Astral Energy worth

[Stormtempter]

Is it worth anything? I've been going hard, not skipping any turns, attacking shards each round, and I've been around 100 astral energy, but after beating a shard, to pull a hero out I need way waaaaay more energy.

Am I missing some sort of AE generation mechanic? If I skip a turn, I'll get a piddling amount of energy, and all the other masters will get new shards. The cost to bring anything out of a shard is steep, and the bonuses and benefits you can bring to a shard for AE are miniscule.

It seems like I'd be hoarding and hoarding and hoarding until very near the end of the campaign, then pull a single hero out to use in like the last mission or something.

But the game seems to want to be played with you spending and gaining AE on a regular basis.

I'm very confused.

[Jagulars]

Each shard you conquer grants you more Astral energy, so later your income will be high and you can afford to bring something to every shard.

[Par]

В игре в астрале присутствует несколько квестов, для которых понадобится платить энергией. Но по сути, этот ресурс мало важный. И копить энергию много не нужно. Для прохождения игры тебе понадобится всего максимум около 300-400. Если конечно не переносить часто героя и тратить энергию на бонусы. В этом случае игра становится скучной.

[Draufen]

i think that when your astral energy drops too low, you lose the game to chaos invasion, which happens anyway in about 90 turns; i also assume that too little astral energy might attract other astral masters to attack you; next, Uldagan and probably few others can reveal some info or do something and they ask as payment astral energy

[Hasefrexx]

Attacking some masters can be brutal and you can overcome part of it with astral energy.

You also don't need to bring a level 30 hero with all spells and army or wathever, a low level hero with a strong item or unit can do the job just fine to kickstart you.

"you lose the game to chaos invasion, which happens anyway in about 90 turns"
It actually depends on difficulty, high difficulty has a shorter timer.

[shde2e]

On the hero cost: Note that the game defaults to including their army and equipment. If you remove all that, you can usually bring it down to 50-100 energy, which is much more doable.

[Karol13]

In my experience:
Astral energy - not enough for the really cool stuff (transitioning high leveled hero or items to next shard for example)
Astral energy - useless for the cheap stuff...

So I ended conserving this energy, waiting for the 'right' moment, finishing the game without actually using it.

[Stormtempter]

Thats what I was afraid of, lol.

Its a neat idea, and if there was more of it in aboundance it could shape gameplay drastically, by letting you have an emergency garrison, or holding on to a rare item, or kick start a new shard.

But the amounts gained are so small and the amounts needed so large I think most people would be like you, and me, and just hoard it for a time that may never come, lol.

[stadtpark-hartmut]

Is it viable to just skip Astral turns until I have enough to take my hero with me at all times? Or would you only start taking the hero with you later in game?

I'm on my first playthrough, and after I couldn't take my hero with me the 2nd time (I had spent 95 of 100 the first time), I reloaded and only started the next shard after skipping enough... - but this way I already am 20 turns into the Astral game after only two times taking him with me...

So since I'm playing on the easiest setting game will end after 90 turns? How many shards am I supposed to own by the time?


By the looks of it, I'll have to start all over again without taking hero with me from the start, since I will run into a bad ending for having skipped too much...

Maybe I hire a new hero to take with me right at the end, so I spend a little Astral energy as possible just to save 500g on the start of the next shard?

On the one hand I get it: it is to prevent snowballing too early, but why have the feature in the first place, when the trade off is "losing the game" straight away? I gamble a little too much, and dozens of hours of campaign play ends up being for naught?

There needs to be some advice for how to handle this...

Edit: even a naked freshly hired lvl 1 hero costs 25 astral Energy to take to the next shard... - that means I have to conquer like 20 shards before I can even think about taking a fresh hero and a single item with me? Or is there a way to take items or units without a hero?


I get that the campaign offers a way to give access to the content in a step by step manner, but the idea to bring actual heroes and their items or units with you seems just broken.

I'm not willing to play randomly generated content for 80 battles to get to know the ending.
I mean when there are a dozen endings possible, how many hours do you think I'm willing to spend?

Man I really want to like this game, if only it weren't so tedious to unlock all the interesting content.

The only way to love this game seems to forget about endgoals, without forgetting about endgoals. - I definitely get the "one more turn"-feeling, but the end-game seems much further away than a game of Stellaris with large / long settings...

[Karol13]

Skipping turns -> there is time limit (# of turns), so skipping turns too much will bear a risk of failing the campaign.

[Jagulars]

Later shards generate much more energy. You'll have an abundant income near the end.

[stadtpark-hartmut]

I'll give it another try.

Next question would be about how much of a shard you complete before going for the killing blow? Are the victory points relevant in any way later?

