I've started about a half-dozen games as of the new patch, and while the visuals are better than ever, I'm finding it impossible to actually play a game beyond a few dozen turns before I'm stymied by unbeatable monsters. After having my ass handed to me repeatedly on Easy, I swallowed my pride and dropped the setting down to Beginner; this seemed to work well until I founded my third city (around turn 30 or 40), at which point a small army of Shrills and an Ignys made a beeline PAST my first city to my second one and destroyed it. At that point, I had been focusing on making my economy not a joke so I could afford to actually fight things like this; to see them come out unprovoked and make a beeline towards my most undefended city, on the second-easiest difficulty setting, was so demoralizing that I doubt I'll be bothering with this beta again until the monsters are put in check.
I'm finding myself unwilling to explore the map for fear of having my champions incapacitated or losing my only army. I have no idea what the aggro radius is for that River Slag or Hoarder Spider army guarding the most promising (or worse, only) direction of exploration, and no way to discover that information without risking the loss of possibly my entire kingdom. If I were in any position to actually defend myself against such an onslaught, or if I weren't so bottlenecked by a poor RNG resource placement, this would be a compelling and interesting choice. However, watching helplessly as a drake lays waste to your only city at turn 35 is not only infuriating, it's something you warn your friends about when telling them to not purchase a game.
What the hell? I know most of the posters here have been clamoring for obscenely tough monsters, and while that's all fine and dandy for the more challenging difficulty levels, if I'm going all the way down to the Beginner setting I'm clearly not looking for a challenge. I EXPECT to be able to handle the mobs within the first 6-8 tiles of my starting location without requiring a massive army; having to sit around in my starting city for the first 50-60 turns just to be able to explore the countryside is the worst way to extend the time frame of a game. Now, if I felt like sitting around in my first city and making it as mighty as possible was a viable option, I wouldn't mind; in fact, I'd probably be happy. But as it is, my economy is total crap until I have at least 2 cities with normal taxes (I've yet to get a third city in any of my playthroughs, either because there are simply too many dangerous mobs lying around or because the AI snatches up all the good spots with nigh-impunity) to be able to even afford a single troop of spearmen.
From what I can gather, this game is coming along rather nicely for the hardcore 4X gamers. That's great, as long as their challenging games don't mean that I can't play because even the moron settings are too hard.
Well, OK, there is something to what you are saying. The tough monsters are definitely "in the way" more, and they seem to camp out on chokepoints. Yes they are more active in 913. I cant tell if they are gonna be 'stationary' or not.
But there is something more realistic about that. Nothing like a little uncertainty to draw us in. You tiptoe your scout past a monster and it doesnt seem to notice, so now its time for YOU to try to slip past. Then you get cold feet... "I think i will just explore the other way and maybe I can loop all the way around to get to that goodie. But someday i will be strong enough to take my revenge for this embarrassment to my dignity" But then the scout draws the monster one step away and you see an opening! Scout is dead but arent you clever for slipping by?
Philosophically speaking, there ought to be some places you cant get to until midgame and even a few that wont open up until endgame, yet I agree with you that in 913 "chokepoint" happens too often. I am not a hardcore gamer. Maybe thats why I agree with you about it,but it doesnt bother me because I trust Kael and the crew. They are going to tweak the difficulty and the AI and the gameplay several times before this game is finished. 914 might be a little too easy and you weill have to crank the difficulty up more.
So enjoy the process for what it is. Drop the difficulty if you like. No shame for you and no worries about the game.
Or keep the difficulty up and just hit "New Game" more often for now. Thats what i do.
It's not much better on beginner. I managed to hold my own against the new mobs, even though it did cripple my chances of exploration.
But later in the game the AI becomes ridiculous and completely walks over you. Game over.
I re-installed 0.912 and now I am happy once again.
yea its a shame, I don't want outright hard monsters, I want monsters far away from all the players to be hard so there is something to beat at when in time of peace... (Some monsters that don't go on rampage through my country because they're too hard to be beaten within the first 40 turns).
Always something in this game that bothers me ...
Sincerely~ Kongdej
Yes, that's could be problem if people want to set easy, it's should be easy, not hard.
