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Pierzak
Oct 30, 2010

nutranurse posted:

I caved and bought this game (steam sales cleared out the amount I slotted for myself) and goddamn I am impressed. Why exactly is this '09 Russian gem just getting the attention it deserves? Is it because of the facelift it is getting next year with the new game?
It just got released in English.

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Wolpertinger
Feb 16, 2011

nutranurse posted:

I caved and bought this game (steam sales cleared out the amount I slotted for myself) and goddamn I am impressed. Why exactly is this '09 Russian gem just getting the attention it deserves? Is it because of the facelift it is getting next year with the new game?

It only just got translated and released on GoG - previously you'd need to speak russian. This game really does need more attention. It's a pretty amazing gem for some random indie game made by (from what I've heard?) one guy.

victrix
Oct 30, 2007


Best tbs released in a long time. I'm proselytizing to my strategy loving friends, one of them is already thoroughly hooked on it.

I hope I get into the beta :ohdear: No response in a few days.

I should stay away though, if I get involved and see a mountain of the usual terrible feedback I'll probably go crazy. Seeing this game get Endless Space'd would be a dreadful experience.

Oh, side note - I mentioned this earlier, there's a Russian fan mod that expands the game, and they'd be happy to share it, but it needs translation help:

http://www.gog.com/forum/eador_genesis/eador_new_horizons

http://eador.com/B2/viewtopic.php?t=2024&highlight=

http://ru.twitch.tv/dedmihai/b/344746583

http://eador.com/B2/viewtopic.php?t=2429

victrix fucked around with this message at 06:47 on Dec 29, 2012

occipitallobe
Jul 16, 2012

Wolpertinger posted:

Edit: hmm.. I can invade Doh-Gor or Beleth, but I'm nervous about fighting an AI with a maphack and a huge resource advantage. Anyone have any experience on how challenging it is?

Not as hard as you'd think. AI homes tend to be full of absurdly hard neutrals, which the AI is much worse at dealing with than you are. I've killed three Masters so far, and each invasion has been significantly easier than some of the shards I've played.

Of course, the fourth time I tried I got beaten like a bonobo facing a chimpanzee, so take that with a grain of salt.

The Quake
Nov 1, 2006

I think I'm finally ready to move off beginner. Every shard now just has me farming enemy Heroes as they take the only path into my stronghold with my lone militiaman in the garrison. They seriously never stop coming, they don't even bother to level up, just revive, buy whatever the gently caress and then beeline.

Though honestly, I'd probably fall apart if they didn't do that. It's like any guards below Patrolmen are completely loving useless past turn what 5? Things like Foresters, Recruits, Cuthroats, hell even Adventurers sometimes.

Wolpertinger
Feb 16, 2011

The Quake posted:

I think I'm finally ready to move off beginner. Every shard now just has me farming enemy Heroes as they take the only path into my stronghold with my lone militiaman in the garrison. They seriously never stop coming, they don't even bother to level up, just revive, buy whatever the gently caress and then beeline.

Though honestly, I'd probably fall apart if they didn't do that. It's like any guards below Patrolmen are completely loving useless past turn what 5? Things like Foresters, Recruits, Cuthroats, hell even Adventurers sometimes.

Yeah, that's how I beat the AI pretty much every time - it's TOO aggressive - to a fault. If there's even the tiniest chance it won't die terribly, it will crash against you and die again and again and again, not realizing he's essentially powerleveling your hero. He's incapable of being defensive beyond the endless guard spam (which is, admittedly, effective - to a point). He also will sit there on the border and attack, retreat, attack, retreat in hopes of catching you offguard if you leave it undefended, but it's predictable enough that you know not to, and it makes it easy to attack yourself and pin down his hero before he can back off. (he wouldn't be backing off if he thought he could win.)

So while the AI is definitely pretty good in some ways, it could still definitely use some refinement. The extremely aggressive rushing tactics it uses works ridiculously well on newbies that are a bit hesitant and slow, but it's too easily countered once you know what you're doing.