By completing more battles you get more xp and find better loot, but until you can start transfering heroes and items and units, what do I care how much loot or xp I have, when I have to leave it all behind anyway: I'd rather go on faster to the next shard, no?

The building permits / blueprints I earn anyway by finishing the shard, no matter how complete I do it. Or dou you do as much as possible for other reasons? Like getting more events = more Karma?

[Griede Starless]

Originally posted by stadtpark-hartmut:

I'll give it another try.

Next question would be about how much of a shard you complete before going for the killing blow? Are the victory points relevant in any way later?

By completing more battles you get more xp and find better loot, but until you can start transfering heroes and items and units, what do I care how much loot or xp I have, when I have to leave it all behind anyway: I'd rather go on faster to the next shard, no?

The building permits / blueprints I earn anyway by finishing the shard, no matter how complete I do it. Or dou you do as much as possible for other reasons? Like getting more events = more Karma?

see, i realized this too, and so far, your the first person i have seen to point this out.

talking about a single naked hero is 25points...
most of the gear WORTH takeing to another shard is 300ap per piece.
so if you ahve a large set, like the dragon armor.... your looking at around 2500ap just for the armor. decent level hero is gonna cost you...
but really, your commodity is SPACE.

you have the heros equipment slots, inventory, and army slots.
a higher level hero obviously costs more. but so does the gear, and the troops.
aslo, higher level heros/ armies have hgher upkeep, so its actually debateable as to whether either of these would be benificial starting out, as a full size army on a high level hero can kill your economy in early games. which dosent seem to be the case with gear.

but yes, with only 1 hero able to ascend, and only a certain amount of space by which to transfer ANYTHING to a new shard, there really dosent seem to be much point at all to spend hours and hours and hours grinding out gear on EACH shard, if your limited by hout much you can pack on to the hero you are going to transfer, no mater how much AP you have... at most you can probably bring 2 of the good sets or armor, maby a few weapons.

i realized that a tiny shard can take 4 - 6 hours to fully explore and clear, cause lets face it, you arnt likely to find ALL of this gear in shops.

i also noticed, on some shards, all the stores ended up haveing the same loot. as in all the jewlry stores had the same jewlry, all the archery stores had the same Bows/ crossbows and arrows, plate armory - ditto. after awhile, the only need to even go in one was to repair gear..

[Stormtempter]

From a meta perspective, from early to mid to even late game, astral energy is so sparse without you clicking over turns that its nearly not worth it for the value you get to bring to the next shard, so eliminating the enemy ASAP is the more efficient route.

Gear is only relevant really to Scouts who need a good bow and Warriors who need a good blade. Just ascend a high level wizard with like, lightning bolt or something and you can wipe out half the next map before being challenged. Not saying gear doesn't help, but for efficiency, you just need wizard with 1 baller spell, or a scout with a baller bow, and they will pick off everything for you that is tough.

So TLDR: Clear enough of the shard to be confident you can beat the enemy and win the shard, but there is no reason to dawdle (unless you are going for story bits like finding cogs or whatnot). Eventually get enough astral per turn to lift a ringer of a hero with a ringer weapon and the process will speed up.

I don't have anything empyrical to back this up, this is just my conclusion after all of my play, so its purely imo.

[Mindeveler]

Yeah, In terms of energy income and transferring stuff the game heavily discourages players from exploring shards, unfortunately.
Because the best source of astral energy is casino adrvertisments.
https://eador-masters-of-the-broken-world.fandom.com/wiki/Astral_Events#Advertisement_Offer
You get 250 energy for 500 glory.
But to maximise glory, you have to achieve the highest map score:
https://eador-masters-of-the-broken-world.fandom.com/wiki/Shard_Medals
...which heavily depends on the number of turns spent on a shard. After turn 100 your score starts to drop quickly.
And most medals (like finishing 10 rounds on arena, exploring the whole map or 1000% of province space or building every building in the capital (especially late-game), assembling a set of 4 items) take time to get and are absolutely not worth it 'cause they'll give you very little glory while all of your glory gained will be like...halved because of spending too much time on the shard.

[Bad Evil Angry Russian]

Originally posted by Hasefrexx:

Attacking some masters can be brutal and you can overcome part of it with astral energy.

You also don't need to bring a level 30 hero with all spells and army or wathever, a low level hero with a strong item or unit can do the job just fine to kickstart you.

"you lose the game to chaos invasion, which happens anyway in about 90 turns"
It actually depends on difficulty, high difficulty has a shorter timer.

Чувак, "Strong item" стоит дороже героя 30 уровня, о чем ты?