[0.91]Lessons from Gilden

from Elemental Forums

A playthrough of a Large map as Gilden with standard number of players and a few irrefutable truths.

Started the game with a neaby 4/4 tile on a river and forest with metal. The river flowed far enough that I thought I might be able to settle a second city on it. So I sent my Sov in that direction found a wooden shield cast stoneskin on myself and cleared out the monsters.

Screenshots from a couple fights:

Killed a troll, rock spiderling, darkling warrior, 2 bandits and a banished Ogre with lv 1 Markin with a wooden shield, suffered a total of 5 hitpoint dmg.

After my workshop was done in my capital I built a pioneer and could indeed build a second city on the same river, 3/4 with woods and a earth shard.

The river stops and that direction is blocked by bone ogres and hoarder spiders so I go north and run into Altair, we race for loot in that area.

I quickly build pioneers from my capital and grab all the land in that direction, my cities all pretty much 3/4 on a river with woods.

About 200 turns into the game now I have met Tarth in the south and have have economic treaties with them and Altair

Built 5 cities have a lv 11 Hero

He is my only champion, in fact he is my only military unit. In this game and the last 3 ive played I never bothered to build troops of any kind. Probably because my Sov can kill 90% on monsters in the game and they dont attack cities anyway. Also doesn't help that leather armor makes you immune to half the monsters in the game and the default troops look like this:

Yes a whole 6 initiative on my elite troops. This is why per item initiative penalties are a bad idea, especially when combined with a vestigal encumbrance system.

At this point my hero was just running around soloing bone ogres and obsidian golems, apparantly so strong that even when i ran into Resolen they didn't wanna fight.

Stopped playing here and decided to write a post about the most obvious flaws in gameplay. These points are backed up by screenshots.

 

1a) Monsters are so weak and spawn so rarely that troops are unecessary, they are Sov food.

1b)Kingdom factions seem too friendly. Even though my neighbours were Kingdom they should have forced me to build some troops. Though even when empires like yithril attack me I can fight them off with just my Sov

2) Start location variance is huge, most start locations are no where near this awesome. 

3)Light plate is not light and per item inititiative penalties are the devil, why even have an encumbrance system. Wrote a post on this for .86, still at least as valid https://forums.elementalgame.com/418569

4)Gilden did not play any differently than before their makeover, hammers are a negligible bonus, especially when combined with no encumbrance bonus and heavier armor.

7,604 views 2 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

I find the beginning of the game really boring because monsters can be soloed with your sovereign and pioneer spam.  I think pioneers should require a level 2 city so you can't land grab off the very beginning of the game.

Right now the start is boring and the whole fighting the world thing never happens. You should be fighting to survive in your capital from rampaging monsters for the first few turns.

The difference between start locations and all possible city locations needs to be decreased. It is too random, different locations should be different not superior or inferior.

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top


1a) Monsters are so weak and spawn so rarely that troops are unecessary, they are Sov food.

 

Not to argue this point, but I think it depends on your nation.  My Pariden sovereign does about 6 points of melee damage at level 10--and while she has good power for spell damage, mana is a resource that has to be carefully husbanded in a game where it's sparse or moderate.  She's spelled up a level 8 champion who does about 20 points of damage with crushing blow, but it's important to get in a few units and haste them all against some of the brutes.  So for Pariden at the moment, the balance seems good.  For a long game with a few opponents, she's viable on a strategy of grabbing all the shards she can eat, and carefully managing a large research-oriented civ based on spells.  That's only one way to play, but I'd hate to see it go by the board.

 

I wonder if we couldn't get a second option that controls not the frequency of monster spawns, but their severity?

1b)Kingdom factions seem too friendly. Even though my neighbours were Kingdom they should have forced me to build some troops. Though even when empires like yithril attack me I can fight them off with just my Sov

 

Gilden has declared war on Tarth and myself when it got really good odds from a great location (and some excellent starting perks, per very low difficulty level)--this, despite having numerous pluses to our relationship.  Personally, just speaking for myself, I don't think this is out of whack: the kingdoms should be mutually supportive.  I would expect to have a much shorter leash from empires when playing kingdoms and vice versa.  And that's been the case in the two games I've played where empires fielded players.

2) Start location variance is huge, most start locations are no where near this awesome.

 

Agreed, there's a lot of variety in quality, there.  I'm especially noting heavy hitter monsters roaming about at chokepoints relatively near my starting point in narrow, two-way valleys.

 

 

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