Alstein
1961
While I don’t think some of the things they have high confidence in are true, I suspect some of them are. The only thing that really irks me right now is the whole quest/goodie hut things. I understand why Derek did it, but stuff like that where the AI is definitely playing by different rules does kinda irk me.
I suspect the main cause of some of those things is either random observation, micromanagement (tech trading in FE is micromanagement-heavy, and does have an AI bias as well, 1 point of player tech= like 1.4 points of AI tech, that’s a cheat)
That said, this sort of game is super-AI unfriendly, much more so than GalCiv II.
RichVR
1962
Complete agreement here. Fine work Brad and team.
Tom’s already on record on the QT3 podcast and Three Moves Ahead as loving the game, but it is a bit odd, yeah. I’m sure he’ll get around to it.
JFrazer
1964
I’ve been playing all weekend. Still getting the hang of some stuff; I gotta say that there are some points that aren’t all that intuitive and I’ve had to take to the web to find answers. I miss the days of giant manuals I could read in the bathroom. :)
For example, I didn’t know what the heck influence was for for the longest time. “You get 50 influence when you complete a quest”. Awesome… but how good is that? Mana also took me a little bit to figure out. I didn’t realize the mana I used in the strategic map and the mana I used in tactical combat are the same thing. Makes me more hesitant to use mana in combat since I’m typically generating so little in the early game and some of the spells are 50+ mana (10+ turns of generation to make up for).
The leveling of champions was interesting; learned that it’s best to focus on an improvement path as opposed to jack-of-all-trades-ing it. Made the mistake of mix and matching between spells and physical attacks, causing both of them to essentially be gimped.
Lastly, I’m working on figuring out how to judge if I’ll win a battle or not. This morning I lost a fight with my Strong army against a moderate medium army. The reason being they were high defense with 2 shamans against my force of almost exclusively physical attackers. I was doing next to no damage while the shamans were popping me with shrinks, AoE fire spells, and the leader was hitting me with shadow bolts. Bam, lop-sided defeat.
robc04
1965
I know I’m not in the same league as QT3 or other review sites, but I plan on doing a review. I put in my request for a review copy late and missed the first batch of Steam keys they had for review copies. When they get a new batch from Steam I’m supposed to get one for review.
robc04
1966
To the Stardock folks…
I hope you were not hit hard by Sandy and your employees are all safe with minimal property damage to homes and offices.
You do know about the actual manual, right? You can find it here.
JFrazer
1968
Actually, no, I didn’t know about it. Thanks!
Alstein
1969
One of my friends who bought the game has been complaining about not understanding the mechanics, and I’ve been asked a good number of questions. I’d hate to think how frustrated he’d be if I didn’t know the answers.
This doesn’t really jibe with my experience. With world and the AI difficulties both set to challenging, I have seen AI Champion stacks waltz right by those green treasure chest icons on numerous occasions, allowing me to step in and grab them.
Also, Brad, I wonder if you could shed some light the wandering monster issue. In the late game, when I’m moving through enemy territory, I often found it overrun with stacks of wandering monsters. The implication is that the AI has not bothered to clean out the lairs that are spawning those monsters, so the monster stacks proliferate. Is that what’s actually happening?
I’ll second this. On Hard, I’ve run into enemy cities with 2-3 goodie huts located right next to the city buildings. If the AI has any reasoning in it to pursue those features, the preference clearly isn’t very dominant.
KevinC
1972
Well the good news is if that’s not happening at higher difficulty levels it sounds like it’s a bug rather than a design choice.
If it’s not grabbing goodie huts greedily, it’s some sort of bug. Though I’m not sure how that could happen but I do have some ideas on how to improve that area further.
The AI will farm wandering monsters for experience.
Both of these things are not true in all my play experience with FE 1.0.
kerzain
1976
I look forward to all this being patched in.
It’s already in there (the farming part).
In v1.01, I’ve added a timer on it at which point it’ll kill the lair.
Which isn’t true in the first case? Either the AI does grab goodie huts or it doesn’t? If it’s not (at higher levels), it’s a bug.
As for the latter, there are certain types of goodie huts that get a bFarmable tag added by the AI. If there’s a champion nearby, it’ll attack the wandering monsters and leave the lair.
Does not, this is on Challenging. They are all over all my AI’s lands in every game since I started noticing it back my 3rd or 4th game. Just waiting to be picked up by my champions. Typically their champions (and soverign) are off on my border trying to kill a scout or pioneer solo and then after I kill them they just make a beeline again to do the same thing.
Ah good. That’s what I’m keeping an eye out for. My thought is that the AI needs to look more for targets of opportunity.
