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KPC_Mammon posted:Does anyone have solid advice for playing the Forgotten? They seem like they don't want to go very wide due to escalating spying costs, but maybe I'm overvaluing spying. The name of the game is pillaging, I think in tech era 3 the pillaging rewards become really substantial that if you invest in the pillage time accessory for the forgotten heroes, you can fully pillage a tile in one turn and acquire mass amounts of dust, resources, etc. Stealth lets you get around pillaging stuff and running away without the AI knowing where you are, and you can bait the AI into picking fights while you have substantial reinforcements waiting on the sidelines. Rinse and repeat until your armies simply outstat everyone else, at which point you can walk over enemy capital cities. Of course getting to the point where you can pillage effectively is a little tricky, and since they're so dust-reliant it's much harder for them to snowball out of control in the early game. But they're definitely late-game powerhouses if you can get to that point.
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Oct 25, 2016 22:38
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Chocolate Chunk posted:Yeah, in last weekend's MP game, the Morgawr spawned on a 3 tile wide peninsula. He got every wonder building except the Museum because his tiles were so good Actually, I hosed myself over a bit with that because there wasn't enough land on the peninsula to actually level up most of my districts/wonders, and I didn't want to risk losing the race by burroughing my way to the mainland. The real reason my start was stupidly lucky was because there were 2 sea fortresses within sight of my 1st city, and they both gave me trivially easy quests. None of that "ambush you with 3 Fire Ships lol!" bullshit. I've definitely had SP Morgawr starts where it took me ~20 turns to even find a sea fortress. Besides that (which is significant), the bonuses the Morgawr get from sea tiles make them more resilient to awful start locations than most of the other races. Even Arctic gives you plenty of Food/Industry if you can find a peninsula.
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Oct 25, 2016 23:07
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Chadzok posted:Ardent Mages benefit from some crazy city designs to take advantage of their pillars, which is another reason why I will never choose them. Amazingly, the crazy city designs are actually more exploitation-efficient than the classic sticks/triangles while on par in terms of approval! Embrace the ardent architecture for all races!
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Oct 26, 2016 08:09
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cerious posted:The name of the game is pillaging, I think in tech era 3 the pillaging rewards become really substantial that if you invest in the pillage time accessory for the forgotten heroes, you can fully pillage a tile in one turn and acquire mass amounts of dust, resources, etc. Stealth lets you get around pillaging stuff and running away without the AI knowing where you are, and you can bait the AI into picking fights while you have substantial reinforcements waiting on the sidelines. Rinse and repeat until your armies simply outstat everyone else, at which point you can walk over enemy capital cities. Echoing this. Don't forget to pillage lookout towers too, there's no risk at all because you can get them from your own borders and you need all the dust you can get.
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Oct 26, 2016 13:54
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Okay, the Forgotten effortpost is here. Are you a bad enough dude to be Forgotten? First, let me say I'm playing this game single player on normal speed - you'll have to adjust it for any multiplayer peculiarities there are - most importantly, the AI is quite terrible at hunting your pillagers, so you'll have to be craftier and more focused on cutting the pillage time to a turn or two. First Steps and General Directions In general, when you pick the Forgotten you commit to an aggressive game - similar to Necrophages, you're fairly bad economically with ways to make military pay for itself to make up for opportunity cost of pumping out units. You generally want to go for Supremacy victory - full-on conquest is usually more of a bother than a boon, and you can both save yourselves salting a bunch of cities and relatively easily engineer a simultaneous precision strike at two-three capitals to close the game. While everyone and their mother will tell you the Forgotten should play a Dust game, the Forgotten have a forest bias for a reason! Other than theoretical idea of it being easier to stealth minor faction units, the faction has a plenty of important Dust sinks, so building/unit buyouts are off-limits except for dire emergency. The early production will be important. Also, don't worry about having poo poo empire score - between how the Forgotten tech and wage war, it will increase in sudden bursts, rather than rise steadily.  Do not sell Forgotten units on the market! The invisibility is an incredible boon to scouting and spy insertion - sharing this advantage would be like the Allayi handing out Skyfins!The first things to do once popping down the first city should be: - refit the assassins and the hero to hold sword in the main hand and an axe off-hand - the refit costs nothing and you get a second slayer trait. - buy yourself a mill foundry tech, right here, right now. If nearby villages are particularly troublesome for the assassins, feel free to pick Language Square off the bat two - but the less techs you buy now, the better! - scout around grabbing ruins, as you would normally, with an eye towards knocking out the quest early on - two fights will net you two Predatore and a free hero early on! If you pay attention to the terrain and, if necessary, use your hero to tank, you should be able to do this without losing a single unit. In case of Predatore fight, it is of utmost importance not to get bogged down in forests and cliffs. If you can bumrush them with assassins, they're toast. - Make sure you have enough influence for an Empire Plan (if you rushed out a second city before turn 20) - the science reduction straight cuts science buyout cost by -20%. What this means, you patiently delay teching and then buy all of Era I in bulk on