Welcome to the
Community Wishlist
(originally intended for Fixes, Critical Gameplay issues and original ideas concerning gameplay)
- Please post any interesting points you want to add -
An example for the layout of this post is as follows:
Number. Theme of points below:
- Description of the point. Possibly opinion of original poster. (original poster, confirming/strengthening poster) - Number of times this point has been confirmed/strengthened [comment by me - possibly a cry for YOUR help to confirm the issue]
- Mute point, either fixed or otherwise pointless. Still here to be remembered. Only found under category 17. Old points (original poster) [comment by me]
Feel free to search through this post for the themes included in this \tableofcontents:
0. Bugs | 1. (Possible) Exploits | 2. Military / Combat System | 3. Unit Abilities (granted from weapons or races) | 4. Faction Abilities | 5. Heroes Abilities/ Skill Paths / general | 6. Heroes' Spells | 7. (Heroes') Items | 8. Outposts | 9. Economy/Cities | 10. Quests / Random Events / Experience | 11. AI | 12. Map Issues | 13. Victory Conditions | 14. UI | 15. Crashes/Graphical Errors | 16. General Game Development | 17. Old points (uncategorized)
0. Bugs:
- I see the hero you get at 800 fame is still level 1. I thought that had been fixed, but I guess not. Seems like it shouldn't reset to 1. (Publius of NV) [unconfirmed. GandalfTheRedskin reported otherwise]
1. (Possible) Exploits:
- Pioneer exploit: queue up a bunch of pioneers to cheat the growth system (Brainjuggler, Mistwraithe)
- Pioners and any other units who cost resources should consume resource on completion and skip turns if resource not available, not consuming at moment of queue, this will fix all possible issues with grown, interest and everything else. (sharpxe)
- City militia units will only fight once: attack with one sacrificial unit, then attack with a second stack and all the city defenders won't be there (Brainjuggler)
2. Military / Combat System:
- City Militia would like ALOT of love. They require armour. (See parrotmath's armor mod to get you started). YOUR city militia also disappear after the first combat in a turn BUT AI city militia is full health every combat within a turn. Major imbalance and unfairness. Both AI and player should be under SAME rules. City militia should have health and death tracked throughout the turn so that multiple attacks can be defended by the same city militia AND those city milita retain damage dealt and deaths throughout the turn. (GFireflyE, Brainjuggler, abob101)
- Maybe give the militia the "defensive" trait and a shield (at least a wooden shield, or maybe the best shield currently available). That would make them more useful without making them too powerful. (Azunai_)
- Magical mercenaries should be changed to include mana upkeep. More types of mercenaries would be fun (even if it's DRM) (GFireflyE)
- Tactical camera, automatic focus on units should be disablable. (sharpxe)
- Swarm Mechanic TOO powerful. Please REMOVE the +1 atk from the bonus. Flanking units should NOT be granting additional attack. Addition accuracy is very keen and balanced. The +1 atk makes attrition too powerful a strategy. (GFireflyE)
- The cooldown of player and monster abilities should be reduced to 3 turns to make the combat more interesting. (Wizard1200)
- Caster heroes, even those with "melee" weapons equipped like the starting caster staff should be treated as ranged units for troop placement at the start of a battle. Caster heroes are still starting in the front lines with the melee troops if they have a staff/dagger. (Kantok)
- It's too easy to do absurd stuff in combat. Summon Skeletal Horde+Cull the Weak and Gallowman's consume spirit can generate far too much mana, Life Draining abilities and free heals makes the fastest way to recover health, to find a random weak AI city or wandering monster as a full heal. I propose that abilities that produce mana in combat should be capped at the amount of mana you started the battle with. Same for health production abilities. (Arcayer, sxyz123)
- Combats using Auto-Completion are handy, excepting that the AI often manages to deal out disproportionate damage to the Player's units making this method lackluster. (BernieTime)
- Conquering an enemy faction. When forcing the Enemy AI to surrender it's counter productive to raze the former leader's cities. If nothing else, the surrendering AI cities should become independent, not just disappear like Atlantis =P If that faction is/was my Ally, there should be a method of making the former Sovereign into a Vassal at some point. Maybe if my Ally's population or cities are below a certain threshold. (BernieTime)
- Magical staves always do the same damage even vs. magic immune targets. (Chaosti) [Please tell me how they work against Frost/Fire resistance]
- rename the "pass" button in tactical combat to "defend", and maybe add a tooltip that shows how much defense you gain from defending instead of attacking. (Azunai_)
3. Unit Abilities (granted from weapons or races):
- Bows and staves have no special abilities. Bows could have the "rain of arrows" or any other interesting ability and staves could have the "focus" ability that works like the spell with an additional action immediately afterwards. (Wizard1200, GFireflyE)
- I would offer that 'rain of arrows' be limited in range (assuming that you mean for the ability to do splash damage to a 2x2 tile area) so that bowmen cannot abuse it from afar. (GFireflyE)
- Staves would be cooler with some kind of ability like 'surge' or 'Spell Focus' that increases the potency of your next spell by 25%. (ie, casting Blind with surge would generate a 31% blindness instead of the regular 25%) (GFireflyE) [or maybe increase the buff duration?]
