I've put in a lot of game time with FE now and I find I really enjoy the game up to a certain point - then I could care less what happens and so usually start a new game. This concerns me greatly because since the first couple of games this has been a regular feeling I've had. Mind you, this is still a very good game but replayability will be a casualty.
The start of the game has interesting strategic choices but by mid game it has become a 'rinse and repeat' exercise which is really boring strategically. I was very critical of the fact that War of Magic was more about process than about choice - and unfortunately Fallen Enchantress also reached this process-driven stage as well by the mid game. And the larger the map the bigger the problem.
The two problems I'm referring to are:
Before looking at these issues, let's recap on the portion of the game that is enjoyable that leads to these problems.
At the start of the game your location has both opportunities and threats. Depending on what monsters will spawn near-by you need to decide how much you can explore or whether you need to hover around home base. And if there are nearby resources this will drive what you research and what you will build in your starting city. Things start slowly but that's OK because this first phase is all about exploring your surrounds and recruiting what champions you can as well as completing quests to try and get 'cashed up'. At this point the world is a big scary place and you need to tread carefully. There is a ton of strategic choice.
After this is the initial land grab. You have found some resources you particularly want so you try and secure these. You will also have met one or two other players by now so there is a bit of a race to get the best spots. Your champion stack of 3 or 4 champions can now defeat medium strength monsters so you don't have it all your own way. You clean out what you can near your base and also explore. No point building troops yet because they are too weak to do much and they will cost you gildar each turn - and money is still very tight. This phase is mainly about developing your champions. Your couple of cities are trying to build city improvements or pioneers. Once again, this is enjoyable because you still have a lot of strategic choice.
Then you get to the 'Champion stack of doom' phase where your champion stack is 'Strong' or 'Deadly' and can pretty much wipe anything other than the occasional 'Epic' monster stack. You now have about 6 champions in your stack and probably 3 or four cities. At this point the challenge has gone and all you need to do is move your stack of doom anywhere you want and wipe the map. This is where you finish off cleaning up the 'Deadly' monster stacks near your starting cities. On a small map you have now nearly won the game but on larger maps you now have to settle in for the grind. You usually now start attacking and defeating other players. You would generally start this phase on about equal footing with the other players but once you have conquered one you will be close to double the score of the nearest computer player. Now strategic choice just comes down to choosing which direction to move your stack of doom and pumping out pioneers to capture more territory. Before this phase you knew the names of your cities and what their role was in your strategy. After this phase the names mean nothing.
The game has moved from interesting strategic choice to boring process-driven rinse and repeat.
Finally, if you keep playing once you have more than double the next players score (that is usually the trigger now for me to start again) you have the added process-driven task of micromanaging your exponentially expanding cities, their build queues, and their caravans. This becomes the final phase for me and I can't play much into it without losing all interest. There are no real choices left to make and it becomes all about micro-management.
So while I really enjoy the way the game starts, I really get bored with it once it hits the middle game. I hope this hasn't been overly negative because I still really enjoy the direction Fallen Enchantress has gone and I can really appreciate the game mechanic choices you guys have made. It is still a good game - just not a great game - because of those two problems.
The challenge is how can the game be kept interesting by shifting the strategic choices to match the phase the game is in.
There has been a lot of discussion about how to fix the Champion stack of doom but for me it has to be about limiting the number of champions that can work together in a stack. Also splitting the XP after combat would be helpful - and perhaps having a third of the XP split between the champions and two thirds split between the troops might help give incentive to make different army stacks.
Starting the game with a small number troops could also help in a number of ways. Perhaps a combination of incentives to keep only a couple of champions in a stack as well as some starting troops is a possibility.
I really liked one of the suggestions in the forum to have troop leadership bonuses that affect just the troops in your stack in meaningful ways but don't affect the champions. This would provide a lot of incentive to treat the champions as generals rather than just Achilles-type heroes.
The city spam is a much more difficult question to find an answer to.
