Release Notes version 1.16

[WolfSinger]

While I don't like what they did with the battle system - I do understand that they are trying to slow players down a bit (and encourage diamond spending for expansions).

However, instead of an arbitrary number (20 or 30) provinces each chapter - they really should look at RINGS and based the number of provinces on the number to complete full rings.

To open chapter 2 you need 10 provinces - the first ring is only 6 - so you have to basically do 1 full and part of the second. - How about looking at the number of rings you think the players should be at and base the count (and difficulty) on completing full rings.

To open Chapter 2 - you have to have completed rings 1 and 2 (or equivalent # of provinces)
To open Chapter 3 - you have to have completed rings 3 and 4 (or equivalent # of provinces)
To open Chapter 4 - you have to have completed rings 5 and 6 (or equivalent # of provinces)
To open Chapter 5 - you have to have completed ring 7 (or equivalent # of provinces)
To open Chapter 6 - you have to have completed ring 8 (or equivalent # of provinces)
To open Chapter 7 - you have to have completed ring 9 (or equivalent # of provinces)
To open Chapter 8 (THE ORC CHAPTER) - you have to have completed ring 10 (or equivalent # of provinces)
(Ring 11 is where you are required to have orcs to do negotiations)
To open Chapter 9 - you have to have completed ring 11 (or equivalent # of provinces)

By resetting the chests and the fight difficulty based on this geometric pattern - you will still be encouraging scouting and province conquering - and you'll reset the difficulty to a level where the players who have been with the game since the beginning don't feel like they've been slapped in the face for playing the game the way it was designed. -- There will still be those who will be beyond the levels indicated above - (I myself am only a few provinces away from completing ring 12 so would be at the appropriate spot for opening Chapter 10 - which is not here yet.)

This allows players who have progressed faster than the devs have been able to keep up with to have a general idea of when they can reasonably expect to be able to fight / scout at reasonable difficulty / speed again and still puts slowdowns (NOT ROADBLOCKS) in place.

Of course this will not encourage as much in the way of diamond spending for expansions - although to be honest I have purchased 20 premium expansions for my city - so with the ones in the tech tree and the additional one I will get while completing ring 12 - I will still be 1 short of having all of the available expansions for my city when I complete the Wood Elves Chapter. So you still don't get ALL of the available expansions for free this way - unless you're willing to really learn the battle system and go up against "impossible" odds.

Please think about completely retooling the way you are setting up the 'slowdowns' - please take long term players into consideration and look at balancing with an eye to fairness for those the system has suddenly thrown roadblocks in front of.

 

[SoggyShorts]

@WolfSinger
Your idea certainly has merit, but what about players that are on track with the current chest numbers?
Your proposal fixes things for some players, but for someone like me I'd suddenly need to clear dozens of provinces to unlock the next chest.
Whether it's rings or a number of provinces doesn't really matter, you're basically asking to up the number on the chests--good for advanced players, hard on others.

EDIT: how would the expansions be re-balanced? If I used your list above and cleared the rings required on my live accounts (and got expansions based on them) I would have way too much space, and the game would lose all challenge. I know not all would feel this way, just my $0.02

 

[DeletedUser3707]

Unfortunately, I'm in Winyandor. I did toy with the idea of having a human city on another world but just don't have the time and energy. Fairies are mages so light range are my go-to-guys for them. Light melee are supposed to be good too based on the pentagram but I haven't used them yet because my stats show that most or all of my sword dancers will die before reaching their target. For orcs, it will depend on the type of orc especially since there are now many kinds out there. For cerberi and dogs, heavy range has the best bonuses against them followed by heavy melee. You will suffer a lot of casualties though. My treants were almost overwhelmed by the sheer number where they used to walk all over them before. There are advantages and disadvantages to using either the treant or golem vs. dogs. The golem has better bonuses against dogs but has no strikeback. On the other hand, it can hit the dogs without suffering strikeback which can be significant against promoted versions which have more strikebacks. The treant actually deals a wee bit more damage against dogs (despite the golem's bonuses) and can retaliate against them but at the same time will suffer their retaliations as well. You'll need to weigh the pros and cons vs the other enemies and choose which of your troop combo can deal the most damage to more opponents. I honestly haven't fought dogs that much after my near disaster with the treants and am focusing on other easier fights now but the combat veterans should have a better answer for you. I think it was @varron who said that he was having success with 2 golems and 3 sorceresses but that might not have been against these particular enemies.



