Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[AlStar]

Oh yeah, another thing regarding the recent patch(es)... I also find it very amusing that they've added the "made of iron" tag to a lot of weapons, to indicate that they can be rusted by spells or by just being underwater for some time.

...and then they still kept in all the underwater units and nations that use those iron-based weapons and armors.

Yeah, I thought that was funny as well.

Maybe it's thematic that they like using rusted stuff?

More likely it's him forgetting and/or getting lazy and not wanting to make a bunch of coral/bronze/whatever weaponry.

[E. Albright]

It's oversight; he's said as much. The last patch added 6-7 new bronze weapon types and several new ferrous/nonferrous shields. In principle there's a "second half" of the underwater patch eventually forthcoming once CoE4 cools down; presumably additional fixes will happen then.

[Micro102]

One thing that disappoints me about this game is that sometimes there is not an obvious winner, so you end up spending hours trying to win a game where one blob of soldiers and summoned creatures fight another blob of soldiers and summoned creatures. Micromanaging your 100 commanders and trying to find all the castles that you left on autoproduce that are eating up your money.

How do you guys deal with games that get this tedious?

[E. Albright]

Setting throne victory conditions helps a lot with that.

[Kagus]

Just break The Seal. That should clear things up a bit.

[gman8181]

I got the modded polymorph spells to work in battle! Thanks for all the help you guys / gals gave me!

Right now it doesn't always seem to work though. Almost like it's magic resistance negates. I'm going to go over the code one more time later to see if I accidentally included that but either way, the hardest part is pretty much done.

If anyone is interested in seeing the code, I'd be happy to post it here for usage in your own mods. It's a little messy at the moment but shouldn't be too hard to clean up or edit.

One thing that disappoints me about this game is that sometimes there is not an obvious winner, so you end up spending hours trying to win a game where one blob of soldiers and summoned creatures fight another blob of soldiers and summoned creatures. Micromanaging your 100 commanders and trying to find all the castles that you left on autoproduce that are eating up your money.

How do you guys deal with games that get this tedious?

Mmm I guess what E. Albright said plus all the other setting modifications.

My advice would be to look for games that cater to your preferences. If the late game grind is too much for you, then look for games with less players and specific conditions. Throne settings can drastically alter the game length. Decreasing research difficulty can allow the game you're playing to be short without preventing you from getting to use some of the more late game spells. If you lower resources, gold, and magic site frequency, then everyone is forced to field smaller armies which should reduce micro quite a bit.

You basically just need to find people who want to play the same way as you. Well, for multiplayer anyway.

I usually play single player games where I just toy around. If it's a single player game, you're free to pick whatever settings work best for you and you're also free to mess around with weird strategies that you couldn't get away with in multiplayer. Personally, I just find that pretty fun in itself. Especially with mods so you can tweak things more to your preferences. If a game starts to get tedious, I just end it and start a new one as a different nation or with a different strategy. It's pretty fun for me that way.

So, yup.

[Delta Foxtrot]

Thrones is probably the best, simplest way. With or without easy research. I can't remember what the magic settings were, but don't require too many throne claims above 50%. 75% is really getting counter productive. Helps avoid that endgame slog. I seem to recall really liking 10 thrones with 50%+1 claim required, so 6. I haven't played in a while so those exact numbers could be contested, but that's the general idea.

Go too far to the other side and you might find games ending anticlimatically. Getting that throne requirement just right is pretty important for a satisfying game.

[PrimusRibbus]

One thing that disappoints me about this game is that sometimes there is not an obvious winner, so you end up spending hours trying to win a game where one blob of soldiers and summoned creatures fight another blob of soldiers and summoned creatures. Micromanaging your 100 commanders and trying to find all the castles that you left on autoproduce that are eating up your money.

How do you guys deal with games that get this tedious?

It sounds like you're playing on too large of a map. I know it's tempting the make ludicrously huge maps (I'm guilty of doing that all the time in SP), but the larger the map the bigger the micro and the longer the game.

Also, like other people said, use thrones as the winning condition.

[Shadowlord]

It's also possible for it to become a slog even with thrones, of course. It depends on how many you need to win and how hard it is to get enough of them.

[Delta Foxtrot]

It sounds like you're playing on too large of a map. I know it's tempting the make ludicrously huge maps (I'm guilty of doing that all the time in SP), but the larger the map the bigger the micro and the longer the game.