Historically, states and city states had their home-lands and they also had conquered territories that tended to work as vassals. If in Fallen Enchantress you were limited in the number of cities and outposts you could build then this initial pool of cities and resources would become your homeland. There could be some technologies to increase this number over time but basically you would have a small pool of cities you could use to raise armies etc.
When you conquered a city it would simply became a vassal city-state that automatically sent a caravan to your capitol and provided you with its resources. That way these would basically be on auto and you couldn't actually manage them. You couldn't decide what these vassal cities build. And you couldn't use these cities to build troops. You could still move troops in to help defend them.
By doing this you would still keep large areas of wildlands on large maps and you would be focussing on your homeland cities for your development. Newly conquered cities would build their caravan and this would then establish a road to move more troops quickly from the homeland to the frontline. And it would keep the city spam and caravans within your homelands manageable.
By having vassal cities it could also make the Path of the Governor bonuses more meaningful if they could perform certain tasks within vassal cities such as force the recruitment of mercenary troops or affect the build queue. Especially if the Champion stack of doom issue is resolved.
Sorry for making this such a long winded post. Here is a quick summary of the suggestions for those who want to skip all the crap.
Champion 'stack of doom' solved by making real incentives to limit the number of champions in an army stack.
City spam 'micromanagement hell' solved by having limited number of homeland cities and captured cities become self-governing vassals.
Hope this is helpful and I hope it isn't too negative. As I said, this is a good game but could be made into a great game.
There are some great ideas in the posts which I'll comment on when I have time tonight. But for now I've been obsessively thinking about how vassal cities would help the game...
Homeland Cities and Captured Vassals
Been thinking alot about this now and as far as having the concept of homeland cities and vassal cities this would solve a hell of a lot of issues.
In many games like this where resources and strength are tied to the number of resource centres you control (cities in this case) there needs to be a mechanism in place to try and keep players on relatively equal footing with each other. If the conquered cities aren't seriously nerfed in these sort of games you end up with the game very quickly becoming unbalanced. Fallen Enchantress has tried to achieve this by resetting the population counter on conquered cities which did help a little bit but not enough.
For the sake of the exercise, let's play out a bit of a scenario. In this example we'll have a homeland city allowance of say four cities. Lets also say that we have no restriction on the number of outposts we can construct. Already we have an interesting decision to make. Do we keep our homeland cities tight together for protection or do we stread our cities out to get the widest area? Do we keep our cities around important resources or do we rely on outposts. Interesting strategic choices that would be different from game to game based on the world itself.
During the course of the game we build our four cities and start to level them them up. These are our main source of income and training. While we are doing this, the other players are doing the same - building up their four cities. Access to resources suppliments rather than overpowers the opportunities and so, to an extent, parity is fairly close across the different players.
Now let's look at what happens if you are at war and winning or losing cities...
First, we capture an enemy city. That player loses the production from that city so it becomes a long-term problem if they can't win it back. The city becomes a vassal on the turn we captured it and it establishes an immediate caravan to our capitol as per economic treaties. Let's say that there were two outposts attached to the city when it was captured. These also transfer across and are part of the vassal city. Let's also say that there was a couple of resources and a shard as part of this city. These resources and the income from the caravan are the only boost we get. We can't use the city to produce units or to build new buildings. An AI governor builds its own buildings within vassal cities now.
Taking a step back, what has happened in game-play terms? We have a slight increase in income and resources but not enough to drastically shift the balance of power. The game is still on a pretty even keel except for the player who lost the city. The game is still interesting and we have clean access to the conquered vassal city thanks to the road that was constructed - so if we want we can move more troops out there. While we can't affect the build queue of the city, we can station troops to help protect it along with the vassal city's own garrison. The benefit to us is slight but the penalty to the player losing the city is potentially quite substansial. So the loss of a homeland city is big, but the gain of a vassal city is slight. Balance is maintained and we still have an enjoyable game.
Now let's say that that the AI player recaptures that city back. Because it was one of his homeland cities to begin with he picks up again where he left off. The population is still there, as are the resources, production and income. He is back on equal footing but has just lost time and has lost anything he has in the production queue when the city was lost.
