Release Notes version 1.16

[SoggyShorts]

goods will be offered for trade at LESS than five times what they're worth.

The initial prices are the SAME 5 times a like value ratio, you can't even POST a trade that's that bad, and then the price goes up ANOTHER 20% each time you make that same purchase

My experience so far is that it starts at the old 5:1, and goes up 50% per click, and the initial amount is very small (64 steel offered mid chapter 2)

 

[DeletedUser4778]

Oh...my...lord. Just saw all the units in Elven Architect and I'm feeling overwhelmed. How much more would newer players and non-fighters feel? I wish the developers would focus more on city and building options instead of adding new units. The number of troops already varies widely n the same province alone and now I have to learn all these new info (if I have the time and energy to do so) -- and figure out a strategy (if anything can actually work). They really don't allow much for a learning curve here, do they? I know it'll seem less overwhelming over time and taken little by little but that's only if you bother to familiarize yourself with the enemy's stats. I expect many players won't. For a city building game, there sure is a lot of focus on the military. And why is it called a battle system anyway when I don't see the ability to split troops into multiple squads, the ability to move after and not just before you attack, choose which of your troops who have the same initiative moves first, etc, just new troops? I also feel like the barracks and armories are the least efficient buildings. Everywhere else you see a benefit of more than +1 but not so with military buildings which are population and culture hogs with even fewer returns now.

 

[LuvizBlind]

Various changes yet to come in 1.17 too. I'm not even messing with the battle system right now. I am ~still~ trying to 'catch up' my stacks of units; with only 2 upgraded armories its taking way too long, imo. (I have put up an extra one in two cities {where I had space available} to see how much it may help and I am not impressed.) Plus I've now got some new units to train; and had to make space for new training grounds - (the time it takes to train the Cerebus is ridiculous too - I am very glad I trained some extra squads in my Human cities). I feel like I can't quite get caught up or regain my momentum or even previous 'status' at all before another heavy impact change comes my way. I'm just marking time right now.

I'm hoping the Halloween quest line will bring some distraction as I continue to try to rebuild my army; and it will be nice to get a sense of accomplishment from something right now for a change. The ability to gain good culture buildings and other things that make our life here a bit easier or more pleasant is always appreciated.

 

[DeletedUser1390]

I don't understand why the training speed in the Training Grounds a different order of magnitude from the Barracks units. Are the Cerebi 5 times better than other units? Am trying to fathom the logic of this, especially since they use the same training queue.

 

[DeletedUser4778]

I haven't done the Training Grounds and Cerberus research and I refuse to until it becomes mandatory. Ridiculous that you have all these military buildings with very small bonuses that share only 1 training queue. I would consider it if my elven city gets a mortar but, from what I've read and seeing their stats, it and the fairy units have been a disappointment. Hopefully that will change when they're promoted but I'm not counting on it. I'm fearing the next release because of the dynamic wholesaler. Many players have said that the devs nerfed fighting and they'll nerf negotiating next. They were so right. I also read somewhere that the devs are working on "fixing" the quests. Guess they're gonna try to nerf the quests again. I'll see how much I can take before it becomes intolerable.

 

[DeletedUser1390]

I thought to try the Training Ground doggies because I have no way to beat the new Mages in the provinces. But on to add one positive note, I'm pretty impressed so far with the Elite Archers which are now available much earlier. Have only tried them in the tournament so far, but they usually fell those annoying Thorn Mages in a single shot.

 

[DeletedUser2753]

Please add a new choice in settings. TURN UPDATES OFF: Yes No
This next Update is crazy bad, Let me keep playing the game I like and then when I decide the new game is better I can Update it.

The statement was made and mirrored here by Kat that: " we do feel that it's necessary to restore the balance and keep the game fun and challenging in the long run"

You/They have neither made this game more fun or challenging, other then to make playing with purchases of diamonds more attractive with each step. Does the recent change in Bata, to the Wholesaler make this game better? More fun? More Challenging? I don't think so. It just cuts off another way of advancing faster then the developers can develop new content.

