Is this game far too easy?

I won my first game ever on ridiculous against all ridiculous AIs.  As a strategy game aficianado, its frankly impossible to find a way to play that doesn't break the game without purposefully ignoring cost/effect.   Which is what a strategy game is about.

Try winning a game (any way) without researching anything in the "warfare" tree.

THIS! I feel like this game seriously ignores cost and effect. There is barely any choices to be made come building, and those there are are pretty easy(oh this city makes more gildar, k put the 50% gildar boost there). And combat is so broken and poor it hardly matters what units you bring compared to theirs.

 

See: "without purposefully ignoring cost/effect.   Which is what a strategy game is about."  But, to let you know, that is imminently possible.  In my second game the only conventional troops I had were guarding my towns while my summoned VMs and Sarog blew everyone away in the first turn of combat.

It is ridiculously easy. It is absolutely possible to win against all ridiculous AIs in under 100 turns without touching the warfare tree at all. All you need is exploration for the endless gold and treasures and magic item research under magic for ~20-40 movement worth of boots.

Even with 9 Ridiculous AIs I barely need to beyond 100 turns before half of them are dead and the rest of the game will be a dull mop up job of the remaining AIs, so I stop. In fact, it's just map size that determines how long it takes, due to having to walk, not AI skill.

I know Stardock wanted the game mechanics to be simple, but I think they went too far. It just makes it so much easier for a human to figure out the path to maximising their output. It's always pretty clear what you should be building or researching. Unlike say Civ or a Paradox game, where you can play for years and it's still only intuition and experience that guide your actions.

Sure the AI can be fixed to figure out the best path too. Then the problem becomes the fact that the game doesn't offer enough to do as a builder. You have about 10% of the depth of a typical 4x game. City building is minimal, adventuring is the same old "kill monsters, fedex goodies somewhere for reward". There simply isn't enough going on to tax a human mind.

Mind you, I expect Stardock have ideas up their sleeve to slowly add more gameplay depth, so I'm leaving the game be for now and see what they come up with over time.

 

This. And in strategy games, sometimes you have to change your strategy based off what the enemy is doing. You don't need to do that in Elemental ever.

 

I disagree with your last sentence though. I am going to hound them. Personally,  I'd really like a dev to respond to this thread.

You're nuts. I keep getting my ass kicked, no matter what I do. I've finally gotten to a point where I've at least gotten a decent game going, but there are still times when my entire force gets obliterated in a single battle. Crazy stuff. I don't know how it's so easy for you. What settings are you using (I mean, what "race", attributes, etc.)?

Agreed.  I've been saying since release here and in IRC that a simplistic two-stat system with such gigantic random die roll range (1-300) with uniform probability distribution is a system that renders strategic play impossible.

They are probably going the easy route with adventurer trait and organized trait, probably playing as "men" race to get the traveling boots, letting them move 4 squares a turn with their whole army. That mix of traits makes the game really rather easy as the mobility is kinda op, since you start out moving 2x as far as the AI sov's. Now mind you I am not having a hard time with my games really, and I am using a stock nation and stock sov combo. Which reminds me I think the movement techs are broken. I trained them up but either they only work in tactical or not at all...

Yea ... I just feel that most features are too simple or too primitive at this point. Especially with combat (and apparantly Hairrorist agrees).

 

 

Honestly I'd rather have the "traits" (like adventurer, Warrior, Thief, Warlord) be actual "classes" ... but for that to have ANY meaning at all, I feel that combat should be a bit more complex. (like having a bell-curve/ Gaussian, or separating attack/defense and damage).

 

Honestly I feel the more "combat stats" the better (that perhaps automatically increase at each level up, at different rates depending on Champion and their class). Like an agility score which can increase your chance of randomly dodging an attack, or of randomly having an attack/counterattack cost less action points (leading to multiple strikes). Or having an accuracy score that affects only attack and not damage. Or having a power score that effects only damage and not attack, or having a crit score which effects your chance of getting a "critical hit" (or a skewed Gaussian even). However, if its a skewed Gaussian then that could probably be its own stat (maybe tacked onto accuracy, or perhaps be called Focus), with a crit score itself merely give a chance for a 1.5x damage, or a 2x damage ... with no effect on attack rating, just a chance for extra damage.

also perhaps a luck stat that slightly effects crit rating, agility, and accuracy ... and perhaps Focus as well.