I'm kinda afraid to knock up the difficulty from Skilled to Competent because while it probably won't change their behaviors, but it will make independents much harder, and independents are already one of the hardest parts of the game, as well as probably giving them a resource/xp advantage that will take a long time to overcome, dragging out games longer, or possibly having too much of a resource advantage and just bashing down my door and killing me before I can blink, like my first four or five attempts at capturing a shard on beginner :v:. I'm just guessing that the AI doesn't actually get smarter when the difficulty knocks up from previous experience with games like this - I could be wrong, though.

victrix
Oct 30, 2007


According to gog posts, Expert is the base difficulty level, with no bonuses/penalties for you or the AI

(:stare: :stare:)

Wolpertinger
Feb 16, 2011

victrix posted:

According to gog posts, Expert is the base difficulty level, with no bonuses/penalties for you or the AI

(:stare: :stare:)

Good lord.

I've been skimming through GoG too, and it's apparently possible to win the game by turn THIRTY :psyduck:. As in, Astral turn 30. I'm on about turn 17, and I only just found a note hinting at the existence of these 'keys of knowledge'. Apparently, if you know what you're doing you can have all 7 by turn 30, which leads to one of the endings. Sort of wish I knew which actions lead where, as I doubt I'm going to play this game 12 times or whatnot to see all 12 endings.

Also, if you run out of time (depending on your difficulty - 90 turns for beginner, 80 for skilled, 75 for advanced, 70 for expert) whatever was stopping Chaos from invading isn't there any more for whatever reason, and Chaos devours your incomplete world.

Wolpertinger fucked around with this message at 11:32 on Dec 29, 2012

Gobblecoque
Sep 6, 2011

Wolpertinger posted:

Also, if you run out of time (depending on your difficulty - 90 turns for beginner, 80 for skilled, 75 for advanced, 70 for expert) whatever was stopping Chaos from invading isn't there any more for whatever reason, and Chaos devours your incomplete world.

I presume that one probably wouldn't reach that unless your just kind of loving around a lot, but man, that would be the ultimate sinking feeling.

occipitallobe
Jul 16, 2012

So apparently if you kill Doh-Gor and release the god in his amulet, be aggressive rather than conciliatory. You can get a permanent alliance with the orcs that way. I wasn't aggressive, and I'm kicking myself now.

Megazver
Jan 13, 2006
You can open dialog.var in notepad and it's a plain text with all the dialogue text. The event names are still in Russian, though. (Not a problem for me.)

Pierzak
Oct 30, 2010

Megazver posted:

You can open dialog.var in notepad and it's a plain text with all the dialogue text. The event names are still in Russian, though. (Not a problem for me.)
And you can mod the game in this way.

Dropbear
Jul 26, 2007
Bombs away!
Okay, this is getting annoying as hell. I've captured a ton of shards and I still don't have access to ANY T2 units. I'm fighting for some master craftsmen now, but no decent units.

The only way to win now is to get a warrior and level him to 25 or so and / or find some obscene gear to beat the AI's ludicrous guards and units with - on the last shard I had to beat a guard with 6 level 15 minotaurs, as well as another guard with 2 devils, 2 demons, 2 fiends and a ton of imps. The devils had 30+ attack, for example, so the standard pikemen etc. didn't even scratch them.

How do you actually unlock the better units? Is it just up to luck?

Wolpertinger
Feb 16, 2011

Dropbear posted:

Okay, this is getting annoying as hell. I've captured a ton of shards and I still don't have access to ANY T2 units. I'm fighting for some master craftsmen now, but no decent units.

The only way to win now is to get a warrior and level him to 25 or so and / or find some obscene gear to beat the AI's ludicrous guards and units with - on the last shard I had to beat a guard with 6 level 15 minotaurs, as well as another guard with 2 devils, 2 demons, 2 fiends and a ton of imps. The devils had 30+ attack, for example, so the standard pikemen etc. didn't even scratch them.

How do you actually unlock the better units? Is it just up to luck?

