As we all know once you defeat an enemy's main army the rest tends to be a bit easy to finish off.
Also not being able to defend your lands better is annoying, they tend to bypass your fortresses and go around destroying your resources or attacking less defended towns...often with single heroes on horseback.
There is no way to really secure your borders short of tossing out a bunch or curgen's volcanoes, which is kinda cheesy.
So how about you add wall tiles into the game that have to be attached to a fortress? You can give fortress higher defensive bonuses and make it require a 2 to 1 or 3 to 1 army power to be able to defeat fortresses.
So if you cant defeat the fortress you have to attack the walls. (Each tile of wall has to be built separately on the global map)
Each wall tile you attack starts a tactical battle and if you win you break that section of wall, which allows you to travel through that hole on the global map, allowing your army to ravage their country side.
Each wall tile would have a default army and each wall tile could be upgraded to have a stronger default army and stronger walls.
The tactical battle would have an actual wall in them, you on one side, enemy on the other, and in order to get to them you have to attack and destroy sections of the wall.
You can not fire projectile spells or arrows over the wall, and it would block AoE attacks (Dragon fire can destroy it but not pass through it). This would give the defenders a couple of free rounds while you attempt to smash down the wall (They have health bars). Also if you only knock down a single section you would be running your army through a bottle neck allowing them to swarm you on the other side, or you could knock down several sections to allow you a better advantage but it would take longer of course.
Now this opens the door for siege equipment!
You could have 3 types of siege weapons, one designed to damage walls, one for shooting over walls and damaging troops behind, and one for damaging other siege equipment over the walls.
Think battering ram, arrow carts, and balistas.
So now you can take your normal army and a siege equipment army to a wall, switch your units around in a wall siege army, break down the wall and then switch them back to your normal army, and go rampaging around their country side.
Also again you can upgrade the walls to make them stronger, to have more/better defenders and even have turrets on sections of the walls themselves (In tactical combat) that can only be destroyed by destroying that section of wall they are on top of...I can picture some cool magical orb thing on top of a section of wall that is invulnerable and shoots lightning bolts at your army, and you have to topple the wall section it is on in order to stop it.
Again all this is talking about during tactical battles against walls, not global.
Of course this also could open a whole new set of tactical spells. You could set your walls a blaze with an enchantment spell during tactical combat to cause attackers to take damage, however it wouldnt hurt siege units like a battering ram attacking the wall. Or you could use earth magic to strengthen or heal the walls, water magic to freeze them giving a small bit of ice damage and having a chance to freeze the attacker (Initiative loss and possible loss of turn)
Possibilities are exciting.
But as it is, you basically defeat the main army, destroy and salt the country side and move along, and you have no way to really bottleneck or secure any kind of border.
No more dealing with small annoying units swarming and destroying your resources, now they have to be strong enough get past your walls at least.
Also this stops the player from just running a bunch of single militias through the enemy kingdoms constantly destroying their resources.
Thoughts?
Many have asked for similar defenses, either special tiles like hilltops on regular tactical maps and walls and other defenses like you mentioned above. I hope they think about adding these mechanics to a future expansion... though I expect modding some sort of destructible walls into the current game could be accomplished by a skillful modder.
Interesting ideas, but I'm not sure this is the game for them. I know I like the simplicity and speed of the combat system.
Well, there is a way to create this but its a bit convoluted right now. If you make a unit that has very high melee attack and defense and then use a post model for the graphics it will spawn at the front of the line. You then create a spell that auto-summons directly ahead of the unit at the beginning of combat 3 units similar to the area covered by an axe sweep. You set it up to summon 3 wall units that have a debuff applied to them called wall stun, you would have to make this such that they are immovable and can not attack as well as 100% prone resistant. You then have destructible walls that the defending units can pass through but offensive units can't. Set the wall structure improvements within the city to auto-summon the post units or hub units for a better name at the beginning of combat such that they would cover the front row. Hope this makes sense. I have been messing around with this idea for a while but I just don't have the time to build it.
The idea sounds good, although it might be a bit too slow and complex...
