What do you think of STRATEGIC choices in FE so far?

from Elemental Forums

I like much of the game mechanics in FE - certainly a much better game than WoM already. But one area I think will need a lot of love is the 'strategic choices' offered by the game. By that, I mean the decisions you need to make when upgrading cities, recruiting troops, upgrading champions etc. Things such as:

  • city specialisation

Does it make much difference if you only build selected buildings to have specialist cities - or do you just build basically everything regardless of grain, materials or resources? I just basically build everything and I feel this aspect should be much more than it is.

  • one megalopolis vs many smaller cities

Are you rewarded adequately by playing the megalopolis game where you focus on a single large city? Or is it still best to city spam like in WoM. So far I'm finding I get much better rewards for spamming cities.

  • one troop type vs combined arms

Are the different troop types interesting enough to be valuable? Or do you only build one or two types? Are you seeing benefits of combining troops in armies or is it best just to use the biggest/strongest?

  • specialisation of champions

Are the different champion classes valuable strategically? Or do you just build one type? Do the level-up bonuses make you think about the character's role in your army or do you always pick a certain boost no matter the circumstances?

  • faction differentiation and different game styles

Are you finding that you play differently depending on which faction you are playing, or are you following the same strategy no matter the race or faction?

  • game strategies such as rushing or turtling

Does the game present opportunities for different gaming styles such as early game rushes of spearmen vs turtling in a protected city until you are fully developed? And everything in between.

  • resource opportunities

Do you find that the various resources around you change the way you play the game. For example, if you have access to iron do you rush to get iron armour and weapons in the tech tree?

  • game balance after conquering

Do you find the game interesting once you have conquered one or two other players, or are you finding you are then too far ahead? \

 

It would be really interesting to hear what other beta testers think of these sort of strategic game aspects. :) Are there other strategic choices not listed you feel are important? Do they work for you or should they be improved?

10,641 views 9 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

Next to none right now.

Until the AI is improved, it's extremely difficult to gauge how effective or ineffective any particular gameplan is because you're just not under pressure currently.

And they haven't nerfed hero stacks of doom enough, so it's still possible to win games with just a few heroes.

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top



city specialisation

Does it make much difference if you only build selected buildings to have specialist cities - or do you just build basically everything regardless of grain, materials or resources? I just basically build everything and I feel this aspect should be much more than it is.

 

yeah this is not working that good, i feel too much spam and randomness in here

3/10




one megalopolis vs many smaller cities

Are you rewarded adequately by playing the megalopolis game where you focus on a single large city? Or is it still best to city spam like in WoM. So far I'm finding I get much better rewards for spamming cities.

this isnt working at all

only reason preventing to build more cities is monsters too strong nearby

2/10

 


one troop type vs combined arms

Are the different troop types interesting enough to be valuable? Or do you only build one or two types? Are you seeing benefits of combining troops in armies or is it best just to use the biggest/strongest?

 

i confess i didnt really try that much but yeah, troops are basically cannon fodder to me

1/10


specialisation of champions

Are the different champion classes valuable strategically? Or do you just build one type? Do the level-up bonuses make you think about the character's role in your army or do you always pick a certain boost no matter the circumstances?

 

this is already working imo

i build mages surely when i find some good hero

also i build different kind of melee, mostly early cause late even the assassins like  are very hard to take down, so early game i usually have a tanky hero with a shield and full armored

i tried archers but they seems weak compared to mages are a range type (even though it depends on the game, without much mana income you cant spam spells as a mage so archer type can be a sobstitute for a early game ) 

anyway this is a good area imo, need few tweaks but working arlready

7/10




faction differentiation and different game styles

Are you finding that you play differently depending on which faction you are playing, or are you following the same strategy no matter the race or faction?

 

didnt really test that much, i play similarly but this is my fault mainly




game strategies such as rushing or turtling

Does the game present opportunities for different gaming styles such as early game rushes of spearmen vs turtling in a protected city until you are fully developed? And everything in between.

 

you cant really turtle cause no one is really putting that much pressure on you

its a game mechanic absent imo atm

1/10




resource opportunities


Do you find that the various resources around you change the way you play the game. For example, if you have access to iron do you rush to get iron armour and weapons in the tech tree?