The trick is you can't get a building/unit until you have the prerequisites. This is what stopped me from getting t2 spells, for example - I didn't grab the sage's guild until like shard 9, because why would I want to make more libraries when I didn't have any spells. Turns out sages guild is the requirement for all T2 spells - combined with another building that depends on the specific school of magic.

The one building all t2 units have in common is the Fort, the building that allows tier 2 garrisons within your demesne. From there, it often requires one or two more buildings, depending on what unit you want. I'd recommend that before picking your next shard, you go to the main menu and make a skirmish, then skim through the low levels of the tech tree to see what's what.

In a way, it can be used to force a specific unit to become available - new shards appear every time you capture one, and they can only offer techs that you have the requirements for, unless you haven't filled any requirements for new tech in which case none appear. So, if you only have the requirements for the t2 unit you want, the next shard that appears will have him.

Jastiger
Oct 11, 2008

by FactsAreUseless
Grrr I just lost to Oiner or whatever. I am a good guy too but he is pissing me off.

"Lol,I'm sorry bro but I'm going to have to declare war on you :feelsgood:" then from a territory I didn't know connected he bum rushes my stronghold and I lose. After I have like mega leveled up heroes and a ton of other territory. Bah, two hours down the drain.

It seems to me that the higher level I go, the less stuff I find while "exploring". Is this right? It makes leveling up really hard when you don't get the fodder events and only get massive dragon cults. It slows down the leveling. Also, does the AI cheat? As in do they get bonus money and tech that I don't have just because they are the AI?

Pierzak
Oct 30, 2010

Jastiger posted:

Grrr I just lost to Oiner or whatever. I am a good guy too but he is pissing me off.

"Lol,I'm sorry bro but I'm going to have to declare war on you :feelsgood:"
It's probably the accepted practice among masters that alignment doesn't matter if there are only two of you on the same shard, one of you must go.

quote:

Also, does the AI cheat? As in do they get bonus money and tech that I don't have just because they are the AI?
Supposedly the Expert level is the one where the AI doesn't get any boni or penalties.

:v:

Dropbear
Jul 26, 2007
Bombs away!

Pierzak posted:

Supposedly the Expert level is the one where the AI doesn't get any boni or penalties.

:v:

Except in the campaign, where some of the masters have vastly better units and especially guards that they can spam on their provinces than you (probably) have, like devils and phoenixes.

Turns out it's probably worth it to have a hero built especially so he can wreck dragons if you happen to find a lair. My method was to have a level 10+ scout (so I can use doubleshot) with an armor piercing crossbow + lots of the archery skill for more pierce. Then just fill every slot in his army with healers or something else that the enemies love to attack and surround your scout with them. While the dragon snacks on the units one at a time, keep putting doubleshots into it's face until it keels over. The rewards pretty much seem to win you the shard - for example, I got a ludicrous amount of money / gems / xp and this beauty:


After that I just walked that thing to the enemy forts and let him eat everyone, since pretty much nothing could really hurt it.

Jastiger
Oct 11, 2008

by FactsAreUseless
Oh I didn't expect the other master to let me live, but just the way it happened. He's like "Oh Im' terribly sorry, we have to battle like gentlemen" then sneaks in the backdoor and wins the map that very turn when I wasn't even ready.

Mr.Hell
Nov 10, 2011
This game's great, but I feel in over my head with it. Any reccomendations for good strategy guides?

victrix
Oct 30, 2007


Mr.Hell posted:

This game's great, but I feel in over my head with it. Any reccomendations for good strategy guides?

Yes, learn Russian :eng99:

More seriously, it literally just came out in english, so we're kind of on the bleeding edge here.

You could try the official forums and gog. RPGCodex apparently likes it, but I avoid that site like the plague. GAF hasn't really responded to it. Not sure what other forum communities are into it yet.

If you have any basic questions, ask here, we have enough addicts that can probably give you some bad advice

Wolpertinger
Feb 16, 2011

Jastiger posted:

Oh I didn't expect the other master to let me live, but just the way it happened. He's like "Oh Im' terribly sorry, we have to battle like gentlemen" then sneaks in the backdoor and wins the map that very turn when I wasn't even ready.

