Won FE .77 with no cities... some screens

from Elemental Forums

So I was reading the forums today about city-building in FE .77 being boring. So, I decided to play a whole game without building any cities and immediately razing any cities I captured. 

The map was large, the AI was challenging and there were 10 factions including me 5 kingdom and 5 empire.

I could have probably had an easier time if I had thought about it before playing, but I just used a sovereign I already made for regular games. He starts with level 1 in all five magics.

The hardest part of winning was that my mana and gold incomes were always low. So it took a long time to get a full group of heroes. Also, tech was pretty much a non-factor. The key one I got was Recruiting early. and then just worked on war tech to up the size of my army (got it to 7 by the end of the game). Other than being a bit harried in the early game and never having enough mana to cast as much as I wanted, it wasn't that difficult to win

I had fun, killed a dragon (which only gave me 1xp... seriously?) and appreciated that this game supported playing in a non-standard way. And the funny thing is, this is the first game I have ever played to the end and won.

Some screenshots:


My sovereign pretty near the end of the game was an archmage in 5 magical schools.


Most of the map revealed


Last city to take for win


Victory screen. Huzzah!


Research was slow going


And... still Janusk

**Edit: changed a caption

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Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

The hardest part of winning was that my mana and gold incomes were always low. So it took a long time to get a full group of heroes. Also, tech was pretty much a non-factor.
End of quote

Mana, Gildar, and Tech production should be 0 if you don't have a city.  Even if you have sovereign traits that give a bonus here or there, they should require a city hub at least, or better yet other buildings like a library or merchant.

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

The funny part is, if you had made a melee character, you would have had a much easier time of it.

I'm running a game currently where my Sov has level 5 Life magic (for Growth and Regen originally), 35 attack and 45 def, 100hp only level 11.  I'm just running around solo because I haven't found a single hero to recruit for kingdoms yet!!  Doesn't matter at all though.  My Sov is rated 'medium' but I'm killing strong groups with over 250 hp's and 5-6 units with no trouble at all.

I think the issue with Heroes is equipment.  There is far too much really good equipment available at a low level.  My Sov has Magic Plate that gives him 20 def, magic chain boots that give him dodge and armor, magic shield giving him more dodge, armor and spell resist.  Then I picked up a sword with attack and secondary magic damage...  It's pretty ridiculous.

Seriously.. magic plate?  I cant even make leather armor for my troops, but I'm rocking chain and plate...

 

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Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

This is awesome! Maybe there could be a trait that reduces all income, but makes recruiting heroes much easier. ^^

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

this is hilarious.!

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top


Hehe it's funny, but I see this as a major indicator of imbalance.  I actually thought about trying to do this as an experiment when I got home today, but since it's already been done I don't have to :).

You seriously should not be able to win the game without a city.  The game is supposed to be a strategy game with RPG elements, not an RPG game with an option to build a city just for fun.

Champions are just far too strong and they make nearly all the awesome systems in the game irrelevant.  As it stands now, none of the stuff below really matters, because a stack of champions can win the game without worrying about it:

1.  City building/planning

2.  Research

3.  Controlling resources

4.  Armies and unit customization

5.  Economy/trading

Something has got to be done about champions...I know that a lot of folks like uber powerful champions, but at this point it's ridiculous.

 

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

Don't forget diplomacy.  Oh, wait, you did.  I wonder why that is. :-"

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top


Nice work here. The most important observation in my mind is that you had fun. You bypassed the whole game and had fun... That's a big deal. If there's something fun about FE, you found it.

Reply #8 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting mqpiffle, reply 1

The hardest part of winning was that my mana and gold incomes were always low. So it took a long time to get a full group of heroes. Also, tech was pretty much a non-factor.

Mana, Gildar, and Tech production should be 0 if you don't have a city.  Even if you have sovereign traits that give a bonus here or there, they should require a city hub at least, or better yet other buildings like a library or merchant.
End of mqpiffle's quote

 

I am not advocating to change the game in this way here.
Playing the game as a nomad with a couple roaming groups was fun. I did eventually level a group member (Cuessa) to be a level 3 merchant which gave me some gold income, since I couldn't sell anything I looted (nor could I drop or delete it which made for a big stack of loot on my strong characters)  and I was earning research from my sovereign and 3 mana a turn from who knows where.

So rather than simply saying "oh you should need a city, or you can't win," I think the important thing is looking at why the game expects you to need cities to win and deliver on those expectations. Or looking at the tech and examining why someone with essentially no tech can win. Even magic, which I love... by the end, I wasn't even using magic, I was just hitting the spacebar each time my sovereign came up on the tactical. I just didn't need to use any magic to win. Why is that? Why is diplomacy completely unnecessary? I think these are the things that could be looked at to improve the game overall.

Don't slap an artificial construct on someone playing with no cities, but make it hard(er) for them to win without what would seemingly be critical parts of the design.