So what does this mean in game-play terms? It means that if you lose a city through oversight and can win it back quickly then you haven't lost a great deal - this mirrors history nicely as well. It forces the attacking player to think a little ahead to make sure they can protect the city while they press on with the war.
Now let's move forward quite a way and take our imaginary game into the 'late game' phase. We've been aggressive and have wiped out 3 other players with all their cities becoming vassals. So in total we have our four homeland cities as well as 12 vassal cities. There are two other players left and they haven't been aggressive and only hold their four homeland cities. We have a slight income benefit over them and have extra resources - but importantly our production capacity is exactly the same. We can produce units through our four cities at the same rate as they can through their four cities. Even in the late game we only have a bit of an advantage because of a little extra income and resources - but we are not miles ahead. We still have a game on our hands!
On top of all this, the vassal cities are looking after themselves so the only city management we need to worry about are our homeland cities.
I can't see any negatives to this approach because:
@Das123
First, I think the loss of all population is some sort of bug or oversight, given that magnar has a useless faction trait because of it.
Second, I do not think we are playing the same game. An extra city is a huge boost in your economy (especially if you are only limited to four), even if it does not increase your actual production. You would easily trounce the opposition if your economy was 3 times the size, err assuming the units get balanced properly for this to matter. If you want to limit the gain from captured cities you need to apply a -cost- to acquiring them. Unless it is a temporary growth halt in other cities, a gildar per turn ammount or a stagnation of research, the reality is winning a city is guarenteed to put you ahead of the competition.
Making a mechanic that forces you to chose whether or not you want to start razing that city (and stealing it's coffers) as apposed to placating the occupants with gold/growth/whatever, would be a balancing factor for the victor. The defender would simply need to gain it back.
Caravan micromanagement is an issue that needs more automation to prevent it from being a chore, rather than work the mechanics of the game around it.
You did give me a good idea though, so thanks!
What if Champions charged for their services, and the fee was multiplied by their level? Would that help to limit their OPness (hehe I said pness!)? As far as I have been able to tell champs have charged be initially to hire them but no ongoing fee after that (or am I totally incorrect there?). Whereas my troops cost me no coin to make but are a drain on my already tight coffers until I scrap them or they die.
Seems wrong that pathetic troops are more of a drain on my resources than those hired godlings that make the troops essentially redundant anyway.
I mustn't have made what I meant very clear. You don't get the economy of the vassal city. You get the economy from the caravan from that city plus any resources. Just a small amount of gildar per turn. Not enough to unbalance the game but enough to make it worth while.
Stack of doom:
Do it like in fantasy literature: A party of heroes is good at quests and make a difference in battles but cannot overpower an army on their own. So armies of regular troops have to be stronger than a party of heroes.
City spam 'micromanagement hell' :
Let settling become 'better' with game progress: In mid-game new cities start with the bacis buildings...
Implement good CPU-Governors who could be turned on/off.
Here is a summary of the ideas so far in the thread and some comments...
Champion Stack of Doom
Split XP (Stupidity10)
Sounds like this is on the way. Should be part of the game anyway.
Champion conflicts (AlLanMandragoran)
Interesting concept. Would increase RP but possibly add stack micromanagement - but this is the the most interesting aspect of the game.
Positive incentives to have fewer champions in stack rather than forced to do it (CdrRogdan)
Yes. I think this is important. Need to always give the player choice rather than forcing a way of playing.
Non-stackable troop bonuses (CdrRogdan)
This is critical I think. Should be part of the game anyway.
Troops to hire around map more than champions (OrleanKnight)
Love this idea as it would promote an 'army' rather than a 'fellowship'.
Start with all War techs (OrleanKnight)
This is a great and very important idea!!! Why limit what troops you build based on war tech? There is already a limit is on resources and affordability. This would allow you to CHOOSE the size and power of troops from the start and you would need to balance that with what you can afford. Weaker garrison troops and strong front-line troops etc. Hope this is seriously looked at! Love it.