- Quendar race ability: flame tongue - really overpowered to the point of being ridiculous. Maybe a rebalance? It does 2x the damage of the unit's level in melee range in fire damage, and costs no mana to use. Early-game: Level 2 3-man Quendar: 2*3*2 = 12 damage spell; Midgame: Level 6 4-man Quendar: 6*4*2 = 48 damage spell; Endgame: Level 9 4-man Quendar: 9*4*2 = 72 damage spell; Level 9 5-man Quendar: 9*5*2 = 90 damage spell... Suggestion: severe damage reduction on this ability! (Chaosti)
4. Faction Abilities:
- Lucky is too strong and could instead better work like backswing. (Wizard1200)
- The Faction points that uncover research would be cooler if they would add some other unique bonus (e.g. Civilized would unlock "Civics" and provide a +5% gildar bonus) (me)
- Racial perks are balanced in favor of the Fallen Empires. Especially Tarth gives the Kingdoms a disadvantage compared to Urxens. (ArisianOne)
5. Heroes Abilities/ Skill Paths / general:
- Warrior trait tree: Probably switch the special abilities that currently hide behind Weapon specific (e.g. +Axe Damage/+Spear Damage) traits to the front of those lines. That would in my humble opinion make the warrior so much more onjoyable to level instead of being stuck with boring +dmg that does not even benefit your current weapon. (me)
- the path trees are too long and the abilities have too many prerequisites. For example instead of evoker I - IV there should be only aeromancy, geomancy, ... that increases the damage of air, earth, ... spells by 50 % or instead of vital strike I - III there should be only vital strike that increases the critical hit chance by 15 and the critical damage by 50 %. (Wizard1200, Lord Micheal) [this has been partly changed during recent versions - Evoker IV was removed]
- Totally agree here. After playing a few games in beta, I think when a champion levels up, they should be able to choose one trait
in each tree. I find myself choosing only spells in the beginning. By the time I start choosing combat skills the game is nearly over. (Lord Micheal, Bernietime)
- Hero Trait advancement is painfully slow. Recommend giving "free" extra traits every "x" levels and a Free Trait pick upon choosing the Hero's path. Free trait picks could be restricted to the Generic side only used to help balance out some current path deficiencies. Like having an Armor advancement path restricted by Level. (Bernietime) [e.g. something along the lines of a 2 traits points every 5 levels]
- Why not give a customisable hero/hench once the game has gone through all the pre-programmed heroes? So you could choose the skills, Path and items (within certain constraints) for an x level hero/hench. As a reward for getting to a high level of fame (you attract the heroes you want ). (StevenAus) [fyi the last hero currently unlocks at 4800 Fame]
- As soon as a medium or high level commander is in an army the unit stats are unbalanced. The commander could instead of passives use active abilites e.g. to improve the accuracy by 25 for 1 turn, the spell resistance by 25 for 1 turn, ... (Wizard1200)
- If commanders are too strong, then their abilities should be weakened, but making them be like other heroes just so that they line up better is wrong. The entire point of a commander is to fill the role of a vanilla hero who doesn't have to go about doing stuff to function. We already have an active buffer, he's the defender. (Arcayer)
- The Commander Champions should be able to gain XP 's while assisting cities too. (Lord Micheal)
