building
3. Research archery for tech and head for Infernal for spells
4. Imbue every champion you find
5. Buy them each a bow
6. Once you get the Infernal spell head toward Fire Giant
7. Summon one fire giant for each Champion
8. Take this stack of bow wielding spell casters and steamroll everyone in your path.
The last game I played I had something like 10 cities by like turn 100-150. Of those, 8 were fully functioning producing some value. I am actually happy with some of the tradeoffs that cities have to make now. While the changes in the new patch doesnt keep me from spamming cities, it does make choosing city improvements a much greater choice...Well that is until I start getting like 2 caravans per turn and they all go to food producing cities. Personally I think caravans should trade based on the what kind of buildings are present at each end. Like if you have a bunch of gold buildings at the home city and food at the destination, then there should be a lose of gold for the addition of food. This would make using caravans more meaningful and where they go far more effective.
how do you get all the resources? on even a moderate sized map the 5-tile rule leaves out quite a bit, so i always end up having to city spam... is there something i'm missing in reference to that?
I never "spam" cities, I usually just takeover all the ones I need. I maybe make 1-2 pioneers but otherwise I fuel my resources by conquest.
I have my thoughts and opinions on the AI:
https://forums.elementalgame.com/397139
Actually, it's been my experience that most strategy RTS & TBS games don't have good AIs on any difficulty, those with good AI are few & far in betweeen
Thanks for the post Frogboy, seems like a logical way to balance it. You shouldnt be able to have a giant army of really powerful summoned creatures AND very powerful spells, something has to give. What will be nice is that if you dismiss your army (presumably because they just conquered a few cities) then that mana per turn should go back into the pool to build back up so you can either summon creatures in another spot or just use it for nukes.
I also like the idea of making shards VERY important as strategic resources. PLEASE make sure the AI defends these ferociously and also tries to capture a few enemy ones as well. This will make planting cities next to shards even more meaningful to encase them in city walls. Currently I really don't defend any resources since the AI doesn't seem to go around destroying them very much.
Elemental War of Shards
Honestly, I haven't played since right after 1.07 came out since it was akin to taking candy from a baby... one who's eyes have yet to open (kitten perhaps?) The point being that there is zero challenge in the current incarnation of the game short of artificial ones.
Anyhoo, I almost always made a beeline down the adventuring tree and once I hit notables level 3, I couldn't buy stuff fast enough to outpace my income (level 3 treasure chests are just that).
This really seems like an interesting way to solve this particular problem. However, I think this needs to be in done in conjunction with making normal units more interesting. I feel like most people stumbled across the sov/champ/summon strategy simply because normal units just can not compete with it. While the changes yall are making in terms of limiting how incredibly powerful a summon stack can get, we are then left with the back and forth smash fest that is normal unit combat. Personally I believe that unit equipment should confer a role to the soldier, by giving some usable ability which epitomizes the role. For example, a boar spear could give a unit the ability to step up a spear wall, making them far better defenders, or an axe unit could use berserk making them great attackers with very weak defense. In this way, the AI could determine the relative strength of an army based up what roles have what weight for their given needs.
At what size of map you played? I can win any game at tiny, even middle, while lost a lot at Large map.
ps: at Normal hard level
In version 1.07, the AI rushed me with 3 12-man squads of sions. I had nothing that could stop them. NOTHING! The game ended with my sovereign and his two children holding my capital by themselves. They all had about 50 essence, so I relegated one of my kids to just blowing the stacks back, while my son and I hammered them with everything we could. It felt amazingly epic, and even though I knew it was a lost cause, I felt suitably heroic fighting on as my family died one by one. Probably the most awe-inspiring last stand I've ever had in a game.
You had nothing by the time you had 2 grown children? That's hardly a rush
Anyway, my current game is on a large map (on hard, normal pacing). I ended up with only 1 neighbour, an Empire (I'm was plaing as Tarth).
As usual in the 1,08, they started sending threaths, I paid the first one but knew it wouldn't last long so started building a few squads and manned my closest cities. And sure enough they started suiciding their armies against those. Eventhough their armies should have easily beaten me, I hardly took any damage. Putting my squads with spears or axes in front, let them come to you without hitting you, then deflect and hit away. It mows them down easily enough.
It doesn't help either that their children are armed with just a fishing knife and whatever clothes they spawned with. You can pick those off easily as well before they can cast anything.
After taking all their cities, I ended up nexto the other kingdoms who were all friendly to me as I now had a pretty big army. So I'm just playing a bit now to see how much offspring I can create This is my longest game yet (600 turns or so) but I felt like I had won the game a long time ago. I doubt anyone will stand up against me now. Got like hoards of children and grandchildren that are pretty strong now. I'm actually trying to kill off my sovereign atm so my first born daughter becomes sovereign and can get married. Haven't seen that happen yet. It's becoming increasingly hard though, as the game seems to crash very often late game.
I haven't lost a game yet, but it can be challenging when the enemy keeps pumping out armies and turns against you. I haven't actually "won" a game either, I usually restart because it becomes a grindfest, but you know you've won since I can pretty much oneshot anything then.
I've never lost either. Hardest level against 5 hostile empires and it barely gives a challenge. 1.08 does play a little better but way more is needed in AI department. For one, computer just isnt aggresive enough. I leave cities unportected all the time. It doesnt fight well on tactical either.
Lol, I had an army, it just was not very well equipped. I had managed to get married in the first 10 or so turns, and decided to go for one of the non-militaristic victories. SO most of my research was into the trees other than military.
Actually, I find they are way too aggressive. I will regularly lure them to attack empty cities only to destroy their entire army one teleport later. A lot of the time this involve their sovereign and thus their kingdom as well. Making them aggressive would just make them more prone to this kind of luring strategy.
As for going for other victories. Most victories requires an army. Diplomacy needs one to make people fear you (and thus easier to ally). Sometimes you'll need the army to smash one side of a war. Master Quest needs a small one that can do the quest, although this is probably the easiest one (and thus requiring the smallest army). Spell of Making takes forever, so you basically needs an army to survive that long. So in the end, you need an army whatever you do... so don't ignore warfare. Just optimize a strategy that would have you research the least techs for the most benefit.
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