This amused me:







Click "next turn" for instant victory! How did that happen?



-30% building cost from Empire Plan

-25% building cost from 5x assimilated Urces villages

-24% building cost from Wild Walker hero

-25% building cost from faction quest reward

= -104% building cost ==> buildings are free!



I kinda feel like the Wild Walker building cost buffs are possibly a bit OP...

this is funny. now i want to try it.

]



The amount of work it would take to get all those bonuses, your opponents would have to be asleep. Also you're either halfway through the game, or more likely with 30 people in your city only a couple turns shy of score victory.

Come to think about this, this wouldn't happened if the bonuses where made as a power factor::: (1-0.3)*(1-0.25)*(1-0.24)*(1-0.25) ~= 0.3 building cost... Making cumulative bonuses less effective...





But, anyway, this is kind of fun, yes! Never thought it would really be possible to have cities this size...

It's not as hard to pull off as you make it sound, Matlock. Have you ever tried it?



1) Empire Plan: Trivial.



2) Wild Walker Hero: Some level of building reduction is nearly guaranteed due to leveling requirements of quest and the high-cost improvement built immediately previous to the wonder.



3) Faction quest reward: Guaranteed from quest.



4) Urces assimilation: This is the only real wild card.



The WW wonder victory doesn't really require any conflict with other factions, nor does it require more than 2 provinces, other than the costs of strategics. It's achievable by vanilla factions in under 130 normal turns. It's achievable by custom factions in under 100 normal turns. It's one of the fastest non-military victories in the game. (Vanilla cultists can pull off a faster wonder victory, but that requires holding on to so many converted villages that it's only realistic against normal-ish difficulty AI.)

abmpicoli wrote:
Come to think about this, this wouldn't happened if the bonuses where made as a power factor::: (1-0.3)*(1-0.25)*(1-0.24)*(1-0.25) ~= 0.3 building cost... Making cumulative bonuses less effective...

That's kinda what I was thinking. That would still give a decent effect to the first couple of bonuses, with diminishing returns thereafter so it doesn't become OP. Either that or just nerf the faction quest reward a bit, since you're basically guaranteed to have the empire plan reduction by then.

natev wrote:
It's not as hard to pull off as you make it sound, Matlock. Have you ever tried it?



1) Empire Plan: Trivial.



2) Wild Walker Hero: Some level of building reduction is nearly guaranteed due to leveling requirements of quest and the high-cost improvement built immediately previous to the wonder.



3) Faction quest reward: Guaranteed from quest.



4) Urces assimilation: This is the only real wild card.



The WW wonder victory doesn't really require any conflict with other factions, nor does it require more than 2 provinces, other than the costs of strategics. It's achievable by vanilla factions in under 130 normal turns. It's achievable by custom factions in under 100 normal turns. It's one of the fastest non-military victories in the game. (Vanilla cultists can pull off a faster wonder victory, but that requires holding on to so many converted villages that it's only realistic against normal-ish difficulty AI.)

Are you fighting against anything in your example? Are you putting any resources toward defending your two provinces? The screenshot example is at turn 142 of a ??? length game. Either 8 turns from the end or halfway through the game where pretty much all the victories occur. Roving Clans or Lords could easily do an economic victory by then, and military victories are usually well in the bag by then.

The WW quest requires making an army relatively early in the quest-- in fact, at about the point that it would be smart to do so anyways. So long as you have more than one province, there's spare production. The chokepoints are getting a lvl 2 center and district, then getting a tier 4 empire plan, then getting some experience for your hero, then acquiring sufficient strategics. Even without conflict you end up making military because there's not much else to build, and you can sell them near the end of the game to shave a few turns off your win. This is the fallback victory for WW, and it's strong enough that they can afford to play a defensive military game.



Military victories are the rule in my experience, but I was under the impression that they weren't in yours. And I don't think I've seen an economic victory prior to 142 normal turns on a normal sized map with vanilla factions. Maybe I'm just doing it wrong though. How fast do you pull off your economic victories-- or maybe how fast are they pulled off on you?



But it doesn't sound to me like you've tried this out. Try it out! Unless I'm mistaken and you're already well acquainted with it?

natev wrote:
The WW quest requires making an army relatively early in the quest-- in fact, at about the point that it would be smart to do so anyways. So long as you have more than one province, there's spare production. The chokepoints are getting a lvl 2 center and district, then getting a tier 4 empire plan, then getting some experience for your hero, then acquiring sufficient strategics. Even without conflict you end up making military because there's not much else to build, and you can sell them near the end of the game to shave a few turns off your win. This is the fallback victory for WW, and it's strong enough that they can afford to play a defensive military game.