You/They have developed a more complex game of wack a mole. NOT a city building game with freedom to chart paths of exploration, expand a city, better it, and develop strategies to move forward and accomplish that goal.

Kat you may feel the more constraints there are the more fun the game is but .... I won't make an analogy to living in Mosul, but you get my point.

 

[DeletedUser43]

No, the moronic part is NOT realizing that Elvenar CHANGES every two weeks.

Hear that people? They/he have called you all morons for buying diamonds. Honestly, this is the first time you and I agree. You might say that you never said that people shouldn't ever buy diamonds from this company, but as you said recently, I am simply thinking ahead of the full implications of your comment.

You'd have to be a total fool to give someone money for something that can be taken away from you at a moment's notice. Frankly, the only reason anyone ever buys diamonds is because they don't know how accurate your statement is.

I haven't done the Training Grounds and Cerberus research and I refuse to until it becomes mandatory.

It becomes mandatory with the next update.

You're seriously suggesting that a newcomer would want to purchase more than 500 +500 per week of their unboosted goods? If this effects the newcomers at all, it will be because more goods will be offered for trade at LESS than five times what they're worth.

lol. For someone who claims to enjoy studying this game, you sure don't know a lot about it.

 

[DeletedUser1987]

No, the moronic part is NOT realizing that Elvenar CHANGES every two weeks. Sometimes the changes are small, sometimes they are HUGE, but it's a given that

• New content will be added
• Some bugs will be fixed (and/or reverted)
• Some of the modules will become more capable
• Some of the creaky old modules will be scrapped and replaced

every two weeks.

The developers can have bad ideas too, just like everybody else, and sometimes you have to try stuff out to determine if it actually works in practice, as well as it does in theory. If you follow your complaint to it's logical conclusion, you're suggesting that misjudgments should never be corrected.

Katwijk, considering that you apparently signed the petition on the beta forum to undo the wholesaler changes, I would think that you would agree with the current desire to simply ignore the upcoming "update".

It just hurts everyone. It makes it so that if none of your trading partners have a resource to spare to trade you, you can't progress until the wholesaler offers the resource. It makes it so that even if the resource is offered, the cost of buying it gradually increases until it's too expensive to buy anymore, even if you need large quantities of it that no one's trading you.

How can you not agree that the ability to ignore this update, which forces people whose trading partners can't trade what they need to just sit for days doing nothing, is a bad idea?

 

[DeletedUser2753]

current desire to simply ignore the upcoming "update".

Sorry to say, this is not an option. The only option they leave us is not to buy diamonds.

 

[DeletedUser4671]

This thread is to discuss the current update(1.16.13), if you wish to discuss Beta update, this is not the place. Please continue any Beta related topics in their respective forums.

 

[DeletedUser43]

Fair enough Areane. Forgive me. I think I took it off track.

 

[Maz Mellor]

I thought to try the Training Ground doggies because I have no way to beat the new Mages in the provinces. But on to add one positive note, I'm pretty impressed so far with the Elite Archers which are now available much earlier. Have only tried them in the tournament so far, but they usually fell those annoying Thorn Mages in a single shot.

I like the Elite Archers too! They are great!

The slooooooooow training speed for the Cerberi, not so much.

 

[DeletedUser61]

The slooooooooow training speed for the Cerberi

You need to feed them some Archers.

 

[DeletedUser4778]

It becomes mandatory with the next update.

I knooooooow. (Luke Skywalker NOOOOOOO!!!) Yet another useless tech and building. Hopefully not so useless but I'm not gonna hold my breath. Hope for the best but expect and prepare for the worst really takes on more meaning here. Yeah, we can come up with new strategies and ideas but we can only do so much. I no longer feel like the 300 Spartans facing hordes or, rather, I no longer feel like the 300 fighting Spartans but the 300 dead Spartans.