Did you have a garrison in your stronghold? even one spearman will make him need to take a good 4-8 turns sieging your stronghold, giving you time to move back and attack him. If you have a guard, too, then he'll kill it and proceed on sieging, but the guard will usually weaken his army, too.

The best possible way to deal with zerg rushing masters - and I do this every single time - is to build the 'lets you build outposts in provinces' building as soon as possible. When you see a hostile master, then find a chokepoint between your territory and theirs - It doesn't have to be mountains/water, one claimed province between two neutral territories with difficult or lethal independents works great, too. The AI is very hesitant to attack independents when you have a nice juicy province sitting right there, anyway. After you find your chokepoint/s (sometimes you're unlucky and your front line is 2 or 3 provinces) build an outpost in each, and put 1`spearman or other cheap unit inside. The enemy will attack and siege them repeatedly, but you have plenty of time to react, and this incidentally leaves his heroes exposed. Normally he has them hidden behind his super-lethal guards, which means you're weakened if you can get past them. This time, you can move in and attack the siegers, and presumably kill them (high level scouts MURDER pretty much any hero). Now, you can start farming his heroes for xp/gold/loot, instead of dying horribly.

I really do wish I knew how the AI afforded putting the 350 gold Men of War guards in EVERY SINGLE PROVINCE, and add more the second he gets another, and pays upkeep, too. Especially considering that men of war are at the end of a rather expensive chain of buildings. This is skilled, so supposedly he should be getting penalized, not free money.

Wolpertinger fucked around with this message at 01:43 on Dec 30, 2012

Jastiger
Oct 11, 2008

by FactsAreUseless

Wolpertinger posted:

Did you have a garrison in your stronghold? even one spearman will make him need to take a good 4-8 turns sieging your stronghold, giving you time to move back and attack him. If you have a guard, too, then he'll kill it and proceed on sieging, but the guard will usually weaken his army, too.

The best possible way to deal with zerg rushing masters - and I do this every single time - is to build the 'lets you build outposts in provinces' building as soon as possible. When you see a hostile master, then find a chokepoint between your territory and theirs - It doesn't have to be mountains/water, one claimed province between two neutral territories with difficult or lethal independents works great, too. The AI is very hesitant to attack independents when you have a nice juicy province sitting right there, anyway. After you find your chokepoint/s (sometimes you're unlucky and your front line is 2 or 3 provinces) build an outpost in each, and put 1`spearman or other cheap unit inside. The enemy will attack and siege them repeatedly, but you have plenty of time to react, and this incidentally leaves his heroes exposed. Normally he has them hidden behind his super-lethal guards, which means you're weakened if you can get past them. This time, you can move in and attack the siegers, and presumably kill them (high level scouts MURDER pretty much any hero). Now, you can start farming his heroes for xp/gold/loot, instead of dying horribly.

I really do wish I knew how the AI afforded putting the 350 gold Men of War guards in EVERY SINGLE PROVINCE, and add more the second he gets another, and pays upkeep, too. Especially considering that men of war are at the end of a rather expensive chain of buildings. This is skilled, so supposedly he should be getting penalized, not free money.

In this particular instance I thought my stronghold was well behind the front lines. I didn't see the one teensy province that was still shaded in black to the north. I DID have a garrison of punk rear end militia and slingers which he just ran around one shotting.

One thing that does bug me is that the AI is able to field much larger units than I can. I can steam roll over some enemies, and rightfully so when I've saved up and got them all strategically placed, but it bugs me when he has like 10 slingers/monks/magic ranged unit that kills my units. Sure I may still win, but now because of some silly reason his slingers are doing 6 damage per double shot to my level 10 crossbowman.

Its like the AI's T1 units get a boost if you're winning.

Wolpertinger
Feb 16, 2011

Jastiger posted:

In this particular instance I thought my stronghold was well behind the front lines. I didn't see the one teensy province that was still shaded in black to the north. I DID have a garrison of punk rear end militia and slingers which he just ran around one shotting.