But I'm all for the wall thing! It would allow a good dimension that is kind of difficult to get (unless you have a very, very narrow passage it is very difficult to do precisely that).
I never said the wall solution was easy or pretty but it does work since all the basic elements are already there within the game someone just needs to put them all together.
Actually that would be a cool civilization perk. Two points in a custom civ, and they can make the "Great Wall." Sacrifice a unit of militia (so, peasants) to create an impassable structure. Could be done easily by modding the outpost code, and using the imperial city wall model that is in game already. Perhaps catapults could destroy the wall or something. Though It is hard to imagine any wall that cannot be climbed in the span of three months (Game season).
@coyote303
You can still beat down the walls with your normal melee troops. It would be just like everything else in the game, its there, if you use it you can reap benefit.
I am sure the current master of this game would watch you playing it and point out things you didnt do, forgot to do or could do about every 2-3 turns.
And yet you still win and the complexity you ignore doesnt effect your gameplay.
I guess I am playing a different game than everyone else.
I have spent around 200 hours playing FE:LH and each time the general result is the same. ( I play on Expert and normally win, barring some sort of stupid event putting 10-12 deadly monster armies surrounding my Kingdom when the global highest kingdom is around 100 power)
I normally have someone at war with me by the time I get leather armor, which is very early in the game, with everyone else quickly becoming more and more irate with me...so they start trying to shake money out of me, and if I pay then they still start hating me more and more, and if I dont, then its a little bit faster.
Even if I spread some cash around to get other kingdoms involved in multiple wars, they still always keep a focus on me.
15-20% of the way through the game I generally have everyone at war with me and get constantly attacked from multiple sides simultaneously, which makes it a little frustrating.
If you are a Mage, later on it gets easier to deal with as you may have access to Tremor, Freeze, Tidal Wave, Fallen Star, Tornado and Pillar of Flame.
And by then you can afford to field an extra army or two.
But in the early game the AI tends to bottle me up, constantly attacking both towns and resources from every angle, which I have to juggle along with deadly monsters roaming inches from my cities while the best Kingdom's army has barely reached strong, I cant even clear out my small, manageable cluster of cities from monsters because of the constant attacks.
Even when I start to get a bit of a grip on things, if I dont have at least 2 armies guarding my lands constantly roaming back and forth in my Kingdom I cant make any attempt on expanding my lands.
During the mid game, even if the AI is at war with most of the map they still find a way to send a stack my way every 3-4 turns, even if we are on opposite corners of the globe. I just find it frustrating that by this point, even with two armies guarding my kingdom I get so swarmed that I have to constantly rebuild resources and recapture towns, as I'll get attacked by 3-5 separate armies at once, from multiple fronts.
I really wish there was some way to block off choke points other than Curgen's Volcano, which is a really cheap way of doing it, and in most cases isnt very practical until you have already nearly won.
If you sit an army at a town, they walk past it and destroy resources or move to one that is unguarded, I always find myself looking at...ok lets go to one side and stop this army, and then immediately run to the opposite side to stop another barely in time, and then go recapture a taken town on the other side that got snatched while I was running to stop this army, and then run to kill a army of monsters, wait nope cant getting attacked by two other player armies now...
There is simply no way to protect your lands reasonably. And because on higher difficulties the AI cheats, they get so far ahead of you it gets crazy quick if you are unable to bring the fight to them or expand, which is about impossible as I end up loosing half my kingdom in the time it takes for me, to capture one city from my closest neighbor.
We really shouldnt be forced into such a narrow playstyle using everything OP we can get our hands on to be able to have a reasonable chance of beating Expert+.
And this is only going to get MUCH MUCH worse when the AI get updated and starts going for the throat.
Um, surely that should be "I haven't yet found a way to defend my lands reasonably"?
It sounds like you are taking a long time in your games. In a game where everyone starts off weak and gets stronger, then the way to win is to do things faster than your opponents (especially high difficulty AI opponents who get stupid bonuses). You don't have to use exploits, but work out how you can do things faster:
1) Make your main stack as high movement as possible. Only use high movement troops in that stack. Give your heroes horses or wargs. Use the spell which gives you +1 movement.
