Starting units

[wsmithjr02]

Everything I've seen/read indicates that when starting a new game, my sovereign should start with some units. However, I only ever have my sovereign by him/herself. Was this changed in the game, or am I doing something wrong?

Just started replaying this game recently and my sovereigns are not lasting too long before getting whacked by something exploring by him/herself.

[BATTLEMODE]

This was a recent change, there's an explanation by one of the developers (think it might even have been Brad W) about why they did this if you google it. I think it's because they increased the movement range of all the armies, presumably to better facilitate the AI responding to threats, or some other change to the heroes to make them a lot stronger.

[wsmithjr02]

Thanks for the reply. I guess I just need to be patient and get some backup before exploring too much.

[BlackSmokeDMax]

I've only had no starting units once so far. Just recently started one game as Tarth and could swear I had units. I founded the city and then noticed I had no units.

So either I didn't actually have units to start with an didn't notice it. Or the units disappeared on creation of the capital city.

I exited the game and started again, same game setup using Lady Irene. This time I had units, but I moved the units away from her before creating the city. Don't know if that helped or didn't matter, as again I am not positive with that first case. Either way everything seemed normal the second time.

And yeah, you really need to pick and choose your battles carefully at the start of this game. Levels mean everything, both to your hero units and your regular troops.

[BlackSmokeDMax]

Should also mention to pay close attention to the abilities/traits of each faction.

For instance, playing as Tarth, as I am in my current game. They get a bonus if there is 3 or fewer stacks in their army. That bonus is something like +2 or +3 (forget the actual number) per unit. Now that bonus is not per stack, but per actual unit.

For an example of how that could work to your advantage.

If you have your sovereign and two unit stacks.

Your sovereign would get +2 or +3 to their attack. Not a lot.

However, the other stacks:

That stack of say, 3 spearmen, will end up with either +6 or +9 to their stacks attack rating. Of course, same with the second stack.

There is also a severe experience penalty to having more than one hero per stack. That exp penalty applies to both all heroes in the army as well as all regular units in the army.

Sometimes you really need to have multiple heroes in a group so you do what you need to do. But when trying to level up your armies it is MUCH, MUCH better to do that with one hero per army.

I'll make another post with info about that exp breakdown. (May try to search for an old post of mine that already has it, just in case my memory doesn't recall it correctly)

[BlackSmokeDMax]

Found that old post of mine with a bit of google-fu:

original: https://forums.elementalgame.com/438100/page/1/#3293180

--- start of quoted message ---

You should also note that the experience number won't always be exactly 50%, as the 50% is calculated pre-bonus calculation. Plus don't forget to take multiple heroes into account. Here is some examples:

Say a monster party was worth 60 exp.



If you had one hero and an archer unit, and a milita unit:

Hero gets 60 exp (+bonus)

Archer gets 30 exp (+bonus)

Militia gets 30 exp (+bonus)



If you had 2 heroes and an archer and a militia:

Each hero gets 30 exp (+bonus)

Archer gets 15 exp (+bonus)

Militia gets 15 exp (+bonus)



If you had 3 heroes and an archer and a militia:

Each hero gets 20 exp (+bonus)

Archer gets 10 exp (+bonus)

Militia gets 10 exp (+bonus)



The number of regular units don't matter, i.e. if you had 2 archer units, 2 militia units, Anna (the wolf), a summoned warg, those units all receive half the hero amount, so in these cases they'd all receive either 30, 15, or 10 per each case above.

Point of all that being, only have one hero in each army UNLESS you really need the help in taking an opposing force down. Adding more regular units to each army is just experience point icing on the cake.

--- end of quoted message ---

The icing on the cake comment in my post is all about Exp only. Using someone like tarth you will not see quite the attack you could be getting. But that is something you need to balance/weigh as you play.

[wsmithjr02]

Thanks for the info about experience and other things. I've accumulated 22 achievements with this game, but the last time I played was 2014. :)

I've started several games, including just now with Lady Irane. Have not had units other than my soverign in any of them. Weird that you did. I am "missing" 2 DLC but I shouldn't think that would matter. Don't have the Loot or Battlegrounds DLC. Have the other 4.

[wsmithjr02]

Well, I'm now really confused about the starting units. Just started a game with Shirayn and she started with 2 units. However, starting a game with Lord Relias, identical settings, does not get the units. So, it seems it's based on the sovereign. Thing is, I can't tell any huge difference between those that get units and those that don't in order to account for the difference. It's not like, as far as I can tell, that Relias is that much stronger than Shirayn to not "need" accompanying units.

Just seems very strange and random to me. I guess it is what it is.

[coyote720]

In dozens and dozens of games, I have always had two units start with my sovereign.

[jasons073]

Originally posted by wsmithjr02:

Well, I'm now really confused about the starting units. Just started a game with Shirayn and she started with 2 units. However, starting a game with Lord Relias, identical settings, does not get the units. So, it seems it's based on the sovereign. Thing is, I can't tell any huge difference between those that get units and those that don't in order to account for the difference. It's not like, as far as I can tell, that Relias is that much stronger than Shirayn to not "need" accompanying units.

Just seems very strange and random to me. I guess it is what it is.

It's not based on sovereign per se, but rather whether the sovereign comes from DLC content or not. Due to what I suspect is an oversight, the patch only covers the vanilla sovereigns, and was never applied to the DLC ones (this includes the undead as well).

[coyote720]

I always play custom sovereigns, so I guess that's why I haven't seen this bug.