I believe this is new: the Android port now has a date: May 27th. Still nothing firm on iOS.
Now as long as they can do the same for Dominions 4… It would require a big overhaul of the UI but it could be done. I know because I have dreamed about it :)
How the hell does this game work? Dominions 4 is like the most sensible game ever compared to this.
How do i keep the hordes of random enemies from capturing everything i own within 20 turns, when i can only get enough money to recruit 5 units every 12 turns? There’s no way to get much money, no way to defend your territory, and no way to raise enough troops fast enough to keep a standing army around. And then, out of the blue, comes some mage with water elementals that kills every unit in my army in battle without taking any casualties.
That sounds like CoE3 alright :)
Advice depends on who you’re playing as, but I think as a general rule, it’s folly to try and hold all the resource generating land. Instead, just make sure you always have control of the spaces that generate the most useful resources (and which those are depends on who you’re playing). When you’re buying units, notice that on that screen you can select where they’re purchased. Not every territory can generate units, but usually the ones that can are the most important to always have defended. Even without a general, you can buy units at a location, and they’ll work as a great defense against random elk hordes and a deterrent to other players.
For the lesser generating spaces, remember that recapturing them can be expensive. It can often be better to just capture a new territory near your current army then go back and recapture old territory. Plus, you may explore some on the way, which is essential in this game. Rather than thinking of your territory in Civ terms as sort of a huge block of land to defend, think about it more as a random group of shifting territories, maybe more like a tribe then a civilization.
There are some units in this game that just feel like hard counters to other units. You can end up completely wiped out by units you didn’t realize were going to be difficult. There are two ways to respond to this: 1. Save before every battle with unknown units so you can feel it out and reload if it doesn’t work the way you want. 2. Just play until you’re obviously wiped out and quit, guessing who’s stronger. I actually prefer doing 2. It makes the game feel like a strategy-roguelike, and you’ll figure out who can fight who just by replaying a bunch. There’s a lot to do right from the get-go so restarting a bunch isn’t too bad, plus there’s so much variety in the factions that if you get bored with one you can just try another.
I’ve put hours into Dominions 4 and still don’t understand how to play it at all, but COE 3 works for me. It’s like a light, hyper-random, quick strategy game with very confusing non-standard UI. But it’s a great relaxing game to play in between big games once you get the hang of it.
The “take land-lose land-take land” game gets annoying yeah, but if you persevere and use your forces correctly, little by little your army should grow stronger, allowing you to divide it in more armies of enough strength, and that will make easier to maintain and take more resources faster than before.
haha man I need to play some of this again. Considering the amount of randomness in this game, it is entirely possible to have such a bad starting position (for your particular class) that you’ll never recover. But I’ve found that there is also a weird snowballing effect with resources. You’ll play half the game scrambling around, trying to stop packs of rabid moose from taking over your mines, just so you can produce one more unit of something pretty weak, and then all of a sudden you’ll have more resources than you need to spend, watching it accumulate until you decide to start producing armies just for fun, full of units you’d normally never use, or never use in that quantity.
Its hard to give specific advice without knowing what class you’re playing, but in addition to restarting if you have a bad start, don’t be afraid to just lose. I look at the game more like an exploration game than a traditional 4X, so I don’t feel so bad when my little goblins inevitably get crushed by the army of golems.
Dejin
1668
The sprites for trees and tall grass sway! Since when did they do that? I uh… yeah. It isn’t exactly ground breaking, game changing stuff they’re doing, but I think its a real nice touch that I just now noticed. I hope it was in a recent patch they released and it hasn’t always been like that.
I think it’s always been like that. :)
This is coming soon to android. I have been beta testing it.
Yes, May 27th, as noted upthread.
Thanks for the advice. I guess what i don’t have a feel for yet is the “pace” of the game. Where should i be at turn 12? Turn 24? Turn 48? It seems like i need to be pressing Next Turn for a 100 turns before i’ve accumulated enough stuff to be able to expand further than about 8 spaces from my starting capital…
Yeah some games can feel like that. It really depends on your class and the age you’re playing in, but there really is no “pace” to the game. CoE3 isn’t exactly a prime example of what a good, balanced 4X should be, which is why I mentioned I try to look at it like an exploration roguelike. Some games might give you a great starting position for your class. Other games you might have picked a great age to play in for your class, but you just have a bad starting position so you get screwed. Part of it is just to gamble and see what is beyond that next forest or that next mountain range, and hope you can find some good resources before a larger force moves into your starting area.
For example, yesterday I played a game as a demonologist and was randomly assigned the Dark Age (I think that’s what it’s called - the “earliest” age) and played for a couple years in-game and never found any settlements that produced blood sacrifices. Then I got killed off. There might be a “scientific” method to knowing how to pace the game for each class in each age, but I don’t know what it is. You kind of just have to play a bunch of games and get a feel for it. The CoE3 forums over at Desura is a good place to go, I think, if you’re looking for some more specific hints. The forum is basically dead, but there are a bunch of threads you can browse.
I’d recommend playing either as Troll or Druid while you’re still trying to get a feel for the game. A druid’s primary resource is trees. Those things are everywhere. You’ll get some crappy summons, and some good summons - the quality of which depends on the terrain you perform the summon in - but you’ll typically be able to find an ancient forest (the giant looking trees that produce neutral mobs) before you run into an enemy, and those are where you get your really good summons. They also have access to decent recruitable units. Trolls are a good starting class because their starting commander is an army unto itself, which will make it a lot easier to take any and all nearby resource producers without having to worry about saving up enough money to buy an army first.
rezaf
1675
Yeah, I pretty much agree with carlton, there’s a dose of roguelike in there, and sometimes … or, rather often, a random game start will be pretty much unwinnable without a little luck. Or, one tiny bit of bad luck can end a game for you, especially in the early stages. Cross-class balancing is also pretty much non-existant, so some are MUCH easier to play with than others. Some have strength’s that rely on the moons aligning just right which might or might not ever happen in a given game.
Like in carlton’s example, if you play a class reliant on blood sacrifices and can’t find settlements (or those you can find are too well guarded), there’s nothing much you can do.
Some of the classes are just inherently weaksauce (at least in my opinion) - for example the Senator or (to a lesser extent) the Barbarian.
A few demand that you play them differently from what you might expect - like the Enchanter, whose Golem crafting is nice, but cuts into one’s own economy - it’s much better to just spam Necrotods.
For beginners, the toll is indeed a nice pick, as his strengths are frontloaded (starting with the poweful, regenerating leader) and his weaknesses only come into play in the lategame - which sometimes never comes around, as he has the potential to win the game before it happens.
Man, I really should play this again sometimes. I wish they hadn’t left the modding system unfinished. :-/
rezaf
I never got into the modding. What was unfinished about it?
rezaf
1677
Essentially, the developer just kinda threw methods out there.
Modding CoE3 works in a very weird fashion - you’re not allowed to modify the data that makes up the things that are already in the game, rather all these things are added and THEN you can make adjustments/additions.
It’s strange and kinda hard to describe.
Anyway, the thing is, these adjustments operate under a different set of rules - so it is impossible to recreate some of the classes that are already in the game with the modding commands provided, which is why I consider the modding “API” woefully incomplete. There’s some more annoying issues, but this is the one that made me abandon the prospect of modding the game.
rezaf
magnet
1678
CoE3 is now out for Android.
Oh, that is sure to give my work life a productivity boost…
I hope it makes the leap to the Amazon App Store. I’ve got several dollars of credit burning a hole in my pocket. This would be a good use for it.