turn 21. Unless you got a particularly sucky start, you should reach Era II instantly, maybe snatch an extra Era II tech instantly if you lucked into a dusty start. - - You musn't leave Era I without the Mercenary Market - spies are key for the upcoming Era! - Your invisible settlers are top tier, they can run around solo without a care in the world. - Never leave your units idle! If you get pillage going, it's a major piece of your economy, and you should always be pillaging, scouting and murdering fools trying to find your regrettably-unstealthed cities. - Remain adaptable. You're never really sure what techs and strategics you'll be able to siphon off people, so be ready to make adjustments. Cities and Economy - Try to aim for decent industry (no buyouts) with dust generation potential (as usual, Aquapulvistics is boss). I generally go tall, in that I never really exceed three cities. Increasing influence costs are a factor indeed, but really the key thing is that you want to invest in pillage and espionage capabilities anyway and then it's better to just take some nice cities other people built anyway. - Your aim is to go for early production and set up for switching to dust when Era III ramp hits. The Influence is somewhat important, but nowhere near the priority it is for Cultists or something. - gently caress trade - it's a bunch of investment and hassle not really connected to the core of your strategy, everyone hates you for pillaging and subterfuge, and you don't even get the science half of the deal! - In general, you want to set up a decent base for yourself and gear up to wage war on someone in possession of nice cities by the time you hit Era III. - Having said that, if early fuckery nets you strategics for a decent shot at Museum of Auriga/Industrial Megapole, go for it! As long as the construction is not a major, terrible, obviously bad disruption of your progress, even if you lose the race, the consolation prize dust is pretty useful for your numerous gold sinks. Science and Research Forgotten science progression is interesting in that unlike most 4X faction traits, it's neither "early snowball" nor "lategame powerhouse" - rather a sinusoid that changes on different stages of the game. - Early game (turn 21 wholesale purchase), your tech is amazing good. - Era II is your lowest point in the game. It is not unheard of languishing in Era II hell while Vaulters reach IV. The dust cost becomes prohibitive, while your inexperienced spies are still fairly slow at theft. You should strive to get out of it ASAP. - - At this point, don't waste your dust directly, but rather grab another spy and steal, steal, steal. - - Don't retool into espionage ASAP! You enter Era II really quick, so there might not be much worth stealing right off the bat, until players overtake you. Especially if you bear in mind some of the techs people research are useless/inaccessible to you (racial techs, libraries, etc.). - - If you play with empire stats on, you can use the research tab (the one that counts the techs one have) to pinpoint worthy tech steal targets and timing. Don't feel ashamed to do it solo - it's great for getting a proper feel/game sense as Forgotten. - Somewhere in Era III you return to technological godhood. The trick being, once you hit the Dust ramp, you can start tearing through the tech tree like you're a vaulter. With an existing army of spies, you'll catch up with the big boys in no time. General science tips: - Remember you can demand tech to end the war! During negotiations, ditch the poo poo cities that would do nothing but tank your approval and get out of the Era II hell quickly! - Remember that each tech increases the cost of the next one - meaning, ideally you want to first buy a tech and then steal one, to save money. This also means, when you advance to a new era you want to buy out all faction-unique techs before going on a stealing rampage (unless there's another Forgotten player, I suppose). - While your teching is generally dominated by economic concerns, remember that thedust buyouts are instantaneous and allow you great flexibility - you can chill on your pile of gold and grab poo poo just as it is needed. - Remember the turn 21 bulk purchase trick? It's still applicable later in the game, in that you can switch the tech discount policy on and off, depending on if you expect to do some buying. Shop smart, shop S-Mart! - All of your racial techs are pretty cool, with Learn from Others being a particularly bright star - with that one, your heroes will level in ridiculous time, leaving you with a horde of hyper-competent spies, governors and generals. - - If you're really tryharding, What's Mine is Mine and Caudata Sanctuary could possibly be skippable if you feel so. - Read your opponents! Apart from targeting obvious tech leaders, you are safe to assume Broken Lords will tech into dust, while Drakken go for influence - try to gamble on a right target if you feel like grabbing a particular tech. Pillaging Have your units always be moving and trolling the enemy, siphoning Dust and resources - let them pay for themselves until you get enough of them to wage a proper war. In case of AI, they're really bad at punishing you for it, so go to town. remember you can move among the adjacent hexes when pillaging to dodge dudes/set up future moves. Be sure to grok out how pillage damage is calculated, to reach the key values of 15/30 - for, respectively, 2/1 turns to completion. Pillage trinkets from Era II Armor, Meritocratic Promotion stacks and keeping the early units alive to advance a level are key here. Mysts are the greatest, if you want some dudes primarily for pillaging. If closed borders watchtowers get troublesome, there are two ways to burning them down - across the border, or after popping max reduce vision. The Art of War First off, always micromanage fights! Your units are sub-par pieces of poo poo number-wise, but all have really neat abilities that you can leverage to great advantage. All three units are very useful for their purposes, with their weakness being you lack a designated tank - and the Assassing are rather mediocre at this forced role. Be on the lookout to assimilate some tanky minors to bolster the garrisons.Until you get a good feel for your units, don't put much faith in the their glass cannon quality - dual wielding really kicks into gear in later eras. While you're not always in control of the strategics, you generally