1681

Still haven’t had enough time with it, but it’s definitely a much-improved experience for me as well! Of course, the Endless Legend expansion is in beta now. How cool would that be of it upped the ante again?

Got a game of Star Ruler 2 slated with a friend today but after that I’m going to dive into AOW3 again. This past year or so has been the best time to be a strategy gamer for as long as I can recall.

1682

Offtopic, but what will bring the EL expansion?

1683

A question for people who like to play without settlers…

Do you do this because the AI isn’t good at founding cities, or do you do this to limit the number of cities you need to conquer to win the game (reduce the slog).

Do you increase the number of independent cities? (if you can)

If you turn off settlers to reduce the slog, do you find you still need to do that with the new victory conditions?

1684

I never use settlers. Historically, the AI has not been good about using them, although that may have changed. I don’t increase the number of independent cities. It is my experience that I enjoy relatively smaller maps more- it both reduces micromanagement and makes each city special, which I appreciate.

1685

I bumped the EL thread with the info, so as to avoid cluttering up this one.

1686

Agreed. There’s so much other stuff to do I never take the time to mess with settlers.

1687

I used to be totally against city founding, but now I play about half my games with it on. Makes it a hell of a lot easier to get those Race Governance perks, for one thing.

I don’t have a great sense of how the AI is doing with settlers in 1.5 – I’ve been playing with strong guards on, and aborted one map when the RMG just utterly screwed me in an un-fun way and am only now rolling into Gamblag’s territory in my second (Tigran) EL map.

I do think setting guards to strong screws the AI. I’ve full-cleared my quarter of the map, as in crushed all the super-lairs for all their absurd bonuses and fully colonized it, and have only run into scouts from my two neighbors.

Anyone else finding more of the high-level lairs in RMG maps in 1.5? I feel like there are a freaking billion Wizard Towers, Lost Cities, Ziggurats, etc now.

Merfolk are neat. Their T4 is nasty nasty, much cooler than the Glutton.

1688

I usually turn Settlers off and bump neutral cities up to Many and turn dwellings (giants, fey, dragons, etc.) to Few to keep them rare. I don’t believe the AI has any issues building settlers, and in fact there are times I wish I could build a city near a couple of sweet map locations, but generally not building my own cities keeps me focused on the other elements of the game. I appreciate it’s an option, though, and occasionally do take advantage when setting up a game.

Keep in mind that no settlers does NOT make them useless - you can still use a Settler to re-build a razed city, and you can still create builder units to pave roads, build watch towers (VERY useful), and make forts that will let you capture nodes and mines into your domain. Forts can be upgraded to stone forts, as well, increasing their domain generation. Also, if you DO have city building on and you use a settler to build a city on the same tile you have a fort, the city will start with the wall type (wood or stone) of the fort you built it on, which is cool.

1689

I think in my first game with Golden Realms installed I’ll keep settlers on and see if it is still too much of a slog to push for a win. I like the idea of finding good locations for settling. I can also see with appeal of keeping settlers turned off though too. It would actually have multiple benefits for me - reduce the slog for a conquest victory, reduce the number of production sources which would reduce the sizes of the armies (I prefer smaller, tighter battles), and increase the importance of fortresses for claiming other resources. Damn, it’s hard to choose what is best.

I’ve been playing with underground levels off because it just seemed like too much, Anyone usually play with them on? Since some races prefer undergound I’m kinda shafting them by turning them off.

If I create a settings template that people can copy and paste, would people be interested in sharing their favorite setups with what settings they like and a brief reason why they like it? It may give some people new ideas to try. Or would that not be worth the effort?

1690

I tend to play on big maps so I found them to be a bit much as well.

1691

Undergrounds are kinda fun for variety, though I tend to prefer the higher-camera views of the over world maps. 6 players on a Medium map with underground turned on makes for a good time, when the mood strikes.

1692

It’s interesting to see how much variety there is in the way people play the game. It really vindicates Triumph’s decision to allow so much diversity in map generation and game rules.

1693

Here is the settings template I mentioned. It would be great if people shared their favorite setups. If you don’t feel like it then don’t worry about it. It didn’t take very long to make the template. If you reply with quote it will retain the formatting (bold, underlines)

Basic
Difficulty: Squire, Knight, Lord, King, Emperor
Map Size: Small, Medium, Large, Extra Large
Map Type: Random, Land, Continents, Islands
Number of Players: 2-8
Surface: On / Off
Underground: On / Off

Game Flow
Starting Town: Random, None, Settler, Outpost, Village, Town, City, Metropolis
Starting Units: Random, Weak, Medium, Strong, Battle
Starting Distance: Random, Near, Average, Far
Roads: Random, None, Few, Average, Many
Roaming Units: Random, None, Few, Average, Many
Treasures: Random, Minimum, Few, Average, Many
Cities: Random, None, Few, Average, Many
Dwellings: Random, None, Few, Average, Many
Resource Structures: Random, None, Few, Average, Many
Visit Structures: Random, None, Few, Average, Many
Treasure Structures: Random, None, Few, Average, Many

Geography: Do you tweak any of the 13 terrain types?
There is no separate setting for impassible mountain.

