Fallen Enchantress 0.913 Feedback requested » Forum Post by DerekPaxton

The AI doesn't seem really aggressive the first 100 or so turns, I made WAR with 3 factions and none of them sent an attack.

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

Just because you declared war on them doesn't mean it's a good idea to attack you.

I've yet to test 0.913, but I plan to this weekend. To all the people complaining about hitting not being able to level their sovereign very high, I think that is a good thing. Now you have to make MEANINGFUL CHOICES, which is what a lot of complaints around here have been about. Instead of loading up on Potential traits, now maybe that's not such a good choice. Now instead of becoming uber-godlike sov, you have to pick and choose what the sov will specialize in. This is all good news to me.

Do you want meaningful choices or not??

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I've got my hands full with the Hard AI. Kudos Brad! Time to get serious.

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1. Some was tottaly not a threat. Like spiders, butchers, bandits, ignys, etc. That feels right, because they dont give nothing usefull, just basic braipain. Some was right, like giant dinosaurs, dragons, shrills - because they are not so easy to defeat, but give admirable reward. Some was like "free farm" like air elemental. Once i defeated 1 at level 3, and get hunter shortsword, that made my game to fast win. This is obviusly bad. Some was too hardcore - bosses. They simple dont cost so much. If u can kill them - you actually can defeat any player on map.(And also, they dont feel competetive. If they were like Nashor from LoL or Roshan from dota - u actually cant defeat your enemies, but if u defeat that boss u will get epic adventage, that maybe allow you to.). Also there are very strong mosters but unrewarding. Like ophidian. Thats bad too, but maybe they supposed to be that way - like spiders are basic brainpain, those are more brainpain.

2. I played on normal. They seems right overall, but do some stupid moves. Like declaing war on me, when i got x3 better army. I'd understand that, if i get some gamewinning conditions, but it was midgame. Also AI seems to not understand magic. He uses bad magic, and also dont understand for example that i might use firrebal and 1shot whole army.

3. Always normal. Because this supposed to be most balanced choice for fair game.

4. I played many of them. Altar one seems stupid. Thats because of his "Adventurer" skill. It is useless when creeping is so easy. But he got nice synergy perk - natural leader. But why not create more usefull soverign with that skill? Lady Irane is very good, but "hunter" is, as i think, not very good trait. maybe if combined with beastlord... Also anyway i think Lady Irane must have some assassin type of job, because she i very good for that role. Pariden leader is just fine. Also Emprero Kraxavox have "wealth". and i think its waste. I also created my own soverign, diplomat+water2+death2+autment+brilliant+clumsy - was vey good, disbales, curses, very good mage. Also - impulsive in creation is imbalanced. maybe it will be mroe balanced if picked as proffesion.

5. Heroes+cheap soldiaers. Magic if heroes were mages. In end i add some hi-tec troops.

6. dont have yet. Only autosaves i got.

Overrall i think game needs more varity. More options. More interesting city managment. Less random in heroes(more straightforward skills must be offerred, if u have some basic skills(potential 1, vital strike 1) - game must offer to levelup at least one of this skills. Less random equipement, i dont want to get epic swords from pile of stash. Less useless magic, i think death 5 is useless(almost any magic 5 is very situative). In other ways some magic is musthave. Air can be leveled only for 4, for clous walk.

And more balance in proffessions of soverign, some are meh(hunter, adventurer, bandit lord).

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Just finished playing about 200 turns on a medium world, all AI players and custom faction on Challenging difficulty.

1. The AI is much better and much more challenging. Monsters are more of a threat and seem to be a lot smarter about both attacks and using magic. The monsters were much better at taking out undefended outposts and Arcane Monoliths as well as attacking nearby units. Kudos Brad!

