Skyward Collapse Alpha 0.953

[chemical_art]

and on a third reload, the first chain of events occur!

[chemical_art]

OK, here is the attached save:

The elf always does the same thing.

Two things happen with the chrimera.

It goes left (relative to the elf) and fires two shots on hill, one hit KO.

It goes right, firing a single non bonused round. The elf, launching two volleys on a hill, KO's the enemy.


Keep in mind I didn't plan this at all...but I also have no idea, none, how to kill the mythos character. I get no help from the game in this regard.

Everything was going smoothly until there is just one mythos so early in the game. I don't like it. Waaay to easy to dig a hole even for a vet (which is why they don't do it) so is it really helpful for a new player so early on?

I think it would be far easier if the forced placements of mobs was done in the age of monsters (that I have never visited yet) . Make each side's free. It's a tutorial, can't you bend the rules?

[Cinth]

It depends on how far the elf has to move to get in range.  Movement and attacking cost AP.  Elf needs to spend a bit more. 

That being said, if the elf is supposed to die to a chimera like the tutorial suggests, the elf AP per attack needs to be adjusted to like 4 (which would give it 2 attack from stand still instead of 3).

This is why the tutorial also says that placing mythos early isn't a good thing
You need a lot of units to deal with the surviving creature.

[chemical_art]

For this round's "I barely will give a chance" idea, I made it to turn 8.

At this point, I feel powerless against the elf, so gave up.

Still, turn 8, not bad.

Still, I wish the mythos weren't forced on turn 1. They are hard for vets on turn 1. It is a disaster to throw them into a game with newbies. Given my above save shows just how terrain so dramatically effects the game, and how RNG is so key, and how newbies will have no idea how terrian interacts...

Mythos in phase 1 simply are too unpredictable, able to kill games either way due to both RNG of unit movement and relative units placements at start , so I don't think you can really balance it without it wrecking games before even bandits occur.

[Misery]

For this round's "I barely will give a chance" idea, I made it to turn 8.

At this point, I feel powerless against the elf, so gave up.

Still, turn 8, not bad.

Still, I wish the mythos weren't forced on turn 1. They are hard for vets on turn 1. It is a disaster to throw them into a game with newbies. Given my above save shows just how terrain so dramatically effects the game, and how RNG is so key, and how newbies will have no idea how terrian interacts...

Mythos in phase 1 simply are too unpredictable, able to kill games either way due to both RNG of unit movement and relative units placements at start , so I don't think you can really balance it without it wrecking games before even bandits occur.

Hmm, they're not AS unpredictable as they might appear, even in the first age.

Some of it is just a matter of learning the game to a degree;  even on high difficulty levels, I do fairly frequently use mythological units decently often in the first Age;  they very definitely have their uses, and generally if I'm placing one, I probably have a backup plan to deal with it somehow if, after completing whatever task I put it there for, it goes on a berserk rampage.  And I'm not trying to use them in a super-balanced way... it's not like I place one Greek mythos unit for every Norse one, or something like that.   I'll often have 2 or 3 ice giants on the Norse side, but nothing of that sort on the Greek side.   Generally, since the game really does give the player quite a lot of options (even if they're not always super obvious in how you can use them), I can find a way to keep the giants in check (unless of course I actually WANT them to go on a rampage, but generally that sort of idea is for later in the game).

I find that that concept is very darn important in this game as a whole.   The idea of having backup plans, that is.   Mythological units are SUPPOSED to be powerful and risky like that.... typically the best way to combat one is with an opposing myth unit, or perhaps a few human units boosted by some power, be it a ruins power, or something like Singasteinn.  By nature, they're not easy to deal with, but on the flip side, they have LOTS of uses.

[Cinth]

@ Misery:  He is dealing with the tutorial segment involving the mythologicals.  Once you set one on each side it's game on!!

[chemical_art]

Misery, keep in mind the intentionally harsh (even by my hard standards!) review: It is a deliberate attempt to make the game appeal to new players better by addressing complaints.

Suggesting that intricate, deep strategies, that sometimes are employed by some in a particular situation, makes mythos ok to use in the first age, simply does not address why for a new player it should be used.

If anything, the extent of mythos in game setup should be "You COULD setup a mythos one for free, but keep in mind it will cause great chaos!" should really be the extent of them until at least after the age of man.
 
A new player is having enough to juggle, such as me hitting roadblocks of making wood because to make wood costs wood. It is silly yes. I know it is. But in my first 5 turns I hit similar small things at least a dozen times. I'm simply not equipped for this big bad mythos.


The odds of a new player getting past the age of man right now are pretty pathetic. Getting curbedstomped by a mythos  creature (of either faction) that you didn't even want in the first place is not fun. If you choose the pain and setup up voluntary? Fine. But being forced too? YUCK!


I understand that sometimes you want it, but if the in game tutorial itself says it is a bad idea usually, it follows it is a bad idea to force it in the tutorial.