- How about for Commander exp there is exp bonus for building world achievements where they are stationed? Maybe even other 1 per faction buildings but not as much awarded? (kendainty)
- Beastmasters can tame extremely powerful beasts, en-masse early in, which then have no upkeep. Tame beast's cost should scale to the level of the enemy monster, making it easier to tame wandering wolves in the beginning, and harder to start out with an armada of cave bears. (Arcayer)
6. Heroes' Spells:
- The scaling of some spells destroys the balance. For example flame dart is useless at low levels and overpowered at high levels. (Wizard1200)
- The power of some spells is too low (shadowbolt, cloak of thorns, ...) and should be increased like the healing spells in 0.87 (Wizard1200) [Shadowbolt was nerfed due to the Spell not being resistable]
- The AI does not use strategic spells (pillar of flame, freeze, ...) against the player and strategic spells inflict too much damage IF a high level mage casts them. (Wizard1200) [The AI does use some spells now. Although that number and variety could still be improved upon imho]
7. (Heroes') Items:
- Staves should use spell mastery for the attack and spell resistance for the defense. (Wizard1200, GFireflyE)
- All 'magical' staves should be ranged weapons that deal magical damage equal to their specific shard type (blunt weapons staves that have no magical properties can remain melee, though I doubt any hero would use them). This would place mages on the backline WHERE THEY BELONG. Mage path should have the ability to increase the damage of their staff weapon embeded within. Something like "Attunement - increase staff attack by 25% if you share magic type as the staff) (GFireflyE) [This also concerns the Summoners Staff with the +10 atk vs. elementals, it is pretty useless atm]
- Complex does not equal interesting. Vanilla pieces are as important as their more complicated counterparts. (Arcayer) [agreed, but it shouldn't mean that there should be no Staves/Bows with special abilities]
- The damage of crossbows is too low. (Wizard1200) [and they are still not to different from bows. boring.]
- Few Late game Mage/Archer items and much less Mage items compared to melee. (Stupidity10)
8. Outposts:
- Outposts may be better off if a different unit would be used for construction. At the moment, it costs WAY too much for pioneers to be used to construct outposts. The SCOUT unit should have the option to be consumed and build an outpost. Imo, upgrading outposts should involve scouts being consumed on the site to select an upgrade INSTEAD of the current option of building upgrades directly from your city. Outposts should also have the CHOICE of which city they are to be associated with and thereby where the bonuses they are collecting are going to. Resources should be tied to the closest outpost/city. (Not just the closest city). (GFireflyE, Brainjuggler)
9. Economy/Cities:
- The tax system could better have different internals: Free Spirited at 10% tax with 16% unrest, Low at 20% tax with 19% unrest, Normal at 30% tax with 24% unrest. High at 50% tax wtih 40% unrest, Brutal at 70% tax with 64% unrest, and finally Oppressive at 90% tax with 96% unrest. Some other economy and unrest rebalancing may have to be done as well, but this opens up taxing your population with MUCH more meaningful levels of tax. (GFireflyE) [some work has been done here. I would like more opinions on this matter. How does the new tax system fare?]
