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[Criptfeind]

Won't they just destroy the village again though? Even if they remake the AI to rebuild villages better, I don't think that would solve my issue of them destroying my already converted villages. Unless a destroyed village that is converted doesn't get rebuilt but still works to get resources and units and can't be destroyed again. I guess that would be cool, I'll admit I didn't try that.

Also darn, it's sad to hear that it has balance issues in multiplayer, I was hoping to play this with some people eventually. I did notice the lack of ranged units in the broken lords, I was hoping that their higher stats and Calvary and using minor faction units would be able to make up for that if I really needed it to. Tough luck that that doesn't seem to be the case...

[10ebbor10]

From what I heard, the Broken Lords can be broken in the other way as well though. As in ridicously strong later game economy if they survive the early game.

[Aklyon]

I am not at all surprised it has balance issues in MP, considering what I've heard in this thread. Either you have balanced mp, or you have factions with more uniqueness that break something or other when 2+ people are involved.

[Sartain]

Won't they just destroy the village again though? Even if they remake the AI to rebuild villages better, I don't think that would solve my issue of them destroying my already converted villages. Unless a destroyed village that is converted doesn't get rebuilt but still works to get resources and units and can't be destroyed again. I guess that would be cool, I'll admit I didn't try that.

Also darn, it's sad to hear that it has balance issues in multiplayer, I was hoping to play this with some people eventually. I did notice the lack of ranged units in the broken lords, I was hoping that their higher stats and Calvary and using minor faction units would be able to make up for that if I really needed it to. Tough luck that that doesn't seem to be the case...

Well it's a data pool of 1 so far, but it was my impression that they can very easily get steamrolled due to their lack of range and generally low initiative and that the fact that they don't heal naturally, but only by spending money on it seems more of a drawback than a bonus. I basically had to spend 150-ish gold after every fight just to get my hero back on his feet because even with the best in equipment I could he was surprisingly fragile, even against minor faction units.
The regular Broken Lords units have a small life drain ability (if a unit they damaged get killed in the same round they gain some HP back). For some reason, their heroes don't have that ability so only one way to heal those.

[sebcool]

As I said in my previous post, this game is hilariously unbalanced. It's really hard to win the economy game against the Clans or the Broken Lords; you can't have a better early game than the Wild Walkers, and don't even consider trying to beat the Vaulters in the late-game (Seriously, you either kill them early, or they will out-everything you once Winter comes). Being unbalanced doesn't mean it's bad, though (unless you play multiplayer). A lot of classic fantasy 4x's were unbalanced as hell, but they are still widely regarded today (hence why they're classics).

As Aklyon said, it's pretty much impossible to have really unique factions in a 4x, while still maintaining balance (hell, it's hard to have slightly unique factions and still be balanced). Personally, if I had to choose between balanced and dull factions, or unique and hilariously unbalanced factions, I'd choose the unique factions every time. I don't play multiplayer, though, so that's an easy choice. I haven't tried the multiplayer, but I can imagine it's a pain.

The problem is that the AI is not really challenging. Hell, in my first game as the Vaulters (favorite faction ATM) I almost won an elimination victory against 7 factions without destroying any civs (I did take some cities from the Draken and the Necrophages, though). The neutral villages were killing them for me. In the end, there was only a single city left (cultists), and I was getting worried, that I wouldn't get to see the wonder victory. They are also complete pushovers in the military, and I often found myself rolling through all of their cities without a problem (except happiness). This was on Normal.

If they can improve the AI, though, I will play this until Winter comes.

[Neonivek]

A lot of classic fantasy 4x's were unbalanced as hell

One famous one is Masters of Orion 1 and 2.

Then again they were thought up as more single player games where multiplayer was considered optional so to speak. They were unbalanced but intentionally so.

The goal was to do as well as you could with the race available and experience the world they created. There was no sense that you would want to balance the game.

It is something much rarer now a days with the advent of multiplayer as the prime game mode (to the extent where games are starting to be multiplayer even on single player mode), but it does happen.

[i2amroy]

If you aren't having any difficulties against the AI I highly suggest turning the difficulty up all the way. Endless AI has actually managed to beat me a few times. (That said it is fairly weak right now, but I can attest that it has definitely been getting better with each patch).

[Sartain]

A lot of classic fantasy 4x's were unbalanced as hell

One famous one is Masters of Orion 1 and 2.

