The woe that makes rings of towers = auto victory

[vehementi]

We were on turn like 45/60 and some woe made the outer layer of all cities into towers.  Bandits don't do enough damage to possibly burn them all down so we pretty much automatically won that game.  We played it out but we could have skipped every turn and won.

[LaughingThesaurus]

So I guess you were in the last third of the game and had already hit the score requirement? That woe can be devastating, because it theoretically locks down your ability to score any points. You need people and buildings to die to actually carry yourself through each phase of the game, so invulnerability isn't always a good thing.

[melkathi]

Imagine that woe happening in the Age of Man, before you have the resources to expand. You'd have to do resource drops as a creator action for turn after turn...


edit: stupid typos

[vehementi]

If I am so strapped for resources that I can't *expand*, then this woe is surely saving my ass by preventing bandits from nuking all my towns.

An expansion is 6 turns of stone from one stone thing, really who isn't going to have that income?  A stone thing is 1.5 turns of one wood thing.

I usually start with an expansion.

Most of my points come from killing tons of bandits with mythological creatures anyway though, not from losing buildings.  I play a lot of HOMM every time a woodcutter gets killed it stabs me in the heart.  Then I realize the condition for victory is "don't get completely destroyed" and not "be flawless" :3  The more invulnerable everything is the more I can build resources with impunity and spam mythological creatures & god tokens for huge free points.

[melkathi]

What difficulty are you playing on? At a certain level, bandits have bloolust, or what its called, and can just pass through fortresses while resources come in far slower?

[x4000]

It may be that the paranoia woe needs to come only in higher difficulties because that's where it is harder, not because it's too hard on lower difficulties. Or it may need to be limited to the first two ages. Or both.

[melkathi]

It may be that the paranoia woe needs to come only in higher difficulties because that's where it is harder, not because it's too hard on lower difficulties. Or it may need to be limited to the first two ages. Or both.

I'd go with both. After all, in the Age of Gods, with both factions locked in a war that is spanning the ages, it would hardly be called paranoia to think that someone is out to get you

[vehementi]

What difficulty are you playing on? At a certain level, bandits have bloolust, or what its called, and can just pass through fortresses while resources come in far slower?

Resources don't come in slower at higher difficulty, I'm not sure what you mean.

We were playing on expert/insane/normal, 20 turns-per-round.

Bandits can ignore fortresses, but they don't always.  In practice they spent a lot of their time bashing on fortresses and we were safe.

[Teal_Blue]

What difficulty are you playing on? At a certain level, bandits have bloolust, or what its called, and can just pass through fortresses while resources come in far slower?

Resources don't come in slower at higher difficulty, I'm not sure what you mean.

We were playing on expert/insane/normal, 20 turns-per-round.

Bandits can ignore fortresses, but they don't always.  In practice they spent a lot of their time bashing on fortresses and we were safe.

Would it be worthwhile to have the bandit faction have a certain amount of it's men (or monsters) as it may be, to change targets if the other half is already attacking something?

Like if half are already attacking fortresses, then the remainder could attack towns or other red/blue units?

Just a thought, it works for AI War to target different things, might be a good thing here as well. 

-Teal

[LaughingThesaurus]

I still really think that it's going to be particularly brutal when nobody can kill any buildings yet you have to still score points. First of all, your score requirement was on Normal while everything else was much higher. If you had a harder score requirement, you may not have been able to make it what with all of the not-dying that was going on. Second of all, if you do indeed limit the woe to the first two ages, it'll really hurt more in terms of hitting you right in the score.

[melkathi]

double checked, indeed its the costs that go up, not the resources that are fewer.

[melkathi]

Would it be worthwhile to have the bandit faction have a certain amount of it's men (or monsters) as it may be, to change targets if the other half is already attacking something?

Like if half are already attacking fortresses, then the remainder could attack towns or other red/blue units?

Just a thought, it works for AI War to target different things, might be a good thing here as well. 

-Teal

Or alternatively, if possible, have the bandits set fortresses to a least priority target at higher difficulties. Or even a "do not target fortresses" line for anything but siege weapons.

[vehementi]

I still really think that it's going to be particularly brutal when nobody can kill any buildings yet you have to still score points. First of all, your score requirement was on Normal while everything else was much higher. If you had a harder score requirement, you may not have been able to make it what with all of the not-dying that was going on. Second of all, if you do indeed limit the woe to the first two ages, it'll really hurt more in terms of hitting you right in the score.

So the problem isn't that it's too helpful, it is that I was a mere plebeian playing on expert/insane/normal when I should have been playing on expert/insane/hard if I were a real man?

[LaughingThesaurus]

Well, a big problem is actually that it showed up towards the end of the game when you were already set for score. That's what I feel.