2. Met Magnar early in the game and he almost immediately declared war on me. His first attack took out my 2nd city and a nearby undefended outpost and then a mana shrine. I was able to counter attack and recapture my city because of his losses taking the city to begin with. Neither of us were real powerful at that point (I was a 14 and he was something like 30). However, I was able to attack and destroy his recently placed 3rd settlement with my soveriegn and then was able to heal up enough to take on his capital city. The difference was that I had a lot of mana for spells because of using Arcane Monoliths to capture mana points while Magnar only had the one (I had 5 when he had attacked). The reason I was able to wade into his city and take them out was because I had just researched leather armor and had a lot of mana to bulk up with. Even then, it was still a battle that came down to the last blow. I had 1pt remaining and got the last swing. I was then able to get Magnar to surrender.

Quick Observations

Arcane Monoliths should have a 1 mana per turn upkeep. As it is, it's too easy to use them as a quick land grab. Once you get some shrines going, you can build up enough mana to grab land left and right.

Stores should offer Salted pork right from the start of the game and it should be only 30 instead of 60 because the AI is much better now and you need that cheap healing.

Also, 10% of the value to sell your items is a bit too little IMO. Either that or offer a trait that allows you to get better prices when selling to the store.

Great job on this version!

Oh, I like the achievements too!

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Humility

Join Date 09/2007

+7

Well, I'm playing 374 turn a normal level, a small map (not tiny or medium) my power rathing 178 while Khex had 800 or so was 1,100, He keep wave, after wave after my city, and I keep send mana (i'm a playing as mage) even I had 5 shire of mana, my mana ran out, I don't think Arcane Monoliths should had 1 mana per turn, 40 mana is lot even lot than damage spell. I'm playing single city and builder, though, now I had 3 city. My biggest problem is for level up my sov, he been 12 level like forever, after battle too many time, yet no reward to level him up after 12, it's get bored and meanlessping, I think I like .912 leveling better, it's much more reward, you fight so many level and still 12 level, and what for? no reward for that.

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Humility

Join Date 09/2007

+7

Ok now it's 13 level and way more than 374 turn, you could lose or win, but still http://dl.dropbox.com/u/71094645/Saved%20Game.zip

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Humility

Join Date 09/2007

+7

I dont' know why some think Arcane Monoliths useful and think it's should "nerf", but I don't see Arcane Monoliths useful, even I clear enemies out, but there is still a.i and new monster raze resouce in zone of Arcane Monoliths and Arcane Monoliths's outpost, it's just more annyod me and not that useful, in matter of fact, I think Arcane Monoliths should be buffed, maybe cheaper mana or something. Or any emeines can't raze Arcane Monoliths for 40 turn if it cost 40 mana.

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I played another game... And groups + basic weapons technology is the key to win. Get those, produce best units you can, and you will most likely win. There are a couple of items causing this (squads below mean any 3+ figure unit).

Squads do a lot of damage with advanced weapons. The damage scales too much with weapon technology.
Armor (even full leather armor plus shields) stops a lot of damage. It seems that if the AI units were armored up this could mitigate the first issue.
+health spells are very effective when cast on groups or larger. Cast aura of grace and courage, and you have extra +20 HP for the unit. If you happen to have a couple of life shards, and some level-up technology you have almost 100hp to start with. Remember the armor effects, too...
level up makes squads too strong. It is pretty easy to have near 200HP units on a leveled up squad (with the spells above). Add in some armor and only overpower units can hurt these squads.

So, I would try to restrict the level-up bonuses for squads, and limit the spell effects on squads. I think heroes scale up pretty nicely currently, but squads are still a bit overpowered. Reduce the effectiveness of squads and I need to invent a new strategy...

This save game shows what happens with groups: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/77548146/PreviousAutoSave.EleSav

The strategy I used in that game was pretty straightforward: research basic civ tech, shard harvesting and then weapons technology so that you have the basic weapons and, command posts and groups (up to logistics I think). Build up a killer stack and win the game. Actually, in this game I would have lost if the strongest AI player had invested in weapons technology.

In the above game I didn't play seriously, I just tried how the above mentioned strategy works. So, no additional cities built, just some mana outposts. The save above is unfortunately a bit late of the game. I had already won when I got my main city buffed with spells and the ability to build groups in a city with a command post. That is the point in the game when I knew I had won.