prefer titanium for Assassins and Glassteel for other units. Invisibility is an incredible advantage, allowing you to poo poo all over roaming neutrals, sneak through closed borders and in general be a major pillaging and spying pest. Combat-wise, invisible reinforcements are not shown for the opponent on the battle initiation pop-up, allowing you to bait enemies into really disadvantageous fights. Stacks of Predatore and Mysts are particularly great as these stealth reinforcements, as they can close in quickly after spawning. Similarly, you can easily gang up on unsuspecting fools who spreaded out. Assassins are your bread and butter, if mostly due to being forced to serve as your best next thing to a frontliner. Their greatest advantage is speed and mobility - always maneuver them to advantageous terrain, blocking movement paths and pre-empting units with ranged/special attacks. However, they also require fairly close attention to terrain - even the choice of direction from which to attack can make and break the battle, as you really, really want to block nasty poo poo with melee and not get bogged down in forests. In later game, with proper combined arms, these guys and Mysts pretty much shutdown any backline your opponent might have. Predatore are a cool ranged unit with a really cool stacking damage-boosting ability. Dual wielding crossbows allows them to basically match the damage of bows, while retaining a much more universal attack trait. While cool and useful dudes overall, they're particularly useful against tanky infantry and a necessity if you have the misfortune of facing a Guardian (Predatore can melt those fuckers real good). Mysts have a twofold purpose: strategically, they are an utter pillaging terror and tactically, Faster than Shadows allows some fairly absurd damage output. When fighting a real, proper swarm (Necrophages, city garrisons, particularly pitched battles), it's often useful to throw a stack of Mysts against it - the poor flyers should be considered a suicide squad, but drat will they trade nice damage before they perish. When attacking cities, always make sure the walls are completely torn down before using Mysts! Even a single point of armor (e.g. when a conquest prolongs to a second turn) shuts down Faster than Shadows, sharply turning the maths against them! Strategically, you want your wars to be offensive ones and planned beforehand - you set your sight on an empire you want to erase from the face of earth and fill it with spies, who patiently build infiltration levels, perhaps stealing a few techs on the way. When the D-Day finally comes, you want to: 1. Surprise wardec, with your invisible dudes already assembled within enemy territory to strike the same turn. 2. Have the most far away spy pop morale decrease. 3. Have the nearby spy tear the walls down and immediately jump to lead the army about to do the conquering. 4. Steamroll. Rinse and repeat. Remember there is actually nothing forcing you to maintain a frontline like a normie - you can strike deep, from another direction, wherever your alpha strike will hurt most. Heroes and Espionage You really, really want Forgotten heroes for both espionage and generalship, with usual suspects for governing duties. Watch the timer on hero exclusivity at the beginning of the game - you really want to secure a second spy early on. If you plan on following the questline diligently, you'll get three more Forgottens at its end, so I guess take this into consideration? If engaged in a more conventional war of attrition rather than your usual guerilla shananigans, Drakken make for great generals due to their HP boost make for a great general - they will break stealth of the stack, however, but it's not a great deal if you're already forced into such disadvantageous situation (offensively, he'd chill in a city until the very second of a surprise wardec). My leveling scheme goes as follows: Managed Torpor - 1 level - it's great to bounce around, but espionage is static enough maxing this out like a Wild Walker is a waste (if pulling a spy, you probably want to heal him up a bit anyway). Fast Healer - 1 level - yep, a common skills swerve! This is just a pip to go further up, but it also is a buff for when your spies do get busted every once in a while, allowing you to be more aggressive with them. Whatever the green espionage skill was called - max it out. It's much better than factional Double or Nothing now, and it greatly lessens your pain if the enemy is proactive about forcing you to relocate Double or Nothing - max - now we return to orange - this is much better as the second seniority bonus, as it really comes into force by this time - we're now popping high-level tech heists for a bigger bonus and have the up-front boni to trigger DoN earlier. After that, it's your call depending on circumstances - you can get the safety net for espionage failure, or swerve into generalship (for the tear walls-lead army one-two punch). The secret sauce to your espionage prowess is really Learn from Others - once you get that fucker, you'll grab those skill levels in no time. It also makes governors pay for themselves fairly quick. Ziema - the early quest hero - is a dang great invisible general and an okayish spy and it's definitely worth it to grab her, even if you don't plan to give the questline much attention later on. The quest to get her to level 4 is perhaps the biggest stumbling block in the questline - so far I think I was most successful at having her lead a pillaging party, maybe pulling out to benefit from a large construction in some city of mine. The holy trinity of espionage actions are tech theft, decrease morale and damaging fortification. These are what you use to win the game. The other actions are situational, if you feel like kicking particular opponent is advantageous. Remember that city infiltration actions will reveal the location of the spy! - Decrease Vision is a great counter-move if somebody wasted a lot of time building a wall of watchtowers to contain you - make 'em blind, move in, burn them down and keep on ravaging - Similarly, Steal Vision is a decent gamble to gain vision of cities to plant spies behind a wall of watchtowers. - Decrease Population makes Allayi cry. Pop just as a winter is coming for maximum tear potential. - Decrease Production is usually not worth revealing the spy, but blocking a wonder/guardian/major military production city can be a godsend.
