Masters of the Broken World 2021 - Unreal?!

[The Blob]

Expectations? Thoughts? Desires?

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/1617310718805621103/2BE0FA075020075567C545BAFEA1E4056601C30A/

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/1617310718805628766/E32B4F050E0F1502C061FE7AA31B8DD0927D8AF7/

[SquareDildo]

if you must make AI more challenging by spamming guards, at least reduce the amount of grind:
- if guards want to leave, give hero XP and loot. No one should be forced to go through it again and again.
- auto-deployer feature. Once a battle starts, you can press a button to automatically position troops. You would get a pop-up window asking you to use this new positioning or revert to previous one. Things like ballista on hills, healers behind, melee in front etc.

Quick battle is not always feasible because AI is terrible at using healers, and will lose you many, including sprites with healing skill.

[Jagulars]

Origineel geplaatst door Kikker:

What Nesturs says is not canon, it's not from Eador Genesis!

Yes it is. Just look at C:\Steam\steamapps\common\Eador. Genesis\var\campaign_dialog.var and you will find the same dialog.

[Kikker]

Origineel geplaatst door Jagulars:

Origineel geplaatst door Kikker:

What Nesturs says is not canon, it's not from Eador Genesis!

Yes it is. Just look at C:\Steam\steamapps\common\Eador. Genesis\var\campaign_dialog.var and you will find the same dialog.

Couldn't find. There is no character named Nesturs in Genesis, it's just one of the names for wizard hero.

[Jagulars]

Nesturs is just a default name for the character. You can give it any name you like when you create the profile.

[SquareDildo]

Wand Mastery (Wand Firing) wizard skill, that grants +1 initiative and +1 wand damage, sucks hard. Wizard is fundamentally a class about active actions (spending turns to cast spells)... as opposed to Commander, the only passive hero. There's always something better for a Wizard to do unless you're out of magic gems.

Wand Firing should make Wand attacks produce magic gems with each attack. It would support extravagant playstyles like summoning + wand attacking from behind. It would also help Wizard early game! It would also add a non-evil way of producing magic gems. (apart from Dark RItual). It would go well with Good units which are generally sturdy.

Wand use is all about saving magic gems. My proposal simply doubles down on this.

I'm currently around 170 turns into a shard and have two pieces of gear of roughly the same level:
Flaming Bow (selling price 350)
+13 ranged damage
+6 fire arrows
+6 range
+4 ammo

Wand of Ages (selling price 300)
+9 ranged damage (magic shot)
+5 range, ammo
+3 energy control (penetration)
+spell duration +1

My secondary Scout is level 8, I could make him a Ranger and I assume his Marksmanship skill would boost the wand attacks. In fact, I might make him a Ranger (scout-> wizard) if I hadn't found the bow one turn earlier. Wands generally have lower damage but higher penetration than bows, but Wizards and their hybrids have bad Health, armor and stamina. They also have bad Command. They have neither the staying power nor the bodyguards to hold the line for them. I would have to keep summoning Gargoyles every battle (25 gems a piece) to last that long. Which I incidentally CAN afford, because it's a swamp shard and I do have Sphere of Stone built. Even though my main hero is a Priest and I try hard to turn gems into money via Enchanted Coffer and Gifts of Earth, the gems pile higher and higher.

But the bow just goes brrRRRRR. And it's easier to find high-powered bow than a high-powered wand. Wands only seem feasible for one specific class combination: wizard/scout, because you can get damage upgrades from both classes.

Update:
I've got a fancy sphere from the same quest, and the set boosts the damage to 10. Still a far cry from bows.

[SquareDildo]

Crossbowmen should either get Forced March on level-up, or innate ability to move and shoot. When they move ONE hex or shoot, they're a bit too niche. I think they're fine for warriors and that's it. If they could move one hex and still shoot, they would remain slow and predictable but become somewhat more useful. And if everyone thinks it's game-breakingly strong, at least make dwarven crossbowmen work like that.

[SquareDildo]

Cut the extra padding from the tech tree. I'm talking about buildings like Foundry (90 gp, Iron, Iron, Iron) which only gives +5 gold per iron you control and serves as a pre-requisite for another building. Or Brewery, which raises demesne mood and defender morale and allows building Winery, which is for upgrading Mill to Brewery in provinces.

Many of the buildings clearly serve as a padding to enable the extra long campaign in Eador: Genesis. I hear Master of the Broken World did some work to condense the campaign and make shards more interesting (world of death, world of sand, etc). Put the functionality of the removed buildings into other buildings, then make shards grant fewer buildings upon conquering them (but they're now improved buildings). If campaign is shorter and more interesting rather than running into 70 or 60 astral turns, you no longer need the silly buildings. They clog up the tech tree and make stuff superficially more complex.