- unique buildings: adding a unique building to the queue prevents anyone else from building it (even if its not built yet) (Brainjuggler)
- All factions should be able to attempt building the Unique Wonders. The Faction that finishes first should get full benefits, but that shouldn't negate other nations from completing a "knockoff" of the wonder. You'd still get a building and not wasting all that queue time, it just wouldn't be anywhere near as impressive as the "Original Wonder". (BernieTime)
- City Razing is imbalanced. Should imo NOT be instant razing. A raze could better take duration equal to city level. (GFireflyE, sharpxe, abob101)
- City Razing is one of the biggest flubs that FE/LH has in place. The best method IMO that has been suggested is that a city which has been successfully attacked suffers a major population loss. If population goes below Zero, THEN the city is reduced to rubble. Oh, and quit salting the square where the city used to be. That's just stupid. Ireland is full of Castles being build on top of other Castles. (BernieTime)
- While it's currently not the actual case in the game, you shouldn't be receiving a global unrest penalty for having a recently conquered city to your empire. That unrest should be localized to the conquered city in question. As the local unrest of the conquered city decreases over time, the global unrest should increase. (GFireflyE)
- Cities should level up at different intervals: Level2 @ 100 pop. Level3 @ 200 pop. Level4 @ 400pop. Level5 @ 600pop. Right now, you're capital levels WAY too fast, often before your second city location is even discovered and the player has to make an UNINFORMED decision as to what your capital now has to specialize into. (GFireflyE)
- Road pathbuilding wants to have attention. Many threads about this one. (GFireflyE)
10. Quests / Random Events / Experience:
- More quests should give options to choose between different artifacts. (Stupidity10)
- Combats with AI should generate similarly weighted experiance as combats with monsters. Currently there is almost ZERO point to attacking AI to generate experiance. In addition, random events should be gone through to ensure that proper amounts of fame and experiance are handed out upon there completion. (I've seen too many that were overlooked). (GFireflyE) [apparently trash units give trash exp and late game units give more exp.]
11. AI:
- While the AI has improved dramatically to date, there is still a huge lack when it comes to their strategic military decisions. When to declare war. When to demand tribute. When to attack weaker stacks. When to attack stronger ones. Why don't they do stuff like summon units when in combat? Or cast strategic spells just prior to an attack? Or clear there own territory of quest huts and lair huts? Or buy 50 copies of the same leather bracers (saw that again in a 0.80 let's play)? Or always do the same strategy to victory (resoln is ALWAYS building towers)? Imo, there should be a different level of interaction between AI 'out there' and AI touching your faction's borders. (GFireflyE)
- Diplomacy is still an aspect of the game that is lacking. There are not enough options to interact with the AI. Different types of treaties. Different types of pacts and alliances. AI should have different levels of tolerance in dealing with you depending on who you are, who they are, special considerations, and faction power. Lot's of work to be done here imo. (GFireflyE, abob101)
- The AI uses powerful tactical spells (blizzard, fireball, ...) only rarely. (Wizard1200)
- AI is terrible at building infrastructure. Villages, Conclaves and Towns all build troops even when fortresses are available. Ive seen newly founded villages produce troops then build buildings that increase food or gildar by %. (Stupidity10)
- I would really love for AI to value resources EVEN if they have some of those. It makes no sense to attempt a trade with an AI player who got 20 metal, and I'm offering him 50 and the perceived value is 0. Really? Same with crystals, horses and wargs. As it is now you can't do anything with your surplus of a resource except money - Gildar, and research knowledge. It makes no sense at all. If I'm stranded in a location and only resource available to me are horses or metal, I should be able to trade it for crystals or wargs. Yes if the AI has some too, maybe even more than he needs, he will give me a low price for it, but really 100 crystals value 0 to you when you have only 15? (Anelyn)
- My biggest AI pet peeves are about the fact that it still does things players just wouldn't do, ever. 1) It sends out lone heroes into enemy territory. It just shouldn't do that. Only in peaceful times when you're levelling your hero he might be on his own. Otherwise always accompanied by troops. 2) It makes too many 'unit only stacks' and hardly no stacks of doom. Players only make a few stacks and try to make them as strong as possible. The AI should really invest more time in that and not scatter its units so much. (LordTheRon)
12. Map Issues:
- Unrest should be made to scale with the Map size. Currently on Huge Maps Unrest is really unmanageable. The way the game works now I've never been able to scale the economy above LOW due to lack of ways to counter Unrest as an Empire grows. (BernieTime)