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Oct 26, 2016 14:41
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Lichtenstein posted:I migt make an effort post if I get the tjme (as I've said, I'm sort of obsessed with the faction). Any particular issues you're struggling with? Please do. I really like their flavor, but I'm struggling to get a good start with them. E: this thread moves fast, thanks.
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Oct 26, 2016 15:25
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I love that effortpost. Could we put a big link to that in the OP? The Forgotten racial skill that makes forests pay out Dust is also pretty great. You're getting food, industry and dust all from the same tiles.
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Oct 27, 2016 00:20
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Turn it into a steam guide, tia.
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Oct 27, 2016 09:22
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Speedball posted:I love that effortpost. Could we put a big link to that in the OP? Sure, go ahead. The Dust skill is pretty neat, however I never really find myself using it - it's by no means bad, but there are two issues with it: - There's really nowhere to go to further spec into governance - and those Learn from Others XP keep ticking! - As I aim for possible exclusivity of in-faction heroes for both espionage and generalship, I usually leave governance to designated out-of-faction heroes who can never stop getting more and more economic skills (hello, Learn from Others). I do see picking it in particular circumstances: - If I were developing a spy, still during the swerve to common skill tree and found myself in need of investing in the anti-espionage skill. Then this would be a nice follow-up for my roaming gestapo governor. - If I finished the questline and had not that much use for the newfound lategame horde of low-level heroes. In general for the governing the loose tier list is like this: Top 3: 1. Broken Lords - the Holy Grail, because making GBS threads out dust is one thing you crave for most of the game. 2. Wild Walkers - particularly useful if you get him fairly early, when you're still very reliant on production and can still expect to settle a new city that could use some help kickstarting. Still, he retains his usefulness late game, to speed up production queues in less productive cities (lack of buyout funds can make for some mean delays at times) and eventually plop down in your Doom Factory that simply keeps pumping out invisible hordes. 3. Valete Sapira Kugua - more of a utility than economic hero, but incredibly useful in that role! For the most part, she will just chill with her Influence 3 Boost and Righteous Cause (pretend you just bought mobile sewers and glory of empire, not the worst deal), but spike into usefulness during inevitable conquest - she will help with approval sinking suddenly and sinking hard, healing up fragile troops and stoping the dust sink that are towns you intend to salt anyway. I find the amount of Influence she generates just right for your needs. As usual, extra useful when facing Necrophages. Also okayish: - Necrophages - never really felt the need to use them, but i suppose they could work as poor man's WW to set up your war factory. - Cultists - not a bad governor by any means, but somewhat more awkward than BL/WW, as along the way you have to either spec him into half governor-half general or burn a point on a unusable science boost. - Drakken - fairly similar to Valete Sapira Kugua, but lack her wartime usefulness. Desperate measures: - Roving Clans - it's a trader hero for a faction that doesn't trade, which makes him really inferior to BL hero for your purposes. However, if you're desperate for the only dust boost hero in a vaulter-filled marketplace, or something, there are ways to make Clansmen work. First, they have Spying 3 with access to the common espionage skill, so that's better than nothing if there's no Forgotten available. Second, they do generate some Dust and have one legit great skill - Feet on the Street, which helps to get over salting approval-tanking cities much faster. Afterwards, at a price of wasting a skill point they can get cheaper units or common governance skills. So they're like a versatile bad imitation of all the heroes you actually want to but. Not even once: - Vaulters - Ardent Mages - Haunts dude - Allayi - lack of stealth makes them a liability in the field, you don't really want to waste cash on bribes (when you could gain cash for loving up said village) and the pearl cost reduction is just not worth the uselessness of the rest of their skill tree. The Morgawr are Morgawr.
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Oct 27, 2016 10:52
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Riso posted:Turn it into a steam guide, tia. LIKE THERE'S NOTHING LEFT UNSPERGED YET! For reals though, I can already think of some minor remarks regarding the questline and winter semi-affinity, so I guess if anyone still has questions go on and let's make this the ultimate guide to assholery.
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Oct 27, 2016 11:21
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holy loving poo poo proliferators 
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Oct 27, 2016 12:05
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I haven't had much of a change to play since Tempest released but I was wondering, can Cultists control ocean tiles? Because that seems like it'd be a really massive boon to them.
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Oct 27, 2016 12:30
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In theory, yes, but you kinda have to luck out to settle next to ocean, while retaining a not-poo poo position for your sole city. They're like the most awkward faction for naval stuff.