I'm a fan of Eador: Genesis, and while the word derives from "fanatic", I'm the former and not the latter.

[boho]

Expectations: Stability. No game is perfect - especially at release - but MOTBW and Imperium were unacceptably buggy at their end of life on top of having a terrible, unstable engine. Unreal might take care of the engine, but many - even most - of MOTBW's and Imperium's crashes were due to bad code/scripting. Even if it was ultimately the publisher's fault for pulling support, you're now starting from a deficit of good will. Your 1.0 needs to be as stable as Genesis to start to rebuild that.

Suggestions:

It'd be nice if the AI provided a challenge beyond endless province guards.

Actual play needs streamlining like the campaign got in MOTBW. There are too many dead turns where no actual action is taken, and too many tedious combats that should be auto-resolved but can't be due to unacceptable losses. A suggestion might be for provinces to passively explore themselves, with Heroes being able to accelerate the process.

Karma in general needs help:

Playing with good units seems to be a roleplaying or story choice, but is almost never an optimal strategy on an individual map. Evil is cheaper, stronger, and has penalties that are too easy to counter or negate. Necromancy and Demonology are punished appropriately for their power, but you can run an army of Berserkers and Thugs and have fantastic karma because you're not penalized for using evil units, just hiring them.

Neutral karma needs to be a viable option. Neutral units are just strictly inferior to Good or Evil units despite costing the same or more.

[SquareDildo]

Origineel geplaatst door boho:

Karma in general needs help:

Playing with good units seems to be a roleplaying or story choice, but is almost never an optimal strategy on an individual map.

Do you mean with EXCLUSIVELY good units, or good units in general? I think the best strategy is an opportunistic one. Anything above Quiet province mood is excess that can be shaved off with plunder or Enchanted Coffer. Granaries are mostly not desirable unless you're burning your population with plunder or dark ritual. It's efficient to keep morale above 5, and so that a Fear spell or a few stronger hits won't send them running.

Thugs are powerhouses, but many of the evil units have serious flaws that are hard to compensate for. A Commander, or preferably Priest, can make berserkers work in later game. Otherwise - while you can fix their ranged defense, it's almost impossible to improve their Resistance.

If enemy AI was better at exploiting the weaknesses, like loading appropriate spells into heroes, using Sorcerers - it would be a more glaring flaw. AI does use Sorcerers pretty often, but at level 0 they have no Fear spell and AI's unit choices seem determined by what it can afford first. So it often runs around with thugs, assassins, sorcerers but rarely pegasi or ballistae. The AI is, in general, greedy (in programming sense) and has no patience. If it sees an opportunity, it immediately jumps on it.

If their flaws are not exploited, berserkers are borderline broken. Best health, best damage, good speed, essentially morale immunity.

Thugs are... odd. The best counter to them - Fear - is an evil spell. There's no good counter.

Evil is cheaper, stronger, and has penalties that are too easy to counter or negate. Necromancy and Demonology are punished appropriately for their power,

First of all, gem costs of spells!! The most expensive non-evil tier I spells are 4 gems (astral energy), magic dart is 4. Good spells are CHEAP. Skeleton is 4 gems, zombie - 8, imp - 5. Dark Ritual is required to power evil spells, but completely unnecessary for others.


Note something interesting: good units are heavy on gold, but good is light on magic gems! Evil is the opposite: light on gold, heavy on magic gems.

but you can run an army of Berserkers and Thugs and have fantastic karma because you're not penalized for using evil units, just hiring them.

Good point and I think it's easy to fix. Karma for units should not be one time affair, but based on upkeep and recruitment COST of the units. If you pay hundreds of gold for thugs and sorcerers, you should become more evil over time.

Neutral karma needs to be a viable option. Neutral units are just strictly inferior to Good or Evil units despite costing the same or more.

Actually neutrals have something they excel at! Ranged damage. So it's not just gryphons and minotaurs.

Horse archers can one shot other archers and mages, and get DOUBLE SHOT past level 10 or so. They're among the best archers in the game, although you can make a case for ballistae (surprisingly high power because they waste no level ups on morale, counterattack, attack; battlemaster can regenerate them in Genesis at least). Centaurs don't get double shot. Bowmen get double shot, slingers get double shot. I had a ranged army (on Expert) that would melt enemies before they came close, and it was a Priest hero, not even a General or Tactician. I did have the Eagle banner though (+2 ranged). Although I did have a sorcerer spamming Vulnerability.

Ranged damage is best on Hills or Swamp shards. Forest also slows units down, but offers cover so it's not as good.

Spiders, slugs and basilisks are great defenders for a Scout or WIzard. I think it's just Spearmen that have no niche.