13. Victory Conditions:
- Also at victory conditions, change Diplomatic Victory to: Create and hold an Alliance with all players left in game for 30 seasons (or something like this). Is really too easy to get this victory as it is now, pretty much if you have a slight start / faction power compared to rest of AI's, is the quickest way to win the game without even breaking past mid game tech / research wise. (Anelyn)
14. UI:
- Please add a scaling to the skillbars in tactical combat to support the usage of the whole widescreen monitor some technologically advanced people here use. Kidding. At this moment in time everyones skillsbar is as long as 1/10th of the whole screen even on a 640*480 resolution... That really is a waste. Just take a look at Dragon Age:Origins - their skillbar was customizable in length. The first 10 skills had shortcuts (the numbers 1-0) and after that the other skills were just clickable. Imho a good way to handle that. (me, cammagno74)
- Clarify the way traits stack. at the moment, it's not obvious whether traits stack or replace each other (they all stack, btw.). that's a fairly common question in the forum (a new version of that thread pops up about once per week). I suggest changing the descriptions/tooltips of the traits to better describe the mechanic, for example: "Lethal III - increases Attack by +5, cumulative with Lethal I and Lethal II for a combined effect of +12". Alternately, change the descriptions/tooltips to indicate the combined value and change the description accordingly, i.E. "Lethal III - increases attack by +12, replaces Lethal I and II". I think the second version is easier to understand, though the first one is probably easier to implement (just have to change the tooltip/description texts, without changing program logic which icons to display on the character sheet) (Azunai_)
- the swapping of queue items is too unintuitive: add 2 buttons that appear when you select an item in the queue : 1st button = move the item 1 position up in the queue, 2nd button = move 1 position down in the queue. OR Make the "queue list" be completly scrollable with the mouse, so that, when you have selected one item with the mouse, if you move the mouse on the left part of the page, the game understand that you want to move this item on the previous page, and scroll to this page automaticaly. (stardock334)
- Upgrade paths for items are still messed up. I think the simpliest solution would be: offer 2 upgrade 'paths'. one for the 'warfare' path and one for the 'magic' path items. That way, for example, if I want warhammers on my units rather than lightning hammers, I can. Same thing with regards to armor and such. (Chaosti) [this has changed during the last few version. Please provide a bit more feedback for it.]
- When upgrading units: if doing an armour upgrade, the game should not try to replace soldier's boots (+1 initiative) with armor-type boots (e.g. leather)! Similarly, it really shouldn't try to upgrade leather armor into the monk's armor (sure it gives 1 extra defense and 5 dodge, but generally that's not a worthwhile upgrade for the crystal and gold cost!) (Chaosti)
15. Crashes/Graphical Errors:
- Restarting a game too often will cause the graphic engine to break and deliver graphics too bright to be pleasing. (me)
- After playing for too long the game will start flickering and eventually black will cover most of the screen. The game itself still works if you know where to click. But you can no longer see any menues, etc. (me)
- The game will sometimes not close its process after a long playsession causing possibly 1GB of Memory and a great deal of Processor power to be blocked (probably due to a memory leak). (me)
16. General Game Development:
- Be inspired by Mods produced from the Community. I really couldn't stand playing without the Bridge Mod (for instance). (BernieTime)
- Also, I totally agree that playstyle is very important; that's why I'm suggesting buffing the less interesting factions, rather than nerfing the powerful ones (I don't want to see balance come at the expense of diversity). Really, the whole point is that I'd love to see even more playstyles be viable without feeling like I'm unduly handicapping myself. (ArisianOne)
17. Old points (uncategorized):
- And finally archery bug. If my Assassin uses bows, and I researched end of the line longbows (including magical ones) who supposedly ignore 50% of target defense, that coupled with my 75% target defense ignore from Assassin path, should give me 100% Defense ignore on enemies. Yet the damage displayed on tooltip and actual damage dealt in combat reflects that neither are applied at all. With a Sovereign with 24 attack, with a bow that deals fire damage and amulets that add fire and ice damage (2 each), with 75% + 50% Defense ignore, with Break used, should do more than 1-5 damage on a Statue Lord (or what he's called, the ones leading the golem bands in scrapyard). (Anelyn) [Probably fixed during the fixing of curse. That fix also made "Ereogs Token" a very good item. Try it!]