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Oct 27, 2016 12:35
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^^Having a district on the coast is enough, isn't it? Though you still need a coastal region, of course.Lichtenstein posted:Desperate measures: Wait, can the Forgotten not trade or something? If it's just that the science part is useless for them, I think it's still worthwhile to get a Clan hero in the lategame for the +7 trade route national wonder. You can >20k dust a turn from trade routes in a city with that if you have grassilk and a high level Roving Clans hero, and some percentage dust boosts. Before era V they're probably not very useful though.
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Oct 27, 2016 13:23
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He covered it with this:Lichtenstein posted:- gently caress trade - it's a bunch of investment and hassle not really connected to the core of your strategy, everyone hates you for pillaging and subterfuge, and you don't even get the science half of the deal!
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Oct 27, 2016 13:35
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Yeah, you are at disadvantage to your partner due to science thing, tend to be hated by everyone for pillage/pearl stealing (so it'd take bribing AI to get this bad deal) while generally try to avoid borders to hide your cities for as long as possible not to get put on the defensive. If you happen to get sandwiched in between dudes, not get murdered and can steal the roads tech, go ahead - it's a great pretext to justify Feet on the Ground and dust is king. It's just that it really is a call for particular circumstances, and you should not expect to trade as a part of your core strategy when picking the faction. The Forgottens are generally Necrophage-level assholes, just a different kind of assholes.
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Oct 27, 2016 14:07
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Speedball posted:I love that effortpost. Could we put a big link to that in the OP? Added to the OP. If anyone has anything else to contribute, please let me know. I still need to do a better ES2 writeup. EDIT: \/ there were some big writeups in the older thread for at least the 8 vanilla groups. I'll dig them out when I get a chance. Mokinokaro fucked around with this message at 15:16 on Oct 27, 2016 |
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Oct 27, 2016 14:45
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Mokinokaro posted:Added to the OP. Awesome effortposts from Lichtenstein. I'd love to get something like that for each faction, especially since almost all of the steam and reddit guides are pretty dated, but I don't think I'm nearly knowledgeable to write one myself. Blooming Brilliant posted:I haven't had much of a change to play since Tempest released but I was wondering, can Cultists control ocean tiles? Because that seems like it'd be a really massive boon to them. They can, Slaan took over the ocean region of JESUS FISH in our multiplayer game. Fortresses are pretty sweet in general, but why a massive boon for them in particular?
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Oct 27, 2016 15:11
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I wish there were steam guides for this game on the level of those Zigzagzigal did for Civ 5. He had a quick summary of every faction and then in-depth guides for all of them. It was so rad to have them bookmarked for easy reference. I might do it myself if I can find any motivation. The Deleter fucked around with this message at 16:55 on Oct 27, 2016 |
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Oct 27, 2016 15:19
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I'm a bad in general at EL but that effort post makes me wanna try Forgotten.
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Oct 27, 2016 17:13
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The Deleter posted:I wish there were steam guides for this game on the level of those Zigzagzigal did for Civ 5. He had a quick summary of every faction and then in-depth guides for all of them. It was so rad to have them bookmarked for easy reference. I'd read and appreciate something like that
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Oct 27, 2016 17:23
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I can put something together something for Drakken unless someone beats me to it.
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Oct 27, 2016 18:17
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Don't suppose anyone has similar effort post insight on the Allayi. I wanna be bipolar samurai mothbats
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Oct 27, 2016 18:38
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Captain Oblivious posted:Don't suppose anyone has similar effort post insight on the Allayi. They're my second favorite faction so I might do something for them too.
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Oct 27, 2016 18:43
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Avasculous posted:Awesome effortposts from Lichtenstein. I'd love to get something like that for each faction, especially since almost all of the steam and reddit guides are pretty dated, but I don't think I'm nearly knowledgeable to write one myself. I would have gotten away with it too, if it wasn't for those meddling 
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Oct 27, 2016 22:00
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Is it just me or did the game took a performance hit with Tempest?
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Oct 27, 2016 23:35
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It chugs more for me too. I think all the water and storm effects are a bit much on my old computer.
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Oct 28, 2016 00:58
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Chocolate Chunk posted:I would have gotten away with it too, if it wasn't for those meddling You're braver than I am, I still haven't attacked that thing.