EDIT: forgot one key ingredient. Always start on taxes == None. Use this setting as long as possible. Sell items, don't recruit heroes (apart for the first one). Avoid building too much troops in the early game, so that you will not get slowed down.

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mqpiffle

Join Date 10/2010

+44

Just got my ass kicked on challenging AI. I was playing as sloppy as I previously would, and got took to school on the short bus.

Kudos Brad!

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3. What difficulty did you play on?

challenging

4. What faction/sovereign did you play (if you made a custom sovereigns, what traits did you pick)?

Tharth with Lady Irane

1. General feedback on if you felt the monsters were a threat (were they too strong, too weak, or about right).

82 turns into the game. And as you will see in my savegame i haven´t expanded much. The monsters were a real threat, but not too strong. I had to take them out step by step and very carefully. Sometimes it was neccesary to unit Lady Irane with Svedd. I found a tokken for a sandgolem very early and short after one for wolf Ana. That helped a lot. Even with this two extra units it was not easy. Only Anas deadly bite felt overpowered. Often 17/18 dmg. I think this is too much.

Overall i really liked it...much better than 0.192

2. General feedback on if you felt the AI players were a threat (were they too strong, too weak, or about right).

Can´t say much about the AI. But i met Queen Porcupine and declared war on her. Lady Irane doesn´t like her. Just a Catfight! Anyway... the battle was strange. Porcupine had a pioneer and casted Haste on it. And she poisoned my units and i don´t know how she did this. No poisoned weapon and no spider venom sack. But i got no dmg from the pioson. And porcupine is only lvl. 3. I would say this is not very good on turn 82. But ok, i don´t know her starting position. And she already choosed a path (with lvl. 3?). Path of a WARRIOR. As porcupine? Path of Mage would fit better imho.

Here is the savegame to play this battle if you want.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/12734598/tarth%20pariden%20war.EleSav

Back to game

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Just barely started playing 0.913 and am already seeing some strange behavior. The two three champions my custom sov has found (Iriel, Jesselde and Irwin) all cast Haste on themselves automatically at the start of tactical combat, even though one of the two doesn't even have Air Apprentice as a trait.

Also, my custom sov (Em) has Impulse as a trait, yet now can only get one shot/spell off in the first round of combat. Boo, hiss.

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scifi1950

Join Date 02/2005

+119

Quoting bfwebster,

reply 61

Just barely started playing 0.913 and am already seeing some strange behavior. The two three champions my custom sov has found (Iriel, Jesselde and Irwin) all cast Haste on themselves automatically at the start of tactical combat, even though one of the two doesn't even have Air Apprentice as a trait.

Look closer, that's not haste. It's a spell called Noble Legacy & it's part of the new Faction differentiation.

Noble Legacy is Autocast on all Amarian units at the start of each battle. It gives the unit +1 Init per Air shard, +1 Spell Mastery per Fire shard, +1 Spell resistance per Water shard, and +1 Hit Point per Earth shard.

I made sure my custom Sov (Wizard class) was an Amarian. Talk about a kick-ass trait. Go big or go home for sure.

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Loving the newest Beta! I have had the few issues though.

Issues with Csilla. She has +10 initiative so she has consecutive turns at start, and also casts Mass Curse automatically at start of battle. I am unable to cast Fireball(or other spell that uses a turn) because for some reason there is no spell bar at the bottom of the screen for the first turn and am forced to "space bar" through.

I have been playing as Resoln (custom Resoln, took away the bad trait and made it just death apprentice and fire disciple) in a large world with all factions but Tarth on normal. Early in the game its usually stay away from the monsters and juggle anyone you meet so you are not thrust into war in the first 30 turns (I am looking at you Guilden). At the same time I am researching magic and civil, while not really putting much into war but a few needed troops. My sovereign can then go start taking out monsters and leveling up. I find near end game that my champion armies and sovereign armies which are all "strong", are blasting "deadly" troops out of towns left and right just using fireball with initiative. Which isn't a problem (their armies are still very powerful), the problem is that factions don't seem to use magic much at all. If they did, I feel it would make things a bit more challenging.

