Some questions (Wall of text, you've been warned)

from Elemental Forums

Great job on E:FE, btw. However, I find myself with several questions that are not apparent using the Hiergamenon and manual.

 Influence i.e. diplomatic currency is not covered in the Hier, and not explained anywhere in the game until you see it up for trading. (Is this intentional?) An excellent game concept candidate for a Heir entry. Please explain the methods of acquiring diplomatic currency, and if it has any use outside of buffering trades in your favor. In GalCiv2 influence affected income and perceived might, and if this currency is the same that would impact my trade decisions.

When I conquer a city, it has an occupied unrest penalty. This is good and right. However, this ALSO isn't discussed anywhere in the Hier. Does this penalty fade over time? Is the value of the penalty related to the size of the city I have taken? An entry explaining this game concept mechanic (Occupation) would be valuable. Then I might know if the intent is for me to raze it and start over, or if holding it for a certain period would be worthwhile. Could someone in the know please explain occupation penalties in more detail?

When I select "upgrade automatically" for a unit design, are only mundane weapons considered for this? Does the "Upgrade automatically" need 2 buttons, one for mundane and one for magical weapons? A prime example of this is basic spear, then unlock of the ice spear. It will not adopt this weapon as the updated design, but rather kicks up when the boar spear is researched. Since the game uses the rock paper scissors of mundane offense vs defense vs magical offense this forces manual unit upgrade redesigns when clearly that isn't the intent.

So this is not a question but... The Kingdom report says I can "Voyage upon Epic quests" and there are other references in the game to the older beta model of having to "unlock" quests of increasing difficulty via research. While I understand that under the hood (in the code) you likely just flagged everyone with "epic unlock complete" so that players could choose to bite off more than they could chew... the reference to quest unlock level in the current game engine is no longer required, I believe.

On a large map with dense champions, I only found 1 starter champion, 1 Level 5, 1L7, and 1L9 champion to recruit. Was this champion density typical or did they get eaten by roving monsters? The density of materials, and shards seemed about right. The other possible alternative (they were defeated by the opposing faction) was unlikely since I scouted him out early and it was hundreds of turns into the game before he crossed the map center in force.

The game is more polished than many I've bought in it's current state (I'm looking at you empire: total war!) and I am looking forward to it's mature patched state. To Brad, Derek, and the rest of the Stardock team, Thank You. I'm 9 hours into my current game and trying to muster enough armies to plug all the holes in the front lines at once, while responding to all the monster rampages in my backfield, has been incredibly entertaining.

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Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

1. Influence.  For normal factions, you already got everything - you get it from buildings, and it influences trades in your favor.

But some factions are different - Altar can get influence from quests, and spend it on henchmen, Karavox can turn units and cities, some nations can recruit mercenaries.  I guess it should be explained, but it should be explained in the details of the specific strategies that use it.

2. Occupational penalties start at 50%.  They stay at 50% for a while - I would say about 10 turns.  Then they start decreasing, and go down to at least 20%.  I honestly do not know, because usually my games do not last all that long.  In any case, you are better off razing anything smaller than level 2, and keep anything bigger.  On higher difficulties, conquered cities are way better than your native ones, even with the occupation penalties.  When the AI has unlimited money, significant growth bonuses, and seems to start with 4/4/3 default capitals, you want to keep these cities.

3. Upgrades are messed up, and the developers seem to consider that low priority. Check this old, old thread. The only thing that got fixed was the exploit.  The bugs are all still around.

By the way, 'best available' seems to only take into account the 'main' damage.  I.e. the best spear is the one with the best piercing value.

4. Dense champions - no, this is kind of low, unless it scales down by the number of nations in the game.  For comparison, in my last posted playthrough (large map, 8 nations, ridiculous/ridiculous) I ended the game on turn 149 with five heroes (plus sovereign) and there were two more on the map.

Those were 1L1 (starting one), 2L3, 2L5, and the one I did not pick were L5 and L9.  The AIs did not get these because I am very aggressive about closing my borders.

By the way, wilderness armies can kill heroes and other monsters.

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

1. Most of this has already been covered, but there is one more thing you can do with influence: recruit monster. Depending on your faction (kingdom or empire), you can recruit for example Wildings, Ogres, and Dragons. You just need to find their lairs and, in some cases, have the necessary technology. Most of them are not that strong, but can be used as good cannon fodder. They get automatically replaced over time at no additional cost.

2. The occupation penalty goes down to 0% eventually. It originally had a minimum of 20%, but that was changed a couple beta-versions ago. 

Elemental: Reforged