2) Make researching roads a priority. Agree the treaty which creates a road between you and the AIs.
3) Do whatever you can to build things faster. Build production and unrest boosting buildings first, rush buildings, research production boosting buildings, use production boosting city spells, etc.
4) Use as many free gold troops as you can. Slaves, tamed animals, summoned troops, none of them use gold. That means you can spend gold on other things, like rushing buildings.
If you can get a significant head-start then the rest of the game becomes much easier.
Later in the game, if you're being attacked from multiple sides, use the strategic spells. There's an air spell (cloudwalk?) which transports your air mage + stack to anywhere in your territory, which is perfect for this. There's another spell (call of the titans?) which moves all non-stationed troops to the same tile. There are several spells which immobilize enemy stacks in your territory which are great for holding them in place while you move your best stack to attack them.
Focus on speed and efficiency and the whole game will become a lot easier.
I am well aware of everything you mentioned.
I do everything you mentioned.
My focus is and always has been on speed and efficiency, but that only goes so far when the AI has a Merchantcross Bazaar before you finish researching civics. (Insane)
On expert I can keep in the middle of the pack for the beginning and make up ground towards the middle as I go for the long term route and focus more on economy.
By mid game I'm normally top in most categories and if not #1, maybe 2 or possibly 3 in uncommon circumstances.
So it isnt a situation of being so far behind, it is a situation of being ganged up on every time I play which is fine if there was some way to handle the protections of my lands better.
The game simply isnt designed around giving you the ability to make a decent army to protect every city along with the ability to have 2 solid armies roaming to stop the AI from destroying resources.
It works both ways as you can use a single city to spit out militia and just have them swarm over a single enemies lands taking towers, and destroying resources.
You can produces them en mass to the point the AI cant kill them as fast as you can make them, and it greatly lowers the rate at which they send forces to your homelands and severely delays them as they have to constantly waste turns rebuilding resources.
The AI cant really use this tactic, however the effect is essentially the same when you have 5 people at war with you at once attacking you in a coordinated manner.
And maybe that is a part I havent figured out yet, but the the larger kingdoms want money for not attacking you, if you dont pay they get angry with you until they declare war. If you pay they get angry with you until they declare war. If you make a treaty or otherwise they like you more for a few turns and then start getting angry with you until they declare war.
The AI logic seems to be for me anyways, You expand, I hate you, You build an army, I hate you, you defend your lands, I hate you, you make a treaty with someone else, I hate you, you are close to me, I REALLY hate you, you are far away from me and it is a significant cost and risk to attack you and for the foreseeable future you present little to no threat to me....I hate you and will attack you.
I get the feeling it isnt the normal experience for most people to have 5/6 kingdoms at war with them by turn 15-20.
And I think being able to toss up some walls to at LEAST make any army crossing a wall have to fight the attached fortress is a great idea, as sealing any one of the 4 to 8 different direction I am getting constantly attacked from would be great.
I dont even get a chance to do anything but WEAK quests until a point in the game I basically wont because I can afford my Sovereign doing anything but constantly fighting back the hordes of attackers.
At last! Something we can finally agree on!
Still not sure why you would be opposed to simply having walls being able to be built, and crossing them would just initiate combat with the attached fortress.
How does that really change anything for you in a negative way?
And if you have been experiencing the evolution of the AI from Elemental to now you can clearly see the leaps and bounds they have made.
And there is a fairly clear direction the AI development will go, of course the AI's ability to cheat will reduce as it improves as well.
But that doesnt change the fact protecting your Kingdom with current methods is like protecting your head from rain by wearing a strainer over your head.
A fact that will be magnified as the AI improves.