If we're talking alliance units, good units are perhaps the best: Fairies, Elves, and Dwarves. Dwarves are not often praised (tier 1 that costs literally as much as tier 2) but they are mega-swordsmen. Their starting Parry is worse, but also forced march, better HP, better resistance, and they can run over hills.

[SquareDildo]

Few: 1-3,
Several: 5-9,
Pack: 10-19,
Lots: 20-49,
Horde: 50-99,
Throng: 100-249,
Swarm: 250-499,
Zounds!: 500-999,
Legion: 1000+

Every Heroes of Might and Magic player knows this very well. The verbal descriptions of enemy army size are a bit vague, but overall quite reliable. The descriptions in Eador are doubly cryptic, doubly obscure. First you have something like "Dark Druids" or "Inquisitors", or "Giants". But there's no dark druid unit and no inquisitor unit, and while there are giants, more often than not this describes ogres, with an odd giant thrown in farther from the castle. Second, the numbers within these groups can vary very much and be quite unpredictable.

I just had my first reversion on a shard in Eador: Genesis (Into The Past). It was an Abandoned Temple in the first ring of provinces. Not Altar of Death or something unusual. It said 9 units, which is already somewhat suspicious for ring 1. It said: skeleton, zombie, GHOUL. I thought "It's first ring, I bet it's only one ghoul, how bad can it be...". It was four (4) ghouls in first ring. I had a commander, 4 barbarians level 5, two healers with three medals among them, a bowman with 6 damage, 3 web spells and an astral energy. I barely won, losing 3 experienced barbarians. I decided to sacrifice some score and reload the game. Ghouls were THE MOST numerous troop in the group: 4 among 9, and I assure you there was neither only one skeleton nor only one zombie.

What I'm saying is that location guard descriptions could be a bit more helpful without losing the rough charm like fancy group names. Dominions games, which Eador is obviously inspired by, have descriptions like this: "The enemy army consists mostly of velites and principes. A few battle elephants were seen towering over the army. Ouroboros the Commander was seen in the army. It radiated power."

Even Dominions games, which offer spies and scouts you can send to enemy provinces, provides more helpful army count messages. Eador seems to require me to know arcane knowledge, like "there are province rings", but also "seeing 9 units in ring 1 should raise a red flag for you, this is clearly something breaking the usual rules, count looks like ring 2-3, don't approach without a bigger army."

Constructive proposal:
When going to meet the enemy location guard, list enemy types in the order from most numerous to least numerous. Currently it seems from lowest level to highest level. Which people learn rather quickly...

The worst part was I already had a secondary Scout with Scouting skill at 1. I could spend an extra turn and 30 gold and learn the exact numbers....

[Jagulars]

Origineel geplaatst door SquareDildo:

Few: 1-3,
Several: 5-9,
Pack: 10-19,
Lots: 20-49,
Horde: 50-99,
Throng: 100-249,
Swarm: 250-499,
Zounds!: 500-999,
Legion: 1000+

Every Heroes of Might and Magic player knows this very well. The verbal descriptions of enemy army size are a bit vague, but overall quite reliable. The descriptions in Eador are doubly cryptic, doubly obscure. First you have something like "Dark Druids" or "Inquisitors", or "Giants". But there's no dark druid unit and no inquisitor unit, and while there are giants, more often than not this describes ogres, with an odd giant thrown in farther from the castle. Second, the numbers within these groups can vary very much and be quite unpredictable.

I just had my first reversion on a shard in Eador: Genesis (Into The Past). It was an Abandoned Temple in the first ring of provinces. Not Altar of Death or something unusual. It said 9 units, which is already somewhat suspicious for ring 1. It said: skeleton, zombie, GHOUL. I thought "It's first ring, I bet it's only one ghoul, how bad can it be...". It was four (4) ghouls in first ring. I had a commander, 4 barbarians level 5, two healers with three medals among them, a bowman with 6 damage, 3 web spells and an astral energy. I barely won, losing 3 experienced barbarians. I decided to sacrifice some score and reload the game. Ghouls were THE MOST numerous troop in the group: 4 among 9, and I assure you there was neither only one skeleton nor only one zombie.

What I'm saying is that location guard descriptions could be a bit more helpful without losing the rough charm like fancy group names. Dominions games, which Eador is obviously inspired by, have descriptions like this: "The enemy army consists mostly of velites and principes. A few battle elephants were seen towering over the army. Ouroboros the Commander was seen in the army. It radiated power."

Even Dominions games, which offer spies and scouts you can send to enemy provinces, provides more helpful army count messages. Eador seems to require me to know arcane knowledge, like "there are province rings", but also "seeing 9 units in ring 1 should raise a red flag for you, this is clearly something breaking the usual rules, count looks like ring 2-3, don't approach without a bigger army."

