The release team went with v1.2b instead of v1.29 but it's the v1.3 beta.
Well? What do you guys think?
Hi Frogboy,
could you say, when will there be the next patch or a fix for this one? It would be nice to play/test more with the new features, but at the moment with the new population-system out of control, it is not really meaningful.
Thanks.
I've stopped playing until the next patch as well. The population bug is a real killer.
I think demanding a larger and larger pool of available specialists to build repeatable buildings is a workable idea - but this should be a check, not the actual cost of the building. The purpose of the dynamic is to slow and restrict building, not mysteriously vanish huge (unskilled) groups of the population. If my tenth study has an increased cost of 100 specialists, I should not be able to build one unless I have that many free population. But when I build it, it should actually only cost the same as my first one, and all those people should remain available. Then, if my eleventh study has an increased cost of 200 specialists, I should not be able to build one until I have that many free pop (it's increasingly difficult to find good people), but to actually build it, should only cost the basic amount (no matter how difficult it is to find good people, once you find them, it is them who you take - not all the people you passed over in your search for them). This would restrict expansion, while freeing up population for soldiering - it would also solve the problem of capturing cities as the occupation costs would not suddenly add so much 'used' population.
I like this idea. To go with it, I would also change taxes so only unused population generate them. In my games, I still get gildar runaway where after a couple of hundred turns, money is no object.
The logic behind this is that if you (the government) are using people, then you are paying them and obviously are not collecting more taxes than what you are paying. So to implement this in a simple manner, only your "available" population generate taxes.
I agree with this. It's just a question of whether I'm able to do it as I'm not familiar with that code.
If simultaneous damage is introduced with the current HPs it will look bloody funny where each units attacks another and both die as a result. A real WTF moment.
Simultaneous damage is being considered to overcome the first-strike imbalance within the game which the AI can't handle. Please consider other options before just dumbing down tactical combat to solve this. With simultaneous damage turned on it won't solve the missile imbalance either. There has got to be a solution that makes use of dexterity, weapon type, defences, movement (charging - shield wall etc) which would make tactical combat much more engaging. Also factors like having units positioned next to other units to get a morale bonus etc.
The real underlying problem is that concepts within the game have been simplified to the point that they just become hard numbers (and usually without any sort of subtlety) taking a lot away from the game as a strategy game. And so to solve it, instead of addressing the underlying issues, we get more number tweaks to an already flawed concept.
Simultaneous damage will help the AI overcome its inability to discern targets and its inability to use movement. But all its going to do is make the outcome pretty much a predetermined outcome and as such why bother with tactical combat at all? Just get rid of the dog and leave 'auto resolve'.
Simultaneous damage wont solve anything. We need more HP to start with, then we can build from there. 10-20 times more hp then we can have some real battles. TC needs to be deeper and take more part in the game.
Groups of units should be really powerful and champions should be units that can buff the groups. Only powerful champions should be able to pick fights with grouped units directly. There should also be a penalty for moving past an enemy unit so that we can actually engage a unit/group in battle, not just strike them and watch them run away to kill the sovereign or whatever. The "tank" units should fight it out in the middle, the ranged/magic/support units stay in the back and quick/mounted units should try to go on a flank to try to reach the support units.
(It would be cool if we could mod hp...)
I'm very sure we can mod hp, it's even fairly easy.
Tell me how so that I can start playing this damn game for real!
Why are we constantly scraping around for ideas to make the citizen system work though?
In the event that it even did work as intended, what would it add to the game? A limit on how many buildings you can build based on population? If you want to have that in the game, just limit the number of studies/workshops you can build to a fixed number for a given level of city (ie, 5 for a level 3, or whatever). You're never going to be able to come up with a convoluted mathmatical formula to make citizen requirements work at all levels of the game. If you just limit it by level then you can easily ensure that it is always balanced by design. Plus it would prevent all these annoying situation we keep getting into. AND it would mean we didn't have to keep going back to our towns every 5 turns to see if they had enough people for our 30th study. You could just queue all your buildings when the settlement levelled up, and spend the rest of the game doing what you're supposed to: adventuring and fighting the war of magic.
Add more city levels if you want to make it more gradual, but citizens are what GIVE you levels. Spending citizens on buildings is a tautology as mindless as getting an ability point every 500xp and then getting 3 ability points every time you level up AS WELL. It's pointless complication that adds absolutely nothing.
Check out https://forums.elementalgame.com/403584 for a fairly in-depth walkthrough.
This is an example of a mod that would give Relias 100 hp in sandbox: http://pastebin.com/raw.php?i=q3hbe4Fm
Another approach is to completely remove the <UnitStat_HitPoints>100.0000</UnitStat_HitPoints> line and then set it "globally" in a modded CoreUnitStats.xml. Each unitstat can have a default value that it gives, and that value is given to a unit if the unit doesn't have any value.
