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Wolpertinger posted:I think it permanently damages their morale - though it might be temporary? Not sure. Regardless, most units have way more morale than they need unless you're fighting a necromancer, so that's not too terrible of an exchange in many cases. Nope, it's a temporary loss that recovers in a few turns. Basically once you have that ritual you want to be casting it every time it comes off cooldown if you can afford it. Great way to get a secondary Hero up to scratch, or just boosting your main one. -------------- Alliance efortpost, since this poo poo is pretty critical and can help immeasurably: Here's pretty much all the info you'll need to get your Foreign Quarters up and running: 1)Lizardmen - no prerequisites. Task - kill 6 slugs; 2)Halflings - no prerequisites. Task - kill 15 brigands; 3)Elves - very high positive karma. Task - clear a "Mage Tower" site; 4)Orcs - negative karma, big army. Task - pillage 150 gold; 5)Goblins - negative karma, big army. Task - kill 5 elves. Hero with diplomacy can buy alliance for 1500 gold; 6)Centaurs - high-level hero with big army. Task - kill 5 ogres (or other high tier neutral); 7)Dwarves - positive karma. Task - find sacred axe. Hero with diplomacy can buy alliance for 3000 gold; A hero with high Diplomacy can bypass some of the requirements (like the karma level), but more often than not you'll need high Diplomacy just to initiate negotiations (Centaurs especially). Karma requirements take into account army composition, so you can fake it by dumping all your zombies and bandits in a garrison, then paying a visit with nothing but healers in every slot!  You can only ally with one race per shard. Once you are allied with a given race, three buildings open up in the Foreign Quarter, granting you new sources of income, a new unit and (sometimes) a new guard. Additionally, the hero who completed the alliance quest can now automatically turn neutral provinces of that race with no battle needed, also with the option that the province keep its initial guards. Which race to ally with? Well, besides the fact that a given shard might make one race or another easier to get to, there is also the difficulty consideration and the gains you make when you get the alliance. In short: 1)Lizardmen: Easy enough quest, once Slugs become a non-issue. Lizardmen as a unit are not that great. The second alliance building is meh (+2 gem income and +10% unit HP recovery in the demesne), as is the third (+1 gold income in Lizardmen provinces, new guard). The Lizardmen guard is decent enough (as it comes with a number of Basilisks and Medusas), but can only be posted in Swamp provinces. All in all, unless the shard is Swamp-heavy I'd give these guys a pass. 2)Halflings: Easy quest, but given the number needed you might be a little at the mercy of the RNG, if no brigand-heavy locations spawn. Halflings are only marginally better slingers, so you aren't getting much out of the alliance unit-wise. The second building is good (significant increase to population gain in the demesne, +1 gold increase in all Plains provinces), and the third is great (+15 gold income in the demesne, +1 mood in the demesne). To sum up, a decent choice if what you want is more gold and rapid growth in your demesne. 3)Elves: The hardest part about netting an alliance with the Elves is getting them to loving talk to you in the first place. Once that's been sorted (Scout with diplomacy and a good-Karma army works well), their quest is entirely RNG dependent; the actual location is a piece of cake to clear, but actually getting it to spawn can be a little roll-of-the-dice. It's a good idea to plan ahead and preserve all the Mage Tower locations intact, then blow them all when you get the quest. So after all that trouble, is it worth it? gently caress YES IT IS! I consider Elves one of the best alliances to make; The unit you receive is probably the best Tier 1 unit you will get from an alliance (only the centaurs give something better, and that unit is Tier 2), though it costs a fair bit to purchase. The elves' second building is the best out of all the buildings at that tier in the foreign quarter for income (+2 gold income from forest provinces, +2 gem income), and the third building is hands-down amazing (improves population mood in all provinces by 1). Bottom line, if you can put up with the hassle of getting the pointy eared snobs, and/or are playing a good-aligned character then go for it. Additionally, I've seen events proc after I allied with them that netted me a whole butt-load of gems (magic rain event), so they can be quite nifty for someone who's main hero is a mage. 4)Orcs: Easiest quest by far. To get it, just be evil and have a nice big army, then go one province out from the one you got the quest in and set your hero to "pillage"-mode. A few turns later you should have all the gold you need (remember to dump a guard in the province, the mood probably hit the lowest it can hit in the meantime), go back and deliver. Easy. The first building you get lowers the mood in the demesne by 1 and grants a poo poo unit, and the second building isn't much better (+1 gem income, +2 gold income in Orcish provinces), but the third one is amazing, right up there with the elvish one. What it does is, randomly every turn there is a chance your orcs will raid a province and offer you a share of the gold they get. This can vary wildly, the lowest I've seen being around 60 gold but the highest ~600-700. I'm not sure if there are negative repercussions following from these