I also find that armies can sneak up on any of my resources, towns, etc. due to there not being a faction marker on the army, if you zoomed out, you could see a little black speck is what I would look for. The marker is helpful imo(sort of looks like a layered cake,lol). I don't always pay attention to the quick notes on the right such as "enemy army".

I can't get enough of the game though. so thanks Stardock!

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Humility

Join Date 09/2007

+7

Quoting dwcc85,

reply 51

The AI doesn't seem really aggressive the first 100 or so turns, I made WAR with 3 factions and none of them sent an attack.

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

Just because you declared war on them doesn't mean it's a good idea to attack you.

I've yet to test 0.913, but I plan to this weekend. To all the people complaining about hitting not being able to level their sovereign very high, I think that is a good thing. Now you have to make MEANINGFUL CHOICES, which is what a lot of complaints around here have been about. Instead of loading up on Potential traits, now maybe that's not such a good choice. Now instead of becoming uber-godlike sov, you have to pick and choose what the sov will specialize in. This is all good news to me.

Do you want meaningful choices or not??

It's so meaningful to keep level up rather than limited level, let me tell you if you happan to had evolor 25% damage more, yet you still didn't had any spell for damage yet, if you playing mage that is, you need to damage enemies to win a battle, your unit might not good at that time, stuck on level you unable to get spell damage so pick evolor 25% damage useless, whole thing is useless, if I want a meaninful I would want to keep level up and stronger rather than limited and crap and still weak due you need some other tait here and there to make a useful.

P.S make useful is far more importian than "meaningful choices" because if you can't had other trait, then that trait might be useless, only thing easy is playing a warrior while mage is hard and mage need every trait to make mage useful, way I see it.

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Yeah, the current leveling is a bit too rough. It was a bit too easy before, but now it feels like it's impossible to get past level 12 or so... which means you aren't going to get those spells unless you only pick one path and get really lucky or something. They probably needs to ease off on it a bit. Right now the only way to get high spell level seems to be at char creation, put all your points into spell books.

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Quoting Kalin,

reply 65

Yeah, the current leveling is a bit too rough. It was a bit too easy before, but now it feels like it's impossible to get past level 12 or so... which means you aren't going to get those spells unless you only pick one path and get really lucky or something. They probably needs to ease off on it a bit. Right now the only way to get high spell level seems to be at char creation, put all your points into spell books.

Or create a Pariden sovereign, who acquires access to the elemental books with the Sorcery tech skill, whether he/she starts with them, or not.

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That just gives you the first level of spells. That doesn't help getting the good ones, in fact it'll make it impossible to get the good ones because now you have even less chance of getting the one you want on level up. It was useful before when you could level easier... now, not so much.

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Quoting Lantros,

reply 60

3. What difficulty did you play on?

challenging

4. What faction/sovereign did you play (if you made a custom sovereigns, what traits did you pick)?

Tharth with Lady Irane

1. General feedback on if you felt the monsters were a threat (were they too strong, too weak, or about right).

82 turns into the game. And as you will see in my savegame i haven´t expanded much. The monsters were a real threat, but not too strong. I had to take them out step by step and very carefully. Sometimes it was neccesary to unit Lady Irane with Svedd. I found a tokken for a sandgolem very early and short after one for wolf Ana. That helped a lot. Even with this two extra units it was not easy. Only Anas deadly bite felt overpowered. Often 17/18 dmg. I think this is too much.

Overall i really liked it...much better than 0.192

2. General feedback on if you felt the AI players were a threat (were they too strong, too weak, or about right).

Can´t say much about the AI. But i met Queen Porcupine and declared war on her. Lady Irane doesn´t like her. Just a Catfight! Anyway... the battle was strange. Porcupine had a pioneer and casted Haste on it. And she poisoned my units and i don´t know how she did this. No poisoned weapon and no spider venom sack. But i got no dmg from the pioson. And porcupine is only lvl. 3. I would say this is not very good on turn 82. But ok, i don´t know her starting position. And she already choosed a path (with lvl. 3?). Path of a WARRIOR. As porcupine? Path of Mage would fit better imho.