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Oct 28, 2016 01:47
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I didn't attack it. It attacked me 
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Oct 28, 2016 01:58
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How to Tame Your Drakken Why play Drakken? Drakken are a pretty great faction, one of 3 I'd consider "normal" (the others being Wild Walkers and Vaulters) in that they don't really have a gimmick, just certain unique advantages. The first one you'll notice is that they start out knowing everyone's starting locations. While a cool tactical advantage, the real great thing is that it lets you interact with every other faction right from the outset. Their second advantage is their Advanced Diarchy trait; it unlocks Empire Plans one Era earlier for you. This is a very strong early game advantage, since plan level 2 contains the 25% buyout reduction and 33% building cost reduction plans, which lets you grow cities very quickly. Your third and most unique feature is Diplomatic Pressure: the ability to force other factions into Peace, Alliance (except the Necrophage, who can never be in those states), and Truce (if at War). This is obviously very powerful, and is pretty much the defining feature of the Drakken. Dragons sound cool, but what do I do? Your goal as the Drakken should be to make friends with everyone while trading knowledge & resources so you can build up to a Diplomacy Victory. You could also murder people if you like, since your units & heroes are pretty great, but that's not very nice. They follow a pretty conventional early play pattern; get settlers out as quickly as you can while maintaining a decent Empire Plan & approval, which roughly means one new city per Plan til you have 4-5 cities (by then you're probably bumping into other factions' borders). You're trying to build up a strong Influence engine; while keeping a low city count would make your Empire Plan less costly in Influence, you want to output as much as possible so you can use it to initiate trades often and utilize Diplomatic Pressure as necessary. Of course, in the early game, there's not much to research & build that affects your Influence until Era II, so just set as much groundwork as you can. As Drakken, you gain bonus influence when exploiting a tile with ruins, so plant your cities near those if you can. Ok, pretend I already know how to play a 'normal' early game. When & how can I Dragon at people? When you reach Era II, research Diplomat's Manse (the Peace tech) and Glory of Empire so you can get a bunch more Influence. Important to note that while you're doing all this, make sure you're also progressing your faction quest; the reward for your second quest ("Awakening") is the Aura of Leadership tech, great for boosting your Influence output and not difficult to get. You should also be leveling your hero and putting points in Narrative Master for more influence. Propose peace treaties to as many factions as you can; be mindful of your Empire Plan, but the faster you make Peace with everyone the more points you accrue toward the diplomatic victory. Maybe now would be a good time to explain the Diplomatic Victory? Alright, without getting too bogged down in numbers, everyone gains Diplomacy Points at the end of the turn depending on their relationships with other factions; the better the relationship, the more points. You also gain Diplomacy Points based on how much Influence you spend when proposing a treaty that the other party can choose to accept or decline (so declarations like Force Peace or Close Borders don't count, since the other party has no say in the matter). Like the Economic victory, there's a target number of points you need to reach to win, determined by the game speed. Everyone gets an alert once you've hit 75%, and again at 90%. Because Drakken see everyone from the start without scouting and can start proposing (or forcing) peace to everyone pretty early, they can get an early lead on points via trade proposals and heightened relationship statuses. Neat. So just make alliances and propose trades and eventually I'll win? Basically, but there's more to it than that. Remember that they have to accept the proposal; the AI might let you get away with spamming them with inconsequential treaties, but people aren't going to generally accept trading 1 dust 200 times a turn. A good thing to get used to is investing in Science and science buildings so you can trade tech. Trading technology is almost always a good thing; even if you're getting a tech you'll never use, you're putting yourself 1 tech closer to new eras, which means you're a step closer to the Hospitality Den (Era IV tech granting Alliances). So set up even or slightly unfavorable trades, because even if you 'lose' in a trade by, say, giving up 2 techs for 1, you've gained Diplomacy Points for it and are still closer to your ultimate goal. I thought we were pushing Influence...what's this about Science? To make it clear, you don't need to have a ridiculous science engine like Vaulters or Ardent Mages, but you will want to research and construct the science buildings while sometimes setting a few workers on Science. This combined with reasonable tech trading should get you to Era IV and alliances without much stress. Ok, I think I get it. But if I can just Force Truce, what threats exist to draconic dominance? We'll start with the obvious: mercenaries/privateers. They don't carry a flag so you can scare them away with a dragon roar. The good thing is that they aren't a problem until Era IV, unless there's a Roving Clans player, in which case you should consider investing in strong units to fortify territory. The Morgawr are another problem; both Catspaw (changes pacified villages back to hostile/takes control of minor faction units) and Black Spot (let's people attack you regardless of relationship status) are pretty annoying. The only thing you can really do against the former is deny as much vision as possible so they can't flip the villages; the latter you can remove with a declaration, like the Roving Clans' Market Ban. But the most severe threat exists in multiplayer, and that's an enemy alliance. You can rebuke one uppity faction trying to kill you, but two or more can strain your influence if they're committed to wearing you down. With Shared victories being a thing now, you can run into some interesting situations...or everyone accepts being friends with dragons and the game ends in a 6 or 8-way draw. Can't everyone just unite against you from the beginning? Kinda-not-really; remember, we're the only ones with perfect knowledge of the factions/players. Everyone else is in the dark unless we start a chain of Vision & Map Exchange treaties, or until they run into each other on their own. Otherwise, they'll only see each other once you start forging alliances, and by then you're pretty well along. It's also important to keep in mind that while you're quietly accruing points and trading among the other factions, they're probably building armies & fighting each other trying to pursue their own victory conditions or keep their enemies in check. You didn't talk much about units...how much should I be fighting? Not a lot, most fighting should be with minor factions. Even then usually just the roaming armies, it's easy enough to parley or bribe villages. If you bump into a neighbor's scout early on, you might want to kill it just to put them a little behind so you're in a better position for settling. Of course, if you're not worried about them trying to kill you later, it's fine to just wave as they walk by. You don't generally need to worry about big wars because of Force Truce (which is part of why we