Big is beautiful

from Elemental Forums

I want to start by saying I absolutely love Fallen Enchantress (and Legendary Heroes).

It feels like Legendary Heroes is really encouraging "small." I know we got a "huge" map, but some of the mechanics seem to encourage us to stay small.

Map:

On the huge map, it seems like habitable places are farther apart, to encourage fewer cities? If this is a correct observation, then I would like to comment that I like large empires, and I thought a larger map would enable that. But I'm actually ending up with fewer cities by the "mopping up" phase. Fewer cities is not a larger empire! I just end up with more travel time.

A penalty on number of cities is like punishing success. 

Unrest:

The unrest mechanic really, really bites hard if you like a lot of cities. Or if you have a moderate amount but want to pursue a conquest victory. Are we supposed to raze the enemy instead of incorporating them? It really hits hard on "conquer and assimilate" strategies. 

Perhaps it could scale differently? Like .25 per city on tiny, .5 on medium, .75 on large, and 1 on huge? If you are going to pursue this idea of punishing large numbers of cities, could we get more unrest lowering buildings and skills? Or lower base unrest on taxes? 

Battlefields:

The battlefields have all gotten smaller. Which perhaps people like, but the large battlefields also allowed time to set up. When you incorporate the new "swarm" mechanic, the smaller battlefields actually punish a larger force by bottlenecking units away from being able to fight. 

This would be ok if you could see which battlefield you were going to be fighting on before committing to a battle. It's certainly a legit tactic. But since you don't get to see it ahead of time, it takes that decision away (do I want to fight so badly I am willing to accept the tactical penalty).

Leveling:

Seems a lot slower. Can't get to the fancy new skills at the end. Bleh. And if you incorporate the new champions, which it seems we would want to, then leveling is soooooo sloooooooow. Here's one place where I end up with more champions than I really use. I like ending up with a powerful sovereign, but I've finished my last two games with my sovereign at or below sixteenth level even when I kept champions on their own. Not big.

 

I do love the skill tree system, the new champion / fame system, the new food/growth system, the graphic improvements, the new monsters, events, and loot, and the path display (when it works). Lots of terrific stuff in this beta. Really great work. I'm still loving playing. :-)

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Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

On the huge map, it seems like habitable places are farther apart, to encourage fewer cities?

Nope...the stamps are the same.

Or lower base unrest on taxes?

Unrest is primarily based on taxes.

The battlefields have all gotten smaller.

I've seen a lot of 'medium' sized battlefields, which feel much better to me than either the larger or smaller ones.

Seems a lot slower. Can't get to the fancy new skills at the end. Bleh.

I agree they need to go more epic on the skills.  These are very meh at the moment.

 

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

Unrest is also based on number of cities. Additional 2% per city, and in addition to the unrest from taxes, quickly becomes crushing.

Ashes of the Singularity II
Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

Now that I think of it, it should be easy for math people to figure out the number of cities at which, given a tax rate, it no longer makes sense to capture or settle another city. Hmm. Perhaps also given that the unrest buildings have been built, for a given level of technology... Mmmm maybe need a spreadsheet. :-)

i guess my point is that I don't like a mechanism that dis-incents me from capturing or settling cities. Given a new mechanism that does this, I would like a new way to offset it as well.

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

Might I suggest making fortresses if you are planning to conquor everything in sight? Not for the production or the unit bonuses, but for the building at level 4 that gives -10% unrest in all cities, and the one at level 5 that gives -30% unrest in all cities. I like that the unrest penalty means that building a few fortresses early on actually becomes a reasonable strategy instead of a waste of the city that could have been a town or a conclave (after that first fortress)

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting MGoods, reply 4

Might I suggest making fortresses if you are planning to conquor everything in sight? Not for the production or the unit bonuses, but for the building at level 4 that gives -10% unrest in all cities, and the one at level 5 that gives -30% unrest in all cities. I like that the unrest penalty means that building a few fortresses early on actually becomes a reasonable strategy instead of a waste of the city that could have been a town or a conclave (after that first fortress)

This, if you only consider the lvl 4 -10% prison building then you can build 4 towns/conclaves per fortress with the lvl 5 -30% building that's 19 towns/conclaves per fortress.  As for barren areas between cities you can use that natures gift world spell to allow you to settle in those areas, just remember it doesn't work on deserts :S

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting MGoods, reply 4

Might I suggest making fortresses if you are planning to conquor everything in sight? Not for the production or the unit bonuses, but for the building at level 4 that gives -10% unrest in all cities, and the one at level 5 that gives -30% unrest in all cities. I like that the unrest penalty means that building a few fortresses early on actually becomes a reasonable strategy instead of a waste of the city that could have been a town or a conclave (after that first fortress)

 

That's precisely what I was thinking as well. Current system is actually great as you can indeed support large empire by building prisons in fortresses. However, you have to expand slowly and allow your cities (fortresses) to grow or you will get into unrest up to your neck. I like this system.

If not for this, I'd build only one fortress to produce units there and all other towns would be focused on money/research. This way I actually NEED to make more fortresses and it works great IMHO.