I like challenges but I like rewards as well. I spend quite some time studying stats, terrain, possible enemy movement, etc, and I don't mind because I like the strategy exercise but there's such a thing as too much because hey, work and real life, devs. I simply don't have that much time. Yeah, I could negotiate and I've tried that but I quickly ran low on goods and I have a lot of factories (10 marble, 7 silk, 4 gems) and want more but no space/population/culture. There are 8 encounters per province and you have to conquer lots of provinces to get an expansion where you can put only a few buildings. That just doesn't feel very rewarding to me. I'm lucky that I can still fight but I will hit a wall soon and I feel bad for all those who can't fight and progress. That's plain awful with all the time and effort they spent.

More and more I'm feeling like this game is too slow for me especially since I'm an expansionist. I'd been enjoying the challenge of figuring out how to work within or get past the constraints but I don't like being told what to do or how to play if the rationale is not very...well...rational. Is it because the devs are German? At least I assume they're German because Inno is a GmbH company and my dealings with Germans give me the strong impression that they like things to progress in a certain orderly and methodical manner. Well, I'm orderly, I'm methodical, I scout in a circular fashion, I have a battle sheet, a goods sheet, an economy sheet, and layout sheets. I just want to progress at a good pace.

What puzzles me the most is why the devs want to restrict people. Maybe instead of forcing people to follow their worldview they should instead expand their vision? Or is that too different for Inno? Or too economically unsound because it will not earn them much money? For a city building game, there seem to be more military techs in the research tree than building options (aside from cultural buildings) and expansions. Why can't they give us more space considering all the dead cities and gold mines around us? Would it hurt them to give us the space of a dead city? If I wanted to fight, I would play Age of Empires or Diablo.

It also ticks me off that the Advanced Scouts tech doesn't say that it reduces encounter difficulty as well as scouting cost. I just checked my research tree and it still doesn't say so. That's super important info that should have been included right from the start. I think this would have had a big impact on expansion if the devs had put it in the description when they launched the game.

Ever since the new release, my neighbors have been changing weekly and often daily. I also almost never see small trades from starting cities now.

I was also hoping to see an improvement in the attack range of range units and mages with these releases. It's ridiculous that they can often be hit by melee. It's rare that any range unit and mage can escape the knight's or paladin's reach weapon and now they're gonna nerf the sorceress's attack range?! That's ridiculous. When I first started fighting I was like... "Oh, it's like D&D but much less logical."

I'm not asking for an easy game but I would appreciate some breathing room. In the same province, the army numbers jump by the hundreds from one encounter to the next and I assume it's worse for higher-level players. So much for a learning curve.

I keep feeling the stick but where's the carrot? Oh yeah, that's what Wonky Walter's and the Halloween event are for. Here, have a pumpkin.

 

[Buttrflwr]

I like challenges but I like rewards as well. I spend quite some time studying stats, terrain, possible enemy movement, etc, and I don't mind because I like the strategy exercise but there's such a thing as too much because hey, work and real life, devs. I simply don't have that much time. Yeah, I could negotiate and I've tried that but I quickly ran low on goods and I have a lot of factories (10 marble, 7 silk, 4 gems) and want more but no space/population/culture. There are 8 encounters per province and you have to conquer lots of provinces to get an expansion where you can put only a few buildings. That just doesn't feel very rewarding to me. I'm lucky that I can still fight but I will hit a wall soon and I feel bad for all those who can't fight and progress. That's plain awful with all the time and effort they spent.

More and more I'm feeling like this game is too slow for me especially since I'm an expansionist. I'd been enjoying the challenge of figuring out how to work within or get past the constraints but I don't like being told what to do or how to play if the rationale is not very...well...rational. Is it because the devs are German? At least I assume they're German because Inno is a GmbH company and my dealings with Germans give me the strong impression that they like things to progress in a certain orderly and methodical manner. Well, I'm orderly, I'm methodical, I scout in a circular fashion, I have a battle sheet, a goods sheet, an economy sheet, and layout sheets. I just want to progress at a good pace.