Here is the savegame to play this battle if you want.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/12734598/tarth%20pariden%20war.EleSav

Back to game

Same game around 120 turns later... (played so bad)

I found Kraxis short after i declared war at pariden. Kraxis did the same with me. I attacked and conquered one of his citys, but no chance to hold it, because of troll-armys and drakes. I lost all my troops, except my champ. on a drake attack. The city was too far away from my capital. (fast troop supllies not possible). So i razed this city and ranaway back to my capital. I couldn´t establish a second city. I tried it 2 times, but umberroth and drakes didn´t like that and i wasn´t mighty enough to take them out. Pariden attacked me with a good stack. I was able to defend my town, but only because there was a unit almost completed and i had enough money to rush out another unit. Without that i would have lost my capital.

My only hope for now is, that i have a good champ. (Svedd, lvl. 8 and good equip) and my backyard is clear.

Its a very entertaining session so far. First time in FE that i don´t feel comfortable. That is fantastic. I´m pretty sure i will loos this time. Played like i did before and it looks like that this isn´t enough anymore. Have to think and schedule my steps much more. Love it.

savegame...

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/12734598/tarth%20not%20so%20good.EleSav

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Why can't the AI just be attacked as much as the human? There must be code in there that checks for an AI before attacking, so the advantage needs to be reduced or eliminated altogether.

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Game with Pariden. Access to summons (warg and elemental) made a fights pretty easy.

Got in War with Resoln (Hard) - It was all outposts ping pong and everlasting slashing of his lone many time wounded champions. It wasn't exciting. Irritiating rather. I must to check cloth map often to see if there are any blue figures near my borders.

Ideas:

* add small chance of champion death

* add an outpost upgrade in tech so it could spawn militia during attack

* add HUD icons on self and enemy armies (the one you can see when they are stacking)

* properly manage the resource icons (golden pickaxes don't disappear after resource is worked)

* don't inform me about resources I cannot improve - only after getting needed tech

* inform me about unbuilt resorces while rebuilding the outpost

* add fertility overlay. I spammed some magic outposts and long after that I realized that they covers some fertile ground. Now you need to have pioneers and scroll whole map with cursor over the Settle button.

After Resoln and some minors destroyed (one faction rage quit), all map revealed I am with 2 stronger AIs on map. We are friendly and there's nothing interesting to do. Pumping up troops and developing cities. Long wait before final clash I guess. 2 wilderness on map but I am not ready for deadly opponents. I could use some random events.

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The tactic of attacking resources and outposts is sure annoying. You can't defend them all with stationary troops, or you will be spread too thin. If you try to defend them with moving stacks, you will not get there before the resource is already destroyed.

Now, the tactic is somewhat effective, but rebuilding destroyed resources isn't that hard. The real problem is that on a larger map this style of game play is boring. You will constantly need to check for enemies, you will constantly need to rebuild resources. There isn't much strategy here, just repetitive micromanagement.

I don't know how to lessen this pain. Upgradable outposts are one solution.. Maybe some "intelligent patrolling" too. This could reuse some of the AI work done by Brad. Something like "guard this area" - player selects a rectangle from the map. And then the stack will automatically attack enemies moving into that area (or report that the enemy stack seems too strong). I guess this falls into pony-request category...

One possibility would be a "garrison" upgrade to outposts. You have some troops inside the garrison automatically (like militia). You can station more troops in there. If an enemy tries to attack your resources in the garrisons controlled area, you have the opportunity to defend the resource (or skip defend if the enemy stack seems too strong). Attacking a garrison is hard - the defender gets big bonuses. Garrisons also have an upkeep cost, and thus you can't spam them at will. Now, this would lessen the pain of protecting resources, make garrison placement strategically important, and would hopefully be somewhat straightforward to code.

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Beginner - turn 262 - Ironeers.