Totally forgot the maps. For reference, the game and community at large seem to consider roughly 10 provinces per player to be small, ~15 per player is medium and ~20 per player is large.
I remember seeing some desura posts way back about newbies playing with much, much larger ratios and wondering how it all could be managed.

It's also possible for it to become a slog even with thrones, of course. It depends on how many you need to win and how hard it is to get enough of them.

Yeah. With say... 80% requirement you might as well be playing with 100%. Assuming equal throne distribution, controlling 80% of the thrones means you're controlling roughly 80% of the map. At that point it's pretty foregone conclusion.

[Micro102]

The map I was playing on was a randomly generated small one, with 5-6 computers. I just came down to a power struggle. I'll try setting throne limits to 70% and see how I enjoy that. I am afraid to touch the resources and gold numbers as they may not necessarily be balanced if you reduce both by the same amount, so I don't know how to set them.

On a side note, I am about to play a caelum game and one of their obvious flaws are that you have no way of stopping them from flying right into the enemy army and getting chewed up with their lower stats and your own troop's arrows. So I was wondering if it was possible to set the commanders to cast 5 spells, then retreat, causing all your units to retreat as well, a sort of it and run tactic. Does anyone know if they actually will cast 5 spells and retreat, or retreat normally? Or maybe to make one commander have 5 squads in formation to reduce their morale as much as possible (maybe that whip that decreases morale too) so they will route almost instantly? That way my many archers can get shots off and if confronted, can instantly retreat. Thoughts?

[USEC_OFFICER]

On a side note, I am about to play a caelum game and one of their obvious flaws are that you have no way of stopping them from flying right into the enemy army and getting chewed up with their lower stats and your own troop's arrows.

I'm not entirely certain if it's been fixed or not, but setting your troops up in a line formation should make them advance forward normally instead of flying into melee. Though I would like to point out that most Caelum troops technically aren't much worse than most other nations. Their biggest problem is that they're size-3, which means that they have trouble concentrating their attacks and spreading damage out in larger fights. Hence why you need to focus on archery and evocations in larger battles.

Does anyone know if they actually will cast 5 spells and retreat, or retreat normally?

I'm almost entirely certain that that is how it works. They'll retreat after running through the script as you planned it.

Or maybe to make one commander have 5 squads in formation to reduce their morale as much as possible (maybe that whip that decreases morale too) so they will route almost instantly? That way my many archers can get shots off and if confronted, can instantly retreat.

That sounds like a terrible plan, honestly. Some spells force morale checks, so the enemy could capitalize on that to ruin your plans.

[Micro102]

Does anyone know if they actually will cast 5 spells and retreat, or retreat normally?

I'm almost entirely certain that that is how it works. They'll retreat after running through the script as you planned it.

Or maybe to make one commander have 5 squads in formation to reduce their morale as much as possible (maybe that whip that decreases morale too) so they will route almost instantly? That way my many archers can get shots off and if confronted, can instantly retreat.

That sounds like a terrible plan, honestly. Some spells force morale checks, so the enemy could capitalize on that to ruin your plans.

Well I won't need to test if my low morale idea if the retreating commanders thing works. I imagine that it will piss off opponents to no end to have an army of archers and mages throwing down freezing arrows and thunderbolts, then retreating after all that initial damage.

[ArKFallen]

Does anyone know if they actually will cast 5 spells and retreat, or retreat normally?

I'm almost entirely certain that that is how it works. They'll retreat after running through the script as you planned it.

Or maybe to make one commander have 5 squads in formation to reduce their morale as much as possible (maybe that whip that decreases morale too) so they will route almost instantly? That way my many archers can get shots off and if confronted, can instantly retreat.

That sounds like a terrible plan, honestly. Some spells force morale checks, so the enemy could capitalize on that to ruin your plans.

Well I won't need to test if my low morale idea if the retreating commanders thing works. I imagine that it will piss off opponents to no end to have an army of archers and mages throwing down freezing arrows and thunderbolts, then retreating after all that initial damage.

Your army won't necessarily retreat into the same province IIRC(picks from all of your adjacent randomly) and if you have PD there will be a commander so your scattered troops won't route again from an incoming army.

[Micro102]

Ok, I was hoping to take advantage of Caelum's stealthy pillage bonus units but for some reason I don't have the raid option on the pillage bonus commander. I have tried getting him to raid with pillage bonus units only, both in enemy territory and in my own owned territory adjacent to the enemy's. Why isn't the raiding option showing up?