The Tribe ... (Early Experiences) Is Not for Me (Yet)

[Lazydrones]

I appreciate the work put into the mechanics of the game and the various factions all feel very unique but for some reason I just can't get into the Tribe. It seems, underwhelming, at least at the start of their faction journey and all that.
Not all of the factions are supposed to be as exciting as the other and i appreciate they all have their quirks however the Tribe's early game is rather ... bland ...
It took me awhile to figure out one of the few benefits the Stone Circle gives is bonus resources, mainly in buffing military based cards (or recruiting mercenaries).

If there was an economy based mission chain with minimal combat required they'd really shine.

Provisions Caravan - recruitment based on food production - also goes well with rivers
Barracks if you so choose to go with rivers (I've found barracks + rivers + Stone Circle to work pretty well)
Fluvial guard - goes well with a river based setup for obvious reasons to go along with the barracks and if you can link it up with your cairns along bottom and edges - I've had some fun with it.
Faith as well can be useful simply for boosting resources, however I find this to be counter intuitive to a faction called "The Tribe" - again - religion does boost things like barracks and caravan through additional resources which leads to additional troops
There's another that gives troops for wood production, mainly ranged units, but can't recall the name of the card.

I have yet to really find anything, that feels substantially enjoyable to go along with the Tribe. While Training Grounds "does" support additional troops for them and siege camps work to reduce enemy units along with the cairns, the bonuses are minimal comparatively if I just focus on gold or food production since that is where I feel the tribe really pushes its best results.

The faction doesn't really feel like it shines until you've completed the entire quest chain and your cairns are able to reduce troops from enemy buildings. Much of the faction doesn't pay off until you've upgraded the stone circle to rank 3, especially later stages. Part of the issue I have with it late game, is the grid becomes so cluttered with buildings, it simply doesn't pay off much in terrain resources. I'd almost argue said cairns should also boost friendly buildings production or military output ... or both (I'd argue for boosting production buildings) when within the grid. I always play the tribe in a way that pushes the cairns to the border edges of the grid - almost because I feel I have to do this to get the maximum benefit of it. The other factions feel far more forgiving - one exception being the republic - if you don't form or properly connect the neighborhood you lose out on a ton of extra everything.
Even if you DO get a nice grid for the Cairns + Stone Circle and are able to surround every enemy the payout and reward for it still feels - minimal.
I think I've also recruited more mercenary camps with the Tribe than I have with any other faction.

I'll continue to give the Tribe some time but if anyone has found anything that works really well, feel free to post it. I'm going to try noble buildings at some point in another play through to see how they work with them. Maybe filling in the holes on the grid + Stone Circle could go a long way.

[FergieJ]

No one responded to you and I was just looking around after getting the DLC and after my 3rd game with The Tribe was thinking "Meh....I really don't enjoy playing the tribe, I must be doing something wrong" but so far all I have found is other posts whining about how meh the tribe feels lol

[Lazydrones]

They get better after you've completed their full mission set and unlocked everything.
You really have to play them to their peak to get worthwhile results.
They aren't a very complicated faction which is a plus and are generally pretty easy to use / learn. Pairing them with other buildings that reduce enemy strength can pay off pretty well but I think they'd do far better under a economic style run. Less military focused and more economic focus...
If I'm being honest, I liked the Tribe more than the North. As the North, if played too aggressively they tend to be a hindrance than a benefit to themselves.

[Lord_Eol]

TBH I find the Tribe to be one of the easiest factions to play, vastly prefer it over Order/Duchy and easy win all the way up to accession 10; I think I only struggled with them on Nightmare and that was self imposed. The secret, like every faction but the Duchy, it to ignore all it's faction stuff and just abuse the unique aspects of them. What you are missing is you get FOUR free military buildings round 1 (the carrions), don't even bother with the stone circle or building a square. Just stack the cairns on top each other with a strategic pavilion on each side and a training camp topping them coupled with the tactical advantage and strength in numbers techs for the death square of winning w/o cheesing a military hospital..