What puzzles me the most is why the devs want to restrict people. Maybe instead of forcing people to follow their worldview they should instead expand their vision? Or is that too different for Inno? Or too economically unsound because it will not earn them much money? For a city building game, there seem to be more military techs in the research tree than building options (aside from cultural buildings) and expansions. Why can't they give us more space considering all the dead cities and gold mines around us. Would it really hurt them that much to give us the space of a dead city? If I wanted to fight, I would play Age of Empires or Diablo.

It also ticks me off that the Advanced Scouts tech doesn't say that it reduces encounter difficulty as well as scouting cost. I just checked my research tree and it still doesn't say so. That's super important info that should have been included right from the start. I think this would have had a big impact on expansion if the devs had put it in the description when they launched the game.

Ever since the new release, my neighbors have been changing weekly and often daily. I also almost never see small trades from starting cities now.

I was also hoping to see an improvement in the attack range of range units and mages with these releases. It's ridiculous that they can often be hit by melee. It's rare that any range unit and mage can escape the knight's or paladin's reach weapon and now they're gonna nerf the sorceress's attack range?! That's ridiculous. When I first started fighting I was like... "Oh, it's like D&D but much less logical."

I'm not asking for an easy game but I would appreciate some breathing room. In the same province, the army numbers jump by the hundreds from one encounter to the next and I assume it's worse for higher-level players. So much for a learning curve.

I keep feeling the stick but where's the carrot? Oh yeah, that's what Wonky Walter's and the Halloween event are for. Here, have a pumpkin.

Very, VERY well said. Thank you. This needs a "love" button.

 

[DeletedUser]

Yep, I'm with Buttrflwr - I *love* your post, Draconomicon!

 

[DeletedUser4778]

Thanks, @Buttrflwr and @travelstovegas! Really, I think that all players should be able to play at the pace they want. If everyone did things as slowly as Inno seems to want us to and kept staying within their boundaries, there would have been far fewer inventions, America as we know it now wouldn't be the same, we'd have landed on the moon much later, etc. Inno has to allow for different playing types and adjust accordingly. Lack of flexibility and options in a game is short-sighted. I remember the limitations of Diablo I and the flexibility of Diablo II and the latter was way more popular. Then they released Diablo III where there was a level cap and people hated it. I compare the hex fighting system here to Heroes of Might and Magic and I vastly prefer that game. As I kept telling the team I supervised, "Survival is not about the strongest or the smartest (though I wish it were the latter), but it's about the ability to adapt/evolve." We need to adapt to Inno (or quit the game) but they also need to adapt to us. It can't just be my way or the highway. There needs to be an intersection.

 

[DeletedUser3707]

Thanks, @Buttrflwr and @travelstovegas! Really, I think that all players should be able to play at the pace they want. If everyone did things as slowly as Inno seems to want us to and kept staying within their boundaries, there would have been far fewer inventions, America as we know it now wouldn't be the same, we'd have landed on the moon much later, etc. Inno has to allow for different playing types and adjust accordingly. Lack of flexibility and options in a game is short-sighted. I remember the limitations of Diablo I and the flexibility of Diablo II and the latter was way more popular. Then they released Diablo III where there was a level cap and people hated it. I compare the hex fighting system here to Heroes of Might and Magic and I vastly prefer that game. As I kept telling the team I supervised, "Survival is not about the strongest or the smartest (though I wish it were the latter), but it's about the ability to adapt/evolve." We need to adapt to Inno (or quit the game) but they also need to adapt to us. It can't just be my way or the highway. There needs to be an intersection.