Constitution is a separate stat that only gives you hitpoints. The difference between constitution and hitpoints is (afaik) that constitution increases in strength as you level, while hitpoint bonuses are completely static. So 1 constitution would be worth more for a level 10 unit than a level 1 unit.
Simultaneous damage won't dumb down the game, it will make it more realistic. To have two companies fight (or squads) and only the attackers get to fight is a bit wrong. What are the defenders doing during this attack? Yes they get to counter attack but only after you have made chopped liver out of the unit.
I much prefer a game where each city has meaning and expansion is difficult and largely based on resource acquisition. If this system worked a little better one would be rewarded for gathering their experts together to take advantage of %bonus buildings instead of perfoming the same builds in each city. One would even benefit from demolishing buildings in captured cities to 'migrate' the specialists to great cities that are %bonus enhanced. I would say the system is very close to working and that creative mathematical approaches are a helpful way to bring some increased depth to a number the game's more simplified dynamics.
I'm really curious: what was the idea behind the HP/model reduction ? I mean, it was already too low compared to the damage/model (by a factor 2 or 3, considering weapon potency), so how can dividing it by ~4 make the game more strategically interesting ? This is a serious question - I'm not trying to make fun of anyone, I'm just trying to understand the decision process, the reasoning that led to this change.
Anyway, please revert the changes. Actually, please go the other way around: make base HP/model 15 or 20. Some weapons deal 30+ damage - and that's not "per group", that's "per model". As it is, the military part of the game (which contributes to a large part to what the game is) is just non-functional, whereas it was just "very broken" before. Maybe it would be more interesting to copy the base mechanics of the Fallen Enchantress HP/Attack/Damage/Armor/Dodge calculation, as they seem functional and reasonable ?
Yeah, I support this too.
Best regards,Steven.
"We are anticipating having 3 beta phases of it. v1.29 (this build) will introduce most (though not all) the coding changes. v1.29a will being introducing the balance changes and the AI overhaul. And v1.29b and on will be polishing, bug fixing, and tweaking." Frogboy from 1.29 Beta.
I agree.
I believe i remember Frogboy stating that the Beta would be in 3 phases.
Phase 1 (Current): New concepts are implemented.
Phase 2: AI and Balance changes.
Phase 3: Polish.
Since we have not reached the balancing portion of the beta, they probably aren't going to address the HP/weapon damage for a few weeks yet.
2 AI Improvements I would like to see:
A. Tactical Battles - give me some opponents that uses magic. I have played several games where my sovereign is the only one using magic. I would likely consider implementing this by have the AI sovereign randomly choose a strategy for advancement at game start: i.e. 75% Warrior (Focused skill points on Strength), 25% Mage (Use skill points to increase Intelligence). Thus 1 of 4 sovereigns, on average would focus their personal development on improving intelligence and casting spells during combat. 3 of 4 AI sovereigns would be warriors that largely ignore magic.
B. War Strategy - Give me an occassional Empire Sovereign that pursues a policy of razing Kingdom cities. Say 10% Empire Sovereign will adopt a policy of razing Kingdom cities; i.e. capture Kingdom city - raze it - move to next Kingdom City - raze it - repeat. Now all the sovereigns follow the same strategy, none has a strategic plan of burning and pillaging.
Example:
At game start the game AI assigns a development focus and war strategy to each AI sovereign
Development Focus: (1-25 Magic, 26-100 Warrior), War Strategy (1-10 Raze Cities, 11-100 Conquest)
Sovereign A (1,89) - Magic Focus, Conquest StrategySovereign B (30,50) - Warrior Focus, Conquest StrategySovereign C (55,32) - Warrior Focus, Conquest StrategySovereign D (89,76) - Warrior Focus, Conquest StrategySovereign E (94,3) - Warrior Focus, Raze Cities Strategy
1 Magic Improvement I would like to see
C. I would like to see more tactical magic spells and an AI that knows how to use them.
Spell 1: Darkness - reduces line of site and attack range for all units to one. Imagine fighting a battle where you can't see you enemy. Lasts for 1 turn per caster levelSpell 2: Summon Wolf Pack - Summons pack of wolves (i.e. Squad size) that last for 1 turn per caster levelSpell 3: Summon Giant Spiders that last for 1 turn per caster level
Yeah, the population bug needs a serious fix. For some reason, whenever I control a third city it copies the population usage from my capitol, so that I had a settlement with 3 huts and nothing else "using" 250+ citizens. WTF?
Patch, please. I was enjoying the game up till that point.
I’m confused as to what point you’re trying to make. The citizen system is a way of limiting the number of production buildings you can have by population, nothing more. Nothing wrong with this principle, it’s just a really poor way of going about it. Citizens have nothing to do with the resource system or city specialization. The % bonus buildings encourage specialization, but they’d do that equally well without citizen costs.
And what's so great about specialization anyway? What was Minas Tirith specialized in? Doesn't specialization just mean you have to have multiple towns to cover all the necesarry functions? (or ignore one part of gameplay) So, you just have to have more settlements.
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