Friday Night build impressions

Will there be any changes between this and the last beta build before it is released on Monday?  I very much hope so.

And what do you mean by "You need to build militia now"?  Do you mean troops, or do you mean cities will have no inbuilt defenders?  I hope it's the former.

Yes. (there will be more changes)

and

I mean early level troops.  

I'm getting very excited about this build. I can't wait to see the enhancements that you are so nicely presenting here. Please keep up these reports because we all like to know.

You write layers the way I write layers for monster lairs.

Can't wait!

This is awesome, can't wait to see how this feels balance wise! Gonna be a long wait til Monday.

Looks enticing. Glad you guys pushed it back to add some polish. Now about that AAR...

does this mean you're working on the weekend, or more work done on monday? (no pressure)

edit: also, i'm not really sure what to feel about ai heroes walking around with more than 5 different wounds. Maybe they should heal after some time. This does make the ai considerable weaker doesn't it? (not having the heroes heal i mean)

Been waiting a good long time for this... Thanks.

Could you post a gameplay vid... I really want to see the extra smoothness Plus, all this talk makes me want to see some of these changes, like getting into trouble with monster lairs.

Does this mean we have to wait for 30 turns to make some millitia before we do anything with our sovs?

Hopefully costs are such that it only takes 2 seasons to train men to carry sticks.

Have you ever tried to carry a stick?  It takes a lot of training.

I am adept at most weapons, but sticks still throw me for a loop.

If a race with enchanters+heroic+wanderlust+master scouts and a wealthy sovereign cannot win on ridiculous, a standard race will have a hard time on expert...

Of course, you could just change ridiculous to be much harder that expert... but I dislike the big gaps between some difficulties.

By the way, why is the gap between ridiculous and insane so high right now?  I believe I can win on ridiculous with every standard race (possibly every standard sovereign)  but the only standard races I'm sure can take to victory on insane are Tarth and Altar, right now.

I don't think that is something they are intending to balance. Insane and ridiculous are more like arcade mode, where eventually you just can't win. Custom factions are also not something that intended to be balanced. 

any saturday morning build impressions? oh wait. you're probably still sleeping. My migraine is keeping me awake twiddling my thumbs. I like it when the ai builds armoured units. I like how they go snap and twange when my cold mages  freeze them on the spot.

fire ring plus ice ring plus the fire damage enchantment is brutal. I think i would cry if the ai did that to me.

I find lately i have to play very defensively. Next build should be interesting (i play on challenging)

Sure, whet our appetites ever further. As if the weekend wasn't going slow enough... Looking very much forward to build an early army to back up my sov and heroes. Sure hope trainingtimes are reduces though.

Carrying a stick is one thing, swinging it properly is another story.  and you can't just find a branch laying on the ground.  you want a nice, thick wood and it needs to be carved right to get the weight distributed how you want.

but yes, hopefully the militia build times are reduced a little.  overall, though, I think I like the new concept of having to build them early.

Oh so thats why it takes 5 years to train them!  5 years to train three guys to swing a stick.

When you're this close to a major release in any field, there's no such thing as a weekend.

Yeah, that really bothers me.  Since as far as we have records, humans have thought that the time to properly train non-specialist troops is three to six months.

I have no problems with equipment taking much longer, and additional traits adding to the production time. For example, there could be a "gorilla chest" trait that gives +2 initiative when using a bow, to reflect the fact that it takes a long time to develop the muscles (not the skill) to use a bow.

And by the way, I believe that any rushed unit should acquire the 'poorly trained' trait, something like 10% penalty to experience. Forever.

But even the most material poor city should be able to crank out bare-ass guys with sticks in at most two turns.

In Civilization, it takes decades to train units at the start of the game.  Don't take time too literally.

Is there queue time going to be given, or accomodated for, building those early game troops?

Some of the biggest problems I've faced in 0.983 is that troops were at the bottom of a long list of items that need to in that city queue:

• Pioneers
• Resource Improvements
• City Improvements
• City Idling
• Troops

Currently in 0.983 pioneers take at least 50% of the early game queue time in order to obtain those several cities (for multiple queues), the resource outposts (for high priority resources) and the outposts for city cultural connections (to remove unrest penalty). Has this been resolved?

Granted, by increasing the need for troops in the early game, the order of that list will be changed. However, it doesn't decrease the amount of that needed queue time. Has something been done to decrease the overall queue time?

Thanks

Depends on your settings. Basically, I still crank out pioneers first but I need troops to expand out of the early areas.

alternatively, there could be a "poorly trained" weakness that you could give troops to cut down on production times.