I have lots as well and I don't think the problem will disappear as long as new players keep abandoning the game. I keep getting starter cities as my neighbors but they are replaced eventually by others as those cities were abandoned by their players and the cycle goes on.

Thank you for the battle advice. I truly need help. I just took two provinces the lost my rear in the 3rd in tournaments. lol Every time it's Tournaments, I end up in first place. lol That's cool but we usually end up with only 2-4 players. I just thought it would be a chance to practice. I lost all my dogs. lol That was in a battle with that ponytail big guy. lol

I was playing around with joining another world but as a Human this time. I probably wouldn't get very far but it would be different and I like the workshops humans have. lol We should join the same world as Humans so we have someone to talk to. lol

Hey I got asked again to moderate forums or game moderator and work with a big team. Don't think I could be a game moderator but I lost the page with the info and application on it. lol Oh well, have fun and I'll be around here. Oh, and please hurry with these ghost towns. lol Two of mine finally turned gold over night. lol

Blue

 

[WolfSinger]

@SoggyShorts

I understand what you're saying as well - that's one of the reasons I looked at where the Orc requirement came in and worked up my examples based on that.

The thing to remember is if they redid the province requirements - I would also expect the difficulty levels / costs for scouts and the time for scouting to be restructured based on these numbers - this would make it possible for players who are currently on track to catch up. Would it be easy - don't know - but I do think it would be better than putting a roadblock in front of players who were suddenly stopped by the extreme changes to difficulty in fighting.

For my self - I would still be a chapter further ahead than the example above.

There probably isn't a perfect solution at this point - but I do wish they had looked for something that while increasing difficulty the further from 'home' you got wasn't also a roadblock and a slap in the face to the players who have been here since the beginning.


As for having too many expansions - even being at 310 provinces completed my self - if I had NOT purchased the premium expansions I did earlier in the game - I would have 21 spots on my city map that I could not use because I did not have the expansions to place there when I reach the end of the Wood Elves Chapter.


I personally think they set the bar on provinces required to open each chapter too low when they added that requirement. They want to slow people down - so the devs have time to develop the new chapters and stuff - this would have been a better way to do. Raise the requirement for the number of provinces cleared (allow the use of diamonds to open chapters if people are impatient - bet they would still increase revenue) instead of screwing with the battle system and putting up a roadblock by making fighting almost impossible to accomplish.

With what they did - they stopped players from advancing - if they had gone the other route - people are still playing - have something they need to do - scout and clear provinces. Then adding all the changes to the battle system - with adding new troops, refining who is better against who - all of it weaves together better.

Instead someone appears to have said - hey players aren't spending enough diamonds on buying expansions - we need to stop them from being able to push out with scouting and getting free expansions.

They put up a ROADBLOCK and said STOP - when what could have worked better is to increase the requirements. People keep playing.

My ring requirements were an example - again based on where the requirement for Orcs in negotiation hit. We could push that ahead another chapter and put Ring 11 as the requirement to open Chapter 10 when it arrives. For myself that would put me 2 rings ahead of the chapter - Not the best - but still a light at the end of the tunnel. And a much more acceptable roadblock - if I want more space - I have to buy it or wait till I catch up with chapters.