- Break skill does not work. It graphically applies the debuff on targeted enemy, it is shown when inspecting said enemy in tactical screen, but it's effect is not applied, target retains full defense (against all attackers, including the Assassin who used Break). (Anelyn) [Supposedly fixed as of 0.9 - someone confirm this please]
- Heroes that have no more traits to spend skill points on get stuck in the levelup screen once they level up again. (me) [fixed as of 0.87]
- Knights of Asok, Mercenary and Border Camps are still useless due to the high upkeep cost of their units and the inability to upgrade them. This will ruin one to many games a new player will start (this was pointed out by Lord Xia in the 0.87 and 0.9 Changelog post) [balanced during 0.91]
- Stacks can't move after fighting: let an enemy clear a nest of baddies, then claim the treasure yourself. With some clever use of sacrificial units and choke points, you can keep enemy stacks at bay indefinitely. (Brainjuggler) [Changed during 0.91 or 0.92]
- unique buildings must be reworked in favor of MP balance - first player who build recieve fullpower structure, all other players still able to build it, but recieve only minor bonus. (sharpxe) [Stardock said that the game will not be balanced towards MP if there will ever be one.]
- BTW: The hard cap of 9 on resources per square of land (ie grain + materials + essence <= 9) is my personal bugbear, I detest this change. Not sure if others agree but merely knowing that I have no chance of finding a really awesome settle spot removes a significant part of my fun from exploring and expanding. I haven't tried the latest couple of versions tho so it is possible they have already removed the hard cap. (Mistwraithe) [the cap is moddable through the xml]
- Also another execution glitch with Rain of Arrows from Assassin path, sometimes (often) instead of firing instantly the caster remains stuck for 10-15 seconds with no casting animation then the damage happens instantly. (Anelyn) [this has been fixed as of 0.91]
Contributors (in order of appearance): Brainjuggler, sharpxe, GFireflyE, Wizard1200, abob101, Lord Micheal, Anelyn, Kantok, Stupidity10, Arcayer, kendainty, Mistwraithe, Azunai_, stardock334, Chaosti, BernieTime, LordTheRon, Publius of NV, StevenAus, ArisianOne, ... and many more to come.
Please do add to the discussion by linking sources in this forum (if possible and applicable).
I will continue to add everything to this list that any of you points out. And if things double or triple I will add +1,+2,+3,etc. behind those points.
And I will also continue to update the points on this list. Possibly removing anything that has changed or has been fixed.
Also if you could suggest better categories or a change of categories in my list. Please, feel free to do so.
Instead of considering too many changes in balance, I'd like the develpers to concentrate on implying a better memory usage. Depending on the system you use you can have CTDs every few turn, which is usually a sign of a memory leak problem. While I like that they added new tactical maps it made the memory leak worse and now you can have additional CTDs when starting a battle depending on your system (loading more textures because of the new tactical maps, resulting in more memory usuage and probably are never unloaded again). You can't release a game which can have a CTD every 15 - 30 minutes on a supported system, which excides the minimum requirements by far.
Also there are still far too many bugs reported of the past weeks and months who never got a fix. Some bugs are even reported over and over again, some bugs even are claimed to be fixed but aren't. I have reported some bugs myself serveral times on different versions and still aren't fixed. I think all obvious bugs should be fixed before release (or the release should be later... The game gets sold allready anyway.) And don't forget the Spell of Making Victory. I don't think anybody is satisfied with it, like it is now.
The biggest human exploit of them all in this game is the use of city snaking, making the need for "culture" buildings and outposts alot less for the human then for the AI. This is also removing an important part of the challenges nit to the early build up of your empire. The AI will still face it, but you as a human gets away with some cheap snaking tactics.