I really struggle to understand how you can have five or six kingdoms at war with you by turn 15-20. In my current Ridiculous game, on a medium randomly generated map with the default number of AIs (four?) it's about turn 50, I've met three AIs in the last twenty turns or so. In terms of power rating I'm slightly more powerful than one, somewhat less powerful than the second, and quite a lot less powerful than the third. The two weaker ones are happy with me, probably because we've traded technology and have trade treaties. The most powerful one doesn't like me, but that's fine because he's not close and in any case I'm confident I can take out any stacks he sends my way with my stack containing my sovereign. If things go like they normally do, I'll build up my sovereign into an unstoppable mage (a summoner, in this case), give him as strong a stack of doom as possible, and take out the AIs in order of how close they are to me and how much we like each other.
I don't especially object to the idea of walls or forts or whatever, however I think you might benefit from looking at your strategy. I've simply never had the problems you're describing. I hadn't met any AIs by turn 15 of my current game, let alone five who then decided to go to declare war on me. Maybe you get very unlucky with a map, or maybe you play with too many AIs for the size of map, but I don't recognise what you're describing as problems.
"On expert I can keep in the middle of the pack for the beginning and make up ground towards the middle as I go for the long term route and focus more on economy." I personally think this is a mistake. Don't go for the long-term route. If you don't like the grind of fighting a war of attrition on several fronts, kill the AIs as quickly as possible. I suspect I'm finishing games at the point you consider the "mid-game".
I cant go after enemies AIs because again if I do I loose half my kingdom in the time it takes to raze the closest enemy city right next to me.
And I have seen the AI # recommendations based on the size of the map. Playing 6 AI on a large map is well within those boundaries.
I have play 5 full games on Expert so far, (Fewest opponents 4, most 6) and only gave up on one, the longest I went without having the majority of Kingdoms at war with me was around turn 40, and I was thinking the whole time, wow this is nice I can get past researching leather before armies start coming my way.
If I go hardcore war and ignore the civics side of things, I can shoot ahead a bit quicker but by midgame my lack of development causes my demise.
All I can really do is weather the unrelenting storm until I can slowly turn the tide.
I always see AIs send armies my way as another AI is taking their cities, they seem to care less about defending their own lands and instead are hell bent on taking mine.
In fact it has always been a very similar experience throughout every game I played. Everyone hates me and tries their best to hold me down, while one/two kingdoms pull ahead and then while everyone is waging an unrelenting war against me the larger AI/s just keeps pounding them as they focus 90% of their resources on stopping me.
The more powerful AIs are always the ones farthest away from me, in other words the ones wasting the least amount of resources trying to pummel me into the dirt.
Are you guys essentially building nothing but militias right off the bat and sending wave after wave at the closest kingdoms 1-2 cities?
By this stage in my current game I've got a sovereign mage who can summon skeleton horde, a strategically summoned ice elemental and air elemental, with the rest of the stack filled up with free maintenance slave troops. As long as I've got 75 mana I'm pretty confident I can take out a Strong stack with minimal casualties. I think casting cull the weak on summoned skeletons should be banned and I don't do it, but I've been culling any slaves who get low on health, so I've had a reasonable amount of mana. After I've taken out all the Strong threat or lower lairs and quests I should be in a position to take on the Deadly ones or take out an AI, depending which seems the best target. I'm already strong enough that I should be able to take out any single stack the AI sends, and as I said, my closest neighbours like me anyway, so I'm not too worried about them declaring war on me.
To be at war with so many AIs so early and unable to defend yourself with one stack you need to be both very unlucky with the map (surrounded on all sides by AIs and with no natural defences) and very unlucky with their personalities (if they all hate you). Are you building more cities than you can easily defend with one stack? Do you trade with the AIs?
I'm not saying being at war with all the AIs early in the game can never happen, but I really struggle to understand how it can happen to you every game.
What you do and what I do doesnt sound all that different, I have played several hero types and havent yet made a summoner type yet tho.
Well I get leather earlier.
Closest neighbors like you? Only time that happens is if I am human and the closest is Altar and if they are human they are "ok" with me, but that lasts only so long...as they quickly get paid off by the ones who hate me to declare war on me.
Every time for me, the ones that are Yellow or green get paid off to declare war by the others that are orange or at war with me.