Honestly if I'm just having "fun" I prefer the North; if tryharding, then the Republic or Order OFC. I think the Duchy suffers from lack of slots since you basically have to pick noble OR fields plus the inability to just have two terrains hurt them more than anyone else. You just can't paint the map gold, or if you do, you end up doing it with Noble's and the field transformation tech, not farms/wood/clearing.

[Lazydrones]

Easy, yes, but compared to the complexity of the Order and Republic, it was a bit of a change of pace. not necessarily a bad change of pace, just ... slower.
I generally don't like to cheese and prefer to play factions according to their design so I strive to put the cairns as needed to get the most benefit of the stone circle.

[Lord_Eol]

Bit overselling the complexity of the Order or Republic, they are literally autowin hence they dominate the leader boards and even the worst of players can go effectively infinite with them. I mean honestly the hardest faction to play if you want to stick with faction theme AND not cheese the hospital is the Duchy by far as they simply don't scale on Nightmare, Ascension Lvl 8+, etc with the North coming in a close second for similar reasons plus the lack of the doomstack ability.

i.e. I think the Tribe is great at what the Duchy should be meant for, the introduction middling faction great for new players.

I would be interested though if the @dev would occasionally release his teleport statistics on the game, at least a summary with things like "faction played by run throughs", "factions win percentages" (by Act and totality; ignoring Endless mode). I really am curious after the initial hour o so hours to do all the faction campaigns, what people are actually playing for pickup games. From the forum, YouTube, etc seems like overwhelming the Republic but might also simply be high vis skew.

[Moonbane]

Just finished with tribe 12/12 faction quests done on normal. Its my least enjoyed faction so far. For a long time you do not feel powerful at all, and its very unpleasant to have so many faction achievements that severely limits what you can do.

The cairn stones requires too much work to set up.

[Lazydrones]

Training Camps and siege camps work well with the Tribe for some decent reduction in enemy units. Also if you can get the Reinforcements tech goes a long way(gives + troops when merging same unit types).
Sadly, late game they are underwhelming and can crumble pretty early in endless mode.

[Moonbane]

Originally posted by Lazydrones:

Training Camps and siege camps work well with the Tribe for some decent reduction in enemy units. Also if you can get the Reinforcements tech goes a long way(gives + troops when merging same unit types).
Sadly, late game they are underwhelming and can crumble pretty early in endless mode.

I agree, the power difference between the Order and the Tribe is astronomical. Once the Order is set up with their powerful engine they can just keep scaling and replenishing themselves. The reward for setting up their cairns correctly should be much higher.

[Lord_Eol]

That's the entire game Moonbane and it's a hard problem to solve as if you make it feasible in the late game it's OP in the early game / lower difficulties and if you make them scaling, well lot of people hate difficulty scaling when it just means most stats because it means you don't have to actually do anything differently as everything just scales. For example, the exactly same strategy works for the Order/Republic on Easy as it does Nightmare / Accession Lvl 10 hence it's not really "harder".

Not sure that is really fixable in this sort of game hence it doesn't really bother me but I would like some options that work at higher levels decide "Belfry or MH".

[Moonbane]

Well endless mode is a good indicator of performance. Enemies scaling hard there.

Tribe also suffers from bosses with limited space.

Idea: Tribe gets additional stash space for swaps as a specialty. Would help reducing the impact of a bad start.

[Sleepy Mill Studio]

Interesting thread, I won't comment on everything here but I'd just say that the factions are meant to provide different experiences but not to be equal in power. It's not a problem for me that some factions scale endlessly while others can't, if each faction had access to some sort of combo loop, it would only make them feel repetitive.

[Moonbane]

Originally posted by Sleepy Mill Studio:

Interesting thread, I won't comment on everything here but I'd just say that the factions are meant to provide different experiences but not to be equal in power. It's not a problem for me that some factions scale endlessly while others can't, if each faction had access to some sort of combo loop, it would only make them feel repetitive.

But as I see it, the problem with the combo loop for the Tribe is that its rather weak for the effort needed.