Hard do not belong to easy setting, but a hard setting, easy do not belong to hard setting but a hard one.
Your logic is undeniable!!
Sometime people think my logic a flaw, LOL
There is a moral in there somewhere me thinks.
However, watching helplessly as a drake lays waste to your only city at turn 35 is not only infuriating, it's something you warn your friends about when telling them to not purchase a game. What the hell? I know most of the posters here have been clamoring for obscenely tough monsters, and while that's all fine and dandy for the more challenging difficulty levels, if I'm going all the way down to the Beginner setting I'm clearly not looking for a challenge. ...
This really needed to be said ! Thanks for your Original Post on this subject, EmperorJarin. Thanks also to you other guys, who have added your voice to this thread. Stardock really needs to be careful, so as not to listen solely to the Beta-testing hardcore 4x players. There is a whole other potential audience of more casual players, out there. They (their willingness to purchase FE, because they also can find Fun in it) will make the real difference for Stardock. In fairness, I don't think Stardock wants a niche-game that only appeals to a small audience of hardcore players. I assume they will get the balance Right at the Beginner and Easy levels too.
However, they also need to hear from folks like us too -- so they don't lose sight of this community either ...
First of all, let me say I feel your pain!
This is something that reminds me of MOM a lot, for any of you that play or have played that game, right after you would establish a city, guess what? A hoard of "rampaging monsters" would wipe out your city.
So I did the only reasonable thing that you could do, of course...Save and reload a lot. It takes a little more time, but you'll feel a lot better after your economy starts to take off, and you're starting to get some better military units available.
On this release (Which i really love, by the way), I'm getting better on recognizing where the danger zones are...The AI is a bit more diabolical than the last time, as it seems they will actually TRACK you back to your city where you set out and found them and proceed to get Medieval upon the buttocks of the locals there.
I do love this release, however, kudos to Stardock for doing the RIGHT thing and Executing well.
I'm absolutely looking forward to the final release. This one is also more stable than the last ones, I haven't had a single crash. This is good!!
I'm guessing turn the monsies down to sparse and hope that helps a bit in the meantime. I agree with you guys and gals here, I cannot compete due to the monsters and the AIs all outbuild me cause they just stomp everything.
I'm glad to see I'm not the only person who's finding the easy settings to be mercilessly hard. Based on the overwhelmingly positive responses I've seen on the forums regarding monster difficulty I was worried this thread would be filled with rages against me for daring to suggest that this game should be anything less then an exercise in masochism. Hopefully the devs notice this thread and tone down the easier settings; I don't want to fight less monsters, I want to fight easier ones, at least on the lower difficulty settings. However, I will give beginner another go and try spamming spearmen, see if I can't cull the hordes like that.
Beyond these issues I think some monsters need to be dumbed down in target selection. Monsters below a certain intelligence threshhold should just automatically attack whatever the closest target they see is. Smarter monster groups are more concerned about strength differential while a pack of shrills or something almost doesn't care at all.
I think the whole thing is a bit of a monster AI thing. The monsters seem to be triggered by outposts/cities and go on rampage. This is probably not connected to difficulty levels and therefore makes easy into tough very often. Just relax and wait for the frog to fix.
For full disclosure I am one of the ones who want the game to be VERY difficult on the harder settings. I want to win one out of ten and be a very happy puppy when it happens.
I saw a.I had many city and many building in the city in very short turn that no human done like that in speed. I'm playing normal, a.i shouldn't get buff, only hard level.
Heya. I was thinking about the feeling some people have that there is little room to maneuvre in this game because of choke points, and also because monsters are aware of us and we are aware of them, which makes the game map feel small and cramped at times. t. Wouldnt it be better if we didnt KNOW where the monsters were, and they didnt know where we are? I know its late in the game design process, but it isnt too late. Maybe it would be easy to implement. I dont know, but hear me out...
This idea will make each square you enter seem like a larger place, a more real place, and it will make the game map feel much bigger. You enter the square and recieve a warning such as: " You see the splinters of damaged trees" which is a warning that a bear or other mauler monster in the square. It is like the wanring you get about the Inn. Oh, and Inns and such would be invisible until you find them in a square or they are withing your Kingdom. Anyway with monsters... Your options are to turn back(in which case nothing happens but that square is obviously a 'no go' for you) , rush through the square, or track the monster and battle it(expends one more movement point).
