I am still playing, for sure, but for the record, I pretty much get my arse handed to me by umberdroth, dragons, or hoarder spiders every game.  I have recently been trying to scout and settle away from those areas, but it is likely just a matter of time before all of my cities except main city are destroyed.  Once they even raged to my main city right after hittting my second city, but that seemed like an anomoly. 

The thing is, I like having to clear the world, the danger, and the need to scout and choose settlements wisely.  However, when Deadly and higher creataures start rampaging when my heroes are level 2-3, I have zero chance.  Literally, no chance from that point on.  I don't rage quit, but I do generally quit most games at this point because they camp outside my cities and close me in, unable to expand at all (not to mention having just killed all my soldiers, summons and champs).

Holy crap you can recruit an Umberdroth?  Har....seriously, though?  He one shots any of my characters when I run into these things.

I think a big green light lights up over a city when you capture it, telling all nearby monsters "The player just captured this city.  Come stomp on him"  Otherwise they just wander around aimlessly.  It is amazing how many times I capture a city and the next turn some Drake that has been there all game comes along and destroys it.   I feel the OPs pain and "what's the point" frustration.

Dude, Nintendogs is freakin' brutal!  When those umberdroths show up and massacre my loved and cared for animated pooches, it tears me up!

I played another game tonight and I am wondering if they actually test the gameplay changes they make or if they tweak values and hope it turns out alright. Things are tweaked all the time and the changes don't seem to be cohesive. Things that used to be fun like exploring and leveling up your heroes aren't fun anymore. The game has been made much harder, but in a let's throw annoying mobs at you all the time and make it take forever to get powerful kind of way. 

The version numbers are creeping up to 1.0 and I am worried that this is almost the final product. There are all kinds of flow and pacing problems.

Frogboy, is it possible for you to elaborate a little more about this bug that was fixed ? How did it change gameplay so much ? What was it failing to do in the pathing that suddenly made certain aspects of the game more efficient that it changed so much in the gamepay ? It's hard to comment on the current dynamic without understanding that  problem a little more.

It sort of sounds, from what you describe, that the comp was able to get from a to b and from b to c, but organizing a move from a to c was getting interrupted along the way - so things were added to make the move from a to c more efficient - but then the problem was discovered and fixed, but the extra efficiency coding is still in there - so now we have a big performance boost on ai that was unintended.

anyways, glad you fixed the bug

I too would be interested in the intricacies of the bug and what it means to have fixed it, in plain terms.

I don't think anyone said there would be an update every week. Maybe they are getting ready for the second stage of beta 3 and it takes longer? *shrugs*

Perhaps we can be co-capable of something of which there is no telling 

Destruction.

I'm sorry guys, but you must be doing something wrong. 

The game has problems, including that sometimes a Umbradroth or a squad of knights will attack your city at turn 20.  And yes, the new AI will often cleanse the surrounding before you can get there (they start with move 3)  And yes, monsters go a bit easier on AI than on us.

But, and it is a big BUT.  This only happens sometimes.  Most of the time, the game is quite easy to win. I personally play only on Riduculous AI with all settings large/dense.  I play with restrictive home rules (.914, single city, single hero was my last one) I still win more games than not.

If you just can't start, maybe you should modify your pretender.  There's at least three viable approaches: self-buffing hero, all out fire caster, and custom race tuned for army production (no ranged, vulnerable to magic, master scouts, master smiths, level 2, one-handed spears) 

And this is for Ridiculous AI, where the enemy gets x2 growth/research/production,  x3 hps + move 3 on the pretender, 150000 gold to start, free metal/crystal, etc...

Seriously, the game needs work, but it is far from unplayable.  Try to understand the rules about what wakes monsters up, watch some videos, read some AAR.

I doubt most people here have even lost a game because of sudden monsters armies that awakened in the AI lands, perhaps lost a city or two around turn 70 ~ 120, but it surely is frustrating: you take every measure to not wake stronger monster mobs only to find that the AI did and you get to pay the price while they get away claiming even more land and awaking more monsters in the process.

it ins't hard, it is frustrating, it makes people rage when an obscure game mechanic punish them for "no reason".

What kind of Sovereign are you using? While the early game is the hardest, it passes rather quickly and once you get past the initial levels the game becomes a steamroll. At least that's been my experience. Very early on the truly powerful monsters pose a problem but they soon turn to your benefit once you can kill them and boost your level even more.

wow, that's impressive, I don't come even close to this and yet I have to agree, with a good tactic you can defeat many early monsters, I always use "dense monsters" which allows for stronger sovereign quickly

what I do : stay one tile away from monster lairs, pay attention not to extend your ZOC over a monster lair and they will not come after you

monsters do attack the AI as much as they attack the player

also build crystals and use monoliths

early game is sometimes rough, but then that's part of the pleasure, I hope devs will find a way to avoid steamrolling during late game