The 'science victory' tech, Book of Mastery, actually isn't at the end of the tech tree like in most strategy games - in fact, it's almost a mid-game tech. For me that typically means I'll only ever recruit dragons, wield the most powerful magical weapons and armor or even conduct the epic level quests if I decide to refrain from or postpone casting Spell of Making. There's the option of turning off this victory condition, of course, but that's a pretty poor excuse for avoiding the problem. The question is, should Book of Mastery be moved back a bit in the tech tree? Should the Forge of the Overlord and the other towers cost more to construct (FotO costs 50 gildar to build, for instance, which is a laughably small sum at this point in the game)?
I move mine such that it has the further prereq of Ereog's Journal as well. Makes it a smidge more difficult to achieve.
I recommended this change back....I think it was 1.2 .... SD didn't go for it though.
I'm sure they have their reasons.
It costs 50 gildar because the AI factions have trouble stockpiling resources like human players do. They always spend spend spend like a 13 year old discovering the power of credit cards for the first time.
Yeah it should be moved back, right alongside the infinite techs.
Also each of the towers should be unique, 1 of each in elemental. Would make you fight for them.
I think the reason may be StarDock's logic is that players that are already well on their way towards winning one of the other victory types, particularly conquest, will opt for not building the towers. I disagree, though, I still think the towers are too easy to research and build and should sit at the extreme end of the tech tree. After all, Spell of Making supposedly lets the player take full control of all the magic in Elemental which sounds... pretty advanced, IMO.
Supposedly the towers require that you control one of each elemental shard type to build. I've never tested if this is actually the case, though, because I've yet to be in a situation where I was in a position to build FotO and lacked a shard.
Well like all other victory conditions, the towers are a function of conquest...because as soon as you see the AI start to build them, you have no choice but to go to war or risk losing.
bump
Should be an easy mod fix, surely?
Yes, easy to mod.
But many don't mod....and shouldn't the game be the best for many?
That implies "the best" is something a majority agree on. You and I feel the SoM is too easily achieved at the moment, but others may not think that way. And mods typically allow more choices.
I will say that I think Stardock's made some excellent choices in general regarding FE:LH. As opposed to, say, Bethsoft, which has since Morrowind spawned a cottage industry among purchasers who repair the bugs and make the sound design changes and improvements the company hasn't seen fit to bother with.
Naturally it's assumed on my part.
I will also not deny that SD has made excellent choices in regards to FE:LH. Amongst those many choices was the decision to keep an ear to their dedicated community.
I don't feel like repeating myself so I will just post a link.
https://forums.elementalgame.com/439240/
I agree Rotlung that it should be a last of the line tech. I think the idea is for those behind to have a chance to win, but really it means that is the fastest way for any faction to win. If someone is ahead, it makes it even easier.
I had to disable it to I could get a quest victory by wiping everyone out but one faction with a city or two. Perhaps it can be scaled on the size of the map as to where it is on the tech tree? For example a small map with two factions it may be where it is, but a large or huge map it moves back in the tech tree?
Give a tech "leach" boost to factions behind? After all, the original idea and research is much harder than reverse engineering a common tech. Once someone sees, say a catapult, then it is easier to mimic than coming up with it from scratch. This is something the CIV series does fairly well.
As I recall, when you attempted that kind of thing in MoM, every other faction leader in the game knew instantly what you were doing, and turned on you. Having that as an optional checkbox would seem attractive. Alternatively, attract the more powerful monsters within X distance from the player's borders to immediately attack his/her territory, as if being driven mad by the casting.
Well, having the precursor building (Tower of the Witch) does give a -9 modifier to faction relationships, which more or less guarantees that all non-allies will attack you in short order, if not immediately.
Usually if you're building it as your only viable win condition though, you're pretty badly dogpiled already since you had to beeline the tech at the expense of other support techs, and your cities have been stuck building super-expensive towers instead of churning out infrastructure or units.
Sooner or later you're going to finally see what games like these are for. I'm surprised you haven't by now. But, some of you may be new to computer gaming so you wouldn't see it so early.
These games are not made to beat you they are merely made to consume your time and try to get some enjoyment out of your humdrum lives. You sit there thinking the ai is going to challenge you and beat you but it's not programmed that way. It's just programmed to get in your way and slow you down, delay you to the inevitable end...your victory however you do it. I've long stopped playing these games with basically worthless and no ai's. I've gone back to games that once did challenge you as you played (X-Com, Centurion Defender of Rome, War of the Lance, CIV II and Spartan 1.013 version, even 1830 has a very good ai) Old games with great ai's. You go play them or go back and play them and you'll see what I mean. Centurion Defender of Rome has one of the toughest ai's I've played against. On higher than Council difficulty you will be in for the time of your lives. I chance to say you will be stomped for a good long time.
