It's been suggested before. Thought I'd bring it back up as a fun way to address the persistent issue with the pushover AI factions. Other similar games have this feature.
All the way back to EWOM, this series has only ever given me fleeting instances of feeling the need to build armies, or recruit many champions past my initial few. The AI is simply too vulnerable to military steamrolling by a few powerful champions or units. I wish I could say it was only an early game issue, but the player becomes far more dangerous with increased levels and tech than the AI does.
Hopefully, as we near the home stretch for the development of the game, the Devs will be finally able to sort much of this out with combat re-balancing.
But I think to some extent, the AI will never really be entirely able to cope with the player ability to min max and focus-develop super champions, unless champions get nerfed to the extent that they no longer become fun to level up, in which case I think you lose a good chunk of the game's appeal.
It might be fun, if each faction had their own unique guardian monster in their capital city (only), that leveled up with the city, becoming more powerful, so the longer you let the city grow, the more of a fight you'll be in for to take it down. I'm thinking something that starts about as powerful as a slag or a golem, and ends up just under the power level of the unique monsters in the Wildland regions. Something that required an army, or several highly developed champions to take down, that you could not realistically expect to defeat in the early game. Defensive only, like the City Militia.
Here's what I envision results from this off the top of my head:
1) It helps the AI Factions survive the early game.
You can beat them down, but not entirely out at first. Skirmish over property and resources. Conquer their annoying little cities they build on your borders. But eventually you might actually want to sign a treaty, giving them the chance to rebuild somewhat, and become a threat again. The game needs reasons to open that diplomacy menu. It has precious few at present.
2) It creates an "endgame".
The battle for map conquest becomes more epic, and stretched out with more back and forth over the course of the game. Skirmishes and treaties mark the early game, with more back and forth, meanwhile both you and the AI are still able to build up to an epic final clash to take out their capital later in the game, where you can actually see some of those late game units, knights in full plate, and powerful monster units, instead of most of the AI factions falling at the spear-man level.
3) It adds yet another opportunity for Faction differentiation and flavor, which we can't get enough of.
Each guardian should be unique, and indicative of the Faction's personality. People might actually find the guardian a reason to favor one faction over another.
Like I said, I'm hopeful the devs will solve many of these issues with re-balancing. But I dont think it precludes something like this either. Just an idea, and not an original one.
Guardians force you to gather momentum to sweep anything. I like that, but it does remove some options, and it might even confuse the AI as it would have to pace itself a bit. Also have to make the guardians themselves, and there are custom factions to consider there (unless this is based on blood, although it is possible to create a custom racetype.. and they'd be pretty much sol). The best way to handle that is probably an elemental guardian. That would kill your third point, but I don't see any other way of doing it.
I'd rather see better militia. There's a difference between a garrison and a force of guards, you know? Shouldnt be a bunch of unarmored farmers watching the city when the army's out stomping.
Capital guardians. It doesn't force you to build momentum to sweep anything, it forces you to build a significant force before you can take down a Capital. Nothing else changes. You can push an AI all the way back to the Capital as now, and engage in PvE as normal. It just means theyll stick around a bit longer for a "part two" in the game, and maybe be allowed to tech up to some more interesting opponents when they start pushing again.
It just makes each enemy faction like one of the Dungeon areas, able to be engaged, but not entirely cleared before a certain point in your development. It gives each of the factions a Boss level event, which is something lacking now, and an idea I like. The AI factions are anti-climatic compared to exploring the world. The dungeon areas are by far my favorite things.
Like I said, I don't see the idea of them balancing the combat and something fun like this as mutually exclusive. The former needs to happen in any event.
Also have to make the guardians themselves, and there are custom factions to consider there (unless this is based on blood, although it is possible to create a custom racetype.. and they'd be pretty much sol). The best way to handle that is probably an elemental guardian. That would kill your third point, but I don't see any other way of doing it.
I imagine they could just use larger versions of existing monster models for the time being, unless they ever felt like making unique models. Or maybe just reskin some existing models, which is nowhere near the effort of a new model and animations.Otherwise, it's just stats. They'd be tied to racial blood traits, so custom races would just have their choice, like they do now. Custom races are always a mix and match, and there's only so balanced you can make them.