Game Rules
Turn Type: Classic, Simultaneous
Turn Timer: On / Off
Teams: On / Off
Allied Victory: On / Off
Seals Victory: On / Off

Advanced
Game Speed: Very Fast, Fast, Normal, Slow, Very Slow, Slowest
Starting Resources: Very High, High, Standard, Low, Very Low
Starting Skills: Many, Normal, Few, None
All Heroes Have Resurgence: Never, Autocombat Only, Always
Defender Strength: Normal, Strong, Very Strong
Maximum # of Heroes: 0-20 (5 default) * Would be nice if automatically tied to map size
Maximum Hero Level: 1-30 (20)

Map Exploration: On / Off
City Founding: On / Off
Random Heroes Match Player Race: On / Off
Force High Speed Tactical Combat: On / Off
Empire Quest: On / Off

1694

Since I’ve only played 1 game since I had about a year layoff I don;t have a lot of strong opinions yet, but I’ll note where I do. I put a question mark where I don;t yet have a preference.

Basic
Difficulty:Lord
Map Size: Medium / Large
Map Type: Land ( I tend to like land maps in these games, but I really need to try continents and islands more)
Number of Players: 4+
Surface: On
Underground: Off ( I think I will try more with underground though)

Game Flow
Starting Town: Settler, Outpost - I like to start small.
Starting Units: Weak, Medium - I like to start small.
Starting Distance: I’ve left it at average, but I may select random sometimes.
Roads: I’ve left it at average, but I may select random sometimes.
Roaming Units: ?
Treasures: ?
Cities: If I play with city founding on, I’ll probably leave it at average. If I play with founding off I may bump it to many. I’m not sure. I may want to reply more of fortresses.
Dwellings: Few, Average
Resource Structures: ?
Visit Structures: ?
Treasure Structures: ?

Geography: Do you tweak any of the 13 terrain types? no
There is no separate setting for impassible mountain.

Game Rules
Turn Type: Classic - I need to try simultaneous again. It’s been too long.
Turn Timer: Off
Teams: Off, may try teams if I have a reason to.
Allied Victory: On
Seals Victory: On - haven’t played it yet but I want option other than conquest.

Advanced
Game Speed: Normal, Slow, Very Slow, Slowest
Starting Resources:Standard
Starting Skills: Normal, Few, None (I think I may transition to few or none so I can have more to research and shape my leader more)
All Heroes Have Resurgence: Autocombat Only
Defender Strength: Normal (may try out strong)
Maximum # of Heroes: ?
Maximum Hero Level: 20+

Map Exploration: On
City Founding: ? Maybe alternate between the 2 for a while to see if I preference emerges.
Random Heroes Match Player Race: Off
Force High Speed Tactical Combat: ?
Empire Quest: On, but I haven’t tried it yet. I think I’ll prefer it on.

1695

Is there an info screen with the number of cities/vassals /heroes the AI has?

1696

Question about armored…
The +2 bonus to defense is already included in the defense stat, right? So a unit that has an 11 defense but is armored (like a human long swordsman) has potential to be worse than a unit with 11 defense but isn’t armored (like a human warlord berserker) because the long swordsman is susceptible to armor piercing, correct? The armor piercing unit will get a damage bonus vs the long swordsman essentially reducing his defense.

1697

Yeah, as I recall it does work that way. Unintuitive, but ah well. I still dig my armored Dwarven legions, though.

1698

That’s correct about Armored. It can be a boost when referenced by other things, though, like building an Enchanted Armory in your city or some Dreadnought (and maybe Warlord?) skills.

1699

In combat, when you click on an enemy unit, solid circles are displayed, which I think means these are the hexes that enemy unit will be able to move to on its turn.

For some enemy units, however, I see circles with dashed lines. I thought this meant that maybe those hexes will be within range of their ranges attacks.

But when the enemy unit moved, I think he was able to launch a ranged attack further than the dashed circle hexes.

What do the dashed circle hexes mean?

thanks

1700

Dashed is his range from where he currently is, not his potential range if he also moves on his turn. That got me a few times, too.