Because I have maces with only 6 attack, level 4 creatures scare me

If you are a kingdom, you should be able to produce a 4 stack unit of maces that have 24 attack and 20 hp, with even more defence.  I think you can do leather and have 12 or so.  Can beat down those mobs.

By turn 185 you should have at least parties of units if not squads.  A unit of 4 guys can easily dish out 20 damage in 1 round with 6 attack maces (4x6=24) an army of 2+ units of macemen will easily slaughter those random monsters.  Or use a few fireballs, archers.... anything really.

With 53 arcane research you could also easily research and summon an Ice Lord or two if you have water magic.  Or a fire giant or stone giant.  A few of those will put down those wandering monsters easily.

Also, I want to say, that I want there to be powerful monsters hovering at the edge of civilizations, keeping the wilds of the world...wild.  Keeps the city spam down and the feel of the game more adventurous for me.

defense is a bit overrated when you see mobs with 40 odd atk or more

i had 3 heroes with bows shooting up a obsidian golem with 100+ defense or some such.

i had 4 heroes with bows shooting up a daimon thing before it used the arcane doom. (40? 60? def)

no choice... no way melee can be fast enough to get near before arcane doom hit. or lucky enough not to be hit by any of the other high atk melee monsters.

the obsidian is a bit different.. has a rating of 3 atk..

Bows are godly now. All heroes should have bows they are too strong atm. It's easy as hell to win with archers....espeically hero archers.

If you have the resources to make an archer stack with a longbow, okay armor and some magic attack raising items, it's Bill Paxton in Predators, "Game over man, game over!"

Archers don't even need armor

They seem to if I autobattle, strange things seem to happen in those autobattles...

First to the OP Thank you for pointing out the flaw of kingdom weapons progression which from Maces to warhammers is currently a REGRESSION...very bad in my book.

But second to the OP Adventure is the best source of gold as the game currently stands so I do not want that nerfed.  As others have pointed out, build a party or squad of macemen and backed up by a party of archers and you should be able to deal with all but the worst of wandering mobs.  Bring in a champ or two to Ice blast them a time or two and cast deflect on your Melee squad to allow you WTFPWN the boogiemen keeping you up at night   

You can also use sleeping pills. They help you sleep at night.

Thanks for the replies!

Regarding 4 member units, I have them.  They cost a ton to make and upkeep.  I use them as I wage war against the AI factions.  In my current game I have more food that I produce each turn (40ish) than I gold I produce.  I haven't even tapped into all my food sources because I don't need to.  When you have the caravan multiplying food, there is no need.  What I lack is gold.  When you have a long border with the wilderness, which I do, you would need a ton of 4 member units.  I don't have units in my central cities.

Gold:  When fighting creatures and armies, the gold I would get would be awesome, but now I just get 6-8 gold after a battle.  Goodie huts are indeed the best source of gold.

The problem lack of gold created is that I can't afford many champions, and I definitely can't equip them.  My two main groupings of champions serve in armies that border other kingdoms.

Another problem lack of gold has created is seen in the fact that I do not have as many tech structures because they cost 1 gold/turn to maintain.  Hence I have many more arcane structures than tech.

My point is this, and I'll try to be clear:

I should be more afraid of the Magnar (spelling?) Empire than I am of a band of thieves.  But I'm not.  Yes, a dragon should scare me, but my footsoldier should be able to handle a wolf.

At turn 185, the creatures, AI oponents, and equipment are not in balance.

You are correct. This is why I have modded the prices of equpment, unit levelup, and gold distribution. My games now play balanced and serene. I always play on ridiculous so that the AI can at least get some good soldiers from their unfair bonuses. Creatures are esy once you can afford heroes that can fight with reasonably priced weapons. Five well equipped heroes should have no trouble taking down any level 1-3 creature. Above that I need magic. All of this is well and good for me, but it leaves you vanilla players out in the cold I suppose. I also reset all the weapons to be progressive in attack, but costing more in combat speed as they get heavier and more two-handed. This way the early weapons are still usefull for your advanced guard and assassin type units. Adding the dodge, assassin, and daring abilities into the core weapons can really liven up the strategy of equiping. I highly recommend this.

Its a good thing that we will see a new magic and balance system in v1.1. I would post an upload link to my mod, but I don't people playing with these mechanics until there is a firmer foundation of gameplay from the devs. Good luck until then.

You could be levelling each of the tech up do not miss out on the Adventure tree this is were literally thousands and hundreds of gold are lying around on the ground for your heroes to go a pick up...finders keepers...

I use my sov to recruit and imbue other champs and summon creatures to help the champ stack level up and then branch them out so that every front has a champion lead stack.  as the gold spawns I go pick it up often no teleports needed.

Caster champ plus summoned giants = no threat from random spawns...

My main issue right now as you have also pointed out on the  kingdom side is that the weapon techs regress after Maces...This is very bad imho

SD has not commented on it as far as I know whether it was by design or a bug...  Hell as far as I know they are still unawares... 

Most forum posters seem to not care about a broken tech tree...

Note that you have the advantage of health and numbers. Currently, I field 12-man squads wielding staffs and minor armor trained at veteran. They're working quite well against both mobs and other armies (last war it was staffs versus axes). And I've yet to loose a unit - at this point, an individual squad at level 4 has something like 150+ health. A stack of 6? Yeah, maybe I'll loose a unit but it's not a huge loss. That means they can do several things:

- Survive big hits

- Use up counter attacks

- Screen for heroes

Once those counter strikes are out of the way (and they can generally do some minor damage to go with), hero units that generally do more damage can come in and attack with impunity.

I like the idea that heroes can be used as tanks or spanks depending on level pathing. You shouldn't need a regular army if you don't want one. This is my opinion and I have changed the game to match it.

I;v actually noticed the AI researching the adventuring tree too much and getting killed by the creatures around them.