I have a couple of questions. Is wanderlust (quest maps) worth it, and which do you consider the best faction traits?
Is having the rebel trait very bad?
Which are the best professions for a character, I usually choose the defense bonus,, but am thinking of switching to a summoner.
Can the items that lets you get rid of enchantment upkeep be aquired in another way later on in the game?
Is there a maximum level for a hero?
Faction traits and sovereign professions are not 100% balanced but it is more or less intended by Stardock. They are supposed to offer you a way to customize your playstyle and the means to reach your goals. Some of them will make it far more difficult to play the game, which is very nice if you look for a challenge. Some of them will make the game a cakewalk.
Personally, I really like "The Decalon" because of the ability to place an outpost anywhere on the map for 50 mana without the need to train settlers. You can get resources and nice land very easily and deny the AI. It is a hugely overpowered ability in my opinion, but also one that is a lot of fun.
- "Wanderlust" is a very nice trait if you like to go on quests and want to quickly earn Xp and items for your heroes. It's also nice to keep spawning until a quests comes up that you were actually looking for.
- "Rebel" is pretty bad compared to the other negative traits, especially if you are new to the game and don't really know how to fight unrest, but if you know the mechanics of the game you can deal with it.
- A very powerful, fun and honestly quite overpowered profession is "Beastlord". You can basically capture any beast roaming the lands without the need to pay upkeep for them. Gather some bears with the maul ability, get a Commander with additional Accuracy for the entire army and no one will be able to stand against you.
- "Summoner" is an ok profession but not extremely helpful. Unless you download this one mod that reworks the entire summoning aspect of the game. Then it's very nice:
https://forums.elementalgame.com/446891/
There is also a mod in the making that will change the professions around a bit:
https://forums.elementalgame.com/448792/
- I think there is a quest around for that. There is also a chance that an enemy sovereign with that item surrenders to you and you get another one.
- There is no maximum level, your heroes keep leveling until every single trait point has been picked.
Which blood do you like most?
I don't really have a favourite bloodline, it depends on my mood. But in general I like Altar a lot because of the xp bonus and the rush ability in combat. They are also a good choice for newcomers to the game. I also like Wraith because of their increased dodge. They are a bit harder to handle though because of their fewer hitpoints.
Maybe I like Wraith a little bit more simply because I really dig their style, they are basically dark elves. If you ask me what my favourite pre-designed sovereign and faction is, my answer would definitely be Oracle Ceresa and her Resoln faction. Getting free demons from shards, training spiders and wielding death magic is my cup of tea.
"which do you consider the best faction traits?"
Enchanters, possibly Decalon if I'm playing a faction with Creatamages (Henchmen or Sions), Master Archers if you want to play with Archers, Masterwork Chainmail because I value 4 initiative more than ~5 defense. Really depends on what you want to play your faction as, though - there are all kinds of very strong combinations you can come up with.
"Is wanderlust (quest maps) worth it"
If you want a decent way to level champions up later in the game, then yes. If you don't really value champions beyond the second guy you give an army to and don't really care if they don't get much beyond the mid-teens for their levels, then it isn't really valuable.
"Is having the rebel trait very bad?"
Not really. Unrest is easily managed, especially once you have a few high-level fortresses other than your troop recruiter, and you should have enough unrest reduction with Bell Towers/Clerics/etc, as well as unnecessary champions, to keep unrest at manageable levels even without the high-level fortresses, unless you like to keep taxes high.
"Which are the best professions for a character"
See here for my opinions on the matter: https://forums.elementalgame.com/444783/page/1/
I did neglect to mention Scholar, which is more of a mid-to-late game profession which I don't think is terribly useful; on the other hand, it's not almost useless like Bandit Lord and Hunter are.
Beastlord is a very strong profession, if you build your character as a curse spellcaster, and might be the strongest profession in the game, depending on how you play it. On the other hand, if it fails you against a creature which is strong relative to your army, you might be in a fair bit of trouble, especially early in the game. Warlock is a decent profession for a damage mage in the mid-to-late game, while Armorers make great army leaders, especially if your units have high defense. Most of the others are more or less middle of the road, in my opinion.
"Can the items that lets you get rid of enchantment upkeep be aquired in another way later on in the game?"
Yes, but only by forcing a sovereign bearing the item to surrender to you.
"Is there a maximum level for a hero?"
Sort of. As phazonfreak said, heroes continue to gain levels until they run out of traits, and possibly beyond (some people in the past have said that they were able to raise their champions to levels where they no longer had any traits available to take, and keep going, though this may have changed in a patch and I've never leveled a champion that far myself). However, as you may have noticed, each successive level requires more and more experience to attain, which tends to result in champion levels more or less stalling in the mid-teens in my games. You can continue to increase the champion's level, but it continually becomes more difficult to do so, and the experience required appears to increase with the square of the champion's level. Besides that, experience earned from fights is inversely dependent on the strength of your army, which is in part dependent on the level of the units in the army, and champion levels count a lot towards army strength (more, at any rate, than unit levels do, though how exactly the battle experience value is calculated is unclear, so don't ask for specifics from me).
Amarian, Mancer, or Altarian. Amarian for the bonuses it gets from shards and for the spell ability it grants to all units of that race, Mancer for the movement bonus and the road building trait, Altarian for the Henchmen and the Rush ability.
Blood Bonuses:
Amarian Blood - +1 dodge per air shard, +1 initiative per fire shard, +1 spell mastery per water shard, +1 spell resistance per earth shard. Grants the Soul Spark spell, which deals 2 (+1 per level) lightning damage per figure in the casting unit to an enemy target; spell is ranged but costs mana (which I think is also multiplied by the unit size). No extra unit design traits.