Make a ridicoulous/ridicoulous game with autoplacement of buildings, play the same game as the AI, and you will see it performs relatively better compared to you (then when you snake). There is a reason snaking is just optional, autoplaced buildings is the default. But since so many players have been used to lace the buildings themselves since the days of War of Magic, it's a habbit hard to abandon it seems. The result is game mechanisms going irrelevant, and gamers complaining because something feels like it doesen't work as intended.
There is so many ways to set up this game. Mostly people here isn't playing the same game at all while they argue what is imbalanced or not.
I've got a growing list on my thread (Werewolf's list of bugs/glitches....)
Not ready for release!!!
I would think that snaking should be a bit more restrictive. Intead of being able to fill two of the tile corners before proceeding on to the next distance tile away, I would have thought that SD would have implemented the restriction that all 4 tile corners need to be filled with something before being able to proceed to the next tile away. This would half the snaking abuse while maintaining snaking flexibility.
So if I have a strong lair next to my city (because it was only tile with some essence on it), I should be restricted from building stuff to not release the creatures and lose the city? No, CTRL+N to get a better start is cheating in my eyes (you don't like the spot you been assigned to, by all means move around and find a better one, don't restart until you get PERFECT spot).
Why shouldn't you have any decision making on where you build a specific building or which direction to expand to? It does not remove the need for outposts at all. It just lets you connect a resource without waking up forces you have no chance against at that point in the game.
AI doesn't particularly suffer too much from this at high levels of difficulty due to all the bonuses he receives (which human players do not). I have yet to encounter an AI past Hard difficulty setting to get wiped by lair / wandering monsters in the early game. While the same is a real problem for a human player which you can't ignore or "hope they will wander off" sort of thing.
That's a part of strategy. You don't build a city next to a lair if you can't defend it when your culture grows. What you describe is a part of the snaking exploits. By playing with snaking you in reality reduce difficulty by alot. You also dodge alot of the strategical decission making you are forced to do with autoplacing. Why should the game be easy on ridicilous? It's harder on expert diff. without snaking.The decission making becomes alot more strategical, and I can't see how such a cheap mechanic can be concidered good for gameplay.
Examples: Less need for outposts, less need for the outpost upgrade with Construction, less need for monuments and the building with administration tech. The result is you get unrest down without having to care too much about city placement or "culture buildings", same goes for the easier and faster access you get to ressources. You can also as the poster here says get away with settling close to monster lairs you have no chance fighting.
In fact, you can dodge a whole lot of game mechanics that require strategical Choice, especially in the early to mid-game, and replace it with a rather unstrategical and non-brainer concept of snaking.
I really don't agree with all you say.
You can't connect 2 cities most of the times because of the distance / objects on map between them (not even mentioning rivers which don't allow you to build on the other side even if you make a dock and they do push a bit on the other side).
There will always be scattered resources in different directions. With snaking you can grab one, maybe 2 if they are really close. Rest you need outposts.
I always end up with double to triple number of outposts in relation to number of cities I posses. I don't really need the outpost +1 zone of control improvement, am using the travel one mainly (some others very situational). And I plant outposts long before I get to tech to upgrade most options, and instead of waiting for them to get 1 more zone of control to grab that resource or close the gap, guess what, I build another outpost. Is cheap, any non-village should build a pioneer in 1-4 turns, which doesn't even compare to XX of turns to build the upgrades. My cities are too busy building badly needed improvements or training troops to take a break to upgrade outposts really.
When I am playing Porcipinee am literally spamming the map with outposts (much faster to place them where you want - no training / travel time), but that's a particular faction.
Regarding the lairs. Early game you won't settle near monster lairs you know you can't clear / defend against at end of early start of mid game. You do need the improvements that decrease unrest, quite badly with some factions, and you get the +1 zone of control like it or not. You can't simply count on never pushing your borders. You always want to, it's just a matter of when is safe for you to do so.