One thing that does bug me is that the AI is able to field much larger units than I can. I can steam roll over some enemies, and rightfully so when I've saved up and got them all strategically placed, but it bugs me when he has like 10 slingers/monks/magic ranged unit that kills my units. Sure I may still win, but now because of some silly reason his slingers are doing 6 damage per double shot to my level 10 crossbowman.

Its like the AI's T1 units get a boost if you're winning.

Even just the garrison of slingers would make him take at least 4 turns to break down your stronghold - were your heroes that far away, or someting? He can't attack the garrison until he's broken down the walls, and unless he's like a level 20+ commander with a full army of 13 it will last a few turns.

The AI can field generally the same amount as you, it just doesn't seem like it at times. He might just have higher heroes, though. Also, commanders get more slots than everyone else. If it's a commander, or anything multiclassed into commander, their archers will hit much harder, too. Plus, if they're using doubleshot it means he leveled them up, which makes them more dangerous than usual.

For whatever reason, I never seem to do well with crossbowmen either - that one range hurts, and armorpiercing never seems to help much. I honestly think that the t1 ranged units need some rebalancing, they're all but useless most of the time.

On an unrelated note, I just figured out a practically gamebreakingly good trick that takes advantage of the AI in tactical combat. If you get a level 10-11 scout with a good bow and arrow, and fill his entire party with cheap-rear end healers, then enter a dragon's cave and surround yourself with them. Make sure the archer is at full health. The AI always focuses on wounded first, then healers, then ranged attackers. You will have a good 5-6 turns to repeatedly doubleshot the dragon, and you should only need 3-4 to do it if you've got good ranged attack/armor piercing. I just did it on five dragon caves in a row and it worked every time.

Enjoy your instant level (or two) + 2500 gold + rare artifact in every cave. I kind of feel dirty using it but on the other hand I was getting my rear end kicked when I figured it out.

Wolpertinger fucked around with this message at 07:12 on Dec 30, 2012

Big Sean
Jan 18, 2010


What a ridiculous fight...

I'll miss you level 17 bowman that was ~15 damage with 6 range, 3 pierce and double shot...

Jastiger
Oct 11, 2008

by FactsAreUseless
My heroes WERE far away and wounded. It was just a nasty situation.

I find doubleshotting dragons to be ridiculous. Often my mage will be higher level or have better gear than my Archer, but since the Archer can shoot twice and hide behind troops, while the mage may get resisted or take multiple turns, my scout is a dragon killing machine.

How do you use summong creatures though? I get tons of eggs to use to summon spiders, slugs, and just now a phoenix. How do I summon the drat thing?

Flavahbeast
Jul 21, 2001


Jastiger posted:

How do you use summong creatures though? I get tons of eggs to use to summon spiders, slugs, and just now a phoenix. How do I summon the drat thing?

This must be killing you

Wolpertinger
Feb 16, 2011

Jastiger posted:

My heroes WERE far away and wounded. It was just a nasty situation.

I find doubleshotting dragons to be ridiculous. Often my mage will be higher level or have better gear than my Archer, but since the Archer can shoot twice and hide behind troops, while the mage may get resisted or take multiple turns, my scout is a dragon killing machine.

How do you use summong creatures though? I get tons of eggs to use to summon spiders, slugs, and just now a phoenix. How do I summon the drat thing?

You need specific buildings to use monster 'eggs' - I haven't ever done it myself, but the text seems to imply that you only need one egg and you can make as many of that monster as you'd like, which is probably why there's all the hassle. I could be wrong, though - it IS a translation and could be poorly worded. Like, for example, I have Stonehenge, which says it will allow me to recruit treants if I have a treant acorn in my treasury.

Also, invading Doh-Gor is the most brutal shard I've ever done - he rushes me very early, while I'm surrounded by independents way too tough for me to kill early on which trap me in a small area. I have no idea how he killed them so quickly - even using astral reset after losing the first time, and building specifically to kill them, he still got through them before I could. I'm still having to fight him, tooth and nail, even after getting a powerleveled scout by killing 4 dragon lairs.