Altarian Blood - +10% to experience gain. Rush - unit gets to take an additional action. Unlocks Henchmen with Henchmen technology. Unlocks the 'Potential' unit design trait, which grants +25% experience gain for +8 production cost.
Ironeer Blood - +50% mana cost for tactical spells. +30 spell resistance and +1 HP per level. Unlocks Iron Golems with Blacksmithing technology. Grants the Guarded Strike unit ability, which makes a half-damage attack that leaves the attacker in defensive stance. No extra unit design traits.
Mancer Blood - +1 accuracy per level, +1 movement (both tactical and strategic). Grants the Road Building unit design trait which allows trained units to build roads for +0 production cost. Grants the Experienced unit design trait which grants the unit +1 level, but increases the upkeep by +1 gildar per turn and costs an additional 25 production.
Tarth Blood - +3 attack and initiative in armies of three or fewer units. Grants the Double Strike unit ability, executing two attacks at 20 less than the normal accuracy. No extra unit design traits.
Krax Blood - +8 defense when at less than half health. Grants the Fortify ability, which creates a Fortified tile on the tactical battle map that grants +10 accuracy and +20 dodge to any unit in that tile. Doesn't grant any extra unit design traits.
Wraith Blood - +20 dodge per level, - 1 HP per level. Grants the Wraith Touch ability, which transfers 1 HP per level from the target to the caster; damage is multiplied by the number of figures in the casting unit but can be entirely resisted; target must be in melee range. Grants the Hallowed Rites unit trait, which grants +3 mana per unit killed by the unit with this trait for an additional 8 production cost. Grants the Zealotry unit trait, which grants +3 initiative and -1 HP per level, costs 8 production (really bad trait - your units won't gain any health from levels if you put this on them).
Trog Blood - +2 Attack if at under 50% health. Grants the Berserk ability, which increases the unit's attack and initiative by 2 but places it under AI control; spellcaster units which are Berserk will not use spells. Unlocks the Juggernaut special units. Does not grant any extra unit design traits.
Urxen Blood - +2 Attack if in an army of five or more units; units receive double the usual swarm bonus. Grants no extra traits or special units.
Quendar Blood - +50% Fire Resistance, -50% Cold Resistance. Grants the Dragon Tongue Flame ability, which deals 2 fire damage per caster level to targets in melee range; damage is multiplied by number of figures in casting unit. Grants access to Slave units. Does not grant any special unit design traits.
Also note that all Empire factions can produce Sions, which are essentially lesser versions of Henchmen. An Altar-blood Empire can have limited access to Life Magic through the Life Adept line of Henchman traits. Empires can be of any race, but Kingdoms are restricted to Altarian, Amarian, Ironeer, Mancer, Tarth, Krax, and Wraith blood.
My top 3 picks in 3 categories:
Faction Traits:
- Enchanters. Extra Essence means more and stronger City Enchantments to cast. Arguably the best trait.
- Master Scouts. Being faster means more exploration, more goodies. Makes it a lot easier to conquer opponents. Don't indulge and fight too much.
- Wanderlust. I love this trait because it can almost win you the game by itself. Quests are fun.
Rebels is bad. However all negative traits are, well, negative. I usually pick No Armor, as I never build troops anyway. So pick something you feel won't hurt you much. Or don't pick one.
Professions:
- Beastlord: Generally considered fun but OP.
- Summoner: Gives you a good headstart, which is always important in a 4X game.
- General: A big bonus, great if you can keep some units alive.
Blood:
- Mancers. Speed = good. Not as good as Master Scouts though, so Altar might be better for a first game.
- Altar. Henchmen are powerful, Rush and 10% xp bonus are nice pluses.
- Hm, there really isn't a 'great' 3d pick. I prefer Wraith, for RP reasons. Amarians are ok, I guess.
Procipinee's Crown is unique. It's quite powerful if you play a Summoner.
Levels are unlimited. Be aware that heroes share experience if they are in the same army. Each only gets half the amount of xp.
N/A
Well I'm currently playing on small maps that don't seem to have much Essence or many resources (Iron/Crystal) near their starting positions.
So I thought I would try to design a faction/character combo that doesn't need them. That means no need for crystal or metal armor or weapons.
I ended up with the following:
Wraiths bloodline
Archery (for the metal free and much better bows)
Luck (great synergy with Wraith racial dodge trait and archery)
Disadvantage - I took no armor (usually I take reduced magic resist which you could also try is you like)
The next two advantages you can take your pick really - as the only tree I'm really committed to is the Town one, I took the Civics and Research ones for a fast start (and 10% research boost is useful) but if you want to play more in character then the Wanderlust trait would be nice.
To go with the faction I then picked a Beastmaster (obv.) with Attunement advantage (in case of low essence counts/no shards) and the Clumsy disadvantage (I'm not going to melee people here).
Spell lines were Air, Life and Water (which seem to synergise best with the critter front line and my evasive archer backline). Life is key - giant giant spiders and the front and healed/unhittable archers at the back if the enemy tries to win an archer war.
This set-up is very flexible depending on what (if any) resources you come across and how the game maps out. You need to research bows in the Warfare line and can be opportunistic in the Magic line but in the main you go for Green techs and (as your beastie army costs no upkeep) get a ton of money really early in the game.
But the best thing is that is has a good start on all maps and thrives in resource scarce ones.
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