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AI: Closing the deal

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AI: Closing the deal

from JoeUser Forums

You’ve won.

Or

You’ve lost.

But the game won’t end.

The ultimate outcome is known. The rest is just theater.

Boring theater at that.

This is the ultimate fate of so many 4X games.  You know you’re going to win (or lose) eventually but you still feel like you have to go through the motions of slogging it out. 

For Beta 2, the AI will just surrender when it’s hopeless.  But humans have the choice to fight on.  Because there’s always hope.

In the game I’m playing right now, the AI has me down to my last city.  But he can’t take that city.

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They have me surrounded. But they can’t take the city.  I am not sure they can.

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And I can’t take them.

I’m down to my last city.

They’ve destroyed all my outposts. My shards are gone. My metal is gone.  I have just this one city.

Different Ideas

Laying siege is how this sort of thing would historically work.  Have the player lay siege and it’ll slowly wear me down.  This fails because my army in the city is easily powerful enough to wipe out any individual army that would try to lay siege. Plus, it’s a pretty significant game mechanics to add, test, and balance this late in the game.

The idea I’m playing with tonight involves magic.  If you can’t take the city by force, make it miserable to live there through magic until the city finally destroys itself if not countered (which I wouldn’t be able to since I have no mana).

147,848 views 60 replies
Reply #51 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting TorinReborn, reply 17
I loved how in AoW you could attack cities with more then one stack at the same time. But it probabaly is too late to add something like this to FE. Maybe give an attacking army some bonus on attack and hp/armor based on power of allied stacks within striking distance of enemy city? Or some raze ability that can only be used close to enemy city that robs that city of gold and maybe mana. Gold would cause you to lose troops as you cannot support them and mana would weaken the heroes as once you battle they couldn't cast spells. Birth of the Federation had great ways to finish of turtling planets. You could raid their trade lines with fast ships and steal a lot of money or use spies and sabotage to destroy defensive structures that prevented orbital bombardment.

 

It was not just cities you could attack with multipule stacks, You could have large battles with stacks that you adjcent to the stack being attacked.  Much better than the only one stack can attack one stack that we have here. 

I would really like to see that in FE

Reply #52 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting Frogboy, reply 26
I'm looking for ways that are satisfying to the player.

Obviously the AI will eventually just cast the spell of making and win.  But that could be hundreds of turns.

You have a well defended city with very powerful champions in that one city it can be really hard to conquer it conventionally. 

So I am thinking of spells that increase unrest or lower defenses (and of course spells that decrease unrest and increase defenses).  If player A controls the map, then player B will eventually get outspent.

The simple and I think best answer would be to open the game to multipule stack attacks as mentioned before.  AOW:SM does not have the issue discussed in this thread because of that.  The AI would send several stacks to take the city.  And this should not be limited to the city.

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Reply #53 from Elemental Forums Top

How about getting a bonus on attack and defense if you have friendly stack in adjacent cells?

 

I still dont quite understand why the AI cannot make multiple stacks that attack the same round one after another. Wouldnt that be enough to slap the frog into oblivion.

Reply #54 from Elemental Forums Top

Not if anyone in the city has a Troll Charm (Tactical Health Regeneration). Defenders can be strong enough to fend off hordes of enemies. And then they heal the next turn. Plus they level after each battle. Looking through the catapult xml I saw a siege function in addition to ranged attack. Could this be something that is already being implemented? Any beta testers feel like testing this out?

Reply #55 from Elemental Forums Top

Why don't they just drop a volcano on your arss?

Reply #56 from Elemental Forums Top

 

You could use diplomatic capital to buy enemy soldiers allegiances (not the sovereign, he goes down with the ship). I mean there has to be another way of losing or winning other than brute force. There should also be a cap on how many cities you can have and it should also be tied to diplomatic capital. Surely you’ve watched game of thrones?  You could force diplomacy by allowing each kingdom or empire a unique resource that the other needs in order to grow to full dominance. If you don’t find multiple way of winning or losing then the game is always going to be reduced to this scenario. Some of these ideas also curb the stacks of death that players create. You could have a system of control between champions and diplomacy. If a stack of champion’s becomes too powerful and you don’t have enough diplomacy then they go rouge and form a kingdom or empire of their own (or whatever). Part of being a great leader is having great influence not just control of all the resources. “Tactics” and “strategy” is not the same thing and right now there is too much tactics.                                 

Reply #57 from Elemental Forums Top

I don't think there should be a city limit based upon diplomatic capital ...

Reply #58 from Elemental Forums Top

Spell: Cursed Water (Cholera) - taints the city's water with a disease.

  • Type: Dark Magic Level 5, Strategic Spell
  • Effect: Reduces population of enemy city by 1 per turn until dispelled.
  • Duration: 10 turns
  • Cost: 250 MANA
  • Can be dispelled

This use of this powerful and costly magic (250 mana) slowly reduces the population of a target city by tainting its water supply with disease. Unchecked it can render a city inhabitable. If the population is reduced to zero the city is destroyed.

 

Reply #59 from Elemental Forums Top

I definitely think there should be some type of siege mechanic, be it a magical siege or a trebuchet/military siege.  Sieging was such a central mechanic to medieval warfare that I've always felt Elemental is off kilter for not incorporating a similar mechanic into its gameplay.  It just seems like a glaring omission to me. 

The above described situation would seem to be a golden opportunity to address this. 

Reply #60 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting seanw3, reply 44
I know. I just had nothing for Civilization besides that. There is currently only the tech victory option in Civilization. Maybe they would use a diplomacy tech to force a peace treaty without the player's consent. The treaty would give the city over to the AI and kick the Sov out. There is no indication that we are getting any new siege mechanics so I am trying to think inside the box. 
That could be an option, I'd like to see more complicated peace circumstances than "everyone keep what you've got".

But it could just as well be the case that a Civilization-based faction would make peace and let the one-city faction fade into irrelevance.