invest a lot in influence production). For heroes, you're usually looking for governors, and those are generally going to be Cult or Drakken. Cult are better in general because the boosts to Influence, Science, and Dust are all very nice whereas Drakken only churn out Influence, though they can also help with happiness if that's a problem. Drakken are also really great generals with the support tree, good weapon effects, and healing. Ok but, those Wild Walkers started building their Temple of the Earth Core...we're just gonna watch? If Shared victories are on, then sure! Because they're more than likely your ally unless you're in a state of Truce. Of course if shared victories are not on, or if they've broken the alliance for some reason, then you might have to figure something out. The main thing is to pay attention to other factions as the game progresses. If you see that you're getting outpaced in a "race" type of win condition (like Wonder or Economic), you might have to get aggressive; don't wait til you get a notice of impending enemy victory. If you find yourself needing to build up a military, fear not: Drakken have great units! The only one I really want to call out though is the Ancient (Era II tech); its Shared Wisdom trait gives every friendly adjacent unit +1 Morale. Really good support, especially if you've got some assimilated ranged units to pelt enemies with a strong alpha strike. Otherwise your army construction should be fairly straightforward. What if I want to just rampage across the world with my army of dragons? You can certainly do that, but the trick with Drakken is that it's much easier & faster to win via diplomacy than warfare. As good as their units are, other factions are better suited to overwhelming the map through force. Summary Build as wide as you can while staying Content or better, have good science & influence, propose trades often, and forge peace/alliances as early as possible. It's a pretty simple affair if you're playing vs AI; vs people is a lot more engaging. They've got a really good military if you need it, and a great ability to rush Diplomatic victory if you plan & play accordingly.
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Oct 28, 2016 05:11
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Let me know if there's something folks would like addressed/something(s) you felt were missed or overlooked in that Drakken post; I figured general early game stuff is better covered by the bunch of early-game guides floating around. Will try to put something together for the Allayi soonish, but they're a lot more complicated.
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Oct 28, 2016 05:12
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Okay, so I'm writing that nutshell guide. Below is what's essentially Lichtenstein's Forgotten guide condensed as much as possible - I'll give credit on the guide, and will add others as contributors if they want to pitch in on this! Please give me a poo poo-ton of feedback on this, as I'd like this to be concise and informative as possible. In a Nutshell The Forgotten are an aggressive faction focused on surprise attacks and espionage to overcome their fragility. Affinity and Traits Science Phobic: Does not produce or use Science. Must buy technologies with Dust. Knowledge Seekers: Infiltrated Heroes can steal technology from other empires. Expert Forager: Gains loot such as Dust when destroying a minor faction village. Practiced Pillage: +1 fortification damage on units, -1 Dust upkeep on armies. The Forgotten start the game with the Pillage and Search Party technologies unlocked. Unit Overview The Forgotten units are glass cannons, trading damage output for survivability. All Forgotten units and heroes have Stealth, preventing other races from seeing them on the overworld map unless adjacent to one of their armies or structures. Assassin (T1 starter): Infantry unit. Can dual-wield one-handed weapons - the second weapon only grants half the stat bonuses it normally would. Can pass through enemy units on the battlefield. This serves as your front line combat unit until you can assimilate a tougher minor faction unit. Predatore (T1): Ranged unit. Can dual-wield one-handed crossbows - the second weapon only grants half the stat bonuses it normally would. Applies a stacking debuff on enemies that grants bonus damage to allies who attack the debuffed target. Excellent against tough targets. Myst (T2): Flying unit. A strong attacker with a Chain Lighting-esque ability. Deals well with swarms and are strong at pillaging, but should not be brought to bear against armies with lots of archers. Damage output is badly affected by enemy fortification bonuses. In terms of strategic resources, you will want Titanium weapons on your Assassins to improve their damage output, and Glassteel on the others to improve their initiative. Suggested Playstyle The Forgotten excel at Supremacy victories due to their aggressive units, affinity for infiltration and their stealth abilities. Focus on Production, with potential for Dust generation. You should focus on industry techs up to Eras 2, and then change to Dust generation from Era 3 onwards. Your goal is to establish an early base with which to launch attacks on other races. You should also invest in some amount of influence to enable espionage. In your first turns, buy the Mill Foundry tech, and then retrofit your hero and Assassins to hold an axe in their off-hand - this grants another Slayer capacity and costs nothing. Follow your faction quest, destroy minor faction villages and loot ruins as normal. You may need to purchase Language Square in order to avoid combat with more resilient minor factions. Save your Dust and Influence until the first Empire Plan, at which point you should put one point into Science and Industry. This will reduce the cost of buying technologies significantly, so you can launch yourself into Era 2 very rapidly. Once you have found other players, use espionage to steal technologies to get to Era 3 and pillage extractors in order to gain resources faster. Prepare multiple armies and set heroes on espionage in an enemy empire, then co-ordinate your attacks with espionage actions to take out key cities. Attempt to force surrender, and demand technologies as part of the surrender deal to boost your strength further. Repeat with the other races until you achieve victory. Key Technologies:
Assimilation Targets Factions with high health or high defense units are ideal targets for assimilation to act as frontline troops. Gauren, Silics and Urces are good picks for their unit roles and their bonuses. Kazanji may also be a good choice for their influence bonus. Wonders The Forgotten should not attempt to build Wonders unless you are absolutely sure you can rapidly build either the Museum of Auriga or the Industrial Megapole. It is wiser to focus on building up for the inevitable string of wars. Pitfalls to Avoid
Pearl Purchases (Shifters Expansion) The Forgotten do not have methods to rapidly acquire pearls, but can easily steal from others thanks to Stealth. Pearl items are not a high priority for them, but Ice Works synergizes well if you are settling on rivers and coasts consistently. Summary
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Oct 28, 2016 10:01
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This is kind of a petty request but I would really really like it if Endless Space 2 allowed you to make the AIs pick random civs without duplicates popping up
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Oct 28, 2016 12:03
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Not sure why that would be petty seeing as they just introduced that in the latest patch for legend.