 

yes i change a bit based on resources shards mainly since that decides how to specilize heroes

need a bit more into the city building and eventually troop

5/10




game balance after conquering


Do you find the game interesting once you have conquered one or two other players, or are you finding you are then too far ahead?

 

in general it seems not so boring but real games have another issue, usually the first player i defeat is also the strongest cause is the one attacking more and more powerful so i need to act to keep him quiet

so in general i dont think a few wins are so gamebreaking as in civ for example where after the first win its boring as hell cause you steamroll everything but need some tweak, maybe if A and B are at war C even if weaker should be able to take advantage of the situation either developing his army/cities/heroes or asking tributes or whatever

 

4/10

 

 

The Political Machine 2024
Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

Well thought out (and organized) post! Let's address each of these in turn:

City Specialization: Strategy currently is nonexistant. The increased build times make it a little harder to construct all buildings while producing an army but I basically just spam everything (or snake to resources) until I can't anymore. Gallows and Bakery are -always- constructed.

One vs Many Cities: It would be nice if one of the factions (magnar for example) benefited a great deal more from this, but I don't see this as an issue. Many strategy games encourage building sprawling empires and this just happens to be one of them.

One troop vs Combined Arms: Definately better to combine troop types. Even without interesting tactical maps, the zone of control you gain from melee units synergizes well with backrow archers/spellcasters. Once terrain barracades, and plot bonuses/hazards get introduced this will be even more apparent. Thumbs up here.

Specialization of Champions: This is much trickier to answer. While I like the variety of upgrades available I often do not feel I have much control over their ability selections. I do make a variety of champion types, but path of the assassin is very poor with the way critical hits work. And path of the governer is currently pointless. Hopefully assassin will get changed to be more ranged-weapon-centric (and make that form of champion combat viable) and the roles of champions as governers will be expanded.

Faction Differiention: Resoln plays differently because it introduces a new spell set, as for the others I haven't really experienced a notable difference.

Game Strategies: Stack all heroes together in the same army and kill everything. Every game.

Resource Opportunities: Other than spell shards, resources don't play a very big role with the way champions function. So basically, no, the optimal strategy doesn't change.

Game Balance After Conquering: Taking over cities is bugged right now and you recieve little from doing so, making the notion of conquest versus expansion a non-issue. The AI really isn't at a competitive stage right now without some serious cheating - I reserve my commentary for when frogboy says he lost on normal.

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

City Specialisation: Currently very bad. The "you generate X when you're not building something" improvements are the worst. They need to remove maintenance from all buildings (unless you can switch them off and on and even THEN only big ones) and nerf gildar gain, or allow you to assign cities to generate specific resources (research / gildar / population) when production goes off.

One Megalopolis vs Many Smaller Cities: Yep, it's all about the city spam. There needs to be rewards (questing / magical?) for focusing on a single city-state style game.

One Troop Type vs Combined Arms: I don't know, I've only played in 0.75 so far, but I can't imagine much has changed. Just use my sovereign and a few champions to slaughter armies in autoresolve.

Specialisation of Champions: Why the shit did anyone think randomized level ups were a good idea? Give me a stable talent tree for certain paths and allow me to dual-class or something and I'd be happy. See: Shogun 2: Total War.

Faction Differentiation and Different Game Styles: ARE there ANY differences?

Game Strategies Such as Rushing or Turtling: Rush rush rush rush. This is down to a non-implemented AI, though.

Resource Opportunities: Hah, no.

Game Balance After Conquering: It's a piece of cake after you conquer one player, unless you're playing on higher difficulties since then the enemy players are basically playing as nine+ players each.

Quoting CdrRogdan, reply 3
Specialization of Champions: This is much trickier to answer. While I like the variety of upgrades available I often do not feel I have much control over their ability selections. I do make a variety of champion types, but path of the assassin is very poor with the way critical hits work. And path of the governer is currently pointless. Hopefully assassin will get changed to be more ranged-weapon-centric (and make that form of champion combat viable) and the roles of champions as governers will be expanded.

Every single one of my starting sovereigns is equipped with that amazingly broken starting bow and even when I get weapons doing 30 damage a swing I don't replace it. I'm capable of kiting around entire armies (or just massive dragons) all by myself, cherrytapping away at them with it.