I'm noticing that the AI difficulty is going up higher and higher as I get further in the campaign - my difficulty might make fights vs independents easier, but it makes it all the more jarring when a halfling slinger takes 2 shots to kill instead of one when it's owned by a Master instead of an independent. Doh-Gor is on expert right now (I'm on skilled)

Wolpertinger fucked around with this message at 09:29 on Dec 30, 2012

Jastiger
Oct 11, 2008

by FactsAreUseless
Yeah for sure. Thanks for explaining the summoning thing. It just seems strange to kill a dragon, get a bad rear end phoenix egg.....and never be able to use it.

See, I'm still convinced the AI cheats somehow. They'll take over a province and have an army to defend with and that entire army will be leveled up in two turns. What the hell is he doing in two turns to get level 9 bowmen or 12 swordsman?

JosephWongKS
Apr 4, 2009

by Nyc_Tattoo

Wolpertinger posted:

You need specific buildings to use monster 'eggs' - I haven't ever done it myself, but the text seems to imply that you only need one egg and you can make as many of that monster as you'd like, which is probably why there's all the hassle. I could be wrong, though - it IS a translation and could be poorly worded. Like, for example, I have Stonehenge, which says it will allow me to recruit treants if I have a treant acorn in my treasury.

No, it's one critter per egg / acorn.

Brackhar
Aug 26, 2006

I'll give you a definite maybe.
Hmm, I seem mildly stuck. I'm on my third shard and the final city has 8 pegasus defending it, but I'm still stuck at a Tier 1 army. Even with my main character being a commander of level 17 or so I can't even kill a single one of the defenders. :smith:

Brackhar fucked around with this message at 10:29 on Dec 30, 2012

Wolpertinger
Feb 16, 2011

JosephWongKS posted:

No, it's one critter per egg / acorn.

Dammit. Makes sense, though.

quote:

Yeah for sure. Thanks for explaining the summoning thing. It just seems strange to kill a dragon, get a bad rear end phoenix egg.....and never be able to use it.

See, I'm still convinced the AI cheats somehow. They'll take over a province and have an army to defend with and that entire army will be leveled up in two turns. What the hell is he doing in two turns to get level 9 bowmen or 12 swordsman?

It makes sense if you consider the game with a full tech tree. This game has a HUUUUGE tech tree, so big that you have to specialize in certain areas as there's no way in hell you'll get them all any time soon. Finding an egg would mean that you would have to make a decision whether or not you want to invest in the chain of hatcheries or whatnot to get those awesome manticores/golems/dragons/phoenixes before most of your enemies will have t4, or if you'd rather spend that money on upgrading to 'ordinary' t4 units which you'd have an unlimited supply of. It also prevents you from getting phoenixes 30 turns in from sheer luck.

Or, you could start building them beforehand while level up a scout in such a way that he specializes in high-speed exploration to deliberately hunt for rare eggs as quickly as possible. Stuff like that - I don't actually play skirmish but I can still see how it adds to the strategy of it all.

You can get a hatchery for low-level monsters like basilisks, giant spiders, slugs pretty early - that and treants are the only two 'hatcheries' I have. Too bad I've never seen a treant acorn, those guys look badass.

Gobblecoque
Sep 6, 2011

Brackhar posted:

Hmm, I seem mildly stuck. I'm on my third shard and the final city has 8 pegasus defending it, but I'm still stuck at a Tier 1 army. Even with my main character being a commander of level 17 or so I can't even kill a single one of the defenders. :smith:

Pegasi do fly and hit really hard, but they have gently caress all defense. Get a bunch of archers and swordsmen (or substitute whatever ranged and defensive units you like) and keep them in a really tight formation so the pegasi can't get to your archers.

Wolpertinger
Feb 16, 2011

Gobblecoque posted:

Pegasi do fly and hit really hard, but they have gently caress all defense. Get a bunch of archers and swordsmen (or substitute whatever ranged and defensive units you like) and keep them in a really tight formation so the pegasi can't get to your archers.

