Everybody having better units than I?

[Hex: Onii-Chan]

Okay, I'm just kinda growing frustrated. Everybody except my mage seem to have units that breathe fire in a line (AI making sure to spawn 5 of them per stack), have vampirism making them basically take 0 damage as long as they can retaliate and just in general at least 1 tier above what I have at any time. None of my buildings can produce anything but dude-in-armor, who then proceeds to do ♥♥♥♥ all without the appropriate high-end rune, as their pathetic physical damage just gets soaked up by everyone and their grandmother.

Cities would be a good source of new troups, I *guess*, except the ones that I started next to straight up refuse to sell anything above tier 2, so I'm left with the peak of human achievement of throwing a 15-damage-flask at something that has 100+ hp and elemental resistance. Or dude in armour, of course.

Summoned units don't get Exp and fall behind incredibly fast, though they are alright as cannon fodder, it's pretty expensive cannon fodder.

All the other mages are by now starting to get grumpy and demand I suck their ♥♥♥♥ so they don't accidentally step on me with their 7+ stacks of 7x tier 2-3 units that from *somewhere* got all the experience in the world, despite fighting ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ and apparently require no upkeep whatsoever.

Objectives are also buried deep in their respective a$$cracks, which means there is no way to actually get the pages outside of the one that gives me the magnificent opportunity - nay, the privilege - to summon a 250 mana unit that will probably keel over the second it is asked to pull the weight of 16 Wisps that it costs in upfront and upkeep. That is, of course, ignoring the objective that is guarded by an undead spawnpoint that is covered with the Darkness buff and houses *only* tier 3 units by now.


Aaanyway, week 16 and I'm forced to restart because "Impossible" difficulty was apparently taken a lil too literally by the devs.


Good game tho. Gonna be fun to beat it if I don't lose my sanity.


P.S. Can we maybe have a mini-quest thingie that allows us to not just pulverize the hamlet in the beginning? Kinda takes away from the roleplaying aspect when no matter whom you play, you end up genociding a village.

[Ronnie]

Being the underdog can be fun, You may wish to try lesser difficulty settings and work to conquer those settings before moving up. I have focused on the hard level myself but have not really progressed far in this game to have issues with the circle mages or much contact at all. I am glad that somebody in the world wants to get rid of you because then this game would not qualify as a Kings bounty game which is a good thing since nobody in that game nobody comes after you except those moving stationed stack monster/ regular units.

[Mindeveler]

Originally posted by Hex: Onii-Chan:

Aaanyway, week 16 and I'm forced to restart because "Impossible" difficulty was apparently taken a lil too literally by the devs.

What is in the minds of people who start playing a new strategy game with a huge map & plenty of complex mechanics on the highest difficulty and then come to the forum complaining that the game is too hard because they failed to build their army properly?

I'm having "Unfair Pathfinder is unfair" flashbacks.

[Lord_Lord3]

I would suggest playing on an easier difficulty level for your first few games. Probably the easiest or 2nd easiest. Impossible is meant to be very hard - basically unwinnable if its your first game and you're unfamiliar with the game mechanics.

[Jimib4158]

yeah i was having same problem playing on mid-level, aout 5 or 6 starts banging my head on a wall, just to work up an ability to survival mode, then, started a few games on very easiest pansey-level....i have fire golums, war trolls, and a wendigo demon......and i took out two mages the third always seems out of reach, not a clue about 4th or 5th circle mage.

easiest puss-level you will have plenty of time to do all the quests which unlocks lots of units, and the wheres and hows to get them (so many)

Their are lots of units, you can get for your armies, you just have to learn the builds and what hoops to jump thru.....yea impossible is suicidal, even for those who know the game.
No one can know the game too well really, as it just unlocked a few days ago, already its my fav.
Maybe the beta testers, if there was a closed beta know more, but they are the only ones

Honestly even those saying they are doing well on hard level, and winning the game, i dont think so
I mean i consider myself a 4X master in general, and i hear that cr@p all the time in steam forums, Civ 5 is too easy for me on diety level.... pfffft braggy liars

[Vvv]

I can relate to the impossible difficulty...I got crushed at week 17 last time.