Nevermind getting one hit or two hit kills on every animal I can find, which lets you grind up far quicker.

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

My custom soveriegn uses that bow as well. but it's different when you can choose might at creation and funnel all the +damaging items to one character. It's considerably less viable with regular champions. Even so.. way of the warrior is considerably better as you can obtain finesse, brute and double attack. Way of assassin just boosts critical hit, which is unreliable.

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting CdrRogdan, reply 5
My custom soveriegn uses that bow as well. but it's different when you can choose might at creation and funnel all the +damaging items to one character. It's considerably less viable with regular champions. Even so.. way of the warrior is considerably better as you can obtain finesse, brute and double attack. Way of assassin just boosts accuracy (unneeded) and critical hit (unreliable).

Oh, yeah, assassin sucks. Just saying, the bows are retardedly strong.

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

Interesting replies. :)

I've tried a couple of games where I spread the champion specialisation and another where everyone was given 'Path of the Warrior'. The warriors were a much more effective army. I really feel the game needs to limit the number of champions within each stack.

Reply #8 from Elemental Forums Top


I feel that Umber is tough to play with. More expensive champions does not an easy game make.

Reply #9 from Elemental Forums Top

city specialisation
Not really there yet.  

one megalopolis vs many smaller cities
city spam is much more effective, the only exception is you might have to raze a few (mega)cities that you capture if you can't afford maintanance

one troop type vs combined arms
combined arms help a bit.  I'd say we're somewhere around a "rock, scissors, another rock" system right now :)  the system is a good base for getting this to a good place though

specialisation of champions
You need some spellcasters to make sure you can cast the earth and air spells which let you move around the map.  The level up perks are a neat system but need balancing (governor and assassin seem weak).  I think a small underlying design problem is that the "Path of... " perks are not mutually exclusive *and* they're the best perks, so I can't imagine a situation where you would pass up taking one.  

faction differentiation and different game styles
No i don't see it.  In fact the differentiation decreases as i play more games, because the AI keeps to use my strong (but homogeneous) designed units.  I think it would take some truly custom tech trees, buildings, or unit abilities perks for this to happen and it sounds like they already decided against that.  Part of it ties into next point ...

game strategies such as rushing or turtling
Seems like the only strategy is harvesting XP with a stack of doom (usually but not required to be a stack of champions) until it's strong enough to crush all before it.  You can choose to go on offense pretty much whenever you like within reason, there's not that much early military pressure applied by the AI.  Exploring the broken lands is kinda fun but I don't see that it's strategically preferable to razing your strongest rival  ... There are a couple things going here, one is balancing the strength of veteran vs fresh units.  another is the strategic AI.  Both seem to be improving rapidly. 

resource opportunities

Nah.  The linearness and timing in the tech progression is such that there's not a lot opportunity for strategic bee lining.  The metal techs are so cheap, if you don't have enough iron mines it you better just go find it.  What are you going to do, get crystals instead?  Crystal stuff is 500 turns in the future, and iron weapon tech is on that path anyway.

Likewise fertile ground is so rare that you're going to build a city whereever you can and you'll always build on the square with highest yield, resources play no role in decision

Do you find the game interesting once you have conquered one or two other players, or are you finding you are then too far ahead? \

It's not that you're neccessarily too far ahead, but for me it gets less interesting because the interface doesn't scale well for manage a big empire, micro'ing caravans and it takes too many clicks to go around to cities and queue stuff up.  more reliably having passive stuff for cities to do might help.  I don't care for the cIV popup window as the gold standard empire tool but it did at least require only one click to queue something up per city.  This game currently uses the SoSE (sins of a solar empire) style empire window ... i don't know if this is the right place to get into it, but i don't think that it's diplaying the right information or has the right tools for this game.  Example 1: I have two killer armies that i would like to monitor.  But the SoSE window buries them under "Units" along with like 28 caravans; So I have to keep that tree minimized normally otherwise I can't see anything including cites.  Example 2:  the SoSE tree shows me that the city is sleeping (but not whether it has any useful passive skill).  So let's say I want to queue something up I have to click city City Icon, Build, Blacksmith, Place the Blacksmith, Expand unit tree (or click minimap), Click unit, Minimize unit tree.  That's a lot of clicks.