with regards to late game slow down - yes, this is a serious burden on the player, and a disincentive to invest your time in the game (although i might add the game leading up to the crawl is always an enjoyable experience)... the research trees never cease to amaze me with their depth!

as far as mods vs. caravans, i think that the boundaries of your cities influence should lower the spawn rate of random mobs (at a minumum), and potentially keep mobs at bay entirely (a researchable option - Soverign Domain perhaps?)... failing that, and as others have mentioned, allowing a detachment of troops to serve as an escort would help alleviate some of the pain...

overall though, I find EWoM to be a hugely satisfying game...

I think the "slowdown" issue is something that they're working on though. That's more optimizational than it is functional, if that makes sense, at least it appears to be. Civ3 had that problem as well. They never fully ironed it out, but they definitely improved it by leaps and bounds as time went on. I remember early Civ3 getting to the modern age on a huge map. Click turn... go take a week's vacation.

Agreed when I get to turn around 600sh the game really become really unplayable! and it does not matter what map size I use.

Just FYI, what happens is that the mobs/ monsters move from out side of controlled territory into my territory to kill the caravans.  Usually when it is a square or two inside my territory before I see it.

I have to agree.  I had to stop playing at turn 152 or so.  It did feel like a barrier was hit somewhere around turn 140 or so.  I think that is when my level 2 cities started hitting level 3.

Hey guys,

As we fix things internally, can you send some nice, huge, late-game saves over to [email protected] and [email protected]?  Besides our personal test-cases, we'd like to make sure we're testing against some external late game crawlers as well.

Thanks!

Boogie, I'll send you mine when I get back home. I've got a perfect one - large map, over 500 turns in.

IMHO...  That's a Feature... Example one- US History - Oregon Trail era - US army had to begin a series of outposts and patrols as Indian or Native Americans begin to raid Wagon Trains heading west.

Example two- Pirates off the Coast of Somalia require constant international escort or patrols from warships.

This is a part of the game that I have choices in how to deal with and I am fine with that!

At present im at turn 371 and the end turn button seems to no longer work nor the hotkey, the game will not progress even with save/restore.  Otherwise it works fine, but w/o being able to advance a turn I have no more choices and this instance of the game is now completely unplayable.  Guess no more large random maps...for now.

I do not like being a part of beta's for the reason of buggy games... I prefer to purchase a operational game and enjoy it and I have been enjoy the part that do work in Elemental like having 2-3 elementals in every army stack, but this end game is beta quality.

I remain hopeful that SD will deliver a Sept patch to improve things... Seeing is believing though! 

i dont mind that my caravans get attacked, as long as i have the option of protecting them in some capacity... if we cant attach a group of soldiers to the caravan, how about letting us research for Fortified Caravan (buff the armor/attack ratings) or Efficient Transport (increase the movement rating)...

Or better yet, how about letting us move a unit onto the tiny-caravan icon and have it actually form a group with the Caravan instead of just stand in the same tile?

Boogie, Sent. 

I am willing to collaborate to help enable you fellas to finish off this game of fantastic potential, it's addictive as illegal drugs but has a similar CRASH as drugs too

Kind regards,

Gene

This Quote was the reply I was responding to previously...sorry I hit the wrong Quote button...

What about a tech that lets you make caravans that monsters won't attack. "Armed Escorts" or some such that wards off the monsters?

Caravans are *supposed* to be attackable by other players, but it could get annoying if you've got a never ending stream of monsters attacking instead.

I agree, it is a feature.  Most of the caravan routes I keep around are those around my core cities where monsters rarely tread.  I have lost a few in outlaying territories though, simply because my sphere of influence there was small.  I've only had a few instances where a bandit party will delve deep into my territory and bee-line for the road, which actually makes perfect sense from the point of view of a bandit.  That same group would often appear to retreat when I moved an army nearby.