I mean I'm not going to fib and say I choose the easy AIs, I just take what they give me.
Last game was Carridus, Kulan, Yithril, Magnar, Gilden and Altar.
So granted that would be a bit more difficult.
But it started with...
Yithril, hmm let me think abou--WAR!
Kulan, Hmm...WAR
Carridus - Love you
Altar - Love you
Gilden - Ok with you
Magnar - Dont really like you.
Then after about 10 turns...
Carridus - Sorry they paid me to attack you
Altar - Sorry they paid me to attack you
Gilden - You are now at war with my ally, sorry
Magnar - You are now at war with my ally, sorry.
I think he is playing on small to medium maps. If you play on the largest map size and play with about 10 NPC players and this should give you room to breath (expand and build and kill monsters,) I never play on the smaller maps.
I'm genuinely puzzled how you can play five games on large maps with 4-6 opponents and have that happen every time.
I play with four opponents on a medium map and I've never had that happen.
The only thing I can think is that if you increase the number of opponents you increase the chance of encountering an aggressive AI early. I'm playing against Yithril in my current game, and yes he will probably declare war on me at some point in the fairly near future, but it's turn 105. The other two AIs I've encountered are happy with me. Yithril's at war with one of them so there's zero chance of him bribing that AI to attack me.
Even if I'm being attacked by the AIs, this isn't the end of the world as long as I can crush any one of their stacks with my stack with minimal losses; I can then generally take their cities. I've had Blood Season happen to me a couple of times late in the game, and it's really not that big a deal, there are generally only a couple of directions I can be attacked from, and Cloudwalk can move my big stack from one front to the other if necessary.
I can understand how you can be unlucky with the map and the AIs sometimes, what I don't understand is how you can end up in early wars every time.
Further to my previous post, in my game Yithril demanded tribute, I refused and Yithril instantly declared war on me, whereupon the Oracle (who had previously been happy with me) instantly declared war on me. So I guess this is what you're describing. But as I said, this is past turn 100; of the other two AIs, Gilden was at war with Yithril and is happy with me, and I haven't actually met Tarth yet. I consumed a shard to crush the Oracle's army, and I haven't even seen a Yithril army. Neither Yithril or the Oracle are particularly close to my cities so I'll now resume clearing lairs and city sites around me.
And that's the closest I've come to seeing the diplomacy you've described, in 120 hours or so on LH and the same on FE before that.
So while I can see how you could get everyone declaring war on you early if you had an unlucky map and unlucky AI personalities, I still think there must be something unusual about your setup or your playing style for it to happen repeatedly.
In the particular example you've given, you had ten turns grace when it might have been possible to bribe one of the other AIs to attack Yithril or Kulan, which would presumably have helped. Don't know if you had enough gold etc. though. That seems to be the biggest difference I can see between my game and yours, in my game Yithril was already at war with Gilden and the Orace was already at war with Tarth before they declared war on me.
While it always seems to me to cost absurd amounts of gildar to pay someone to go to war with whoever I'm currently annoyed with, I'm not proud about paying tribute. The AI seems to accept ridiculously small amounts of money to leave me alone and let me continue building, researching, and scarfing up resources for another thirty turns. If it's someone really obnoxious, I'll track the countdown of the tribute truce and make darned sure to pay him off again.
And then, when I'm good and ready, march into his territory and put the lot to the torch.
Only thing I can think of is that I use Arcane Monolith and maybe go crazy with it some.
Would put my territory closer to more AIs ( +Angry) and they might over estimate me in some way because of it as well.
I do pay AI to declare war, almost always, goal is to have everyone fighting everyone so maybe they leave me alone.
Anyone know the earliest the blood moon random event can come up? That one makes everyone go to war with you, so its one way to be at war with everything that moves.
I'm not saying some more defenses wouldn't be useful, but i have learned the defensive power of outposts. An outpost with fortify and an armory can magnify a small group of defensive troops to equal a much larger force, especially if you can blast the encroaching army with damage and debuffs.
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