👿Cursed Difficulty 👿

[fee-ona]

I wanna hear about all your cursed experiences, on any of the Two Crowns lands!

I'm still working on beating it myself so any tips are welcome. 👑

[teleshoes]

i played it on norselands. i actually lost my crown, while trying hard NOT to, for the first time in years because i underestimated the greed waves on island6 around day 60. (i personally always restart the game when i lose my crown)

i played it again and beat it without TOO much trouble, but it definitely took more careful planning and about 10 extra days spent building+rebuilding walls. i beat it on day 84.

i posted a write up of my schedule+strats (reposting here in case its relevant):
https://steamcommunity.com/app/701160/discussions/0/4827307257583322908/

i want to play base game again, without the OP tricks i use in norselands (bypassing small portals, beating entire retaliation waves with just my mount+power, etc), but sleipnir is so fast and convenient its positively addictive...

[Der Neue Gott]

Yes, my experience was very similar. The longer you haven't visited a country, the bigger the wave of greed attacks, right?

That can be a problem, of course.

That's why it's probably a good idea to think carefully about your next destination. And on top of that, how to invest your time most sensibly. After all, ships don't build themselves and are quite expensive.

Considering these circumstances, it might almost make sense to build a lighthouse. However, earlier after the destruction of the portals, the attack waves had become so strong that I decided against it. If the strength of the waves only increases with each passing day, instead of also scaling with the portals, lighthouses would be a sensible investment of time and money, making it possible to pay a relatively unproblematic inspection visit to the countries without having to constantly repair stranded ships.

That would be a relevant consideration at this difficulty level, wouldn't it?

By the way, there are people who are in a hurry with Two Crowns, have you seen that?
It's worth a look, because there are also videos:

https://www.speedrun.com/kingdom_two_crowns

But these times should actually also be sorted according to the new difficulty levels....

[BadgerSmaker]

New update with "Cursed" difficulty is a lot of fun!

I started a new single player Cursed campaign on the original biome and actually lost on Island 5, but mostly because I had portals spawned ridiculously close on both sides of my keep. I was using the bear to make money but lost my crown trying to defend against the second year spring blood moon.

In a co-op campaign also on original biome cursed difficulty was a lot easier, but did slow us down more than normal difficulty would have.

We blew up every portal and dock possible to see how difficult the retaliations waves can get, but the last few retaliation waves are however split in two, I assume to not lead to the slideshow performance we've seen in older updates when ridiculous amounts of greed were spawned. This makes them a lot easier to handle, especially when there are no armoured breeders at all on original biome.

I would suggest instead of splitting the waves, spawn armoured breeders and armoured floaters! Also, an option in co-op campaign for the game to be over if even 1 players crown is lost.

We went through the original biome islands in this order: 1,2,3,4,1,5,2,3

When moving to a new island, especially islands 4 or 5, we like to be really lame and wait for the day after a blood moon to get a night off from greed attacks after arriving, also to know that we have almost an entire season to build up without blood moons.

When arriving on island 4 I like to grab the bear in order to use him to make money by eating rabbit & deer, but he has been nerfed this update!!! He can now only hit 4 animals before losing all stamina and having to eat grass again. This doesn't seem to apply to greed so I'm not sure why this was done, seems very excessive. It slowed me down when farming up money but not by much, it's just irritating!

Once I have enough money using the bear to make a farm, I make a stables and switch to the lizard. Same deal when travelling to island 5.

We played Dead Lands last night and noticed that in comparison to the bear nerf, the Gamigin has actually had his stamina buffed! He no longer loses his stamina when attacking rabbit/deer??!! Why you do my bear boi like this??? He doesn't deserve such treatment! He's chonky but not that out of shape! :P

Our Dead Lands run is almost done, but it seems too easy for "Cursed" difficulty. We blew up every dock and portal but look to be finished at around day 88. I'm guessing the technical limitations prevent you from giving us a truly "cursed" difficulty as here we typically face 1 breeder and 1 armoured breeder only.