Constructive proposal:
When going to meet the enemy location guard, list enemy types in the order from most numerous to least numerous. Currently it seems from lowest level to highest level. Which people learn rather quickly...

The worst part was I already had a secondary Scout with Scouting skill at 1. I could spend an extra turn and 30 gold and learn the exact numbers....

You want more descriptive unit composition, and give an example from HoMM where you only know the range of numbers and not all units included, while Eador gives you exact number and every unit type included, and with level 1 scouting even the exact numbers of every unit and their levels. Then you knowingly take a risk against 9 units in the early game (ring 1 never meant there are only weak units), refuse to use scouting and complain that you were surprised by the enemy composition, and you reload. That's a bit petty in my opinion. I think you deserved what you got.

[SquareDildo]

Origineel geplaatst door Jagulars:

You want more descriptive unit composition, and give an example from HoMM where you only know the range of numbers and not all units included, while Eador gives you exact number and every unit type included, and with level 1 scouting even the exact numbers of every unit and their levels. Then you knowingly take a risk against 9 units in the early game (ring 1 never meant there are only weak units), refuse to use scouting and complain that you were surprised by the enemy composition, and you reload. That's a bit petty in my opinion. I think you deserved what you got.

Your message reads like you haven't played HOMM games. This is an illustration of what I'm talking about, an extremely typical for HOMM way to describe enemy armies (this is the only screenshot I found that shows right click):

https://lparchive.org/Heroes-of-Might-and-Magic/Update%2012/46-45stacking.png

As you see, a breakdown by unit type with quantity for each. And this is when you right click on an enemy hero. Eador only shows you the Wizard/Warrior/Commander/Scout icon until you go and meet him. It could be a warwizard commanding 5 troops or an enchanter with 13.

So in what way you don't know all units included in HOMM?

If HOMM used the Eador way, in the picture you could read: "The enemy army consists of 23 units, including centaur, gargoyle, wolf and ogre.

If HOMM gives such poor information, why is Scouting tied for the least popular skill with Eagle Eye, and players despair if they have to choose between the two on a level up?

Are you just going to quote my very long message to cherry pick on a particular example, and miss the overall point? And ignore the proposal for improvement (in bold)?

[Jagulars]

What I like about Eador is the tension of risk-taking. As such, I'm not a proponent of reducing that risk. Perhaps on easiest difficulties.

[SquareDildo]

Two new units meant to help wizard early game:

Temple Guard
Dwelling needs steel + mandrake
Neutral or lawful
unit cost: 40 + mandrake, upkeep 6
defense 2, ranged defense 2, resistance 2
17 HP
speed 2
morale 10, stamina 10
special ability: magic shroud. Friendly spells cast on this unit cost 2 gems less and friendly enchantments last 2 turns longer.

At high level (say, 10) it gains a special ability that it starts each battle with a random low level enchantment from the list: Bless, Magic Armor, Magic Weapon, Air Shield, Astral Energy (resistance boost only).

Another high level ability: enchantments affecting this unit carry over to the next battle, with as much duration as they had left. So an Enchanter hero or someone with lots of Concentration and/or +duration items has a reason to keep the guards around.

Cultist
Dwelling needs mandrake
Unscrupulous or evil
15 gold + mandrake (I think Shaman is 25? This is worse than shaman)
Mediocre stats, something like spearman but no ranged attack and no forced march
special ability: blind devotion. When this unit dies, adjacent friendly units gain some health and stamina, spread evenly. The amount could be based on half of health and stamina the cultist had at the start of his last turn. I think it should even affect mechanical and undead.
Meant to be more expensive, higher quality fodder for necromancy and demon summoning than peasants. Militiamen will still be the best cheapest option unless someone has goblins.

[speedyappraisals]

I thought I would would mention this here. I was reading some of the features of the new Masters of Magic game being released in 2022. One struck me as a good idea the developers should consider implementing in the upcoming Eador game.

Like Eador, MOM has tactical battles. Sometimes these battles are a wash where a human player would have no problem clearing the location without a loss. But when you use the auto battle feature there are losses to your army. What MOM has proposed to do is if you are going to use the auto battle feature, before you accept, you will be given a range of likely outcomes so you can decide if you would or would not like to use the auto battle feature. I just find when playing the Eador series there are a lot of battles that I know if I manage personally that I could complete without any loses, however when I use the auto battle I end up with loosing someone. Sometimes these battles are also very repetitive, like clearing 10 walking dead before reaching the opponents stronghold. I find this annoying. Also there are time when the guard will voluntarily retreat but you still need or want the experience points from the battle, so you have to engage. It would be nice if you were able to get a predetermined outcome and then decide how you would like to proceed. It just makes sense.