But. In the end is your choice. Enable or disable manual placing. It's an option. It doesn't affect game play at all since is single player, PvE. Want - in your opinion - a challenge, turn it off. Want to actually have control of what you're doing, keep it on. I have yet to hear someone saying they are beating AI on higher difficulty levels because of snaking, and has nothing to do with "other" things
here's one suggestion for the "UI" section:
clarify the way traits stack. at the moment, it's not obvious whether traits stack or replace each other (they all stack, btw.). that's a fairly common question in the forum (a new version of that thread pops up about once per week).
i suggest changing the descriptions/tooltips of the traits to better describe the mechanic, for example:
"Lethal III - increases Attack by +5, cumulative with Lethal I and Lethal II for a combined effect of +12"
alternately, change the descriptions/tooltips to indicate the combined value and change the description accordingly, i.E.
"Lethal III - increases attack by +12, replaces Lethal I and II"
i think the second version is easier to understand, though the first one is probably easier to implement (just have to change the tooltip/description texts, without changing program logic which icons to display on the character sheet)
Good idea Azunai_, I was always confused by that myself. Thought that the Summon I,II,III etc were really pointless. Added!
Updated the list to respect 0.9 fixes concerning the Break Skill.
+1
Very good suggestion!
another very simple suggestion that may help many new/casual players:
rename the "pass" button in tactical combat to "defend", and maybe add a tooltip that shows how much defense you gain from defending instead of attacking.
i have a nagging feeling that many of the LH players never really use the defense mechanic the way it was (probably) intended by the devs. i for one, didn't really do much but press forward and attack for most of my FE/LH play time and i found low level combat against stronger mobs impossible, so my usual strategy was to turtle and build up to T2 units, then steamroll the encounters. i really just discovered the power of defensive units a few weeks back, and enjoy the tactical combat much more since then (and upped my world difficulty by 3 stages since then )
If I remember correctly, the button was originally named defend, and was changed to pass because of an opposite confusion.
Many tactical concepts should be explained better in tutorial or in the in game help glossary.
For example how swarm bonuses work and what exactly they do.
I see the hero you get at 800 fame is still level 1. I thought that had been fixed, but I guess not. Seems like it shouldn't reset to 1.
Why not give a customisable hero/hench once the game has gone through all the pre-programmed heroes? So you could choose the skills, Path and items (within certain constraints) for an x level hero/hench. As a reward for getting to a high level of fame (you attract the heroes you want ).
I got a level 7 at 800 fame, Liniad, in my current game. Note I am building henchemen, so the timing was likely delayed, and am playing on epic speed.
Too bad for her my sovereign needed the Life school, bye Liniad.
Really good suggestion StevenAus, I like it!
AzunaI_, I will try to defend more often. Experienced it the same way you did. Also good point in renaming the "Pass" Button.
So, any response from devs? This list is great by the way.
I did just read in another thread that Brad is still planning to go over UI items...and in the same sentence he mentioned that he reads all our ideas....so I'm betting these items have all been read and will be seriously considered....for good or for ill.
I hate to say it but most of these suggestions would turn the game into a tedious mess. I think they are great ideas for minders to try out but I don't want to be forced to play the game you guys seem to want.
i would rather they spend time polishing and enhancing what they have.
We're reading through this. There's a lot of interesting ideas here.
One suggestion that Chris Taylor once told me (regarding giving feedback): Try to eliminate the word "need" from suggestion posts.
That said, there's a lot of good stuff here.
awww....
so mercs don't NEED rebalancing? Those Knights of Asok are pretty expensive in the upkeep.
another little suggestion:
change the premade crossbowmen designs to include a shield (at least a wooden shield with no resource cost). the general consensus regarding crossbows seems to be that they suck. one reason for this is probably that hardly anyone realizes that crossbows are one handed and can be combined with a shield. add a shield to the premade design to communicate that option better.
While I like the idea of compiling a list like this there are several items that need to be crossed off because the devs have listened to this and have addressed the issue. A few I noticed right off the bat are militia and mercs/asok knights wages. I am sure there are more. By removing the ones that are done we can acknowledge successes and focus on the things that still need to be looked at/addressed.
woot! woot!
Just saw in the 0.91 changelog. Upkeep has been removed from Knights of Asok!
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