Going to try the other biomes next, thanks for a fun update!

[teleshoes]

der neue gott:
i, too, am unsure whether count of destroyed small portals affects retaliation wave size, or if its PURELY the day-counter, but it SEEMS like the portal-count matters.

as for days-away-from-land, that doesnt seem to matter. i think all that matters for regular waves and bloodmoons is total-day-count, and local-day-count on this island. if total-day-count is large, local-day-count doesnt matter, so if youve been away a long time, the greed waves will still be large.

either way, building lighthouses is definitely a bad idea. there just isnt time to spend destroying twice the number of small portals than necessary, even if it doesnt make the retaliations worse (which i think it does). if you have iron tech, never leave an island without bombing the cave, and then you can build the boat quickly without greed attacks.

the MOST important strategy in kingdom is speed. dawdling at any point seals your fate in the endgame.


badger: "second year spring blood moon."
i have literally never noticed that the blood moon is tied to the seasons. i know the seasons are roughly 15 days, but the bloodmoons just felt more random than that. this makes a lot of sense, thanks!

[Der Neue Gott]

"as for days-away-from-land, that doesnt seem to matter. i think all that matters for regular waves and bloodmoons is total-day-count, and local-day-count on this island. if total-day-count is large, local-day-count doesnt matter, so if youve been away a long time, the greed waves will still be large."

Well! Um...

So here's the thing:

If, for example, you clatter the islands like this: 1,2,3,4,5 and then return to the first island, you will be confronted with a huge greed wave on the first night. Have you noticed that?

But if you go back to the first island right after you've been on the second, then it's not so big. After the big wave, the wave size returns to normal.

I really only meant the welcome wave, the other things you said were of course all correct. But you must have noticed that the first wave when you return to an old island is particularly strong if you haven't been there for a long time. Of course, the waves get worse and worse with each passing day, but that's not what I mean.

"i have literally never noticed that the blood moon is tied to the seasons. "

It is! Soon after the winter blood moon, spring comes back. Maybe 1 or 2 days, then the bunnies will hop again.

[teleshoes]

Originally posted by Der Neue Gott:

If, for example, you clatter the islands like this: 1,2,3,4,5 and then return to the first island, you will be confronted with a huge greed wave on the first night. Have you noticed that?

yes, that is because the GLOBAL day count (in the pause menu) is high. it is not because youve been away for a long time (at least, im pretty sure about this)

the difference is, if you pop back to island 1 every few days, it does NOT seem to make it better, in any way (when you finally go back after island 5)

[Monomugu]

I did a solo Norse kingdom run. I went 1-2-1-3-4-5-4-3-2-1-6 and was on final island day 75 or so. Wasted a whole season rebuilding in the first island because I failed to bring the bomb thrice to the fall cliff (underestimating the distance to reach the cliff).
The wave scalling kinda forces you to rush through the islands. Was at island 2 the 4th day, and at island 3 the 16th day (could be 15 or 14 if optimized). I ended the game at 125th day or so because I was city building in the final island. I could end it the 85th day tbh. I was playing mostly with the cat chariot (the ability to recover stamina everywhere is the best thing, even though gryphin is better in the vanilla setting) and end up playing with the wolf at the final island. I believe it's possible to clear all islands excerpt for the final one prior first mid winter.

I guess the vanilla kingdom two crowns would be much easier. At the end, cursed difficulty doesn't change much if you rush through. It may be delay for one day or two the schedule since you have to build more archers and not only getting farmers when arriving on a new island. It may only delay you big time you do a big mistake, and even then, the difficulty is still permissive enough. The only deciding factor is the layout of the first island (which you can reload), and with a good start, you are always so much above the curve you don't need much defenses to plow through the game.

