I'm not talking about the entire expansion but more focusing on the new faction. What does everyone think of it and is there any advice you'd give to playing as them?



At the moment (although i've only played about 30 turns with them) they seem rather weak. This might be because they are more of a late-game faction but the way my economy is going not sure even if any sough of late game advantage will win me the game. The main problem is the +150% expansion approval which means expanding is very slow with them which also means they don't wage wars well because even if they capture a city all there other cities will plummet in approval. So really its all up to their advantages in winter which from what I've seen arent even that big, as in the temple of aurgia bonuses arent amazing which is there main source of advantage. They have the best early game scouting though with a free powerful unit which makes up for a small bit.

I had good experience, by settling in an area with "good" industry and an anomalie with extra approval. I did some parley and was looking what I get for solving them (sttrategics !!). Then I used skyfin to get additional strategics, for to be first to build Auriga Museum (+approval). I built Auriga Museum (like with district expansion) to get more anomalies/approval soon. AND I was first by having 30 luxuries, so I had extra wine = more approval. In summer units seem to be crap. But I started to assimilate minor faction (Kazanji) in close region very soon. So everything seems to be fine atm

From what I have experienced, I've found pearl stockpiles to be vital for the Allayi, at least for early and mid game. Using pearl stockpiles will leverage your vast advantage on pearls into tangible economic benefits that will kick start your economy.



I recommend using pearl stockpiles, with extreme prejudice.

I find the Allayi extremely overpowered. The fact that you can (usually) get a Skyfin by turn 2, is just way too strong. From that point forward, you'll search so many ruins throughout the game, and while exploring with Skyfin, you can just stop on resources, at the cost of not using 1-2 movement points. The gold you get from exploration allows you to buyout buildings, and the same exploring will give you enough pearls to keep you busy building boroughs, or more Skyfins, etc.



I can't stress enough, how overpowered I find Skyfins.

I like what I see so far very much!



One error I have found is the description of the Seeker unit. It's description reads that in summer its charge has a greater attack and in winter it removes the enemy's defense. The actual description for Shifting Charge reads that in Light form it is -10% Attack per movement point on target enemy and in Dark Form it is -10% Defense per movement point. Nothing about increased attack for the charge in summer.



The Shifter Nature description actually then says that in Dark Form (Winter) it gets +20% attack and +20% defense in Light form (summer).

They really, really don't like to expand.



I had the bad idea of colonizing a third city very early. I was stuck in rebellion for almost 10 turns before I could turn it around with buildings... and then my dust income during the following winter crashed and bled me dry.



10/10 would try the Allayi again.

Kulzar wrote:
They really, really don't like to expand.



I had the bad idea of colonizing a third city very early. I was stuck in rebellion for almost 10 turns before I could turn it around with buildings... and then my dust income during the following winter crashed and bled me dry.



10/10 would try the Allayi again.

I love the fact that I have to think about things differently. I can't just drop a new city to get a resource. Still early, but this may be my new favorite faction!!!

I apologize for the long windedness of this post. But, I wanted to give good details of my experiences so far. I'm sure there's all sorts of things that I missed while playing that I might try next time around. But, I hope this helps.







I have to agree with the TC, the Allayi seem weak. Their units look decent and the fact that they get a really good unit very early on makes up a little bit for their lame economy.



In a game that already focuses too much on War and not enough on Eco/Diplo/Expansion, this seems very counter-intuitive.



And strangest of all, the Allayi have a Faction tree based around running away and bribery. It's got one great bonus called Pathfinder and a decent bonus called Improved Auriga Affinity. But, the tree itself looks terrible.



If I can offer up some positive feedback, it would be that at least the Allayi Heroes have a decent looking healing ability and 5 movement. At least one of their Heroes (Rabos Rockstriker Highridge) has Army Boost 2. Unfortunately, he's a Ranged Hero. Pheonix and Nach are both better and I find that to be frustrating. DLCs should be adding solid above average Heroes. Most of the Allayi are scouts, virtually none of them are good city managers and only one good army general. That's sub-optimal. Your chances of getting good Heroes in your market is being reduced by adding DLCs.