I've never been a fan of pegasi.. or horsemen for that matter. Hit hard, but die immediately afterward. Archer/crossbow spam is how I would handle it, yeah. Hopefully with a level 10 + scout oneshotting a pegasus per turn while they waste time on your chaff. Alternatively, get one badass warrior that just solos them all.

occipitallobe
Jul 16, 2012

Brackhar posted:

Hmm, I seem mildly stuck. I'm on my third shard and the final city has 8 pegasus defending it, but I'm still stuck at a Tier 1 army. Even with my main character being a commander of level 17 or so I can't even kill a single one of the defenders. :smith:

Herospam. I had to fight a shard like this with T1 units. Lock them into their home province, build forts around it, and grab as many heroes with as many armies as possible. Guards don't regenerate immediately between fights, so if you can take out a few of them per fight, you should do well.

Also, don't use commanders with Tier 1 armies. It's a terrible idea. Until you get T2 spells and units, stick to warriors and scouts.

Wolpertinger
Feb 16, 2011

occipitallobe posted:

Herospam. I had to fight a shard like this with T1 units. Lock them into their home province, build forts around it, and grab as many heroes with as many armies as possible. Guards don't regenerate immediately between fights, so if you can take out a few of them per fight, you should do well.

Also, don't use commanders with Tier 1 armies. It's a terrible idea. Until you get T2 spells and units, stick to warriors and scouts.

I actually thought commanders were terrible, until I got guardsmen. Guardsmen and commanders (or thugs and commanders, for that matter) are a match made in heaven - they can get more high tier units than anyone else, so they can just spam the poo poo out of guardsmen, and like 6-8 guardsmen/thugs with significant stat boosts from being near a commander, and when the commander has heals/buffs.. pretty much unbeatable.

my dad
Oct 17, 2012

this shall be humorous
Oh, hey, I can't believe I've missed this thread.


[:spergin:]

On my good playtrough, I tend to roll a commander, with the scout being my secondary hero, unless I start with really dangerous neighboring provinces. I usually wait to get magic arrow before expanding, since it allows the commander to take a more active role in the battle. :science:
The best counter to the AI zerg rush is your own rush before they reach tier 2. It's unbelievably easier to beat them if they can't just pop uberguardsofdoom on every province. Take plains provinces as often as possible, be on a lookout for wood/iron, build mills and rank up your army. Only explore dungeons in your provinces if you need more money.

Tier 1 may seem laughable, but an army of swordsmen supported with archers/xbows and a single healer is awesome when led by a commander. :mil101:+:catholic:+:tfrxmas:+:toughguy:=:black101::gibs: This tactic works well and has low/no losses even when facing tier 2 troops, and I actually prefer a swordsman with twice upgraded parry to a guardsman. That said, monks rule, and getting two in your army will make your life much easier.
As far as province guards go, I really think it's worth it to get the "hunters" guard relatively soon, since they don't need upkeep and can reliably defeat most random invasions. Do replace them with something stronger in border provinces once you make contact with the enemy, since a warrior will just shrug their arrows off. Also, remember that the enemy pays upkeep for his province guards, troops and heroes. If you can keep the attrition in your favor, they will run out of money to replace armies. After that, it's just a matter of time before you crush them.

My favorite skill is commander's range skill 5. That single pip of extra range completely counters any enemy ranged unit. However, the scout's pathfinding is a close second. A tactic I like to use to counter mid-game enemy province guards is to take cavalry with a scout/ringleader/tactician in command. Enemies get bogged down in forests/hills/swamps, while my full-movement-everywhere cavalry surrounds them one at a time and murders them. :killdozer:

One interesting thing about quick combat. If your commander is suicidally overconfident about his odds, and you don't care about his troops, choose quick-combat. You will win, even though it sometimes really should be impossible. Also, if you have a good battle-line, a really powerful magic, or powerful defensive/regenerative items, you can win battles with ridiculously bad odds (as estimated by the hero), particularly if you have the means to keep healing the most wounded unit and remember to rest your healers/monks from time to time instead of fixing that 1hp wound. Also, if you want to keep your army combat ready for longer, leave one enemy ranged unit alive at the end of the battle and heal everyone until that poor useless guy runs out of ammo and walks over to try and melee your frontliners.