Then again they were thought up as more single player games where multiplayer was considered optional so to speak. They were unbalanced but intentionally so.

The goal was to do as well as you could with the race available and experience the world they created. There was no sense that you would want to balance the game.

It is something much rarer now a days with the advent of multiplayer as the prime game mode (to the extent where games are starting to be multiplayer even on single player mode), but it does happen.

Well with the current moronic AI Endless Legend pretty much has to be played multiplayer 

[10ebbor10]

Indeed one drawback of perfect balancing is that the easiest way to do it is just palette swapping factions.

Hence, unbalanced often has better variety.

[thegoatgod_pan]

I got it, it isn't unbalanced so much as asymetrical. I wouldn't play it with strangers, but it looks like a really fun game with friends.  E.g. sure broken lords can't heal well, but c'mon: they opt out of a basic resource! I think mods and balances will make it even richer

[Neonivek]

I got it, it isn't unbalanced so much as asymetrical. I wouldn't play it with strangers, but it looks like a really fun game with friends.  E.g. sure broken lords can't heal well, but c'mon: they opt out of a basic resource! I think mods and balances will make it even richer

Its unbalanced, watcha talking about?

Just that unbalanced isn't necessarily a bad thing. The game is meant to be balanced by the fact that the factions will attempt to secure their victory, yet that requires all the players to be clued in.

The Rock Dumb AI though...

[Werdna]

From what I heard, the Broken Lords can be broken in the other way as well though. As in ridicously strong later game economy if they survive the early game.

Yeah, they can be seriously broken.  I just turned the corner in my game and am putting out close to 3k dust a turn, and that's going to go rocketing up pretty soon as the new tech era has a bunch of +dust improvements, and my Lord heroes are all reaching a final tier of their skill tree that results in +X% dust income.  At one point I settled three new cities and was able to buy out almost every single building on each one in a single turn (in the empire plan, the science and dust plans can give you -X% to building costs... that combo results in insanely cheap to buy buildings).

I think the problem with the Lords is that there are too many +X% dust modifiers (or, that the value of each needs to be lowered).  Once you start stacking them, you are off to the races.  In particular, the Dustbloom or whatever that luxury is that gives you +50% dust income is way way too powerful for the Dust Lords.

As far as Broken Lords not healing well - that's only early game, it's actually an advantage later!  The healing costs do not scale.  I'm at midgame, clashing with nomad stacks, and healing my hero and a stack of Lord units instantly to full costs me about ~200 dust per battle when I'm making almost ~3k a turn.  I've been dismissing my non-lord units because they heal too slowly in comparison.  Add in Dust Bishops and the costs go down even more (they heal nearby units after an attack - but the computer AI loves to focus-fire on these guys).

The AI is pretty bad (the Achilles heel of most 4x's) and I think ultimately that is my greatest frustration with this genre of game.  My friends and I don't have the free time any more to coordinate MP games, so I'm stuck against the computer, and no matter what MoM clone I try the AI is barely a challenge.  I'll crank the difficulty level up and see what happens, this is on Normal and just my first game.  What I do like is the combat system and how it drags in nearby units as reinforcements - it tends to help the AI by minimizing the effect of outmaneuvering stupid AI stacks on the world map.  It's not quite as easy to isolate and kill a lonesome stack as it is in other games.

[i2amroy]

Yeah, I'd suggest playing on either the top or second highest difficulty if you are up against the AI, since they can actually start to present a challenge at times then.

[Retropunch]

Just wanted to chime in to say I've been playing it quite a bit over the last few days and have to say it's probably my favourite non-space 4x - it's really, really good.

It's pretty much taken all the best bits from other 4x games and mixed it with some rather enjoyable RPG elements. As others have said, the different races are very, very different (and enjoyable), so it has a ton of re-playability, and being made as a pure single-player game it works well.

The only cons are that the turn based combat is a bit so-so, there's not a great deal to do with it, and I've found that the auto battle consistently makes you lose where you'd have easily won had you done it manually. The AI is admittedly quite weak, but with 4x's it's always easy to stack the game against your favour if you're in need of a challenge.
 
 I was always a fan of endless space, but it did have it's downsides - this seems to have cleared most of those away and come out with something pretty lean and very cool.

10/10 - must buy.

[Anvilfolk]

Top of the wishlist right now!