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Oct 28, 2016 12:27
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You can. There is a "unique randoms" button in one of the advanced menus. It obviously won't work if you have more than 4 players though
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Oct 28, 2016 12:33
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Is this the age of Effort Posts? God I hope, I'm terrible at this game. Someone do a roving clans guide.
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Oct 28, 2016 12:36
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Det_no posted:Is this the age of Effort Posts? God I hope, I'm terrible at this game. Someone do a roving clans guide. 1. Get Language square early and - thanks to your free market - always check to see if fetch quests like "bring us 8 titanium" ain't cheaper to buy via market than bribing villages the straightforward way. Maybe grab yourself an early hero while they're cheap af. Remember that questlines forces you to grab an early Wild Walker anyway! 2. You're the one Dust faction with no real additional dust sinks (unless we count winter losses I suppose), so buyout poo poo to your heart's content. 3. Slavers & Volunteers + policy to reduce building cost is ace. 4. Hero skill that allows to trade in cold war is pretty baller and might be worth rushing. As with everything trade-related, it takes few eras to work at all, so be patient. 5. Micro your horses to run circles around opponents (literally) for the charge boost, grab horse archers as your bread and butter unit and kite relentlessly. 6. Don't think of people being able to throw market ban off with influence as a weakness, but rather as an alternative to arbitrary time limit. Time the ban just before a policy choosing turn, so it's expensive and your victim would have to forfeit either policies or forcing the ban away. 7. Your settlers are turbofast for a reason - get them going and win all races to settle the sweetest spots. 8. Always plop down settlers at the end of your turn and simply Setseke if that's not the final intended position - it's free gold/influence! Exception: might want to hold off on that to keep policy costs down, if timing this stuff. 9. Do the questline for sweet, sweet trade buffs. The city-destroying quest is a bitch, deal with it (probably with Privateers). 10. Market manipulation is cute, but more of fun utility here and there rather than some proper Offworld Trading Company subsystem. It's the early access to it that forms the most straightforward advantage. Do not forget to keep checking what transactions are being made - it's easy to get complacent, with it, but it can be a great bit of intel. 11. Setseke, Ho! bumps enemy spies to their academy. This might be worth it instead of a round up. 12. If you build a district over a strategic/luxury and Setseke it somewhere else, the extractor stays. The turn or two of Setsekeing might sometimes be more efficient than building them the usual way. Super secret technique for ultimate assholes (read at own peril): If a city is doomed and cannot be neither defended nor beetle away quickly enough, you might Setseke it and force the opponent to kill the beetle rather than capture it. This is pure scorched earth, so they don't get your hard-bought buildings and wonders and poo poo. Lichtenstein fucked around with this message at 13:08 on Oct 28, 2016 |
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Oct 28, 2016 13:03
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Lichtenstein posted:Wisdom Oooh. I was thinking of starting a game with them, guess I'll go for it.
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Oct 28, 2016 13:19
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Lichtenstein posted:Super secret technique for ultimate assholes (read at own peril): Don't do this because then you'll give them the achievement for it.
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Oct 28, 2016 14:08
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Overminty posted:Not sure why that would be petty seeing as they just introduced that in the latest patch for legend. Oh, that's cool; I hadn't realized they added it (it's been a while since I've played Legend). Mostly it really annoyed me that Legend didn't have it for as long as it did because it seemed like it shouldn't be that hard to implement and it's pretty common for, uh, most video games to allow you to do something like that, but also it's not especially difficult to just randomly pick civs yourself, so I wasn't anticipating it being added.
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Oct 28, 2016 19:02
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