 

[Cinth]

If anything, the extent of mythos in game setup should be "You COULD setup a mythos one for free, but keep in mind it will cause great chaos!" should really be the extent of them until at least after the age of man.

This is already stated in the tutorial.  It's right in the part that tells you to place the Elf.

[chemical_art]

This is already stated in the tutorial.  It's right in the part that tells you to place the Elf.

That's the problem though.

I DON'T want to. At least, I don't have you have told me it is a bad idea usually.

And from what I understand I don't have to in a normal game, so why do I have to in tutorial?


There is something wrong that in order to learn more about the game I'll abandon the tutorial to play normal games.

[Cinth]

I wonder if having mythological units placed during the tutorial getting killed via a woe would work (turn 2 so you see what they do but don't really threaten the flow of the tutorial).

Anyway, Mass Extinction's little brother

Kills of all Mythological monsters on the map.

[Mick]

I think chemical art is absolutely right. The tutorial should teach you how to play the game, and placing a myth unit in setup is almost always a bad idea (unless you are pulling some super advanced strategy).

I think the tutorial should mention that you can but stress that you should not and move on from there. If the player is curious about why sticking their hand on the stove is a bad idea, they can do so during a normal game and find out that way.

[Misery]

Had a look at the tutorial, to see if I could spot the problem myself.

The problem:  The tutorial seems based on the original balance of the myth units.   Neither the Elf or the Chimera were able to fire multiple shots per turn before!  With the original balance, the tutorial worked out better and there was enough options for even a new player to knock these guys out once they became a problem.

With the current balance, you have to get a little wierd about it to stop them, because the human units are not powerful enough yet to take them on.   It's not actually hard to do it without the human units.... if you know the game.  Indeed, it's quite true that new players simply wont know what to do.


That "done" save file, for instance, the solution to stop the Elf from rampaging was in fact.... mountains.  The red guys had 8 AP saved up, so I surrounded him with some mountains to block off his shots and prevent him from moving.  Sealed him off, and gave the blue guys a chance to recover. This type of tactic makes perfect sense once you're used to the game, but yeah, new players likely wont think of it.

Not to mention that in a typical game it takes a few turns to build up to such a point where you can use myth units at all....


So.... it seems to me the tutorial simply needs updating.   Though, at the same time, the myth units (the ranged ones anyway) might have gotten a bit too much of a buff (the high shots-per-turn count).

Yay, balance issues!  Though, it's kinda expected since the AP change for units was JUST implemented.   It'll get ironed out nicely, I'm sure, once the devs have a chance to deal with it.

[nas1m]

Just wanted to chime in to say that the score gates feel *much* better in my current M/M/M game (Cheers, Mick ).
Enough to make me churn out units to make it, low enough to to actually exceed the Age Of Monsters Limit at the end of The Age Of Man by the carnage I created .

The only weird thing I came across (aside from the repeating music) was this:
I feel like Baracks Units and Mythological creatures could be more inclined to go for low hanging fruit like easy kills etc.

In my game they almost always went for a building which they had not chance to destroy in less than, say, 5-10 turns.
I had a situation where I dropped a Frost Giant immediately amidst a couple of Greek Archery units a couple of tiles away from the next Greek town - and he went of for the town. That was - irritating...

[PokerChen]

Also note:
- please fix Skadi's secret kleptic habits. Mistakenly marked here.
- the town-center placement has been increased to 16 tiles, but the text doesn't show that when you place one.

[Misery]

So, I've started a new game (again) with this new update....


....already I'm *really* liking the effects of the balance changes here.  The new AP system changes so much!   There's actual threat here now, WITHOUT the numbers on unit stats being all out of wack.  This might go quite a long way towards fixing the "total destruction never happens" bit, as well as improving the challenge of the score gating.

The score stuff is much better now too, by the way.   The kills/building destruction as well as many of the numbers on tokens are much better.   I thought things like Palladium were going to get negative score though?  Aint seeing that yet.  Or is that in the next update?   Either way, it's so much better now.

And unit combat is alot more interesting since they can strike multiple times.   This might also lead to having tile type really mean more than it did before.... need to experiment with that.

Overall, balancing basic units out with everything else going on is probably going to be alot tougher now.

Currently playing with everything on Medium, will see just how it goes.


EDIT:

There is one problem though.   While the balance changes mean that both sides are more of a threat to each other.... much more, actually.... this seems almost completely nullified by the fact that both sides are totally obsessed with bandit killing.   There's simply too much bandit presence!   The bandits are rarely a threat to the cities they're near (seriously, they do next to nothing to them, because they get swarmed), but their strongholds take 8 squillion hits to kill, as a tower does.   Red and Blue are hardly fighting each other at all, because they're too busy teaming up on Yellow!  This actually does NOT make it harder to get points, either.  It's much safer to use tokens of various sorts this way.

I'm thinking bandits need to be toned down somehow.


This is all on Medium and such, and is somewhat of an early-ish impression with the current build, so we'll see how it goes from here...