Champions tied to quests - and fewer of them (OrleanKnight)
This is a good idea to limit the number and make them more special.
Recruit champions from troops (OrleanKnight)
Don't really get this idea. Sounds a bit complicated.
Easy upgrade of equipment (OrleanKnight)
Yes. Important idea. Select troops should be able to be kept geared up as long as you have the resources to do so.
Easy recruitment of conquered monsters (OrleanKnight)
Like this idea too. Your army would be a collection of defeated monsters, your built troops, and a couple of champions. Interesting every time you played!
One leader per stack (lokiju)
I'm in favour second to positive incentives - but I think we would be in the minority.
Cap unit numbers (Dreadcough)
If you didn't get such a massive bonus from capturing cities then the limit would be on the wages you need to pay. Agree with concept though.
Champion upkeep (EvilMaxWar)
Yes. Would create a degree of parity between champions and troops.
4 Champions per group (LordRikerQ)
Like the reasoning but feel the positive incentive the is the better way to go.
Cooldown for champions completing a quest (Civfreak)
Would add to the micromanagement I think. And as you pointed out, there would most likely be exploits.
Adjust experience curve to make levelup harder later in game (Sythion)
Splitting XP will help with this anyway I think.
Champions charge for service based on level (Guryon)
(Hi Guryon - it's me, Splat from TOG ) Similar to EvilMaxWar's suggestion of champion upkeep.
Champions cannot overpower an army on their own (Michael_Zett)
Champions would become generals. I don't mind that but I think others would disagree.
City Spam Hell
Resident champion in city. Outposts to cities if housed by a governor (ajax bomb)
Could add to the micromanagement but would help to keep down the number of cities.
Limit to growth after a certain number of cities (CdrRogdan)
I actually thought they were going to try and do this anyway. But you still have a problem of what to do with conquered cities.
Forward bases (OrleanKnight)
Don't really get this idea. Sounds complicated.
Unrest on conquered cities (DsRaider)
Would add a bit to the micromanagement. Would prefer a simpler solution.
Slow time to raze cities (DsRaider)
This should be part of the game.
City build checklist and improved city UI (Sythion)
Should be part of the game no matter what decision is made.
Homeland cities and vassal cities (Das123)
What a great idea!
By mid-game new cities start with basic buildings (Michael_Zett)
This doesn't solve the balance issues for me. I want fewer cities on the map in total, not more cities.
AI Governors (Michael_Zett)
Should be part of the game anyway.
General Balance
AI banding together against player to match discrepency in score (Wizard1200)
Archer towers (OrleanKnight)
Nice idea. Would make attacking cities much more interesting.
Hahaha fancy meeting you here!!
This is turning out to be a very interesting thread. I also feel that armies should play a bigger role in the beginning of the game. Currently they CAN be a factor, but only if you manage to nurture them like your champions up until a point they are levelled up so many times that they have ratings that can cope with big enemies.
Thing is that this only helps to favour stacks of doom, since besides those 3/4/5 champions you have some huge support units too.
I agree that researching all that wartech takes too long for units to become a relevant factor. I don't think it should vanish from the research tree, but we could surely have more available from the beginning. It makes the race for metal and chrystal and horses all the more interesting.
If we want the AI to become a factor we either have to lose the stacks of doom (I prefer this) or have them make stacks of doom themselves as currently they spread out their heroes to far. Since they do this, I think the design of the game is NOT to have those stacks of doom, so let's hope Stardock focuses on resolving this problem, eg by making armies a more viable option without having champions that hardly matter anymore. I really think Age of Wonders Shadow Magic struck a great balance there.
Finally I think it would also help if sovereigns or champions can only reappear in certain cities. Of course in your capital (standard) but besides that perhaps only in cities that have a special building built. One that is really quite an investment to build and so should be a strategical consideration.
Very good post OP, was thinking about this myself last night when I realized I was going to win a game but still had 3-4 hours left to play. The game needs to remain interesting even at the late stages, but I'm not sure how to accomplish this. Most 4X games have this problem so solving it is non trivial.