I had units that I thought kinda decent and were okay like halberdiers and one griffin, until I saw few stacks with death knights in it...So needless to stay they started to pillage my poor huts, than I saw another mage send a stack of war trolls to fight the death knights, trolls lost but the second stack crushed the death knights. I thought I was finally free and safe, but the moment they crushed the former pillaging army they started to pillage as well 😅.

Now I am retrying with what I learned from last time.

[Hex: Onii-Chan]

Originally posted by Mindeveler:

Originally posted by Hex: Onii-Chan:

Aaanyway, week 16 and I'm forced to restart because "Impossible" difficulty was apparently taken a lil too literally by the devs.

What is in the minds of people who start playing a new strategy game with a huge map & plenty of complex mechanics on the highest difficulty and then come to the forum complaining that the game is too hard because they failed to build their army properly?

I'm having "Unfair Pathfinder is unfair" flashbacks.

I mean, it's not really complex. When a game has multiple difficulty levels, but not a known baseline like Pathfinder: Kingmaker / WotR, you can't really know what the *actual* intended and challenging difficulty is. XCom 1 & 2 are just right on the highest difficulty ("Impossible Ironman" and "Legendary Ironman" respectively) for a first playthrough and people made mods specifically to increase the difficulty.

Then you have games like Faster Than Light, where you will get your teeth kicked in on Normal in 70% of all cases just due to RNG alone.

Pathfinder tells you "This is what the game actually is, but you can overtune it until you basically need to cheese every mechanic imaginable to make it past the tutorial zone".

Mass Effect 1 through Andromeda were also good on the highest difficulty and a cakewalk on lower ones.


That's one part of it. The other one is that if you beat it on low difficulty (read: not highest), you know that you haven't *really* beaten it. Kinda like using summons / other players to beat bosses in Souls games - ye, sure, the game tells you you beat it, but you know somebody had to hold your hand.


And, additionally, If you make it through too easily, you've already seen all the cool, new, fresh stuff that the devs made and now you're just retreading what you already seen, only slower, which often takes the wind out of sails when you already know what's to come.


That being said - magic schools are *not* created equal. Holy Weapons from Guardian are about 10x better than whatever Enchantment has to offer beyond the Wisp, which you still have access to by using it as a secondary school for an early tank & damage dealer in one.

[Mort]

Certain cities do let you recruit T3 units - paladins in particular are very good. It's definitely worth prioritizing those for the early-mid game.

[Paulquassel]

I made the early game mistake of exploring in the wrong direction... Try finding a fitting direction at the start. When you have to move your tower for your first adventure, keep going in that general direction^^

[sandman25dcsss]

Some town even allows to increase max stack size, extremely bad game design. "Wrong direction" should not be possible in a good game

[VDmitry]

Not sure there is wrong direction. And I wouldn't even recommend exploring into one direction. The map is huge and for a reason you have multiply apprentices.

Should I say you also need to have scouts?

Paladins are good, but they are costly, you may have troubles paying maintenance costs.

Back to the topic... Everyone else is EXPECTED to be stronger in this game.

[Jimib4158]

Originally posted by sandman25dcsss:

Some town even allows to increase max stack size, extremely bad game design. "Wrong direction" should not be possible in a good game

actually only one town i know of has that room addition :/

[Hex: Onii-Chan]

What's weird is that the "easiest" starting location is the one with the worst cities around. You will be smack-dab in the middle of the 4 mages and the two nearest towns are utterly useless in the beginning. Not only that - you have hostile units running towards your buildings from every direction, trying to occupy them, meaning you need at least one stack to do nothing but babysit your tower and lodges.


What you need most are some units that can survive a turn without just getting rushed and dabbed on by the AI purposefully targetting single units, even if it's suicidal, as long as they can cause you long-term losses.

[Jimib4158]

lol ...so true, i like start position 4, near the orc town, and you get orc barracks after jumping thru so many hoops

[UnholyDentist]

Originally posted by VDmitry:

Not sure there is wrong direction. And I wouldn't even recommend exploring into one direction. The map is huge and for a reason you have multiply apprentices.

Should I say you also need to have scouts?

Paladins are good, but they are costly, you may have troubles paying maintenance costs.

Back to the topic... Everyone else is EXPECTED to be stronger in this game.

Wouldn't call it wrong direction, rather less favourable. For example, if you play necro and go to living direction, you will end up with living units and heroes that don't match well. The game expects the player to explore, move tower around, and restart the game a few times until the right direction is discovered for the race.