Arcalot timer could use a redesign

[Pantagruel]

Currently it's quite challenging in the early game (largely forcing a rush strategy), but because the number of kills required to delay the timer is invariant, if you can make it to turn 30-40 in decent shape it ceases to be relevant as simply fending off enemy armies will get you up to 9 kills per turn. This also means the side quests on the map are fairly irrelevant, by the time you can spare the armies to do them you don't terribly care about the rewards.

A reasonable variant would have her accumulate victory points at a rate that's variable with time (kills reduce them as normal) and she wins at a certain net value. This would be easier in the early game but more stressful later.

[Malaficus Shaikan]

Time missions are evil and shoudnt exist.
Period.

[~ Fabulous ~]

I think it is only hard if you don't choose the umbral immunity for your race, I choose to have a Godir from my pantheon during my first play through, it is manageable but I still can feel the pinch, on my 2nd play through after they fix the crashing issue, I choose the Umbral immunity, the difference is like night and day, I just went straight into the umbral realm and start exterminating demons, not feeling pressured to care about the timer at all lol, so I take my sweet sweet time role playing as Kitus the Pious crusading to cleanse the world of all taint lol.

[Malaficus Shaikan]

Originally posted by ~ Fabulous ~:

I think it is only hard if you don't choose the umbral immunity for your race, I choose to have a Godir from my pantheon during my first play through, it is manageable but I still can feel the pinch, on my 2nd play through after they fix the crashing issue, I choose the Umbral immunity, the difference is like night and day, I just went straight into the umbral realm and start exterminating demons, not feeling pressured to care about the timer at all lol, so I take my sweet sweet time role playing as Kitus the Pious crusading to cleanse the world of all taint lol.

Yeah umbral immunity is great.

[Balekai]

Originally posted by Malaficus Shaikan:

Originally posted by ~ Fabulous ~:

I think it is only hard if you don't choose the umbral immunity for your race, I choose to have a Godir from my pantheon during my first play through, it is manageable but I still can feel the pinch, on my 2nd play through after they fix the crashing issue, I choose the Umbral immunity, the difference is like night and day, I just went straight into the umbral realm and start exterminating demons, not feeling pressured to care about the timer at all lol, so I take my sweet sweet time role playing as Kitus the Pious crusading to cleanse the world of all taint lol.

Yeah umbral immunity is great.

Yep the things that make it a lot easier:

- Umbral Flesh from the societal Trait for Umbral Immunity + bonuses for all Units.

- Umbral Flesh from the Transformations on an Ascended Champion or WK. This requires playing an evil playthrough of a leader though. You can also get it by picking the Umbral Flesh start on Arcalot, but the Godir option with a well tuned Ascended Godir is better.

- Alternatively Heal Army is a great for Umbral delving from tome of Faith. A cheap army spell that can easily maintain 95-100% health on 1-2 armies in the Umbral Abyss

- Crafting the item forge trinket with a Void Stone material from Umbral Abyss. Seek these out ASAP while exploring the Umbral areas. This allows you to give any hero and their stack Umbral Immunity.

As for Arcalot itself the Timer crunch is very RNG in addition to the difficulty of the Map itself:

- Although all AI players spawn in the exact same spots and even the Umbral Gates to an extent + resources, the actual area on the other side of that gate varies greatly. This has all types of positive and negative implications on the first few turns or can really mess you up later mid game. There's a sweet spot for not having the Umbral "causeway" gate nearby that links to a whole bunch of other gates including to Merlin and Nightweaver, allowing easy invasion of your Throne City (alternatively you could use this causeway to get closer to a Northern Free City to Vassalize early but more on that later. Or win vs. Merlin/Nightweaver early).

Also you want 1-2 Dwelling or proper Umbral infestation gates near eacg of your allies so they can farm Thrall kills. If not they tend to do nothing for the timer and it just starts to run out after Turn 15ish (Oberon's SW infestation can spawn behind mountains making it mountain locked and taking him longer to figure out where it is to farm it). On the flip side you can get a perfect spawn and your Allies will have the timer at like 15 turns by turn 15 as they spam skill thrall enemies.

Lastly leaving a thrall infestation nearby your Throe city or an Umbral infestation alone is a great way to insure at least some Thrall sustainability for yourself, to get you past turn 30 even on a bad map roll. That way you can turtle the timer a bit.

- Free Cities either spawn mostly in the south or the North. You want them to spawn in the south so you and/or your allies can vassalize them. It is a huuge power swing if Merlin/Nightweaver gets them first. The best spawn locations for is one Free City to the North of you, one to East/Northeast, and one near Serena So you can beat her to it and vassalize it first, before she gets enthralled and becomes an enemy. This puts pressure on her especially if you have a Vassal focused build). You might want one Free City close to the Dragon too as a semi bulwark vs. Merlin and later Serena so the dragon can scale up Lord/stacks and start rampaging through umbral Abysses and protect the World Tree .

What would fix this the timer I believe is less randomness of what's on the other side of Umbral Gates. At least to create proper sustain among allies every game so they always contribute well enough on the first 2 dozen turns that with proper players contribution, can keep it around 5-10 turns left and lose without player contribution.

[Pantagruel]

Originally posted by ~ Fabulous ~:

I think it is only hard if you don't choose the umbral immunity for your race.

My point wasn't that the early game timer is impossible. My point was that the timer should scale so it remains relevant, I ended my playthrough with 60 turns on the timer.