Need some help

from Elemental Forums

I got this game a couple of days ago and I just can't seem to get the hang of it. I've read the manual, I've read through that dev's AAR and even watched those tutorial videos but I'm still getting caned by the AI even on the lower difficulties. So hopefully you guys don't mind me asking a few questions,

  1. Even on the easy difficulty levels, the AI always seems to have a huge income (20-30+ gilder a turn) and also has huge armies. What am I doing wrong which is making me trail so far behind? I'm lucky if I have 2-3 gilder a turn because of the upkeep of my army which really slows down growth and even then my army size and strength is pathetic compared to the AI.
  2. The AI's basic troops seem to be massively more powerful than even my most powerful troops. The odd thing is, I could have a unit that has significantly more attack and defence than an enemy unit but my troops will struggle to defeat them and sometimes they'll be destroyed. This is when there are no terrain modifiers as well. What's the story here?
  3. Should I be expanding in all directions as fast as I can with pioneers from the beginning or focus on building up my capital? It seems with the limited resources you have to either build troops, expand territory or build up your capital there's probably one correct choice. The trouble for me is when I try to expand quickly, even with supporting units my new outposts end up as fodder for wandering bandits which means my investments in units and pioneers is completely wasted.
elemental
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Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

Have you played the campaign game?  It's called a campaign, but really it's an expanded tutorial which allows you to get the basic concepts of the game without having a bunch of AI units breathing down your neck.

If you've played the campaign through a few times, then I would recommend starting a game on the "Easy" setting and making a custom Sovereign that is geared out for combat.  Put 15 points in STR, AG and Constitution (I think).  Lower everything else down to 5.  Then play the game focusing on nothing but fighting.  Ignore magic all together and only research Military.  The balance of the game is still being worked on, but until it gets adjusted playing a combat-only game is an easy way to walk all over the AI and roving monsters without too much challenge.

The only other advise I can give you is to make sure that every turn counts.  Make sure your build queues are full and your cities are always growing.  It doesn't matter if you only have 3 gold at the end of each turn, because there's no point in saving it up really.  Gold is meant to be spent growing your empire.  Play this way and at the end of 50 turns, gold won't be a problem!  You'll be able to get all the goodies from the merchant, and until you save up enough your over-muscled Soverign can still pound everybody with his s+5 spear.

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

1: Try and find some gold deposits and remember specialization is really the only option in this game, generic cities do not work.

2: Your units are strong in a group but weak on their own, this is true of everything you can make. Research logistics early on and go kick some ass. You can get it as your first tech from warfare.

3: You should expand as food and enemy activity allows. Genrally if you find a spot with a resource you badly need or with 2 or 3 resources you should nab it pretty quickly.

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Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

Thanks for the tips guys, I started a new game and once again one of the AI players was head and shoulders above everyone else when it came to might. Luckily I managed to survive long enough to see that the reason for their high power rating was that they had boatloads of weak troops with heaps of armies running around with 800+ strength.

I remember some guy earlier talking about "glass cannons" so I designed a very heavy unit with 25 attack and 18 defence, I only managed to make two squads before I was attacked by an army with a rating of 856 (My two guys in a squad had a rating of 300 or so) and packed with troops. It turns out that my heavy units in squads are devastating, especially when I got them to defend in terrain that gave a 50% bonus to defence. Despite being heavily outnumbered these two squads managed to defeat a couple 800+ armies and after training more squads I eventually took down the enemy empire.

It seems quality really does win out over quantity. It was a pivotal battle, had my little two-squad "knights" failed, I would have lost the game for sure.

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

congrats on the comeback.

There are alot of cheap tricks that can have you absolutely destroy the AI even on ridiculous difficulty, but i'd suggest you dont go looking for them ;) it just ruins the feel of the game.,