Greetings to everyone!
Draconomicon, you've done it again. lol You keep telling it like it is and don't sugar coat anything, and I like that. I agree with you very much. They should allow us a choice whether to update or not but it might be quite difficult having different players on different levels. It happen over at secondlife and now for the first time since they were created we all have to have the same update all the time. I understand what you're saying and agree but we don't really have that choice because they won't program it that way. lol

I am still losing battles!!!!!!! lol

 

[DeletedUser4778]

They should allow us a choice whether to update or not but it might be quite difficult having different players on different levels. It happen over at secondlife and now for the first time since they were created we all have to have the same update all the time. I understand what you're saying and agree but we don't really have that choice because they won't program it that way. lol

I agree. I think giving the choice of whether to update or not might be too much for the system but I'm no programmer. It would be neat but then we wouldn't be playing the same game and it would make asking for help and giving advice trickier. By flexibility, I mean more options and more ability to choose rather than all of us having to go through the same technologies whether they help us or not. I really don't like having to spend KPs (which equate to valuable time) researching stuff for unboosted goods and those small cultural items in the first half of a chapter which give you only one to two non-diamond cultural buildings (I particularly resent it when it allows me to build only one non-diamond building. I don't mind that they have diamond buildings because they do have to earn money but I need better cultural buildings at lower levels in a chapter).

But that might be seen as off topic. With regard to this specific release, there's none of what I would consider a significant difference between the stats of the old and new troops. I must say they did a good job of balancing a unit -- lower HP if the unit deals higher damage due to a special ability and the like. Okay, 10% more can be significant especially if you're dealing with hundreds or thousands of units but it's a headache for me because I have to familiarize myself with so many new different opponents and stats now. So, yes, there is a significant difference but it's also a significant headache and effort for me.

I've checked the stats of the new units that are available on my map and compared them to the previous ones and they're all weaker in terms of base attack and hp but stronger in terms of special abilities. That's in my favor for now but, if I had to use those new units, I would be disappointed due to spending time, KP, space, and resources for such weak stats -- essentially a sorceress with some shuffling around of points from attack and hp to special ability. They could be more useful against certain troops but I think what's needed more is a true and *good* revision of the battle *system*, not just adding new units.

What I would really like to see is more flexibility in our options of how to arrange our army in terms of both numbers and starting position on the battlefield, choosing which units of the same initiative order go first (because you often lose a unit's turn due to a pesky obstacle in front of it and fellow units beside it), etc.

For now, I've decided to be very selective about choosing my fights since I suffer heavier losses than before the new system. The increased training speed of the barracks doesn't make up for it at all, not by a long shot. Where 100 squads before could see me through at least 24 provinces with careful strategizing, they are not enough for less than half of 24. I'll definitely have to negotiate much more than I did before (I've negotiated only 3 encounters ever since I started fighting and those were because of the horrid cannoneers in horrible terrain where they kill you before you're even halfway through walking from one end to the other). I don't produce enough troops for all the encounters on my map and my impatience and boredom sometimes get the better of me. Aside from that, I need 10 more provinces for the Dwarves chapter and I don't want to fight all the time while waiting for the last techs in Chapter 5 to complete because it takes me more time to fight now and fighting all the time is exhausting. I never got tired of fighting in other games but I definitely get sick of it here.

I would also like to say that whoever programmed the enemy's movement is amazing. I have never been this impressed by anyone's or anything's movement before and would like to meet whoever did it to pick his/her brain. I'm learning a lot from seeing how the AI moves its units. I would have actually recommended this game to my friends and former players for that alone (not anymore since they will howl at the number and power of the troops stacked against them).

However, I want to point out that the AI doesn't get tired and doesn't get mistakes *but we do*. We're outnumbered, outgunned, AND outmaneuvered most or all of the time and the taste of defeat is bitter indeed. Even winning with heavy losses doesn't feel like much of a win especially if the reward is so small. You spend days or weeks building up your forces or goods to solve a few encounters or provinces in exchange for a pittance of land. One of my fave voice-overs in Age of Empires that I used to scare other players is: "You played for 3 hours just to die like this?" How I wish it were only 3 hours. All the time we spend on this game acquiring even just one province is sucked up by the black hole problem of space.

While the new battle system may be what the devs think as more balanced, I find it to be more nonsensical. Whoever heard of light range dealing lots of damage to heavy melee? I still cannot wrap my brain around the idea of an archer's arrow penetrating a knight's armor or treant's barkskin. I really can't find it in me to blame or criticize people who chose a certain unit to pit against a particular foe because their choices were logical in the real world and in other games.