Also, strange that you should mention turn 371.  My last game I hit turn 371 and the end turn button grayed out.  I checked for idle units, moved a few around in case they were getting stuck and disbanded all my auto-exploring ships, but nothing seemed to matter.  I reloaded a few previous saves and did things differently and while I might get a little farther in the end result was the same.  Sometimes if I close the game and then reload I can play for a turn or two more before it grays out.  I've played three large map games (beyond turn 500) and never saw anything like that, but I sure hit a brick wall with that map.  

Maybe it's different between Empire and Kingdom, but you can also just research up the spell level chain and eventually you're able to research something like "Greater Raising" (not sure on the title) that lets you raise a mountain (not a hill). 10 mana/cast.

Also, some "repel" towers may be helpful. Basically, one would have to build them alone the caravan roads if outside sphere of influence. But who would build them? Pioneers? Or separate class - builders (separate item to make builders in unit design)

Alternatively or in addition, the road itself may repel monsters with some width (one may need to build improvement on the road to do that)

Also, currently pathfanding for units is not very good, it does not use cities as a shortcut, does not use roads effectively.

I also think that road should have better benefits in terms of movement. Better benefits + better path-finding = much less micromanagement of units.

It is not exactly late game, I would say it is mid game (turn about 150) but can you check this: https://forums.elementalgame.com/394207/#2746712?

The slow performance and inability to end turn may be related.

Good points made here!

Another problem exacerbating the campaign slowdown issue, or perhaps accelerating the tediousness, is the change from the beta release where new cities are built with no up front cost.  In the beta, each successive new city cost more money.  I think it was something like 100 for the first, 200 for the second, 300 for the third, and so on. But having removed that element encourages/forces the player to continue grabbing up land and creating cities as often as possible.  The end result being city after city to manage, added overhead to the CPU and early frustration at all the micromanagement along with the computer slowdown.

Discussion of caravan issues aside, fixing the full on land rush issue would be good way to mitigate the tedium that quickly follows the early stages of the game. 

Heya

I'm inclined to think that would exacerbate the uncontrolled lands spawning mass irritation though, which same is not just for caravans given that they will also attack settlements... 

I think I would prefer that creatures spawned from locations that could be attacked to "clear" the lands of such randoms, with increased tech generating more spawn locations rather than just increasing spawn types and difficulty.

Penalising city spam for players and especially AI would help a lot I think. It's the sheer number of cities to manage and conquer that takes a lot of time without a lot of fun in the end game. For the most part the food mechanic takes care of that and makes players trade off between city level and number of settlements - just don't let the AI cheat on it! Most of my growth always comes from capturing endless settlements the AI has built with disregard to food limitstions

Presumably fewer settlements and therefore units would improve game performance somewhat?

I am inclinded to completly agree. The whole monster problem gets out of control in the late game. I am in a game now around turn 200 and there are level 6 monster armies spawning with combat numbers over 550! Then you tack on the mobs special abilities and it gets out of control. Why does a mob with a 60 or better attack need a special skill that lets it hit for twice its damage at range? Or why does a similar mob also with over 60 attack need the ability to teleport to any tile on the combat map? Sovreign = dead in turn 1. All the A.I. has to do it select him as a target.

I like the idea proposed of spawning points that can be tackled to eliminate the long term threats, rather than just randomly spawn mobs. Much better idea. Also the combat tree is the only way to tackle the monster problem. I suppose you could use the adventure tech line, but I dont think you would have any easier time.

One way to control the monster spawn area, would be to create the previously proposed outposts but have them spawn influance. Thus you could expand your territory without building more cites. I would suggest allowing healing of units in those outposts as well.

Ofcourse income from resource sites will have to be increased to compinsate for less cities contribituing to said income. Maybe by one tick or two, so things dont get out of control.

What about designating "wilderness" areas that cannot be settled and where the "deer and the buffalo roam"...and all other sorts of critters.  Such an approach would also create boundaries for "urban sprawl" and keep the number of cities somewhat in check. 

I will send my save along as well but they say a picture is worth a thousand words..

Maybe there should be a 'no monsters' option in game set-up. like 'no barbarians' in Civ IV.  IMO Elemental does need a lot more game set-up options...