 

[SoggyShorts]

@WolfSinger
That all makes sense, and is by far the best proposal I've seen to help advanced players keep playing.
Would there be any upper limit or roadblock? My concern is that in a few months we'd just run into the same problem, where advanced players would keep going and be 4-5 chapters ahead of the devs again. Would this work with a hard cap on scouting like increasing scouts costs to more than your current MH can hold, or soft caps where scout times are 4 days, but advanced scout techs reduce it back down to 1 day in an upcoming chapter?

EDIT: still on first cup of coffee... how would this effect expansions? Re-balancing the chests to require more provinces cleared means we'd have bigger cities at each chapter, and for dwarf/fairies I think the balance is about right as is.
Perhaps since each ring is bigger than the last your idea would still work if weighted towards orcs(which I hear takes more space)
BTW: does anyone know how many provinces there are per ring?

 

[WolfSinger]

@SoggyShorts

Yep - you would have players who would still push as far as they could - but the difference now would be - they are fully aware of what's happening from this point forward.

Instead of the HARD roadblock that was put up - this would introduce the concept they implemented here and players could adjust or 'suck it up' if they push too far. This is a braking maneuver being implemented before you hit the wall. It's not locking the brakes, but it is still a relatively hard brake.

Doing this acknowledges that 'advanced' players weren't playing the game wrong at the time - but also tells them they need to slow down or they will hit that wall.

I don't know the formula the devs use to increase scout times / encounter difficulty - but I would expect that to remain close to the same or possibly increase (SLIGHTLY)

Let's say you just finished the Orc tech and are looking at opening the Wood Elves - but have not completed Ring 11 (or the equivalent # of provinces) - [based on my first set of examples] you should have less than 1 day on your scout times and be facing slightly lower than 'normal' encounters until you hit the number required to open the Wood Elves stage. Once you open the Wood Elves - you should be reduced again - the advantage of the Advanced Scout tech - once you hit the required number to open the next chapter you hit normal and 1 day scouts for a SHORT bit - but the time and the difficulty go up with EACH province as you progress further and further along. If you keep scouting and clearing provinces you will eventually hit a wall.

Now if you just finished the Orc tech and have opened the Wood Elves - but like me are close to finishing ring 12 (I currently have 310 completed provinces) - I should have much harder fights, higher negotiating costs / scout costs and longer scout times - based on whatever difficulty factor each province beyond the opening requirement goes up by. At some point - if someone is determined to push and push and push their scouting and province clearing - they may run into a hard cap of costing more than their MH can hold and scout times that are in the 4-5 day range. (I'm currently around 2.5 days on my scouts - which actually feels about right for being where I am based on my example). And there is no way I can clear a province by fighting at the moment.

Can't do the smart quote thing in edit mode:

SoggyShorts asked:

EDIT: still on first cup of coffee... how would this effect expansions? Re-balancing the chests to require more provinces cleared means we'd have bigger cities at each chapter, and for dwarf/fairies I think the balance is about right as is.
Perhaps since each ring is bigger than the last your idea would still work if weighted towards orcs(which I hear takes more space)
BTW: does anyone know how many provinces there are per ring?


I personally don't think we need to re-balance the expansions. As I mentioned before - if I had NOT purchased the 20 premium expansions I had earlier in my game - I would have 21 less places on my map than will be available at the end of the Wood Elves Chapter.

I currently have 5 spots on my city map that do not have expansions on them - 1 I expect to get when I finish 2 more provinces (I'm waiting till I unlock the Advanced Scout tech) and 3 I plan on getting from the tree - leaving me with only 1 empty spot at the end of the Wood Elves chapter. The next chapter (if I hold back on my scouting and clearing) will only give me the 2 or 3 we will get with the tech tree to fill any additional space the devs give us.

Orcs was brutal as far as space requirements and nothing is getting smaller with the Wood Elves that I can see - my Main Hall is getting bigger / houses staying the same / workshops shifting a bit / Merc Camp getting bigger / Barracks getting bigger and 2 Orc Wonders (if I decide to add them)

I just started a second city on Aryendell (sp) and will be tracking the provinces by ring as I clear them. Playing that city slow as it is more trying to learn the fighting stuff and testing this idea.