Sadly the fantasy world has not seen a good ai except maybe Sword of Aragon (I had a lot of challenge with that one but still beat it first time.) Master or Magic, Age of Wonders, HOMM, Dominions, Elemental Fallen Enchantress/LH and the list goes on haven't been very good in the challenge or good ai department. Each one always does such stupid things when it could have beaten you it didn't. When it could have taken your capital it didn't. When it could have allied with itself (other ai's) and driven you off the map it didn't. Too many games are made just as they say "entertainment" but not to beat you, just to pacify you into believing they are challenging you. Not many out there that do.
This new AOW III is laughable and dumbed down already. Looks pretty though but cmon 6 races down from 12-15? what a joke. I can see DLC coming though at a rate of $2.99 per race. Make some nice profit for Triumph and co.
I disagreed with your premise but it was at least coherent until the end. AoW III, of which you haven't played a single minute, is laughable and dumbed down because of the number of factions? That's utter nonsense. You praise Sword of Aragon, X-COM, and Centurion, all of which I have played and liked, and each of which had one playable faction.
As to your basic assertion, it is partly rose-colored glasses and partly missing the point. Games are made to entertain us? What a revelation, thank you for letting us know. We had no idea! We thought winning at video games made us awesome, but now we know that winning at old video games is what makes you awesome. Whew, that was close. Here's the truth: nobody who can win XCOM on Classic Ironman cannot also beat X-COM. Claiming that Civ II has the best AI of any Civ game is risible. Centurion's AI is only decent because the game is so drop-dead simple; chess games have excellent AI too, but now add supply logistics, recruitment, reinforcements, and a strategic layer and see what happens. Incidentally, I take it you have forgotten (or never played) Galactic Civilizations II, because it is a direct counter to your entire thesis. My point is that today's games are a lot more ambitious; this does mean that they can suffer from the fact that a human will always be more flexible than static code in assessment of his/her situation, but it also means we get depth that was impossible in previous titles. Some would call this a fair trade - you do not, okay that's fine. But it doesn't make everyone else wrong. It just means we play with different goals. When I play Legendary Heroes it's just a power fantasy. I'm not trying to prove that given a time machine I would be Alexander, and very few video games have ever been made were intended for someone who was. They've always been about having fun. Video game difficulty was never about proving yourself - it was about making you put another quarter into the machine.
The idea is to let the AI have that victory option but not you. You must conquer the whole world before one of them casts the Spell of Mastery. Any good strategist and tatician worth his weight in salt should be able to do that. )
This is pretty much what I do. Leave it in as a victory condition for the AI to use (so far they have not been able to do it), but I pretty much ignore it. I did it once to see what it was like, and apart from having to defend myself for a few turns while I cast the spell, it seemed sort of anti-climatic. I suppose moving it to teh end of the tech tree, would delay it, but I am not sure it would make it a more fun ending, and it would make it too hard for the AI to accomplish it. I have only been playing this game for a few months, but I have yet to see the AI build a single tower.
When I was building my towers, I had only one earth alter, which ended up being destroyed by enemy forces while I was building the corresponding tower, but the tower kept on building anyway, so that felt kinda cheap.
What difficulty are you playing on? I play on Challenging, and the AI builds the towers quite regularly.
You don't need any shards to build the Towers, only some Gildar.
I always have the AI set to challenging. I have only played a handful of games so far. My first three games I had everything else set to normal/default/moderate. The last couple of games I set the pacing to epic. I would like to see the AI start building the towers since it would make things more interesting.
I thought the instructions in the Kingdom Report said you needed one of each type of shard to build the towers? Did I misread that or did it just not get implemented in game the way it was described?
That could be the reason. Research takes much longer on Epic. Still, it could also just be bad luck.
They used to require shards, a long, long time ago. That the Kingdom Report still says that is a leftover.
I've got a couple games going right now, two are with epic pacing, but one I am playing Gilden with Challenging AI and normal pacing. I am just at the point where I picked up my third champion and am almost done building my war college and am ready to start training a bunch of troops for war. I don't know what turn it is, but I want to say between 180 and 220. It is a large random map, so it may take a while to conquor everyone. Hopefully someone will start building the towers so it becomes a race to see if I can track them down and destroy them before they can cast the spell.
Good thing you're here to tell me what to think!
I see you've told us that these games are meant to occupy our menial time, yet then go on to discuss good AI as if playing a challenging AI somehow is productive and non-diverting.
...how rude and just wrong you are, where are you from...warlock2-fanboy town? before making stupid comments you might wanna try and get some more infos before looking like a moron (like right now).
AoW3 has only 6 races, yes, but has also 6 classes which completely differentiate the playstyles and give you 36 variations of how to play the game. AoW:SM for example has 14 races aka 14 gameplay variations (without specialization which AoW3 has also), laughable against 36 kiddo .
also your argument that all games are designed to "entertain" is only half true, sure most of the AI in strategic games aren't die-hard and super intelligent but its also quite hard to program 4x games which a quite huge amount of features & depth and then program a competent AI with it. please show me your game and where you programmed a superior AI before bashing the genre / games in general.
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