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Now there my slave.
Get back to work.
How many combats last more than 3 turns? very few.
Granted those are always 3vs3.
Boring grind.
Functionally they serve the same purpose, but the latter variant are now more irritating to use after this "fix" the devs put in. If they'd made Summons more expensive in mana across the board, increased their casting point cost, or both, they'd have been far more balanced. Would have made it so only Mana Channeler factions could spam them with carefree abandon, while also limiting the impact they had on the game.
Of course they'd still be powerful, because just because something gets forcefully killed in three turns doesn't mean you won't use it. Often when people summon they summon the weakest unit they possible can, sometimes even a ranged/skirmisher unit, right in the enemy's face to distract their melee troops and hit em with retaliation attacks to take down models. Summons, as a result of said strategies, rarely live a full three turns even in a lot of early-game battles, making this change even less impactful the longer the game goes on.
My final reason for hating this new limitation is because it literally goes against their intended vision with the game. In the first Dev Livestream of the game, a bit after the announcement trailer, didn't they summon ice spirits specifically to tank damage from a Fire Giant? It lasted about 3-4 turns too, and did a good job. They even said something along the lines of "now this guy will take damage and spare our more valuable troops" if I'm remembering correctly. This mechanic was literally working as intended, and did its job perfectly. Placing a limiter on that now shows a lack of confidence in their own design and an almost too-eager desire to act on feedback from players. Not all feedback is good feedback.
TL;DR - Summons being limited to three turns didn't make the game better. It in fact made it slightly worse.
That's because the summons weren't the issue. They were a symptom. The new healing system with persistent damage on the worldmap interacting WITH the summoning mechanic is what made them a major pain. If you were playing singleplayer, like most people, this was a very small but intensely annoying issue. The AI would summon a bunch of units it doesn't know how to use properly even though it knows it can't win solely because it is programmed to be suicidal, dealing as much damage to you as possible before it goes down. Even if the damage it inflicts isn't the most intelligent and tactical move. The AI never tried to win, it only wanted to punish and annoy the player.
The result was you sitting for 2 to 3 or even 4 to 5 turns on the world map doing nothing. Now of course, this made sense, as they intended for the healing to be the lull between battles where you decompressed and thought about the outcome. Figured out how you could have played to minimize damage in order to be able to battle longer. And if you didn't wanna do that, you could always improve your cities, engage in diplomacy and generally take stock of what's currently happening in the game. There was busy-work built in to make the down-time feel not so down. This design was intentional and it worked. It did not however lend itself well to being put into the hands of a spiteful AI or an even halfway competent human player.
In Multiplayer summons were apparently so cancerous that a lot of the multiplayer streams, videos and groups I've come across homebrew their own rules to restrict summoning on both the Tactical and Strategic maps. "How do we fix this?" the Triumph Devs asked with much rhetorical, feigned trepidation. "Oh, that's right, of course! Limit the summons that were already OP due to their cheap cost and inconsequential, low longevity and shorten their lifespan to three turns. Its brilliant!" they exclaimed with their out-of-touch, sh!t-eating grins.
I really hope they walk this back and hold off on a few of their planned "improvements" mentioned in the Roadmap. Making the game more like its predecessors isn't going to satisfy anyone, as those planned features seem to be aiming for. They're even bringing back Beacon victories, which in game 3 are basically the Unity victory in this game but with randomized "Beacons" set in somewhat pre-determined parts of the map. So the same thing but you gotta sit and babysit a new Ancient Wonder for 15 turns instead of a province improvement you built yourself. Same exact victory condition but more tedious and time-consuming as you have to slowly wait for a ticking score to tick off. Its essentially the Score victory combined with the Unity one.
I'm hoping they retool/rework it to fit the theme of the game better. Maybe make it so opening the Beacons allows you to auto-summon new units, as the Beacons in the past games were essentially giant seals keeping the ancient Wizard Kings away. Maybe you managed to just barely force your way through as a Wizard, begin the map as a native Champion or play as a rampaging Dragon Lord who's decided the soft-skins have mucked things up enough. Make it so you have to "open the gates" so-to-speak for your allies and reinforcements from the Pantheon, who help make holding the beacons easier as you paint a bigger and bigger target on your back. Something cool, thematic and, most importantly, new.
The base game is far too different to be made palatable to those who hate the new direction this game took, all but ensuring they'll alienate and annoy everyone equally if they continue like this.
Big True. I've been keeping my eyes peeled looking for one for the last few days.