Can't believe it took me so long to find this gem!

[jasons073]

I've played a lot of space 4x games, but not a lot of Fantasy ones, so I thought the COVID19 stay-at-home would be the perfect opportunity to try some out. I downloaded this, AOW3, and Endless Legend, and gave them each a try. While each has it's strengths I'm probably most impressed by this game for a number of reasons. Summary of what I loved/did not like, and questions below.

What I liked:
(1) Hero level-up/class trees; lots of fun ways to specialize your heroes

(2) Different faction/race abilities; I've yet to try them all out because I've only had time to play both scenarios so far, but I've previewed/read about them all and love how they each have unique strengths and weaknesses, from the equipment available to them to different spells/mechanics

(3) Quests/monster variety; so much to see here!

(4) Graphics; some may disagree, but I found the graphics to be perfect for this type of game. Reminded me somewhat of the graphical style for Majesty 1, one of my favorite games of all time

(5) Equipment; a lot of equipment I found was not simply +/- attribute; many had unique abilities or quirks

(6) Scenarios; was great to learn the lore, and taught me a lot about the game's mechanics, particular the second one

What I did not like (keep in mind I've only played the scenarios so far--I imagine my experience may differ when playing a custom/sandbox game)

(1) Heroes take forever to level up; By the end of the second scenario, I hadn't even gained enough levels to max out one branch of a class skill tree

(2) It seems difficult for a city to get an appreciable level of production to build some of the higher level buildings. There was one alchemy building I wanted to build in my enclave so that I could buy the potions that healed injuries, and despite having most of the production buildings built in that enclave, it took like 50 turns to build.

(3) Odd bugs; sometimes battles froze preventing me from taking any action, and I had to autoresolve to end the battle. AI summon spells didn't appear to be working about 70% of the time, and most heroes I fought against did not appear to make great use of spells

(4) The "siege" aspect of the game could use some fleshing out. I saw that there were catapults, but that's it. I'm probably still learning a lot about the game, but there didn't seem to be much that could be done to wear down the defenses in the city other than like 2 other spells. Also, why can't we build effective "walls" that defenders would have to burst through on the tactics map? Saw there were guardian statues, but haven't gotten a chance to try them out yet.

(5) Wandering monsters rarely appear to attack the AI

Questions I have:

(1) What's the "prevailing" city development strategy? I saw that each city can specialize and that there's unrest penalties for having multiple cities (and for captured cities), but I'm not sure what the "optimal" number of each type of cities is, or how to manage unrest effectively while expanding.

(2) Are there class-specific quests for your sovereign? Like for a mage to research the secrets of the undead and become a lich, for a defender to find a holy shield, etc.?

(3) Are there map-wide "crises" that liven up the mid-game?

(4) Do you have to create your own sovereign/units to really enjoy them game? I was thinking about playing through each faction where their stock units to get a feel for them first, but aren't sure how effective the default units are

(5) Are there "independent" kingdoms like in Age of Wonders, where you can build unique monsters/buildings if you capture them?

(6) How is the undead race?

(7) Do you think the game will receive any new content updates? If not, what mods would you recommend? I saw the Nexus page, but a lot of mods don't advertise compatibility with the current version of the game.

(8) Will this game receive a sequel?

(9) What other Stardock games would you recommend?

Thanks!

[BATTLEMODE]

1) It depends on each game: you're mostly limited by your own economy so you'll have to judge it on a case by case basis. You're also limited by the locations that you can put cities: there are only so many.

2) I don't think so but I might be wrong there.

3) Sort of, see 5.

4) Not if you don't want to but you'll struggle with the base units as they're not always that good.

5) No. Instead FE has late game challenges in the form of difficult quests that give big bonuses and unique items.

6) The AI can't use them, so best to disable them when playing.

7) Unlikely, in my opinion.

8) Sorcerer King: Rivals is a kind of sequel to FE, but it's different. Don't expect a similar game, it's not. But it's fun and has a unique asymmetric challenge that you won't find anywhere else.

9) Most of Stardock's games are really good.

4X-wise, GalCiv3 is a unique gem amongst the space 4x genre as it plays very differently to any of the others.

[BlackSmokeDMax]

A tip on hero leveling. This is going by memory from 6 or 7 years ago, so forgive me if I don't get this quite right. You may also be able to search these forums from way back when and I probably posted it exactly right back in 2013 or 2014, anyway....


The experience each hero gets is the total of the encounter divided by the number of heroes in the group.

The experience each non-hero unit gets is equal to the number the heroes get divided by two.

What it comes down to is, there is rather large penalty for grouping up multiple heroes, but no penalty at all for adding more units to each army.

Some examples:

Group A: 1 Hero, 3 units

Group B: 2 Heroes, 3 units

Group C: 5 Heroes, 1 unit

Group D : 5 Heroes, 2 units

We'll use 100 exp as the opponent army exp just as a random numer.

Group A: hero gets 100xp, each unit gets 50xp

Group B: each hero get 50xp, each unit gets 25xp

Group C: each hero gets 20xp, the unit gets 10xp

Group D: each hero gets 20xp, each unit gets 10xp

Hope I remembered the correctly.

A good strategy is keeping heroes separate but with large armies for support for them all to grow faster. When you really need to take something down and you aren't as worried about gaining xp, then group more heroes together just for that battle, then go back to the one hero per army setup.

[BlackSmokeDMax]

@Battlemode

I thought there are some map wide random events. I don't recall exactly what they were, but I'm sure there were some.

[jasons073]

@Battlemode and BlackSmokeDMax --thanks for your answers and tips!

I noticed that having multiple heroes reduced the XP the heroes got, but didn't notice that it also reduced the XP non-hero units in the same army got--that's good to know.

RE: random events, something curious happened in my current game--a bunch of scrap golems randomly spawned around one of my towns. There was no pop-up for the event though, or any kind of notification for it. I'm thinking it may either be a fluke, or simply an event that was never given a notification.

The only thing I'm having trouble figuring out as I continue to play is how the power level of the AI empires skyrockets so quickly. In my current game I believe I expanded a respectable amount with 8-9 cities, yet there are two empires with more than twice my power level. When I interact with them in diplo I see that they've barely researched anything and have negative GPT, so I have no idea why the game thinks they're doing so "well."

[Athos42]

The power level display can be misleading. I just won a war against a faction that was nearly twice my faction power. I think it comes from high population and unit count. The quality of your units doesn't play that much of a role.

[-]

Also a fairly new player here:) The scrap golems are placed due to a quest - forget which one. Its the same with spiders which also spawn upon opening a quest

[Ronnie]

You must of lived in a cave if you have not heard of this game, That is like not hearing of Witcher 3 or Skyrim and enjoy playing RPG games and letting years go by.

[Alpharius]

I love reading your responses to posts Ronnie, 90% of the time you have nothing constructive to add. So glad we have you.

[Ronnie]

Keeping it real, read back on my older posts I have said many constructive things your just to lazy to find such posts or don't care to look.

[Malware Mal]

Wow, reading about new players who are liking the game but wondering how they're going to feel when they run across all the glitches.

[Sir Ciplak]

The quest can't be completed.

Cry

[jasons073]

@Cir Ciplak what quest? Surprisingly, I've encountered very few bugs with this game so far. Only minor late game lag and the occasional crash.

[Riot]

When does this game stop being an Age of Wonders clone? I can't get past an hour of gameplay because of it.

[jasons073]

Originally posted by Riot:

When does this game stop being an Age of Wonders clone? I can't get past an hour of gameplay because of it.

I agree elements of it are similar to AOW, but at least compared to AOW3 I find the combat goes a lot faster, which I appreciate.