Excellent suggestion. It's important that they don't move from the city.
We could finally have a different pictures starting the empire for each kingdom/faction. A titan that helps each of the sovereign. "Go little brother/sister. take this world. I'll guard your capital here for you."
The guardian would be a racial perk.
And it could be just a giant juggernaut for the Ythril, an even baddier than usual spider for Resol.
A drake or dragon for Tarth.
Iron statue for Gilden
Elemental for pariden.
Or old friend with an army of knights for Altar
Or an army of true blood citizens defending the city - full army of fire mages for Magnar.
Yes please! More endgame challenge is badly needed.
Not that this has anything to do with the game, but the concept is similar:
If anyone has played the boardgame: Game of Thrones and the boardgame: Game of Thrones, second edition; you'll have noticed that the expanded concept of 'Garrisons' was made permanent in the game.
Garrisons are defensive bonuses that a capital city of one of the major houses received so that there home territory in the game was extra hard to overtake, and hense would give them better chance at staying in the game throughout it's entirity. You can do very little with Garrisons. They were just there....to defend. Not suport. Not attack. Just defend.
SO, to reflect with FE, if there were a faction specfic defender in the capital city, it shouldn't be able to initiate any combat, but it should be fairly difficult to defeat, should opponents try to conquer the city....at least, not easy to defeat at the earlier levels.
This could be a good concept. It doesn't have to be a 'guardian' per-se...it could be faction specifc 'familiars'...your sovereign's pet....something to that end.
Just some thoughts...
I am okay with a 1 per faction upgrade to the guardian statue but just giving an AI a powerful free unit doesn't really seem like fun. I like being able to rush in the beginning and take out an opponent in the first 50 turns.
I would hate to have to camp out their city and kill all their pioneers until I built up a big enough army to wipe them out. Combine that with respawning sovereigns and champions... it gets tedious.
I would imagine that, with the inclusion of such a feature, the game would be rejigged to make it incredibly difficult to 'rush' an opponents capital. Too many monsters, quests, improvements, and other things you should be doing to build up your own empire instead...
I also wouldn't call the guardian a 'unit'. It would be fixed to the capital, unable to leave.
We'll see...I kinda doubt Stardock will take this route and instead simply balance the AI a little better. Still, doesn't hurt to debate such things. It was good to see you had an alternate stragegy to conquering the game.
I don't see a need for this feature.
Really? Because(In my opinion)...
1) Owning a giant monster is fun. (You get one too. A defensive monster that is good for nothing but making sure your Capital doesn't fold too early in the game against a wandering bear cub, but does nothing to protect any of your other cities, resources, or outposts.)
2) Fighting giant monsters is fun. (It is decidedly more fun, than say, fighting a tedious battle against a dozen city milita units who can't hope to stand up to a single properly leveled, equipped, and buffed champion.).
3) The sense of satisfaction from finally being able to defeat a monster you used to run screaming from is a good feeling in any RPG hybrid.
4) Having the game on a large map on "hard" difficulty last more than a hundred turns before it is effectively over is fun too. One of these days I'd actually like to make it more than a third of the way through the tech tree on default settings, and see some of those end game units. (Again, not suggesting that this this is the sole way of fixing those imbalances...the game needs a balance pass in any event... but it could be a contributing factor). But no matter what you do, the AI will never be able to design units or level champions as well as a human player.
I suspect we simply disagree on this point, though. I don't consider this to be like Civ, where genociding an entire civ because you happen to have Iron clubs instead of bronze ones in the first 50 turns really adds to the game. The fun is in the fight, and once you score that knockout blow the play time is over, and the world gets pretty lonely as you run out of playmates quickly in a series of anti climactic battles against boring early units. Honestly , I wouldnt fight the AI factions at all in the early game if they didn't force me to by building their horrible satellite cities in my lands...all of which you could still knock out or absorb. I kill 3 or 4 enemy factions by turn 100, just trying to clear their stupid outposts out of my territory.
It's a battle against your peers, each one a super being like you, who you fight and outwit, but don't take out for good until the "end times", where there can be only one. But I can still rush early on, and duke it out with them over land and resources until I outwit them strategically or logistically in order to get past their capital Guardian, or pursue one of the other victory paths.
