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[enigma74]

Can anyone tell me the long-term benefits from playing on a higher difficulty?  Besides a higher score on the shard, of course.

Playing on beginner, I'm appreciating a dual-hero start, with a wizard and a warrior both going out to conquer lands and adventure.  As quickly as possible, I purchase the scout to start exploring the rest of the areas.

[etgfrog]

Can anyone tell me the long-term benefits from playing on a higher difficulty?  Besides a higher score on the shard, of course.

Playing on beginner, I'm appreciating a dual-hero start, with a wizard and a warrior both going out to conquer lands and adventure.  As quickly as possible, I purchase the scout to start exploring the rest of the areas.

It has to do with the ending you get I believe...no clue how much glory is required for what kind of ending...that is just guesswork as I'm still working my way through it
Campaign is getting interesting as you can get dragged into conflicts between masters, as example of what just happened, I'm allied with the fairy queen and just received some 400 gold on turn 2 for fighting against the lich(mr. skullface)

Now as for game play...I'll have to agree that getting an alliance with lizardmen is my favorite as they cost only 30 gold per unit yet have good stats(swamp knowledge is also very nice). Slingers and militiamen have their use in a general's army as they become decent unit that act like bait and is cheap to replace. Thieves are useful since they can attack units and not receive retaliation which makes them deadly under a ranger that can give them full land knowledge and they only reduce the amount of money/items gained from battle(where it shows the results screen) which is also countered by the spoils bonus the ranger gets.

As for items...I don't think I've found a legendary item that I thought was weak, most of them are essentially game winners or at the very least you would make a new hero so that you can use said item, but not always the case as one time I found the legendary necro book but couldn't make use of it as I didn't have any of the necromancy spells on hand and already had a mage hero, but I still ended up using it on the mage as it gave undead mastery which any unit that was killed by said mage would turn into a skeleton.

[Neonivek]

It helps that the Lizardmen are also one of the easier alliances to obtain.

[Anvilfolk]

Wow, it seems like there's a lot more to this game than first meets the eye. I just finished my first shard, but I guess gameplay changes a bit. Alliances and whatnot? Interesting...

I'm enjoying it a fair bit so far, but like everyone, am having difficulties keeping certain territories happy. The worst part is I often have no idea what's causing discontent.

[Neonivek]

Generally speaking it depends on the land and race. In the Campaign finding all the happyness boosters is vital.

Goblins despite all appearances are actually one of the easier races to keep under control.

As well random events alter happyness.

If I had to guess there are probably other things that affect happyness. Being out of land is one of them. It is also possible that hidden monsters also affect it.

[Frumple]

Gets a lot easier once you've unlocked the pub/tavern/etc. stuff for places-not-your-starting-provice, which is a few shards into the campaign. There's also a few guards (well, at least one I've seen so far) that boost province mood, though the only one I've seen so far is pretty puny re: defense. You can also just say, "Meh." and slap down a fairly solid guard (patrolmen's my standard, so far, which reduces discontent increase slightly t'boot) and let 'em rebel. You get a hefty discontent drop every time you knock a rebellion attempt down, though I don't think it effects mood any.

Then as mentioned, there's various random events, which can adjust province mood in either direction. Some of those have set results depending on your actions, but... some don't. Watch out for those. You occasionally find blueprints for special buildings you can build (ancient shrine's the one I've seen the most) for a fairly hefty price that have major mood shifting effects, too. Can drop those down on particularly troubled provinces you don't want problems from.

As for the discontent itself, the most common factor seems to be how you conquered the province. Bribing, ferex, almost always causes none while attacking when you can pursue peaceful solutions often cause some (particularly notable with the alliance races, who get pissed.) discontent. One interesting thing I've noticed is that provinces you conquer from your enemies default to quiet when you take over, even if they were a raging rebellion slurry the turn before. It's sometimes a decent enough idea to let your enemy conquer lizard/centaur/whatever provinces along your border and just take 'em from them, if you can manage to do that and keep it.

[anzki4]

One thing I hate is that you can't form an army without hero and heroes become very expensive. Now I can see why they gone with that decision, but it still creates some very annoying chases and back-and-forth captures. It is also pretty annoying to send the hero to the other side of the map to capture some rebelling province. On my previous game, I chased the enemy half the freakin' map on my territory, recapturing the provinces behind him until he started a siege on my capital, allowing me to catch him.

It was also the first extremely stupid decision from the AI I have seen, since it had no chance of actually capturing my capital with it's puny army.