[De.Facto]

Still too easy in the early game. We just started Dead Lands, nothing really happened or changed in the difficulty, at least within 1st or 2nd winter - which is not nice. It should be really CURSED within the first, second, third day and so on. It is still easy, if the greed's hitpoints doesn't change at all. Simple greedlings should have double amount of hitpoints in the early game, for example.

Originally posted by Monomugu:

At the end, cursed difficulty doesn't change much if you rush through. It may be delay for one day or two the schedule

This.. if it diesn't change much, please adjust CURSED as it should be, to be difficult even in the early game.

The mistake you make in Dev Team is in Norse Lands and in Dead Lands - you don't include the character powers. When the character and his powers come into play, it becomes very easy. Why don't you see that?

At least Norselands was a bit challenging at least, during the third winter we just changed islands and decided to build up a new base with just a few archers and troups.

The Greed were very close to taking the two crowns from us. But we had fully developed towers next to our main house plus archer upgrade (monument) and then played with them, getting the crown back again and again, although the crabs and the Breeder cost us quite a bit in gold and nerves.

But seriously, if you're going to offer Cursed as a difficulty, mean it. Do it, implement it. If players whine, let them play peaceful or normal. They are not forced to choose this difficulty.

[teleshoes]

IMO, the problem is not that cursed difficulty is too light, its that coop is ridiculously easy, and there isnt much that can be done about it without drastically altering game mechanics.

i would love for coop to somehow be challenging, but increasing greed count wont do it, and anything else i can think of would need huge rebalancing and would be really un-fun.

i agree that cursed could be a bit heavier, but it was GREAT to experience that deep sense of regret for my tragic mistake for the first time in years.

[De.Facto]

Originally posted by teleshoes:

IMO, the problem is not that cursed difficulty is too light, its that coop is ridiculously easy, and there isnt much that can be done about it without drastically altering game mechanics.

i would love for coop to somehow be challenging, but increasing greed count wont do it, and anything else i can think of would need huge rebalancing and would be really un-fun.

i agree that cursed could be a bit heavier, but it was GREAT to experience that deep sense of regret for my tragic mistake for the first time in years.

Simply additionally increase the hit points would already certainly be enough.

[teleshoes]

i dunno, i feel like the way that coop makes the game easier wouldnt be offset much by increasing greed count or defense. i guess it would help a little

[ZALGO]

Just finished playing through the classic campaign on Cursed. Found it pretty easy, but I have a ton of hours in this game and have optimized my gameplay to near perfection at this point. I didn't die once, so completed the whole campaign in one go.

The only thing that really surprised me was inside the caves they spawn way more baddies, so I ended up losing one of my bombs, but was able to recover pretty easily after that. Just required two fully upgraded knights to finish most caves and then it was smooth sailing.

Overall I think they need to increase the difficulty even more for Cursed. Yes it was more difficult, but I think it should be even more challenging if it's the very hardest difficulty.

Will try it on Norse Lands and the other campaigns to see if there's any difference.

[ZALGO]

Finished the Norse Lands campaign on Cursed. Definitely a lot harder than the original game because the animal spawns dry up so you're forced to build more farms. This just slows things down a lot. However your horse and item powers help a lot too, so overall it wasn't too bad.

Finished with zero deaths. It could definitely be harder, but it was a nice challenge.

[teleshoes]

ZALGO, as far as ive seen and heard, there is no change to squirrel/deer spawn rate in cursed. only change is amount of greed.

EDIT: if you meant norselands vs normal game, they are both also the same. both are seasonal, and 'dry up' completely in winter

[ZALGO]

Originally posted by teleshoes:

ZALGO, as far as ive seen and heard, there is no change to squirrel/deer spawn rate in cursed. only change is amount of greed.

EDIT: if you meant norselands vs normal game, they are both also the same. both are seasonal, and 'dry up' completely in winter

Yeah I was referring to Norse Lands vs. the normal campaign. I'm sure there's a difference in Norse Lands, the grassland animals just stop spawning, and not during winter. Might be some sort of bug that doesn't happen always, but it seems to happen more often than not.