Malanthropes give you 3 Research Points for each Experience Point they earn - you can upgrade this with tech.
If you have 2 Malanthropes, and both gain XP, then you gain Research from both.
When you eat biomass on a hex, you get the resources immediately in your biomass stockpile - the green number is the amount of biomass you will gain (it’s not a percentage multiplier; it’s a flat number you get for consuming the hex.)
Lastly, Malanthropes are Synapse creatures so they prevent your swarm from getting all raggedy and disorganized.
Have you been checking your biomass stores after you consume tiles? Mine do indeed increase appropriately.
Malanthropes are enormously useful and versatile units. They turn excess influence into Biomass via consuming tiles, they act as synapse nodes, they have good movement and their maneuverability lets you use them for better vision, they increase research from hanging around the battlefield, they can constrict melee units and ruin their combat strength and, in a pinch, can squirt a blast of poison in a target’s face. All this for a piddling 2 food upkeep. I usually have several alternately scouting, feeding, and learning with my wrecking crew. And hey, they’re your city builders too!
I’ve been playing this. What a bummer they’ve disabled so many artefact types - it does not feel like there were that many of them to begin with, and I enjoy variety with such things.
Like someone said upthread, if it OPd the new faction, just turn them off for that faction. They really should have figured out the replacement before they removed the old ones.
The healing artifact sort of made all factions Necron. It took away one of their main signatures. Also, army wide, it provided a lot of healing. How and how efficiently factions heal is a big part of the game. It was a crazy good artifact. Movement too really changed things. I am okay with a change in the short term. Heck, the gear from the Trader could use a balance pass since there are clear winners and losers for all heroes all the time.
I agree about the items from the trader. As for the artifacts, I think simply limiting their effect by range would solve the entire issue: make them a strong asset in the tiles near the artifact but not a game changer all over the entire map. Simply removing them completely is weak.
Yeah, I meant to warn you about this - I did part of the Quests in my first game and turned them off every game after that because of recommendations here. I never looked back. This is best played as an endless skirmish game. Sort of how you shouldn’t play Age of Wonders III or Heroes of Might and Magic scenarios.
Been playing this again, wow this thing sucks up time. Blink and an hour is gone. I am beginning to think each faction is OP in some way or another, usually leaders. You can just ignore quests right and there is no benefit to turning them off besides the nag factor? So just gain the free resources from doing the easy ones and stop doing them once they become a hassle I guess.
Except for the quests that resolve themselves naturally and ruin your game by spawning 40 units in the middle of your shit or the like.
Cause some of the quests are like “build stuff you were going to build because you want to play the game” and “kill enemies with units”. Those then chain into things like “control artifacts” or “research a unit and make it”.
I’m not sure on the specifics of the chains so some of them might be able to be stopped before they get rolling, but at least a few of them were thrust upon me by the game with no chance to react, which resulted in giant armies dedicated to killing me appearing magically next to my shit. Like one stage was “control 3 artifacts” which I already had, so it instantly completed and next turn an army of 40+ dudes spawned next to my main base. It was basically 4 times the army any faction had.
Yeah, I play with the quests on and I just anticipate this now. It forces me to just try and build as massive an army as I can as early as I can, keeping one group scouting and another close to home (after all, in the future there is only war!). I actually like the quests, and they’re very useful in learning the game.
Heroes can be strong. Certain ones definitely. Space Marines are supposed to be an armored faction, they are and their heroes are even more so. Although armor is only part of it with heroes. It is the damage reduction stat that they have in their traits. Force Commanders and Chaplains are especially durable. It is thematic. It also falls apart mid to late game when beefy and armor pen units start showing up. Sure that Ork boss will beat down like a champ and feel like a god for a long time, but unless you prepare and adjust, it will be a wake-up call when he gets face melted mid game.
The Hive Tyrant (Tyranid hero) is especially interesting. It is an utter beat stick that flies all over with ease. It has range. It has great skills. It has long range synapse range. And… it dies in two shots from basic anti air units. This is a real bummer when your level 10 Hive Tyrant accidentally face tanks hidden units that reveals an overwatched AA unit in a forest tile.
Just wanted to mention that this is one of the first games I’ve seen where the AI is faced with the same Fog of War rules as players. I’ve had enemy AI stumble into range of my hidden units, who then react with Overwatch fire and finish off a wounded, retreating units. It’s kind of awesome. Lots of little touches in the game abound, like snow that drifts over ice hexes, or how my allied player’s Engineers could repair my Predator tank for me. Some really great stuff there.
I wouldn’t say the Tyrant is vulnerable in the same way that, say, a Weirdboy is, but I wouldn’t use them for scouting either, yes. That’s what termagants and the like are for :)
Especially against Necrons. Running into Monoliths is…Yeesh.
The Heroes are all tremendously useful, though. I think a lot of work went into making them materially different from each other and beneficial without being overpowering. I think my favs are the Ork heroes. The Weirdboy’s teleport power is amazingly strong.
So, I’ve reached the point where Average is practically a faceroll, but bumping up the difficulty a notch means I get rolled over by superior numbers AND tech.
Am I missing something fundamental here? I feel like I am.
