The village is on fire, spiders are killing literally everyone. But what's the bigest gripe? Lack of Mead! ROFLMFAO

[mr_right4u_2002]

So I just started and mad ethe mistake of not having enough mead after my population reached a certain point. OK well I tried to build a monastery and didn't have enough gold. So I'm at a population barrier. However spider and bandit attacks just creep up non stop killing off my population slowly.

Now here is where my gripe is. Most games traditionally would back off of the "advanced" requirements because your population is now below the threshold. Had this been the case I could have steadily kept a population up until I could afford a monastery. But this game does the foolish mistake of not pulling back on it. Rather than treating advanced resources as barriers, they treat them as spider webs which trap you. So suddenly your 5 people want mead but there really is no way to obtain it and because of their happiness you get stuck. It becomes a downward death spiral. Not a fun game mechanic.

So I"d suggest just making it so that a population above a certain amount wants mead or clothing or whatever but if you fall below that amount the desire drops off. This should keep the village you build from unrecoverable stalls and keep gameplay going.

I mean c'mon one guy left carrying wood. You are still griping about a drink during the apocalypse? Who do you think you are?? ME??

[Victor van Void]

Funny, I ran into the exact same issue but a lot earlier. I finished the first dungeon of the campaing and from then on I was constantly busy fending off monster attacks and was completely missing on building cloth production. Monsters decimated my population fatser than it could be replaced so when I had the neccessary buildings I had no peasants to train them and because of the lack of cloth no new villagers arrived anymore. Meanwhile houses started to burn down, food production and eventually the whole village collapsed. Running into problems is one thing but having no measure to counter it whatsoever is something else.
This needs quite a bit of tweaking still. It is merely a balancing thing. In the campaing map so many monster dens are too close to the village causing constant "clashes" because monsters accidentally wander into the village without even intending to attack but the mechanics trigger attacks because of the inevitable contact to villagers. This makes it very hard to concentrate on anything else and constantly interrupts villager activities causing the whole production to stall.

Edit: Today I build a Stonecutters Lodge in Sandbox and as soon as it was ready it started to burn. I think those events are just too random and independent from actual circumstances. A house should not catch fire before it has reached a certain age for example. Or if a well is close the risk of fire should be reduced in a certain area around it in the first place.
Also villagers should not be allowed to smoke while doing the woodwork.

[RyanGA]

I recommend turning town fires and monster attacks off in the settings, at least until your comfortable enough with the game. I did that first which made the town more less peaceful except for bears and spider queens passing through town - not out right attacking it.

The bears I figured out their spawn point to wall them in. The spider queens I eliminated after hunting down all the dens to stop their spawning. The wolves and boars tend to not re-spawn if you build over their spawn point.

Doing all this does ruin some of the game play but until this stuff is refined and properly working, it was just too infuriating to spend several hours playing a map to have it just become a unrecoverable nightmare at the drop of a hat. The villagers are as weak as a wet noodle and can't defend against anything and it isn't fun being too scared to leave town with your heroes because the second you do the town goes to ship.

[Ssenkrad_II]

Spider queens OP + defenses are now WEAK

A tower with four archers in it all point in different directions and barely do any damage. Multiple flame/cannon/balista turrets will be hewn down by a single spider queen AND cost 500 gold EACH...

Spawning spider queens need to be A LOT weaker and/or defenses need to actually do something again! Haven't played the game in months and was shocked at the defenses that were removed and the balance of the newer turrets/enemies!

At the very least give me the option to upgrade turrets and such if you feel balance would be off- currently I see no way to explore as I have to just sit my troops in a single spot and wait for spider queens...

[Chief Spreading Bull]

Static defenses on their own are never sufficient. You need an active element to tank for them or good placement to insulate them from attacks. I use cavalry to kite/tank monsters around clustered defenses or mobs of crossbowmen. Throw in Willow for added survivability since she can use heal auras.

That said Heroes really are the best defenses bar none especially considering that FAST TRAVEL can warp them back to the village instantly to defend it regardless of where they are.

[Ssenkrad_II]

You describe my problem perfectly without possibly realizing it- I shouldn't have to send my heroes back and flank and dive and ... and... and... every time A SPIDER ATTACKS!

You want to make cities/forts/ect send real waves of real enemies on a timer or scripted FINE! That makes total sense! But to create this much micromanaging mundane gameplay will only hurt the game...

There should be a point in time as your city progresses where smaller problems you had when you started are no longer problems because of your actions building a solid, defended town, so that you can go off exploring or what not- as it stands you have to build a wall around everything and add a single gate and then park your soldiers at the gate...

This is new, last time I played (months and months ago now) this was NOT an issue! Just voicing my opinion that I believe this specific change hurt the game more than it helped.

[mr_right4u_2002]

Thank you all for the replies. I played some more and I will take the game option suggestions into stride. I'm sure they would help.

I think what is frustrating is that I feel like there are 2 games here that aren't meshing. One is a isometric dungeon crawler that feels a lot like playing a level of Warcraft 3 where you are using just the heroes. The other is a simply city builder/management game. And if you want that to work you best keep your heroes nearby. They seem to be the only real defense agains and ever present and vicious wilderness. There needs to be more meshing between the 2. More of a synergy.

Poor devs I know have had a hard time of it with this game. I'm still unsure if they really know what they want this game to be in the end.

[kotchorama]

You wouldn't be pissed too if all hell was breaking loose around you, and your "god" wasn't competent enough to defend your village from measly spiders AND to top it off, there wasn't ATLEAST some vodka to get your sip on before your inevitable demise? I think id be hella kinda pissed if there wasn't atleast some mead i could drink before i'm about to kick the bucket.. lol