AI waring with each other early on.

from Elemental Forums

Usually I take the hard route and this time I took on expert, huge map, and epic pacing.

 

It seemed to me that the AI wanted to get a little too froggy fighting each other early on.  They didn't forget about me by any means though.  I was beaten back to my capital for quite a while (days) fending off the hordes.  Once I started to venture out though, it was easy to see that the world had turned into a war without me.  The old enemies of mine where beaten down and easy to conquer.

Not knowing how the math works I would like it if they would all chill out on waring with each other a little when your on epic pacing.  They can come after me all they want though, but by the time I got to the point where my part of the map was safe I was at ~200 power, Guilden was ~1400, and we where the only 2 standing.  Mind you this is days of playtime.  Maybe 10 hours or so.

From there it turned into a grind.  Same enemies, same fights, yada yada yada.  And aint no way Im going to be able to reach a tech/knowledge, or diplomatic win at this epic pace without having to fight this one guys for days on end.

Just my 2¢

p.s.  I did see a "random" event.  Fire things came out of a dungeon and surrounded the area after I did a quest.  Good work.  Would be nice if you got a little dialog to explain why all these fire monsters are running amok now.... Ohhhh! and can you lower the unrest penalty for conquering a city?  You always have to check and see why the place isn't producing anything in a timely fashion.  Or as another idea, spawn rebels around the city that destroy your shitz and that, in turn, lowers your unrest rate?

Now its 4¢

2,743 views 3 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top


From there it turned into a grind.  Same enemies, same fights, yada yada yada.  And aint no way Im going to be able to reach a tech/knowledge, or diplomatic win at this epic pace without having to fight this one guys for days on end.

Just my 2¢

p.s.  I did see a "random" event.  Fire things came out of a dungeon and surrounded the area after I did a quest.  Good work.  Would be nice if you got a little dialog to explain why all these fire monsters are running amok now.... Ohhhh! and can you lower the unrest penalty for conquering a city?  You always have to check and see why the place isn't producing anything in a timely fashion.  Or as another idea, spawn rebels around the city that destroy your shitz and that, in turn, lowers your unrest rate?

Now its 4¢

End of quote

More visual pointers is a really good idea, especially for unrest and events.

I didn't really get the meaning of the first half of the post though ^_^
Trying to figure out where you are going (Ok, I might just be stupid. but please elaborate for meeee :D)

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top


Agreed. Visual pointers would be fantastic to help the flow of the game.

RPG events are also needed in abundance to keep the flavor of the world alive so that it doesn't turn into a management grind.

Elemental: Reforged
Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

In the game above I destroyed the hordes that had repressed my people for too long, but by the time I was able to settle the plains in my geo-local, all that was left was a single opponent.

It turns into a linear experience after that point.  Sure I could try and do some questing, but I have one 1400 lb. monster (guilden) always knocking on my door.  If the AI would chill out and kill some monsters for awhile longer before starting their wars, the wars would last longer and maybe some would call it time for a peace treaty. 

I dont get many visual clues to all of those events though.  I get some, but I dont feel engaged in the world around me all the time.  Its like, "screw your problems, (click) I've got some bigger issues at my boarder".  Then by the time you want to care, most everyone is dead.

I've only played a couple long games though.  This was my longest.  It was still fun.  Maybe others have different experiences.

 

A couple ideas again.

Can we see the map?  Maybe a research that gives you the basic boundaries of the land.  Keep it in shadow, and don't show cities or monsters/people.  That would reduce a lot of stress late game in the harder difficulties when you just finally get to get out of your cities and explore for real.  It would make sense also.  You've been around for 50 years or so.  Some idea of the layout of the land would be welcome without having to use magic.

I'm not really a fan of the power number approach.  Maybe you could use a color coded threat level.  Green is good, and red is watch out.  I feel like im always looking at that number to the top right to gauge my success, when in reality I'll never be as cool as the AI.  It would also help with you exploring the UI to figure out why they went from green to yellow after a few turns and give you a chance to stave off the upcoming war.  You could rank them in order of power, but the current number is meaningless at the harder levels.  All the number does is show you how much advantage the AI has and is a little bit of a downer.

Just my 2¢