I have a few ideas though.
* Being at war should give an exponential increase to unrest in your cities, so eventually you would have to make peace even if you could wipe out your enemies. Maybe make it really expensive in upkeep to have a large army running around on the map. You would then have to raise taxes which also ties in to the unrest bit. Scouts and single units should be low on upkeep.
* Stack of doom is ok I think, but the AI should be aware of it. If the SoD is far away from an AI player you are at peace with, he might start a war just for the hell of it and grab a few of your cities. Which will cause more unrest and again force you to make peace.
* I'm not a big fan of the uber-champ that can wipe out armies, but I guess it is needed for the RP aspect of the game where champs should be able to do quests etc. Perhaps champs could be made physically weaker, but with a special ability that give them attack bonuses against "monsters and ruffians".
Maybe, an endgame-been-there-from-the-beginning champion could wipe out armies, but to let regular troops and therefore cities matter, the common party of 4-5 heroes should not easily conquer a whole 'nation'.
Okay let me clarify a bit on my Forward Base idea.
1. Will replace Outposts.
2. Not built by Pioneers, but instead built by your Sov or Champions at the cost of an Army unit.
3. Forward Bases can be built anywhere regardless of terrain type.
4. Forward Bases specialize in production of Army Units, replacing cities for this task.
5. Forward Bases can have additions built onto them, but always remain very small. They are place to shop, purchase more equipment for army units, champs, and sov.. Make adjustments to current army units and their size, and retiring old units you don't want to increase the Forward Bases production output of future Army units.
6. Building small, low Micro-Managements mini-cities may be a good way to prevent the over burden of too many cities. Often I've build cities close to enemies to have to launching point for war. This would make things a bit easier, and allow me to protect my main city with several well placed Forward Bases (Forts) protecting my borders.
7. Forward Bases have well armed turret defenses (and upgradable), so if they are attacked they can defend themselves reasonably well.
8. Forward Bases shouldn't be engaged by weak and minor monsters, seriously this is just annoying. If anything they should repel monsters from your borders.
Hi,
a lot of goog idears. Some more.
1. After a city is build you have to transfer some people. Slowing down the other citys and limiting fast expansion. Maybe this could be automated.
2. Make the world spawn more and dangerous enemies. Make it difficult to defend a largely spread empire. This should result in champions to be stationed in some border cities ->removed from the stack of doom.So going out on a quest is a dangerous for the empire. There must be a reason for a (large) army and this is monsters and other fractions.
One problem is: why should the world be more dangerous later in the game and how do i notice? Maybe some spells from other factions or elemental lords, completing some quests?
3. When plying civ one very important problem is money, so god old upkeep for distant cities. They should cost a lot. I know it sucks not havening all the cities...
Regarding Champions - simply split the XP, but NOT equally -> the unit (or champion) that actually kills a unit should get most XP, and others much less.
That way you either focus on smaller number of stronger champions, even if you put them all together in a group, or you try to share the kills (and therefore XP) evenly in which case you will have slower leveling-up of your chapms.
While this is a nice idea, it's a bigger implementation effort (count the kills or count the hits?, what`s with regeneration etc.).
Well, the way Wesnoth does it is that the unit that reduces a unit or champion to 0 hitpoints or less is the one that gets the greatest experience. Since it is hard (read impossible) to ensure that every unit is killed by the unit of yours you want most to get experience, unit levelling is controlled. But it also adds a lot of micromanagement. And if a similar system was used in FE, what about those heroes covered by the Death Ward spell (that resurrect once with 50% hitpoints)?
I like the poster's suggestions for making champion stacks less of a necessity. I think at the minimum that first militia unit you build in a city should be cheap, and I agree that champions should serve more as generals that are important to team with armies rather then just stack together into super armies.
As far as the late game grind goes, I'm less convinced. The AI should develop cities that already have most of the improvements you would want, using local resources, etc., and if it would do this, taking a city should result in a new city that doesn't require a lot of micromanagement. I don't know if the AI is doing this, but if it did, that might help mitigate the problem.
