New Story Realm - Too Hard

[GrandMajora]

How the heck are you supposed to make any progress on this map? I can't take 10 steps outside my capital city's borders, before the two enemy factions try to siege my city while I'm away from it.

I can't get far enough away to set up another city, as I have to keep running back to defend myself. By the time I finish building up a replacement army for the troops that got killed off, they're already back with more, ready to continue the assault.

For the moment, I've been strong enough to repel the enemy invasions by turtling up in my city. But I know that's not going to remain viable forever. But without the ability to travel outside my borders, I don't know how I'm supposed to progress the game, or prepare for harder fights in the future!

[Sarkas1704]

What difficult you play? I Play on Normal and i dont get far away from my city under 2 - 3 fullstack t1-t2 armys. Its not to hard. Maybe you need to learn the game? Maybe try the tutorial mission?

[GrandMajora]

Originally posted by Sarkas1704:

What difficult you play? I Play on Normal and i dont get far away from my city under 2 - 3 fullstack t1-t2 armys. Its not to hard. Maybe you need to learn the game? Maybe try the tutorial mission?

If I remember correctly, it's on Easy difficulty.

I'm also using a mod that not only raises the level cap to 30, but also gives me 2 skill points at each level up, instead of 1. So my heroes and leader are theoretically twice as powerful as they should be.

Yet they still keep getting their armies wiped out, or just barely managing to survive, and I have to exhaust my funds trying to replace them by the time more armies come rolling up to repeat the process.

[utilityguy]

I’m still on the first story realm lf the DLC, playing on easy (i’ve learned my lesson since planetfall).

So far, on that difficulty, what’s killing is my choice to not have gone with rushing a tome that gives me teleporters. The multiple armies across the map issue would less troublesome if I could poof my units wherever they’re needed, so I don’t want to imagine how worse it would be going into normal and above difficulty completely blind for this mission.

I guess making sure that you don’t expand your only city north, and never have any traveling north would help keep you stealthed from an early encounter with the main badguy. Otherwise if you’re gonna be going to war with all wardens, you absolutely need to rush teleports, just to manage the distance problem with your only city

[GrandMajora]

Originally posted by utilityguy:

I’m still on the first story realm lf the DLC, playing on easy (i’ve learned my lesson since planetfall).

So far, on that difficulty, what’s killing is my choice to not have gone with rushing a tome that gives me teleporters. The multiple armies across the map issue would less troublesome if I could poof my units wherever they’re needed, so I don’t want to imagine how worse it would be going into normal and above difficulty completely blind for this mission.

I guess making sure that you don’t expand your only city north, and never have any traveling north would help keep you stealthed from an early encounter with the main badguy. Otherwise if you’re gonna be going to war with all wardens, you absolutely need to rush teleports, just to manage the distance problem with your only city

I've been focusing heavily on a Spirit + Flame build, since the Umbral Demons are stated to be vulnerable to these two elements if you ask the Syron about them at the start of the level.

I've gotten access to my second T3 tome now, so I'll be moving on to T4 after that. But with access to only a single city, research has begun to slow down dramatically.

[Malaficus Shaikan]

I did it by simply outlasting them.
I defended my city until they ran out of money.
Constantly casting astral shattering on there lands.

It was anoying.

[OakenWall]

There are quite a few changes to the game with the eldritch realms, So maybe try a custom realm with umbral abyss first to see how it works, at least thats what I am doing.

[Salinga]

Is it normal that I can't found a second city? I have founded an outpost to the north (Ashlands) but do not get the option to found a city. Hero is on site. First new Story Realm.

[GrandMajora]

Originally posted by Salinga:

Is it normal that I can't found a second city? I have founded an outpost to the north (Ashlands) but do not get the option to found a city. Hero is on site. First new Story Realm.

Yeah, I noticed that too. Seems this map is a 1 city challenge.

I was finally able to make some progress by using Hero Stacks instead of basic units. Only objective left to do is kill the wardens.

[admarilo]

Originally posted by Salinga:

Is it normal that I can't found a second city? I have founded an outpost to the north (Ashlands) but do not get the option to found a city. Hero is on site. First new Story Realm.

The first new storyrealm has the "Megacities"-Trait. So yes, there is only on single city per faction.

[jennireneex]

The first story realm is set to 1 city only. Can build outposts, but can not have more than your main city.

I stayed on Easy. Went mostly full sorcerer to start and summoner. Got a bit dicey at the start, but once I could start summoning up armies things got so much easier. Took out the closest NPC city and vassalized. Then went for the Umbral NPC city. Then just defended my tons of outposts while having 3 stacks run around to collect all the items for the win.

[StrangestEcho]

Keeping your units alive is extremely important in all the Age of Wonders games. You can't start throwing away units until late-game.

[GrandMajora]

Okay, finally beat it. That mission was a pain in the ass.

For future reference, I am going to suggest picking up the Umbral Demon transformation, instead of Angelic, when playing on Umbral realms. My movement speed on the world map was completely tanked, despite the fact I should have been able to fly. Only the Umbral demon defector that I managed to recruit was able to move with any degree of actual freedom.

[GrandMajora]

Originally posted by StrangestEcho:

Keeping your units alive is extremely important in all the Age of Wonders games. You can't start throwing away units until late-game.

Did you even read my post at all? I wasn't throwing away units. The enemy AI was launching sieges on my city almost immediately after I stepped outside my borders. I couldn't go anywhere or do anything, because all my attention was spent trying to defend my city.

And after driving them off, I had to spend resources to rebuild my army, only for yet another siege to start marching in by the time I managed to recover.

[Salinga]

Originally posted by admarilo:

Originally posted by Salinga:

Is it normal that I can't found a second city? I have founded an outpost to the north (Ashlands) but do not get the option to found a city. Hero is on site. First new Story Realm.

The first new storyrealm has the "Megacities"-Trait. So yes, there is only on single city per faction.

I see. Thanks.

[utilityguy]

Having finished it:

On Right side of my map, there was a realm with about 4 Magic Crystal nodes + an eldritch node in one region. So conquering that realm would help with the early game Magic Crystal drain, if I knew about it earlier.

The Second Warden is vastly easier than the first to defeat, but honestly if you're having trouble--just peace with them when the first meeting pop up goes up.

While having an only city and no potential early game vassals is definitely a bummer, the chapter expects you to subsidized your income with the eldritch realm resources.

I think escaping through the story questline is more difficult compared to just winning the normal ways, if only because of the Gold Wonder you need to dive into at the end. But otherwise, the fully kitted out heroes you get from doing the first couple of seek and destroy quests fantastic.

With how slow research is, especially if you came into the realm with an un-optimal empire/culture, it's important to keep your melee and range options open by choosing early tomes that give you decent units.

Otherwise: Keeping your early armies far away from each other doesn't seem like a good idea, at least until you can use teleporters.