Ring 1 - 6 Provinces
Ring 2 - 6 Provinces (so only 2 more than currently required to open chapter 2)
Ring 3 - I'll update once I've cleared Ring 2

UPDATE: haven't completed scouting ring 2 yet - but it appears there are 12 provinces to clear in ring 3 (not sure yet about ring 4 - I will probably have to complete Ring 2 and start on ring 3 before I can count them) - However it takes 30 provinces to open Chapter 3 - Rings 1 -3 will give you 24 - so Ring 4 will probably give you at least 6 more than required to open Chapter 3. Will Update as soon as I know. Building Sword Dancers atm so I can clear provinces - have cleared 1 - working on scouting ring 2.

 

[DeletedUser43]

My concern is that in a few months we'd just run into the same problem, where advanced players would keep going and be 4-5 chapters ahead of the devs again.

But I don't think you are hearing us. Players aren't that far ahead. They never were.

As for having too many expansions - even being at 310 provinces completed my self - if I had NOT purchased the premium expansions I did earlier in the game - I would have 21 spots on my city map that I could not use because I did not have the expansions to place there when I reach the end of the Wood Elves Chapter.

Same with me.

That is roughly 200 provinces MORE that we are behind the current chapter. So where did this silliness come in about being too far ahead? It doesn't make any sense at all.

Can't do the smart quote thing in edit mode:

If you want to add a quote to an edit, hit the quote button as usual or the reply button, start a new comment, insert the quote, and then cut and paste that in your original quote you are editing.

 

[WolfSinger]

Thanks for the info Bobbykitty

 

[qaccy]

Did you guys ever stop to consider that just because the expansion space is there doesn't mean you have to have it? If you want it that badly, well, it's kind of on you that you're at the point you're at now. I know this is frowned upon here, but over on Forge of Empires it's NEVER been possible to obtain every single expansion and even now, there are still 2 spots that can't be unlocked. Is it hard to fathom that concept over here?

 

[WolfSinger]

Did you guys ever stop to consider that just because the expansion space is there doesn't mean you have to have it? If you want it that badly, well, it's kind of on you that you're at the point you're at now. I know this is frowned upon here, but over on Forge of Empires it's NEVER been possible to obtain every single expansion and even now, there are still 2 spots that can't be unlocked. Is it hard to fathom that concept over here?

Can you buy the extra expansions over on FOE? If so then it's possible to get them all - if you want to spend the money.

Here you can buy up 33 premium expansions if you want to - which will fill every spot with minimal province clearing along with the ones you earn on the tech tree.

Blaming players for something that was never revealed or expected - based on the way the game was set up BEFORE this ROADBLOCK is not helping the conversation.

When the chest were added with the province requirement to open each new chapter (With the Dwarf Chapter IIRC) - it was seen as a way to ENCOURAGE people to scout and clear provinces - not as an indication that you needed to stop here and not progress any further until the end of the chapter and the next one is FINALLY introduced and you see how many are needed to open that chapter.

 

[DeletedUser43]

Did you guys ever stop to consider that just because the expansion space is there doesn't mean you have to have it? If you want it that badly, well, it's kind of on you that you're at the point you're at now. I know this is frowned upon here, but over on Forge of Empires it's NEVER been possible to obtain every single expansion and even now, there are still 2 spots that can't be unlocked. Is it hard to fathom that concept over here?

This isn't FoE.

Here you can buy up 33 premium expansions if you want to - which will fill every spot with minimal province clearing along with the ones you earn on the tech tree.

Blaming players for something that was never revealed or expected - based on the way the game was set up BEFORE this ROADBLOCK is not helping the conversation.

Exactly.

