Difficulty broken?

from Elemental Forums

So I'm wondering if my experience is unique or unusual.  I haven't gotten to end game yet (wasn't in the beta, and only got about 2 hours in before it crashed), but I'm wondering if combat is ever supposed to be hard.  Or if serious attacks against your cities are ever supposed to happen.

With my sovereign as a magic user, I never came close to losing a tactical battle; 9 times out of 10 the enemies couldn't even get to within melee range (and those times they died before attacking).  This was with level 1 spells and not a single item.  I built up some defenses in my capital, but had another settlement that was totally defenseless and was never attacked.  I'd occasionally get messages from the AI people telling me to watch out or whatever, but they never did anything.

All this is on normal difficulty.

So, is this something that changes later in the game or what?  Because so far there has been 0 competition, and no reason to build up a military at all.

elemental
8,710 views 12 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

Lol at the mounted drake picture! And he has only 610 hp, 3340 att, 7722 def, 42 sight, 51 combat speed. Pft.

Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top

Nah, even on Ridiculous/Ridiculous difficulty, the AI doesn't do anything

Wait for the day 0 patch, see if that fixes it. If not, it'll be a few weeks or months before the AI is up to scratch.

WindowBlinds - Free yourself of the default settings, customize your desktop.
Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

Well, Frogboy stated this very wekend that now he finally has some time to do some serious AI work... 1 day before release. So it was clear from the beginning that the AI would be very bad. It'll probably get fixed within the next years, like the rest of the stuff. Which is very recommendable by Stadock, I just wish they wouldn't start their real beta test with the release.

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

On the hardest level, you won't be able to use your sovereign to fireball/chain lightning/... your opponents out of the way for lack of mana. when you get attacked every other turn by groups of 5 or 6 units, you jsut can't target them all and regenerate mana.

Of course, your fire giant eats them for dinner, and you can even build mundane units that have two or three times as much attack and defense as the strongest attacker.

Plus tactical targetting is dumb. Ai should use archers to target archers and channelers, and concentrate its melee units on the front rows instead of trying to go around your fire giant who then kills them easily as they try to reach your goose-chase archer.

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

well that things happen when you buy games that should be marked as BETA... :D :D :D :D

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Orion66, reply 5
well that things happen when you buy games that should be marked as BETA...
End of Orion66's quote

Yeah, I hadn't realized that the game was a beta still on release day.  Wish I'd known.

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting raskolnik, reply 6



Quoting Orion66,
reply 5
well that things happen when you buy games that should be marked as BETA...


Yeah, I hadn't realized that the game was a beta still on release day.  Wish I'd known.
End of raskolnik's quote

We don't really KNOW what the release version of the game (and AI) is like, because the day-0 patch is not live yet. Hopefully things will be much better later tonight.

The multiple versions of the game available on release day is confusing, but Startdock at least TRIED to do the right thing by releasing a version early to compensate their customers for a retail leak that was not even their fault.

Reply #8 from Stardock Forums Top

if you only had 2 towns, you can't possibly imagine the scope of the army strength in the end game. as time goes on and more cities are built, the enemy hordes get larger with more hp and more attack/defense. you will stop building solo troops and start building stacks of companies, since your army can only have about 10-12 slots. 10-12 single troops in nothing compared to 10-12 companies of 16.

Reply #9 from Elemental Forums Top

Companies really are vastly more powerful than single units. If you have a company of 8 units they could quite probably take out an enemy army of 12 of the same single units and a sovereign (the AI isnt great with spells or archers right now).

Also i think something should be done about the AI stupidly charging into -defence % tiles to face your forces standing on hills, it makes alot of fights laughable when they would otherwise be a close call.

Reply #10 from Elemental Forums Top

Normal is very laid back and easy. The enemies still have some half decent armies, but they don't attack very much.

Reply #11 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting derkaderka, reply 8
if you only had 2 towns, you can't possibly imagine the scope of the army strength in the end game. as time goes on and more cities are built, the enemy hordes get larger with more hp and more attack/defense. you will stop building solo troops and start building stacks of companies, since your army can only have about 10-12 slots. 10-12 single troops in nothing compared to 10-12 companies of 16.
End of derkaderka's quote

Speaking of companies, I just noticed that while playing the Campaign (As that's the really the only thing I wanna do while waiting for Day 0 patch, hehe)

I think this may have been annswered before, but just in case figured I'd ask.. When you create a solo troop, can you eventually combine all solo troops into Parties, Squads, Companies, etc..? or They have to be built as a Party, Squad, or Company from the start?

thanks, and naturally continue the great work Stardock, there's a massive potential here.

Reply #12 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting derkaderka, reply 8
if you only had 2 towns, you can't possibly imagine the scope of the army strength in the end game. as time goes on and more cities are built, the enemy hordes get larger with more hp and more attack/defense. you will stop building solo troops and start building stacks of companies, since your army can only have about 10-12 slots. 10-12 single troops in nothing compared to 10-12 companies of 16.
End of derkaderka's quote

I'm glad that's the case, 'cause I was worried.  I'm also glad to see the patch has some major AI fixes (patch notes here for those who haven't seen them: https://forums.elementalgame.com/392088).