In any event, the idea is you could take one out early on (if you got to it before it leveled up too high) but you'd have to commit to doing it at the expense of infrastructure, by doing nothing but building enough units to overtake it, the same as you have to do (or are supposed to have to do) to take out any tough monster early on that threatens your territory. In short, you would need an army. Right now there are no tough decisions like that to make. Otherwise, you might find it better to sue for peace, ensuring an "ultimate battle" against that sovereign at some point in the future.
I just like the idea of each enemy faction being at least as fun to fight as one of the Wildland regions, which are more interesting at this point than the actual strategic game against the AI. I yearn to be able to think of an enemy AI as an egg to crack, a pinata to bust, a problem to solve, a gradual fight up to a climactic boss battle, rather than a colored speedbump on my march to the map borders. I think something like this is fun, and contributes positively on multiple levels.
Like I mentioned, it's not an unproven concept in fantasy strategy games.
I too like the idea that you can defeat an empire, but its capital sticks around until the endgame. It gives time for the weak little capital to try adventuring and leveling up a super-Sov. They might also ally with some other factions and present a small, but effective force in the fight against the nation that destroyed them. It also adds some interesting battles to the endgame, which is a little dry and repetitive if you can get that far without crashing or bad saves. I am mostly thinking of Disciples II when I talk about this sort of design. They did capitals very well.
Fortunately, as I mentioned before, this is easily modded in.
I really like this idea. Right now I find conquering wildlands far far more satisfying then defeating other sovs. Lets face it, it's almost always an anticlimactic victory when you get around to destroying other nations. Giving each faction their unique boss with its own strengths and weaknesses would make the final fight of each faction a whole lot funner.
I would only suggest one thing. If you defeat a factions special guardian you will be granted a unique artifact that that guardian holds. Not a super overpowered artifact mind you but something worthwhile.
I like the idea, because it have certain benefits, I only think it a shame because it would make me reload more maps, due to very unlucky placement between AI's. If I am placed in a canyon between 2 AI capital cities with nowhere to expand (yes it have happened) and cant conquer one of them I will feel very sad.
Also why do the capital need to be so important I hope for more stuff to make the capital less important, since my capital usually aint as good as that spot I found with 4/3/3.
Still like the idea though!... I am just wary that it might... something.
Meaby an early-game improvement like Tower of Dominion that takes 10-14 turns to build in a 2 material city, that gives a decent defender. (Or make tower of dominion do it instead of growth bonus).
Sincerely~ Kongdej
Well, I had assumed there was some sort of process for changing your capital. I thought it was building the palace, but I could be mistaken.
In any event, I imagine the guardian could be tied to a "Captial Building", like the palace that came for free in your first city, but could be built in another city if you want to move your capital.
Palace is a high end building, just so you know
There might be way to change my capital but im pretty stupid myself so I would never notice it Would also seem silly if its just auto-bonus, id much rather people should work for city defenses, that said city defenses besides in forts should be upped IMO. Cities are such a rollover.
It's true. In the game right now you fight other Soverigns because you feel like you have to, in order to end the game, or because they've built on some land you want. Or, you know, because they attacked you.
What do you get in return? A bunch of crappy cities that arent built they way you would build them (cities with 2 materials made into fortresses, cities with no essence, etc). And can't even just destroy them right away. You have to sit on them until you can raze them so you dont tank your kingdom growth with a bunch of sub optimal cities.
Take an army to a wildland, you get to fight rare and interesting monsters, and usually get some nice loot after every lair, generally better than what you find in the normal gameworld. And then of course there's the big finale of the wildlands boss, who is a problem you have to figure out how to solve, usually with special combat strengths and weaknesses, and usually an awesome loot reward.
Theres no comparison. I fight the AI because I feel I have to. It's a chore. I adventure in the wildlands because I want to.
I like where this is heading. Perhaps the guardian/familiar/pet/whatever has an artifact that shares something in common with the faction it protects. Hense, when you conquer that factions capital, you receive a small bonus of that faction within the artifact. Cool idea.
Cutscenes are definately needed when YOU wipe out an opposing faction (not when one is generically wiped out). Cutscenes for when one surrenders to your vassal could be too. Overall, just more cutscenes as they've so far been made. I really like how they 'tell the story'.
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