My recent Allayi:

Turn 60, Fast Speed, Easy World, Vs. Normal AI (1 Drakken), Small World Size (4v4), 4k-6k Dust Income, 2.3k Science Production, 6 Cities, 94% Empire Approval, Summer Season, 19 Pop (Main City), 8/9 Era V, 8 Legendary Deeds, 1246 Score.



Compared to my Custom Necrophages:

Turn 62, Fast Speed, Easy World, Vs. Serious AI (3 Random), Normal World Size (6v6), 12k-16k Dust Income, 4.7k Science Production, 10 Cities, 100% Empire Approval, Summer Season, 17 Pop (Main), 7/9 Era VI, 6 Legendary Deeds, 2108 Score.



Both have very large armies (+40 units, 2 Fotios, 10+ Heroes level 4-8). My Necrophages had twice as many Heroes.

This isn't all that bad when you consider my minor faction bonuses are 7 Delvers, 5 Dorgeshi and 3 Silics in my Necrophage game and I have at least +1-2 more Luxury Boosters running.







These are my initial impressions so far:



1. The +100% cost of producing Population is unreasonable. +25%ish is more reasonable.



2. The +150% expansion disapproval is too high. +50% would work fine.



3. The Pearl cost on districts is too high. Reduced to 1/2 would be fine.



4. Their faction hero shouldn't be a Ranged unit. It should be a Support unit with a Support tree. The Ranged tree is neglible since the Allayi don't have Ranged units that can fully benefit from the skills (Skyfin have Solitary). The Support tree would be more appreciated.



5. Their Faction tree is setup badly. Awestriker is where Pathfinder should be and Pathfinder is where Zealous Hands should be.



6. Zealous Hands should increase the cost reduction of producing new Population by +5%, +5% in addition to it's original effect. There are too many bad city managers in the game. With the addition of both the Forgotten and the Allayi, their Heroes are clogging up the market and preventing the players from getting useful Heroes (Industry+Food Boost, Slavery, Industry Efficiency 2, Influence Boost 3).



7. Awestriker's effect should be replaced with +25%, +25% Hero Experience.



8. Chosen of Auriga's effect should be replaced with +15%, +15% or +10%, +10%, +10% Army Initiative.



9. Coup de Grace should increase Damage, not Attack. A reduction on the amount would be a good idea.



10. Monks should be able to use boots and they should not be based around Countering. Allayi focus on bonus Initiative. Monks could use a redesign so that they benefit from Initiative stacking and not Countering.



11. Skyfin have more HP than they should have. A reduction of 33%ish would be fair.



12. The Allayi need Food/Industry Boost 2-3 on their Heroes. They do not need Science Boost(different discussion, it's not good). Refer to point 6.



13. The Pearl cost of switching forms is unnecessary (and extremely unwanted). I spent Pearls on this only one time for the Faction quest which required a level 3 Skyfin in dark form.



14. The Allayi need a way to produce a small amount of Pearls innately, at least 0.4 Pearls per day per city on Fast.



15. The Light Form's bonus to Health Regeneration does not appear to be working properly.



16. Pathfinder should increase Dust+Science from Trade Routes by +25% in addition to it's original effect.







I enjoy the way the faction is designed and I have a lot of positivity towards it at the moment. But, balance-wise I feel this faction is not where it should be. I would much prefer an overpowered faction that speeds up the game rather than an underpowered faction that slows the game down. And frankly, a balanced faction that can War and Eco would be much more appreciated than having only one or the other.



I wish I could give more positive feedback here. I genuinely enjoyed the Artwork and the overall design concepts. But, I honestly don't know what to say. This is another of a series of DLCs for this game that I have had some fairly negative reactions to. Forgotten are okay. But, Guardians..... Legendary Deeds are so imbalanced.... And I would pay actual money to see Co-Op quests removed forever. They do nothing but slow the game down even further. Now Allayi.... I have mixed feelings at the moment.







Again, sorry for the lengthyness of this post.

Pretty terrible to be honest. Interesting idea but poorly implemented. cj makes some good points that I had observed. It seems to take forever to get anything done with them. If they're going to be a mono-city faction or duo city faction they need more benefits for having so few cities compared to the many other nations have. It's so hard managing their happiness it feels pointless to expand.