In my opinion, you don't really need a Stack of Doom. I tried playing the game as a RPG with just my sovereign (no settling, heroes etc.). It was very fun early on and you really had to be careful around those deadly stacks. But after a while he just steamrolls everything and the challenge in the game is gone.
So to summarize, I think it's fun walking around being an adventure and doing quest, but as it is a strategy game, something in the sovereign/champion handling and role in the game should properly be revised. Just my opinion.
I got a new idea thats very similar to the one suggested in this thread and another thread which I can remember.
The idea is to assign one leader per army, but I wouldn't limit the heroes to 1. Instead I would make champions give really good bonuses to their army based on all their traits. Since only the leader would give these good bonuses it would be a nice incentive to spread your champions around while not limiting you to just 1 champ per stack.
Since this could also make champs even stronger when stacked, maybe these bonuses would only apply to regular troops.
The problem with this is it goes against the entire design of the game. Elemental isnt suppose to be some cheap Heroes of Might and Magic clone, its suppose to be a Strategy game combined with a Role Playing game not unlike Skyrim, it was designed from the beginning to have Adventuring heroes not Silent Generals whom only can only offer bonuses and support to armies.
That's an interesting comment. I wonder if that's still the goal. I don't necessarily think it has richer RPG elements than HoMM right now.
I'm not sure if the goal is to shift the game more into the RPG sphere at the expense of the strategy component. One thing Frogboy mentioned a while back is that the team was very focussed on 'choice' and I guess this struck a chord with me. I felt that having 'choice' as a primary goal was ideal for this sort of game. Frogboy had also mentioned that many of the design decisions in War of Magic where about balancing at the expense of choice. I hope I'm not misinterpreting the gist of what was said or meant.
That was why I felt any suggestions we put forward should help enhance 'choice' and not just be limits to force a solution at the expense of 'choice'.
I think what people clamoring about "balance" goes a long way to killing choice. Nerfing Sovs and Champs into oblivion gets rid of all choice because they stop being RPG heroes and become strictly strategy game generals like HOMM and Civ. Im sure there is a compromise, perhaps a toggle in the options menu or something that lets you choose Hero or General mode for champions but if Frogboy is serious about choice, they wont nerf champs into oblvion and make them so worthless they need a army to fight some simple wolves as it seems some people want.
I would imagine for non hardcore players, alot of the fun is the option to play LOTRs mode where heroes can potentially be strong enough to fight without armies.
I agree with you (although I started off wanting to limit the number in stacks). I really like the idea of giving heroes incentives to take 'army' traits rather than punish 'hero' traits.
These are some excellent ideas. Making regular units easier to produce and less costly would help make them more than just cannon fodder in battle and decrease an all champion army. Some AI improvements will also help to create an incentive to defend cities better.
Indeed I misunderstood you. This would certainly make steamrolling the other factions more difficult. The faction you just killed is at a 25% loss of research and production though. Hmm.. What would happen if that kingdom made another city? Would that even be allowed? What if I razed the city? (which I would probably do to prevent guarding a city that doesn't produce the gold to defend itself). There are some merits to the idea but it comes with several issues that need tackling as well.
Admitedly I'm not entirely on board with limiting cities by a static ammount, so forgive me if I'm trying to poke holes in it. A corruption mechanic, making it cumulatively less profitable to expand would probably be better. In all likelyhood the conquering nation will be ahead more so than than the defending nation, but at least the defending nation recieves a small boost to their economy (from lowering the corruption), they are still capable of expanding and eventually making a comeback (maybe).
Additionally you could impose an 'unrest' period for the conquered city where it cannot produce income or troops for a while, and gives the defender a chance to take it back. Other mechanics like 'for the empire' that give temporary combat boosts to the defending faction when losing a city would help limit the steamrolling the attacking empire is allowed.
Perhaps most importantly there is nothing stopping the other nations from expanding (or conquering) while you are doing this, so they aren't necessarily out for the count just because you killed one empire.
There are many great features available to you once you register, including:
Sign in or Create Account