 

Also, maybe constitution points can get more powerful as your champ levels up. Like at level 1 each Con point gives 1 + 1/5 HP. At level 2 each pt gives 1 + 2/5 HP. at level 5 each gives 1 + 1 HP. At level 10 each gives 1 + 2 HP. So a 10 Constitution guy at level 1 gets 12 HP, while that same guy at level 10 (still with only 10 constitution) gets 30 HP. Of course, if you wanted HP to scale faster, you could increase the rate at which HP gets stronger. Like say 1 + X/3 HP, so that the HP roughly increases 100% every 3 turns instead of every 5 turns. And that's just the simplest idea I could think of (well, at least the HP stuff)

If all of these changes were made (accuracy, agility, crit rating, focus, and luck increasing at each level up, at rates dependent on class ... as well as HP scaling based on level) then I think Champions could be made much more interesting.

I must suck, because I am finding the game challenging enough...and I am playing on Beginner...LOL. But then again, I like to turtle my way.

This is on ridiculous world and maximum ridiculous AI players.  I'm not bragging, I'm not even particularly good at a lot of strategy games.

No, I don't use the maximum movement speed cheese.  I do take organized, because bang for buck it is the best trait.  In fact, I don't really min/max my sovereign other than taking organized.  With the outrageous accessibilty and low cost of teleport create a dynamic where one stack is able to defend an infinitely large, sprawling, and thinly spread empire.  I play as a caster primarily, which is like severing a finger in this game.  The problem is that in order to not completely curbstomp everyone in the first 100 turns, I have to avoid using optimal strategies.

 

Magic tree : Summons

Diplomacy tree : Darklings / Ogres ... etc. etc. etc.

Magic tree : Magic weapons

I thought ridiculous was the easiest level. Certainly easier than normal in my experience.

anybody who has played any TBS game will find this way to easy.

the people who say its difficult, are probably playing their first TBS game.

i liked the difficulty in CIV 4.

the higher levels are insanely difficult in civ 4.

Go down the warfare tree until you get squads and the big maces (the ones over 20 attack). Crank out a bunch of squads with those. You win.

I did as you said and had a bit of fun playing again. Thank you!

indeed the game is very easy, i try to play "dumb" sometimes (not researching stuff, playing only with few cities and all that) but i manage to beat the ais with no sweat

You don't even need magic weapons or Darkling/Ogres...you just need summons and a couple of casters that can summon and you have an army that can stomp anything

Hey all,

As I said in my thread about tips for challenging games:

 

https://forums.elementalgame.com/394307

 

I'm under the impression that cranking everything to max, DOES NOT ensure the most challenging game. To not go into detail what I said in my thread, the main issues of concern with playing with MAX # of opponents and Map Size. From what I read, and observed, the AI needs a bit of time to build himself up. So if you have too many enemies, they will not have time to expand adn will just start attacking each other.

I'm also suspicious of the effects of setting the world difficulty to Ridiculous. Inadvertently, I believe that this difficulty will affect the AI in a negative way. Having less ressources and more/stronger monsters won't help the AI one bit.

Anyways, feel free to look up my thread and give any advice or observations you've had with fiddling with difficulty settings.

Cheers,

v.

 

Did none of this come up in the beta?

 

And here's a related question: Can the AI win the game (if there are no human players). As in Civ, the AI will try and win. I've been beaten in the space race on Prince level (where the AI gets small bonuses). If you play passively, will the AI ever get into a position where it can win? Or is it like the Total War AI, which just seems to shunt units around more or less randomly.

 

 

I wasn't part of the beta, so I can't confirm this. But after doing multiple searches on teh forums, I would end up with threads about the beta. And some slighty 'outdated' skill and talent lists, or even buildings.

A LOT of stuff has been amputated from what I was able to see, traits, buildings, Racial/Faction features.

So maybe amputating all that stuff after the last Beta, would inadvertently cause issues with the AI in the 'actual' release.

And one of the things I found is that there seemed to be Faction and Terrain specific buildings. Something I wrote a suggestion thread about...

Patience is a virtue, but... but... yeah.

Hasn't been too easy for me, but it's entirely possible that I just suck at strategy games.

It is, but releasing a Strategy game with a serious lack of Strategy is not good.