All was going quite well until in one single turn all off my outpost were destroyed and my towns taken. I couldn't believe it.

I am defiantly going back to 0.912 until this game returns to some sort of sanity.

From being a fantastic game to it becoming a crock, all within 48 hours.

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Quoting dwcc85,

reply 51

The AI doesn't seem really aggressive the first 100 or so turns, I made WAR with 3 factions and none of them sent an attack.

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

Just because you declared war on them doesn't mean it's a good idea to attack you.

Might be true, I was just thinking they might atleast send a scout to probe my cities instead of letting me go on suicidal rampage freely, Waging war on everything seems to be the best tactic ATM since they seem to Hunker up huge defenses in this case to be able to withstand an attack, losing possible production and money on other things, Can show you a couple of saves and the whole game so far in as a movie, since I am vidding my playthrough to better understand what I think the AI needs to do better.

But when I wage war on 3 people at once, they might want to go cooperative on my ass .

gonna play a few more turns on this save and see if they decide to attack, or let me conquer one of them .
Playing on HARD btw.

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

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Played my first game on normal as Yithril. Large map.

Decided to test my normal tactics - i.e. solo with Sov, research champions gear, pick up some nice stuff in quests, get cloud walk and basically flatten everyone. Hadn't failed to date at any level with any sovereign.

ok... within 5 turns I'd died. The monsters were actually monsters rather than sheep pretending to be monsters.

Ok restart. Try same tactic again. Same thing again - death, this time because some really tough omnsters got disturbed. Nice.

Ok restart. Group the two heroes and avoid big monsters. Thats working. Meet Gilden, Pariden who both declare war shortly afterwards. They'd actually expanded quicker than i had and had both put troops into defend themselves. I start beating up Pariden, then turn to Gilden. Pariden starts taking my undefeneded cities. Hurray - at last! So do the monsters - hurray! I hated being able to leave all my settlements undefended.

Restart. Group, act as if the AI will behave sensibly and suddenyl i'm in a good but tough game. I've knocked Pariden down to 1 or 2 cities and taken the best cities from Gilden but am not tough enough to take his capital (Hurray). All monsters near me are down and out and i'm about level 9 with sov and main hero.

All in all, miles better! Just make sure easy is actually easy! Fireball made a massive difference once learned even when used by a warrior type. Definitely on the right track. Frankly I want to struggle on normal as if i was playing other players. Easy is the level for 'easy'.

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Humility

Join Date 09/2007

+7

Quoting Horemheb,

reply 71

The tactic of attacking resources and outposts is sure annoying. You can't defend them all with stationary troops, or you will be spread too thin. If you try to defend them with moving stacks, you will not get there before the resource is already destroyed.

Now, the tactic is somewhat effective, but rebuilding destroyed resources isn't that hard. The real problem is that on a larger map this style of game play is boring. You will constantly need to check for enemies, you will constantly need to rebuild resources. There isn't much strategy here, just repetitive micromanagement.

I don't know how to lessen this pain. Upgradable outposts are one solution.. Maybe some "intelligent patrolling" too. This could reuse some of the AI work done by Brad. Something like "guard this area" - player selects a rectangle from the map. And then the stack will automatically attack enemies moving into that area (or report that the enemy stack seems too strong). I guess this falls into pony-request category...

One possibility would be a "garrison" upgrade to outposts. You have some troops inside the garrison automatically (like militia). You can station more troops in there. If an enemy tries to attack your resources in the garrisons controlled area, you have the opportunity to defend the resource (or skip defend if the enemy stack seems too strong). Attacking a garrison is hard - the defender gets big bonuses. Garrisons also have an upkeep cost, and thus you can't spam them at will. Now, this would lessen the pain of protecting resources, make garrison placement strategically important, and would hopefully be somewhat straightforward to code.

Yes, I knoow, it's so annyod to rebuild so I gave up since a.I keep destoryed those and I do not had any more powerful troop to keep resource safe from monster or a.i when they go war on me. Yep, it's so just repetitve micromanagement.

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