On masters: Oinor is quite useful to keep alive. If he's on the shard, someone more dangerous isn't, and if you're a good guy, he might even ally with you and hand you over the shard when you take out other master(s). A certain magical rear end in a top hat you get to meet soon after him should be kept alive until you deal take out a certain brutish rear end in a top hat you meet a bit later on. You'll understand why when you get there.

[/:spergin:]

So, how do you guys upgrade your units? My line priorities go like this:

useful ability > extra healing > ranged damage > defense/resistance > counterattack > attack > health > useless ability > everything else.

There are exceptions, like never taking melee defense, attack and counterattack on a purely ranged unit.

toasterwarrior
Nov 11, 2011
On my melee units, I prioritize health and defensive stats before offensive ones since I prefer them to hold ground rather than kill things. That's the job of ranged dudes, where only +ranged attack goes above health. Ammo usually isn't a concern since everything dies before I run out, and even then, melee can clean house.

I'm not sure about the math, but I think one additional health trumps all defensive stats since it counts for all possible damage sources as opposed to a single one.

vvv: Ooh, good point. Chalk me up for a generalist then.

toasterwarrior fucked around with this message at 20:38 on Dec 30, 2012

KazigluBey
Oct 30, 2011

boner

toasterwarrior posted:

I'm not sure about the math, but I think one additional health trumps all defensive stats since it counts for all possible damage sources as opposed to a single one.

Yes, but 1 point of health = 1 point of damage and it's gone. 1 point of whatever defense may account for many more points of health spared, if the unit is taking multiple hits from the same damage type.

enigma74
Aug 5, 2005
a lean lobster who probably doesn't even taste good.

Jastiger posted:

Yeah for sure. Thanks for explaining the summoning thing. It just seems strange to kill a dragon, get a bad rear end phoenix egg.....and never be able to use it.

See, I'm still convinced the AI cheats somehow. They'll take over a province and have an army to defend with and that entire army will be leveled up in two turns. What the hell is he doing in two turns to get level 9 bowmen or 12 swordsman?

The ai doesn't cheat that way, province guards start with fixed levels every time. Even player guards have the same bonuses. The ai will have a better tech tree, however. And on every difficulty level under expert, the player has unique advantages.

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occipitallobe
Jul 16, 2012

my dad posted:


The best counter to the AI zerg rush is your own rush before they reach tier 2. It's unbelievably easier to beat them if they can't just pop uberguardsofdoom on every province. Take plains provinces as often as possible, be on a lookout for wood/iron, build mills and rank up your army. Only explore dungeons in your provinces if you need more money.

I gotta ask, what difficulty are you at? I'm struggling with competent on some later shards, and I'm wondering if this is viable at higher difficulties/larger shards. Zerging the smaller shards is very easy, but the neutrals are tougher and I usually need to grind some xp before I can break through on a large shard.


I have to agree on the ranking up your army business though - I suspect evil playthroughs are significantly harder than good ones due to the complete dearth of evil healer units, as well as the low defense on evil units as a general rule.

As for ranking up units, I basically copy toasterwarrior - moar defense on the melees, ranged attack on the ranges dudes, improved abilities on everyone. And yeah, health is a bad upgrade on most units. Each point of defense generally means taking one less damage per hit, and powerlevelling tier 1 units while maxing their defense can often make them lulzily powerful.

My dad, another question. Why rank counterattack over attack? I get that it's possible to counterattack more than once in a round, but the number of counterattacks is always going to be on rough parity with the number of attacks, presuming the two sides have equal numbers.

To put it mathily, two sides, each with x units. Assuming each unit attacks (with no specials preventing counterattacks) each round, there are going to be strictly a greater or equal number of attacks than counterattacks, as counterattacks don't occur when a unit is killed by a strike.

Not to mention that you can choose where attacks land, which I think is a much more useful area to rank up your damage output.

(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)

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