Feedback requested from devs: How to stop this cheese.

[zespri]

If you wall off just one town on each side, you can do that already with smiting. Isolate it as a branch, smite the connecting tiles, done.

It requires a more work, or more precisely more forethought from veterans to accomplish, but the end result is those intimately involved with the game can cheese just as hard as before. Removing mountains just make it so that newbies, the ones who are most vulnerable and maybe even needing cheese, can't use the cheese.

As I'm noticing here: http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,13202.0.html on the "default" map, whether you are a veteran or a newbie, you don't have that many options for town placement. After the third town (the two first being the initial ones) you HAVE to build a bridge to put a new town up. Smiting the bridge tiles is just one logical step away.

[Misery]

If you wall off just one town on each side, you can do that already with smiting. Isolate it as a branch, smite the connecting tiles, done.

It requires a more work, or more precisely more forethought from veterans to accomplish, but the end result is those intimately involved with the game can cheese just as hard as before. Removing mountains just make it so that newbies, the ones who are most vulnerable and maybe even needing cheese, can't use the cheese.

As I'm noticing here: http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,13202.0.html on the "default" map, whether you are a veteran or a newbie, you don't have that many options for town placement. After the third town (the two first being the initial ones) you HAVE to build a bridge to put a new town up. Smiting the bridge tiles is just one logical step away.

Yep, bridges can be important for placing new towns.   I think that mechanic is fine though, as the map generally wont stay that way for long.  And the game wont let you smite the bridge tiles, because it cuts off a town center.

But yeah, the chokepoints caused by bridges.... tend not to stay that way.  With the constant growth and all.   The map can be quite inflated by the end.

Like this: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=148472298

Most of the towns in there were done by bridging outward, and.... yeah, those chokepoints didn't last forever (and proved kinda ineffective anyway).   That's the forest map, by the way.  Or at least it was until it was mostly transformed into obsidian.   It's fulla holes because of Midgard.

[Levi]

Hello!  I was the said user on the steam forums that used this strategy. 

I just registered because I wanted to say that I didn't realize that I was using a "cheese" strategy or playing the game incorrectly.  I was just trying to figure out the best way to play on hard.  I actually did the opposite first, where I tried to create no mythologicals and just spam as many Greek units as fast as I could (with 2 barracks and a siege workshop), but the bandits beat me up easily. 

Anyway, I think its hard for us gamers to know how the game is intended to be played.  I agree fully that if this strategy wasn't intended, then it should be fixed as soon as possible.  I think its important to keep in mind that the fixes could probably be pretty confusing to people who don't religiously read the patch notes.  Like the "Mythologicals can't attack keeps" change for example.  If I didn't read that change, I would be confused as heck as to why my Minotaurs weren't able to beat up keeps, and I'd probably assume the game was bugged.   

If Mythologicals aren't intended to be used this way, then maybe it would be a good idea to do something like each mytho you make causes the next one to cost even more?  Then it would be easy to use in emergencies, but you couldn't just keep spamming them like I did. 

Anyway, I'm glad some interesting discussion came of this, and hope you guys figure out a good solution. 

Edit:  Also, although a lot of people probably like the custom game options you've got going, it might be a nice idea to create some predefined scenarios.  That way I would have known I'm not supposed to play the same faction against each other. 

[x4000]

@Levi: Welcome to the forums, and never fear on the whole "cheese" thing.  That's not meant to be an insult or a "you're doing it wrong" sort of statement.  It's more a matter of "oh man that guy found a loophole that nobody else thought of, what do we do now" sort of thing, heh.

We're still working on thinking about this in some other threads, but it's definitely an interesting finding you've had, heh.

[tigersfan]

Yeah Levi, please don't consider my term cheese to be anything against you.

Also, welcome, I'm glad you decided to drop by.