[Trollheiming]

One thing I hate is that you can't form an army without hero and heroes become very expensive. Now I can see why they gone with that decision, but it still creates some very annoying chases and back-and-forth captures. It is also pretty annoying to send the hero to the other side of the map to capture some rebelling province. On my previous game, I chased the enemy half the freakin' map on my territory, recapturing the provinces behind him until he started a siege on my capital, allowing me to catch him.

It was also the first extremely stupid decision from the AI I have seen, since it had no chance of actually capturing my capital with it's puny army.

It sounds like you ran into my problem. The tutorial doesn't address the need to lay down militia, but getting a few militia unlocked before enemy contact is crucial. I use patrolmen, or adventurers if there are easy bottlenecks.

I've gotten more familiar with the game now; and really, easy and skilled become a walk in the park with a warrior buying plate armour and running around soloing everything himself. Now I'm playing on competent, and the time needed to outfit a warrior in plate before he rampages is simply prohibitive of a warrior-first strategy. Now I use a scout and two pikemen. If I wound everything once before it reaches the corner in which my pikemen guard my scout, the enemy all wander about hesitantly, afraid to attack my pikemen because they'll just die.

[anzki4]

It sounds like you ran into my problem. The tutorial doesn't address the need to lay down militia, but getting a few militia unlocked before enemy contact is crucial. I use patrolmen, or adventurers if there are easy bottlenecks.

I had some one-time contract militia, but there weren't any chokepoints and the regular militia are basically useless.

That brings the question; is there later on some more useful non-contract militia?

[Frumple]

Short answer: Yes.

Still not in the higher difficulties, but on the lower ones even if a patrolmen guard doesn't stop an enemy army, it's pretty likely to strip several units off of it, making retaliation much easier. Considering that in pretty much all cases the gold/unit ratio on purchase and upkeep for guards is massively lower than if you actually bought those units individually... they can be pretty cost effective, if you can make sure the enemy runs over 'em.

I'm still not in the higher tier guards, even. A patrolmen or mercenary guard will stop most first rank armies dead, from what I've seen, and most of the other earlier guards will generally do a lot of damage relative to their cost. Even base militia can generally kill off one or two critters of the enemy arm y if they haven't started fielding second rank plus units, and for the cost (They're what, 30 gold? Recruits, the next step up, are 40, and have a few hundred gold worth of units in them.) that's ridiculous. Basically, guards are really, really useful. Not as useful as your main armies, but a very powerful tool if you can leverage them. They're basically the most cost effective source of units in the game, offset by the inability to move 'em or lead them with heroes.

[Neonivek]

The thing I find is that guards do not stop the enemy. They arn't really there to stop the enemy unless it is really early in the game and you somehow both forced yourselves in eachothers dirrection.

What they are there for however is to stop them from chain taking territories. Usually if they beat one good guard they won't take another.

[Anvilfolk]

Welp, I find commanders/strategists/generals/whatever-their-name-is are insanely powerful. I'm trying warrior & commander, and the commander's plethora of troops makes it much stronger than the warrior, which is essentially one slightly stronger troop. Wish you could get several of the same type

[Neonivek]

Commanders sort of shine the most in the early game because they can basically turn a small group of pathetically weak individuals into a force!

What they don't get however is just outright physical might (Doing the least damage of the four heros). It is why people often make Commanders their second choice. Since the extra units in the army doesn't help as much as their ability to get free kills off the enemy.

Commanders can also shine in low income maps because they can get the most out of low cost troops. Sure Slingers arn't too special but +3 damage makes them better ranged units then archers.

[Trollheiming]

The thing I find is that guards do not stop the enemy. They arn't really there to stop the enemy unless it is really early in the game and you somehow both forced yourselves in eachothers dirrection.

Timing is everything. Early on, even the flimsiest militia can win the war. Playing the tiny and small shards on competent so far, I usually know which direction to push in order to meet the enemies. I managed to charge toward a "skilled" enemy by turn 18 and surround him with cheap militiamen. The aggression of the enemy seems tied to his men and resources, and he had only his own stronghold income, so he was pretty much imprisoned. I went back to my stronghold and leisurely re-armed for the final battle.

Taking unnecessary provinces is nice for point totals, but clearing a few dungeons is a better short term pay-off than province taxes, then you can equip an invasion force and rapidly meet the enemy in his home turf.

[enigma74]

On competent difficulty, I'm now thinking the wizard is a poor first hero.  First, the wizard's bread and butter is magic arrow or raise skeleton.  These first circle spells cost 4 crystals each time you cast them in battle, and the total can add up very quickly.  You need crystals to build stronghold buildings, resurrect dead heroes, hire shamans, and respond to random events.  Having your mage eat up 16 magic crystals a battle drains your resources painfully fast.