raids, but the mood in most of my provinces stayed the same throughout several turns of raiding. So going with an orc alliances is mostly for that one building and possibly the ease with which you can complete their quest. If your play-style is already on the evil side, just ally with the orcs whenever you can. 5)Goblins: Quest is a bit hit-or-miss, depending on if Elves have a province in the shard or not. If not, you are at the mercy of the RNG for locations with elven archers. Or you can dump a poo poo ton of gold and just buy the alliance. Worth it? Mmmmmehhhhhhh... Goblins as a unit are crap and the recruitment building hurts demesne mood by 1. Second building is decent if your main hero is mage and your gem economy isn't up to scratch (+3 gem income in Swamp provinces), and the third building is very RNG dependent (+2 gold income, occasionally produces artifacts for sale). I don't have enough experience with gobbo alliances to say if you can get decent enough artifacts in your store to justify it. I'd say give this alliance a pass in most cases. 6)Centaurs: Hardest alliance process, hands-down. First, your army needs to be big and your hero decently leveled for them to even offer the alliance quest. Secondly, Ogres are pretty tough neutrals, can be found with other dangerous neutral mobs (if the location is far from all demesnes) and whether or not you get a location with ogres is a crap-shot. On the bright-side, the effort is well worth it. Centaurs are the strongest alliance unit, and the only one at Rank 2, for good reason. The economic building is meh (+3 gem increase), but the third building is amazing (+5 gold income from Centaur provinces, can hire Centaur guard). The guards are great, a good mid/early-late game option with virtually no upkeep (though they can only be posted in Plains), and being able to turn centaur provinces without a fight is amazing, though admittedly these provinces are fairly rare). So if you can, I'd say go for it, especially if you don't care much of whatever Tier 2 options you have by default. Centaurs are highly mobile archer units, and on any open maps (or led by a Scout that has leveled that one skill that grants terrain affinity to all his units) they can run circles around the AI's units. 7) Dorfs!: Can't say much about these guys, haven't ever gotten their alliance. Still, as far as I know the location where the axe is spawns on quest acceptance so there is little RNG involved, though the fight can be rough. The gold-cost of the bypass is also pretty loving ridiculous at 3000, if you have that kind of scratch lying around then you are probably in the endgame and have no need for alliances. Dwarves as a unit are decent enough, I think they end up as a variation on the Swordsman, losing out on Parry but having higher Resistance. Their economic building provides +1 gold in hilly provinces and the Clan Guard. Not sure how good it is, but I assume not very, as the dwarves tend to be fairly easy to steamroll. Their third building is very good, but somewhat RNG dependent: +5 gold income, +10 income from Mithril and dwarven artifacts will be available for sale in the demesne. Dwarf items are decent mid-tier gear, and I think they can produce one kick-rear end cross-bow as well.  ------------------- So far I tend to play a good-aligned Mage on most shards, rushing Tier 2 buildings for the Fireball and Stone Rain spells. Once my economy is up to scratch, especially gem-wise, there are very few armies that can stand against my mage. I don't even need necromancy at all, once the hero is an Arch-Mage the fact that I can throw two spells a turn means that must enemies will be dead before they even get in range of my army. I might swap over to being an evil git if only because Brigands are dirt cheap in cost and upkeep, and some of the advanced evil guards are amazing, Secret Agents in particular. Jastiger posted:Also, when a guard unit is attacked by an uprising/enemy attack be sure to REHIRE THEM. They do not seem to heal up between battles and will eventually get weaker and weaker. Incorrect, they do heal but very very slowly. The rate is increased if you have heal-rate increasing buildings in the province. Admittedly, it is often better to rehire, especially if you are expecting subsequent action in the following turns. KazigluBey fucked around with this message at 19:19 on Dec 26, 2012 |
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Dec 26, 2012 19:11
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| # ¿ Apr 26, 2024 11:57 |
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Jastiger posted:Do you get Archmage at a higher level> I only had the option for mage once I hit 10. I agree otherwise, dual shot is godly. EDIT: Wait gently caress, I'm wrong. It's only at level 20, off from the pure-mage option at level 10. gently caress.  StringOfLetters posted:How the heck is experience calculated? How big of a bonus is there for getting a kill vs. just landing a hit vs. counterattacking? I'm torn on how much emphasis I should put on letting my hero get as many final shots as possible, vs. effective non-suicide tactics. I can't say for certain, but there IS is sizable bonus for getting the kills. However, all units that take part in a battle gain some collective exp. Having your units perform more actions vs. your hero is good, on the other hand, because it increases the chance they get medals at the end. ------------------------------ Anybody else just F10 through most early game battles? I find that baby-sitting Tier 1 units is just not worth the hassle, most of the time. Oh sure it is great getting a bunch of Swordsmen to lvl10+ with high defense stats and multi-stacked Parry... Only to loose them as soon as Tier 2 enemies become more common, or to getting focused, or to a lucky shot... Honestly, I find that the AI does a good enough job that if the fight is not clutch I just auto-pilot it. This doesn't work if I have cavalry or high-mobility units, of course, because the AI has no loving clue how to keep them alive, but still. KazigluBey fucked around with this message at 01:20 on Dec 27, 2012 |