 

[DeletedUser3312]

I read Mariandor's explanation and it made perfect sense to me. Do I like it? no, no I do not. but it makes sense and so I will accept it. I would like to occasionally battle. I don't really care for it, but sometimes it tweaks my interest a bit. I will not be able to scout until I get to orcs but then I will need to clear almost 30 provinces to get to wood elves so for me that is not that far out. Fighting is still impossible for me. And in Aryndyll, I am needing 3 more provinces to be able to open chapter 4. But I can't compete in a battle of any kind. I get creamed. so I will continue to cater. I enjoy the challenge of moving the city round and trying to save as much space as possible without using all my little 1 and 2 square culture pieces. It's like a puzzle where you have the one open grid and you have to make a picture. lol. For me that is a lot of fun. So I don't need to fight. I have to research the techs on battle but it's okay. It's just in case one of these days, I get the desire to have all my military commit suicide lol. Doubt that will happen and only train soldiers if a quest says to so I don't have that many. I use my hammers for other things than training. I am having a lot of fun in Dwarves. I'm about 2/3 through the chapter and looking forward to fairies. That is in Winyandor. In Aryndyll (sp?) I am working on chapter 3 and enjoying finally expanding into some city expansions. So, for me, deleting things I don't need, building what I do until I no longer need them, and moving my buildings around (a lot) lol, is enjoyable and satisfying. I am once again a happy camper with the game.

 

[Heimdahl]

I'm not particularly good at fighting in games due to lack of time to learn and other reasons. I started playing this game because I liked the concept of building cities the way you'd like to and not have to worry about it being obliterated while you were off-line. My work is both long in time and can also be fairly physical so at the end of the day I am exhausted and just want to sit down and relax a bit.
I am about a quarter of the way through the Orc chapter and am finding space to be my biggest issue with collecting runes that are actually useful or if I actually get one I need, not having it shatter on me my next biggest problem. At least until now.
The new battle system does not make any sense to me and fighting even in tournaments is now costly and a lot of the time unproductive. When I see units such as archers take out my heavy melee units fairly easily yet my archers get decimated in one or two turns I find it very discouraging. I have neither the time or patience to figure out which battle units are good against which troops and even with charts of who beats who still find some battles impossible to win. When I'm facing either 3 or more different troops and 5 or more enemy divisions I no longer even waste my time trying to fight because I lose 90% of the time, so what's the use. That means I have to rely on catering in the tournaments more often and because Elvenar deems that I have expanded my number of provinces beyond where they think I should be according to their logic I have to rely on negotiating battles instead of fighting them. Unfortunately I am a little short of space and therefore have not yet built the rally point so I can't build orcs. No orcs no negotiating or completing tech as they require the rally point.
Yes I could spend money which is what Elvenar wants but considering my financial position doesn't seem like a smart idea to me since the rules keep changing and I have seen others who have spent five, six hundred dollars or more on the game to advance faster and have now been burnt by the new changes that came along.
I've read and listened to all the rhetoric comments about how this is balancing out the fighting and how the additional new troops (which so far have proven to be almost worthless as far as I'm concerned) will make for a fairer battle. I'm not buying it. This is the same kind of rubbish I hear from our politicians on how they making our lives better, saving the planet by going green even though the green technologies are less reliable and cost 4 or 5 times more per kilowatt to produce so I find my taxes and costs to live skyrocketing yet my wages remain stagnant. How is this helping. This games only goal is to make as much money as they can without increasing the enjoyment factor. Like government they don't realize that if you want to make things better you have to actually make improvements not just ask for more money and give little to nothing in return.
This game has gotten worse with every new change they have made to the battle system. If they want my hard-earned money they will have to earn it and right now all they are doing is driving me away.

 

[DeletedUser4778]

When I see units such as archers take out my heavy melee units fairly easily yet my archers get decimated in one or two turns I find it very discouraging. I have neither the time or patience to figure out which battle units are good against which troops and even with charts of who beats who still find some battles impossible to win.