Military victories are the rule in my experience, but I was under the impression that they weren't in yours. And I don't think I've seen an economic victory prior to 142 normal turns on a normal sized map with vanilla factions. Maybe I'm just doing it wrong though. How fast do you pull off your economic victories-- or maybe how fast are they pulled off on you?



But it doesn't sound to me like you've tried this out. Try it out! Unless I'm mistaken and you're already well acquainted with it?

I did a wonder victory with the walkers. Military victories are definitely a rule. The difference is that I've always viewed that as a failing of the playerbase, rather than the games design.

SpanishMatlock wrote:
The difference is that I've always viewed that as a failing of the playerbase, rather than the games design.

Can you explain a bit? Is there a reason the playerbase should chase slow victory conditions?

Propbuddha wrote:
Can you explain a bit? Is there a reason the playerbase should chase slow victory conditions?

I've mentioned before but its my experience that most people usually don't put enough focus into the military, the common misconception being that angling for a victory type doesn't involve protecting yourself from invasions. So the one or two people who focus on the military seem to roll over the other players. I could count the number of games where wars involved any give and take. That's not an engine problem it's just that there's a serious military power mismatch.

SpanishMatlock wrote:
I've mentioned before but its my experience that most people usually don't put enough focus into the military.

The problem is not necessarily the players, but that the single player experience and all of the other non-military content leads you to believe you don't have to.

natev wrote:
It's not as hard to pull off as you make it sound, Matlock. Have you ever tried it?



1) Empire Plan: Trivial.



2) Wild Walker Hero: Some level of building reduction is nearly guaranteed due to leveling requirements of quest and the high-cost improvement built immediately previous to the wonder.



3) Faction quest reward: Guaranteed from quest.



4) Urces assimilation: This is the only real wild card.



The WW wonder victory doesn't really require any conflict with other factions, nor does it require more than 2 provinces, other than the costs of strategics. It's achievable by vanilla factions in under 130 normal turns. It's achievable by custom factions in under 100 normal turns. It's one of the fastest non-military victories in the game. (Vanilla cultists can pull off a faster wonder victory, but that requires holding on to so many converted villages that it's only realistic against normal-ish difficulty AI.)

1. Only trivial when you have effectively won the game already.

2. WW heroes are not as good as cult heroes for cities.

3. For this faction. most other factions don't have that and I am fine with a fully teched out WW having a nice reward.

4. There are few limited slots, normally you want them to be used on something more important



I am perfectly fine with this working as it does

taltamir wrote:
1. Only trivial when you have effectively won the game already.

2. WW heroes are not as good as cult heroes for cities.

3. For this faction. most other factions don't have that and I am fine with a fully teched out WW having a nice reward.

4. There are few limited slots, normally you want them to be used on something more important



I am perfectly fine with this working as it does

I have only ever seen natev play a hard military broken lords game, so I think that really informs his opinions about various game mechanics.



Consider that most mp players don't go military at all.

Natev concludes that military game is unbearably strong.



Consider that his losses in this case probably result from the last empire to fall to his tender machinations having a strong economic/diplomatic/other victory game.

Natev concludes that x victory type is overpowered.

I don't believe it's overpowered. It's nowhere near my list of issues that ought to be addressed. I didn't get the idea that Lamsey thought it was game-breaking either. I merely think it's a strong way to play, and it sounded to me like you were saying that building a really fast wonder (1-4 turns, in me experience) was totally impractical in the way that filling a province with districts is possible, but not really going to happen in a reasonable game.



In my experience, non-military victories aren't likely, but they end up having an effect on the military game by determining who needs to aggress. The strength of the WW wonder victory means that they can afford to play a defensive rather than offensive game.



Even that's limiting the discussion to the multiplayer game, when I don't get the feeling that most EL players focus on multiplayer.



Edit: Matlock, you've said some things that I find insulting. Some of what you say is a little bit true, and some of it is fantasy, and anybody that wants to take a look at any evidence (my posting history, and my games, which I've never been anything but eager to share) can see it. But there's absolutely no reason for anyone to go to that trouble, because I don't say things with the intention that they'll be believed for who I am (I'm nobody, and as prone to error as anyone), but only for the evidence I offer.