[Gameplay] Faction Power rating greatly undervalues high-level champions

As this affects diplomacy greatly, and Brad is a fan of good diplomatic AI rules, I strongly suspect these values will be changed at some point before release.  You are not alone in getting tired of AIs building an infinite number of spearmen who assume you and your Stack of Death are a pushover.

Technology level and economic power also needs to be a consideration in power rating. Many a times I have been attacked only because I was not building an army until later in the game. The premature attacks and tributes are fine as long as the AI has some way to gauge how powerful I could be if I was trying. Giving each tech a power rating and each unit of production and gildar produced a power rating is a necessity of good AI. 

I would like something like this added to the flavor texts:

Hello [Player 1]. We see that you have the means, but not the will to protect yourselves. Your cities are weak, your outposts are undefended. Though you could easily win a war of attrition, you would be better off paying us for "protection." Pay us 100 Gildar and we will leave you alone... for now.

I agree with Seanw3, though it would be awesome if the AI could gauge if it could blitzkrieg your economy. If they can get a big army to a major town faster than you can conscript a force, then they should take advantage of that. Of course, that would be hard as hell to program. I believe in you Brad!

I don't think that rating has ever worked not even in WOM.

Fair point, except if all you have is a god-hero, goodluck trying to defend ALL your cities, outposts, shrines, other resources, against multiple CPU armies.

However, I do agree a level 67 hero should be taken a hell of a lot more seriously.

I'd even go so far as to wish for a diplomatic AI that sees defensive weaknesses in cities but also a strong stack, and makes an offer to accept either a payment, or a quest to rid that AI of ABC monster lair, within XYZ seasons.

Those take a lot of mana.  Unless you have a huge reserve, which at faction power 137 I doubt he has, the mana won't last very long.

Well I guess if he managed to use paragon to get level 67, maybe he does :/

I had reserve of 600+ mana in a game.... my power rating.... 167....  And that was with 3 champs (incl sov) who could solo any ordinary army.... (think Sovereign sword, Berserkers Sword, Assassins Dirg (I think, 33 att + def piercing).  I am sooo going to have fun steam rolling!

And that's not to mention my 4 umberdroths, and 2 Hoarder Spiders!!

Let me guess.  Your sov's profession was Beastlord.

Cloud Walk is only 90~ a turn. Armies take atleast 3 turns to get out each unit of it. So armies consisting of 6 groups takes atleast 18 turns. That requires at the very low amount of 2.375 mana per turn. Even if they are just running single 9 squads everywhere. Even then thats 3 turns which is 30 mana per turn. Very easy to achieve with the playstyle having such low power rating promoted (ala pioneers only being used for outposts OR the enchanter spell for making outposts). 10 Shards will get you that, and as he already said he had an ok mana reserve built up of 600~. It would take a massive amount of time and resources thrown at you to overcome that (even then he will be building units/buildings while the ai suicides its armies). Low power rating usually means low city count as well so you do not have a ton of it to protect. 4 base movespeed (mount+TM) and roads alone would make it to where you wouldn't have to use cloud walk to often (enemy would have to be at the 2 extremes of your territory). I am also assuming he is only using 1 Hero while he could easily have more (2 atleast since you can't use paragon on your Sov).

oh yeah, beastlord is so much fun   How else can you get 30/20 bash and overpower units with 80+ hps??? not including the one or two champions that have the bash ability....

super fast spellcaster with mass curse + 3+ umberdroths = iwin

Shiro is correct in his assessment.  smack bang on the money.   Tremor is another good cheap territory control spell

I tried beastlord with no success once. How does it really work, and what are the tips for doing it and surviving?

General actually.  Right now, XP boosters increase the Paragon rewards, so with Trainer champs & henchmen + General + Potential & Knowledge on the target champ, I was getting 3-4 levels per casting.

Also, after abusing Enchanters+Master Scouts to take every shard I could, I had over 70 mana/turn (though this happened over 10 times faster than in a real game due to the teleport cheat).

if you select beastlord as a your sov trait, also select the trait that gives you + spell mastery per level, and hardy (+hp per level).  Don't cap anything less than a cave bear.  You need to kill some stuff for lvl up. Also, if youcan get the blind spell, it helps heaps!  Choose path of defender and every dodge and hp increase trait you can get

by level 7, if you have good armour you have an OK chance of capping an umberdroth.  By level 15, you have almost 100% chance for umberdroths.  Splash damage has been fixed, so getting hoarder spiders is all about maxing out your cutting resist, or using things like shrink on the hoarder spider first to minimise it's damage.

Silt Slags are another good beast to get hold of.  3x23 bite damage for their special.  They are squishy though, so look after them  

List of beasts I bother to get:

• Cave Bears (until mid game, armour reduces these to worthless, better for xp)
• silt slags
• Umberdroths
• Hoarder Spiders
• Corpse spiders (big damage + big poison damage)

I'm pretty sure you get the XP for capturing a beast the same as if you killed them (and the beast too gets some XP, ironically ;-)).

not since .915.   Previously I would cap EVERYTHING because it was the quickest way to win every fight, and you still got the XP.  Now, in .915, you get no XP even though it says you do.  I found this out by accident..... couldn't figue out why my sov was soooooo low level.....

Oh, I just realised I haven't posted a bug report on that.....  will have to do some before and after shots tonight to prove it.