Province Guards in new Eador

[Ragshak]

How the AI will handle guards in their provinces?

One of the most broken part of Eador MotBW was guarding mechanic. When AI gets high level guards he just spam them like a madman (AI doesnt pay upkeep!). Another broken "feature" were guards at AI starting province. There were situations when you have cleared whole shard but still had no firepower to defeat last defenders and had to farm a lot.

If I my suggest... I would like to see a feature that guard giving bulding provides limited guarding contracts - lets say two. As long as we/AI have two guarding parties active of the same type we/ AI cannot recruit third party.

In the end there will be a need to build variety of buldings which gives guards and guards placement will be more strategic

[Sandling]

I agree, the Province Guards mechanic was not working well imho, which is sad given the depth of choices given to the player - It would be so sweet it it were actually working nicely!

I too got tired seeing the A.I. spam guards all over the place without any repercussions, especially guards 'way' out of reach for yourself in the campaign. Furthermore your own best possible defenses often quickly prove useless entirely when an A.I. warrior just decides he can (and will) handle them.. on his own without an army!
Not only does he defeat said defenses, whee, free XP to boot as they often come out without a dent!

So then you try and push back, and realize every single time they have taken your plot, they dumped some amazing army in there that's likely to wipe the floor with you.


City defenses currently feel like a broken metagame - They either work and deter entirely, or they are profitable for the intruder to harvest. Hardly do I feel like I can make smart of tactical choices using them, and the enemy's solution to dealing with me is by simply cheating.

[Kalistri]

Originally posted by Sandling:

I agree, the Province Guards mechanic was not working well imho, which is sad given the depth of choices given to the player - It would be so sweet it it were actually working nicely!

I too got tired seeing the A.I. spam guards all over the place without any repercussions, especially guards 'way' out of reach for yourself in the campaign. Furthermore your own best possible defenses often quickly prove useless entirely when an A.I. warrior just decides he can (and will) handle them.. on his own without an army!
Not only does he defeat said defenses, whee, free XP to boot as they often come out without a dent!

So then you try and push back, and realize every single time they have taken your plot, they dumped some amazing army in there that's likely to wipe the floor with you.


City defenses currently feel like a broken metagame - They either work and deter entirely, or they are profitable for the intruder to harvest. Hardly do I feel like I can make smart of tactical choices using them, and the enemy's solution to dealing with me is by simply cheating.

There are only two ways that the AI can get a guard that's too tough for you to defeat. The first possibility is that they pick up a guard contract, in which case there will be only one, meaning you just need time to level up before you defeat it. The second possibility is that they've built the building that allows that guard, in which case they'll be able to spam the guard, but if you're not able to defeat a guard that the AI is spamming, then the problem is that you're not progressing fast enough.

Regarding the problem with the AI roflstomping your guards, the answer is forts. Just buy one in locations you want to keep and place a militiaman in it, then go meet the AI while they siege the fort. Just be careful not to lose the province, because then you'll have to do your own siege it to get it back.

Another thing you can do is leave a path of unguarded provinces to get the AI to go where you want them, so you can meet them by moving to a province just as they move there, thus getting a chance to fight them without fighting guards first.

Btw, the AI is "cheating" in pretty much any strategy game you can find, because any human takes the "A" out of AI. If you want an actual challenge involving a game like this without getting a handicap of some kind, you need a human opponent. The only exceptions I can think of is chess and go, where after years of working at it people have finally built programs that can defeat masters of the game.

[agnosis]

I always hated the monsters guard, so cheap and spammable and superemely hard to kill,
you lost high level units and casters every time. they have a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ hydra.

[gdynianus]

I think the guard system should be remade. I would recommend to introduce a pool of guards available for hire for every player. The number of guards from each building could be 2 plus 1 additional every 7 turns (max 5-8). The guards from buildings could be free of upkeep for everyone. Guards from contracts should have its upkeep lowered ( and not be free for AI)

[agnosis]

I dont like free upkeep guards unless there is a gimmick, like they are a lootable item
and / or that they are weak.

but, tieing an increased guard selection and level of power and economy to the level
of development of the players capitol makes perfect sense to me.

an AI that has 6 provinces and lucked outsomehow having a gawdawful guard in their
capitol is not fair really, if the invading player has 36 provinces and every building developed
in their capitol.

mind you... this being said the superior player has recourse....

a suicide strike by all heros at once, with their top units to bring down the guard.
costly but fine... by that time you will be badly injured. lost your top hero, your secondary
but your third hero managed to beat the guard. the 3 units left of it. now he must somehow
hold a siege with his crippled army and half hps left.

not actually that hard to do. just click next 6 or 7 times in a row and you win.
because the heros are a joke when your in that comparison,.

the "returning champion" is probably a lvl 6 wizard facing off against your badly wounded
level 17 berzerker, with valour items and a sword of chaos, acompanied by 2 horseman and two triari who are all pretty hurt.

no contest.

shard conquered.

[ttodorov]

One of good thing in the game for me is to figure out hot to capture province with high rank defenders,it is like one of the bases of the game,I dont understand why people want to dump down games in general,if you dont want or you cant handle a game dont play it,there is similar games in every janr and most of them are for mass public = easy games,Eador is for people that want some chalange,even if it is not a chalange after figure out how to defeat a game it is not that hard just play it.

[YHE634]

i confirm the guard mechanic need improvement: i have played a scenario i have explored most of the low level domain my heroes is level 8, one of the AI have protected all his domain with guard monster.
the other one is protected behind neutral territory with hydra army: i have give up.

this is the reason why i have stopped playing the original game , imperium is not worth the price if this issue is not fixed
i do not mind a challenge, but just farming and sending army as sacrifice to weak guardian is not a challenge

[agnosis]

this is a neco thread, however... yea mass powerful guards is still an issue at times.
snowbird did mess around with this months ago. the thread started as the AI had
very little ability to harm the player... would sometimes die to random events.
The only advantage they had was if they took a province... they would throw
monsters on it... or armada... or infernal guard or some mega guards.

snowbird improved the ai, so the challenge is a bit better now.
also the guards are not always uber powerful. I find they normally use the mob
guard as soon as they are able. the mob IS powerful... but not impossible
and they have a big drawback... they cut your income and moral.

if you wait a bit too long to get after them... border provinces might become guarded
by monsters... monsters will _ALWAYS_ mangle your army. lvl 30 leggate with
2 paladins? one of em dies. monsters are costly to clear.

I tend to ready all 3 heros.... arm them as hard as I can and smash them into
the guards... all on the same turn.

the way this will work is... weakest hero first. second. then primary.
often times the first and second hero work fine. second goes in and kills off
some important parts of the guard... like the gryphon / phoeni/ archmages
to allow the primary hero to barely clear it.

high level scout is an excellent second hero for this reason. you could even send
him in alone with 2 footmen on the cheap... potshots from the corner till you are killed.