Have you tried sor/arc against heavy melee? The sorceress can make the archer immune against them. You can also use the archer as a barrier so heavy melee can't attack your sorceresses. Just make sure you have enough sorceresses to hit all heavy melee units every two rounds. And, yes, I definitely agree that the average and casual player do not have the time or patience to figure out this new system. Hey, even dedicated players simply don't have the time because of real life.

When I'm facing either 3 or more different troops and 5 or more enemy divisions I no longer even waste my time trying to fight because I lose 90% of the time, so what's the use.

It's the same for me. I tried fighting them using different combos but it was either a disaster or very heavy nailbiting-I-think-I-might-be-wiped-out losses and, mind you, I consider different troop TYPES more than troops and troop numbers more than squad size. It's more sensible for me to cater/negotiate those and save my troops against easier and FAIRER fights.

 

[Buttrflwr]

I have been reading, catching up, and though I don't have time to go back and find the quote/post about the rings instead of provinces, that would be a GREAT idea. The only problem, at least for me, is figuring out at a glance what ring I am in. It gets SOOOOO confusing once you get out past where you can see in one screen, and I have a 27" monitor. And yes, I sit there and count, just to get an idea of where I am, and do I REALLY want to scout that province before I get where I need to be on the tech tree. But it is TIME consuming, as I have to start at my city every single time and make sure I am counting correctly, as it isn't overtly obvious which province is in which ring.

I say all that to say, perhaps if they made each ring a shade lighter or darker, or have the outer boundaries of each ring a specific color, even with repeating patterns if they needed, that would make it easier to tell where one ring begins and another ends.

As Soggs said somewhere, just my .02 cents worth. Cheers!

 

[Calenmir]

Someone shared a hint at this in one of the threads and while I'm nowhere near as far along as most/all of you are, it has helped me because I could never figure those rings out. They said go to the province and open one of the fights in it and the ranking points tell you which ring it is. Now this won't help at all if you haven't scouted yet and nothing before it is still open to check, but thought I would re-share that (if you didn't already know it).

I do rather like the thought of changing the color though!

 

[DeletedUser4778]

I have a notepad of provinces with open encounters and the rings they're in. I'm finding scouting cost to be a solid indicator of the ring of any province I have yet to scout.

 

[SoggyShorts]

I have a 27" monitor. And yes, I sit there and count, just to get an idea of where I am, and do I REALLY want to scout that province

I play on a 55" TV, and it's still not obvious.
If it's scouted you have to go in and see how many ranking points you'd get,
If it's not scouted you have to check price and compare to others that haven't been scouted yet and work off of that.

Spoiler: MUCH better

 

[Buttrflwr]

They said go to the province and open one of the fights in it and the ranking points tell you which ring it is. thought I would re-share that (if you didn't already know it). I do rather like the thought of changing the color though!

I play on a 55" TV, and it's still not obvious.
If it's scouted you have to go in and see how many ranking points you'd get,
If it's not scouted you have to check price and compare to others that haven't been scouted yet and work off of that.

not great.
[/SPOILER]

Well, dang. I'll be jiggered, again. Shows how observant I am, and how much I pay attention to ranking points. I NEVER noticed there was an amount of ranking points per province (I mean, I knew there was but just never paid attention to the amount) and I most certainly never realized it corresponded to the ring it was in. Sheesh, I feel like an idjit now. Thanks ya'll.

That still doesn't help at a glance, and without opening each scouted province. I still think they could make a simple, easy way to tell. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
Ya'll have a good week. Cheers!

 

[Calenmir]

LOL! It's really amazing what information you can 'accidentally pick up on' from these threads. Honestly, I didn't know either and thought it was terrific information. Unfortunately you are right that it doesn't give help at a glance or if you don't have 'uncompleted' that you can look at.

ETA: I would love to give credit to the person who shared this, but unfortunately I can't remember. It's not mine though - someone brighter than me.