The monster also has options and reaction checks. It can ignore/not notice you. It can try to find you, in which case it will now be permanently seen as it chases you and rampages through your territory. In which case you only have yourself to blame. Oh I like that alot. I love it when my destruction is from my own hubris and stupidity. Well i dont LIKE my own destruction, but if it has to happen, i prefer to be hoisted upon my own petard. Doesnt everybody?
An undisturbed monster camp(especially the type that quickly breed new generations) will spawn more monsters and eventually a party of them will emerge and rampage whether you leave them alone or not. The game already seems to have that dynamic.
Anyway, make my Kingdom feel bigger by making each square a little mysterious. Make the map feel bigger by making some(most?) monsters hidden. this will solve the chokepoint problem somewhat.
Now talk to me, my fellow gamers.
I think there's a bit of a misconception going around here, since there's effectively a couple of difficulty settings... "Easy" on the difficulty indicator does 2 things, it reduces the AI player's capabilities and if you go low enough give you a bit of a bonus. It doesn't do much with regards to the monsters. So if you are being pestered by monsters, then what you want to change is the rarity of the monsters in the game setting. Reduce the density down to sparse should help. You might also want to turn up technology pacing to fast so that you can research some techs to help you against the monsters.
Right now, the most difficult setting is: Dense monsters (monsters seems to prefer killing the player over AI, so having lots of them is a disadvantage), Hard (or ridiculous - but I don't recommend it atm) AI (this will make the AI players stronger), and epic (slow) tech pacing (this gives the AI and monsters a much bigger edge because you'll take longer to tech up). On this kind of setting you need to use every trick in the book to be successful.
If you want the easier setting, that you can just mess around in, then go with scarce monsters, easy AI, and fast tech pacing. Also, try this: research spearmens and train a few to run around with your sovereign early in the game, if you still have trouble then make a post asking for some help.
You can also play around with the map setting to get your preferred setup. Playing large maps with a couple of the other faction disabled will naturally give more room for everyone to expand. Just the same, playing smaller maps with many opponents often means you will have to forgo settling new cities for a more conquest orientated game. If you like to explore and have time to enjoy the game, play on larger map with only a couple of other factions.
Hopefully this helps.
There have also been instances of...shall we say, favoritism, shown to the human player when it comes to target choice. A forest drake, who's lair was overlaid by an AI player's outpost, left its lair, not to go demolish the outpost, but to make a straight shot at my nearby undefended city that had just been placed. I get the thing was mad that its lair was in someone's ZOC; just be sure to pick the right guy to be mad at.
Yep, there is a hug spider, I just stay away from spider however at cost, and I careful and settle two city from left and right of my center main city, till this red a.i set outpost, then spider come a very long way to destoryed my two young city and all in vain, that piss me off, how do spider go far, far to just destory my two young city. Basic it's like one city is 12 title away from this huge spider, other is like 20 at least tilte away from city.
In the end. A.I is grew stronger while I'm weaker, spend on resouce and time to get more city up but all in nasty vain.
On Hard world difficulty, which is how tough and aggressive monsters are, I have no problem with monsters at all. There are a few obvious bugs like how the AI unleashes lair guardians that home in on players but that's it.
While easy world difficulty should probably me made easier, you simply have to change your play style slightly for this patch. Here's a hint: you actually have to worry about defending cities and can't just leave your cities completely wide open. You should have a defensive army that doesn't wander around the map. It took me a few tries to get used to it but now that I have the game is much funner. Just try a new game and keep in mind that monsters can attack you and be ready for it this time. Having a little bit of pressure on you so that you have to actually use those early game military units and techs is a good thing, they were pointless before. Rage quitting because something new in a patch surprised you is kinda lame.
By the way those horrible Hoarder Spiders and whatnot guarding lairs have no aggro whatsoever. They will never attack unless they are placed under ZoC. You can stand right next to them and wave. Also if a really tough wandering monster like an Umberdroth attacks you reload an autosave. It probably won't follow the same path.
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