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Dec 27, 2012 01:13
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This is, admittedly, one of the issues with meeting the other Masters early on, campaign-wise. Chances are, he hasn't tech'd up to Tier 4 in order to get the Raise Vampire spell, but rather found a scroll and pop'd it as soon as his Mage had a Tier 4 slot open. I do like that the enemy Masters follow the same rules you do, but sometimes this means that they get unbeatable boosts from doing locations and netting good scrolls or artifacts. Bottom line is, until you get enough Tier 2 buildings from winning Shards, try to be quick about finishing battles. Don't turtle up, or the AI will likely get larger territories, more Heroes, and then just grind you down. As to heroes clearing guards with ease, this just means that you've established the point at which that given guard stops being effective, turn-wise (roughly, can vary from Shard to Shard). I recommend checking if you have access to better guards right now from your main city, if not make it a priority to claim guard-granting buildings in the over-world map. And on that note, try for Shards in order of size, Tiny first then Small, etc... Tiny Shards tend to not have Masters fighting over them.
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Dec 27, 2012 01:50
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Restart the Shard, and try with a different strategy, in particular with regards to army composition. If the shard hasn't vanished, then pretty much EVERYTHING about it will be the same on the second try, so you can rush the enemy's main province as soon as you have a Hero ready with a half-decent army and kit. Again, for most of the early shards, ESPECIALLY once Masters show up, turtling will probably result in a loss. You need to be aggressive and level your main hero through conquest rather than through exploration grinding. Masters seem to have a slight tech advantage, often tailored to their individual personalities. This tech advantage is most evident in the guards they will deploy, but they will still take some time to get the guard tech they like. Rush them early, kill the first Hero and you should get an insta-win siege going.
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Dec 27, 2012 02:53
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Wolpertinger posted:You can restart a shard? How? The "Return to the Astral" option in the "Step into the past" menu. The shard shouldn't vanish, and the only penalty you take is a one point hit to your essence income. Honestly, most of the stuff you can get with essence (to answer one of your other questions) is simply not worth it. For example, having a Forge ready-built in your demesne costs something like 100 essence PER shard, which is loving stupid when you remember that the forge costs 90 gold even if you don't have a source of iron. So treat your essence income as a soft-reset pool you can dip into now and again, and your actual essence as a resource for conversation based prompts (I've had two, one that let me sacrifice up to three essence income for various permanent (?) shard bonuses, and one which was giving that imp a salary), though so far conversation prompts have only consumed income, rather then actual essence. /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\ WYA posted:Does this game have multiplayer? Yes, several kinds including hot-seat.
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Dec 27, 2012 04:21
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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.
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Dec 30, 2012 19:42
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| # ¿ Apr 26, 2024 11:57 |
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Fargo Fukes posted:As such I'm now moving more in favour of completely expendable units. Maybe even giving up on healing and just replacing them with fresh bodies when they die. Spearmen are kinda blah as the default option. Has anyone had any luck with Brigands or Thieves? And does anyone know if the Brigand 10% loot loss stacks? It would suck pretty terribly if every Brigand you employ skims another ten percent off the takings, especially since they're meant to be cheap muscle. Brigands are ace and can handle most demesne and 1-distance province locations with ease (assuming nothing crazy, of course). As far as I can tell brigands count as a "stack" for the purpose of loot loss, I was running six of them and still getting decent returns on location clears. In fact, for the most part they allow you to treat the early game as F10-centre, since they are nothing more than fodder and not worth baby-sitting. Can't speak about Thieves, haven't used them enough, nor do I know if they count together with the Brigands in the -10% loot "stack" or if they add their own -10% to the calculations.
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Dec 31, 2012 05:59
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