Gamgee wrote:
Pretty terrible to be honest. Interesting idea but poorly implemented. cj makes some good points that I had observed. It seems to take forever to get anything done with them. If they're going to be a mono-city faction or duo city faction they need more benefits for having so few cities compared to the many other nations have. It's so hard managing their happiness it feels pointless to expand.

Are you using pearl stockpiles? The Allayi are the only faction that can reliably use them, due to their superiority in pearl collection. Once they are used, their economy kickstarts quickly (I put emphasis on science and food stockpiles).



The Allayi require a paradigm shift to be played well. Whether they need a slight boost or not is debatable (I actually think they do need a little extra and it is something I had argued for during the closed beta), but they are far from being terrible.

Just a few comments.



I agree that the hero should not be ranged since the groupable units are not ranged.



I think their luxury duration bonus should be innate, rather then a tier 2 tech.



I think the food growth is fine as is, since their districts are cheaper. The faction relys on few cities with large spread. Only problem is that the districts require pearls and you don't get many until the first winter.



I started on a random map ("serious" difficulty) and got islands, and a +morale anomaly. Stayed on one city until after the first winter, and got the first two legendary buildings - with wild walkers in the game, on serious. I think this was luck though. This faction seems to do very well on islands.

I didn't find pearl stockpiles to be all that useful until late game,. If the allayi had a ranged unit theyd be unstoppable. I'm about 60 turns in, have four cities, and my capital has 8 pop and 7 districts. It's awesome.

Right now playing my first game with the Allayi. Due to pre-arranged map settings it's on slow. I like it. It can be hard but also very rewarding. I had a region nearby with three (Kazanji) villages and two wine deposits. A gold mine for the Allayi. Through quests and stuff I now have five boosters going with two cities on fervent. You're going to want as many boosters you can get. With the Skyfin it's easy to get to 30 first for the reward. I got 130 gold. I used the Skyfin to get me 10 wine for an early happiness boost. As Allayi you're going to think what regions you want and which boosters.



Only problem was I decided to end my neighbour the Necrophages first. It seems you can't raze capital cities. So now I'm stuck with a city with one village. At least it has a palace and two extractors already built. I decided to attack at the end of winter for offensive bonuses. I did lose three seekers in the siege (cursed Necros). Maybe I should have waited for the defensive bonuses?

It might be good to consider a mechanic like the Cultists. A raze option on city capture that does something different in Summer and Winter. Maybe in Summer, you "rescue" the population, and get a fractional population boost in the capital, and in winter, you force a fraction of the population into units to fight for you (a non-modifiable/mercenary unit. Maybe the basic unit of the faction you take over, scaled by era). That is, if you don't want the city. Otherwise war will cripple you. And I don't think that is the intent for this faction.

It is a bit cheap, but one can always have a single privateer raze cities automatically, after you destroy the garrison.

I find it hilarious that people complain that they want more challenge and innovation from 4x games then turn around and immediately complain when they get exactly that.



They don't play like other factions and I think that's great. No you can't randomly and endlessly expand. You need to use the tools specific to them to gain an advantage. Also, you can build a unit that sucks up resources from ANYWHERE on the map. That is freaking awesome!

Slashman wrote:
I find it hilarious that people complain that they want more challenge and innovation from 4x games then turn around and immediately complain when they get exactly that.



They don't play like other factions and I think that's great. No you can't randomly and endlessly expand. You need to use the tools specific to them to gain an advantage. Also, you can build a unit that sucks up resources from ANYWHERE on the map. That is freaking awesome!

Agreed.



The Allayi are, arguably, the most unique faction, in that they do not rely on expansion but rather on reach and strategic mobility. Even the Cultists, in their own way, rely on expansion. The Allayi have a lot of tools at their disposal, including the incredibly versatile Skyfin, in order to be played well both strategically and tactically. They just need a very different mindset.



That said, I am sure the devs will keep looking at balancing to make sure they remain competitive.

KnightofPhoenix wrote:
Agreed.



The Allayi are, arguably, the most unique faction, in that they do not rely on expansion but rather on reach and strategic mobility. Even the Cultists, in their own way, rely on expansion. The Allayi have a lot of tools at their disposal, including the incredibly versatile Skyfin, in order to be played well both strategically and tactically. They just need a very different mindset.



That said, I am sure the devs will keep looking at balancing to make sure they remain competitive.

Though I wouldn't say that every aspect of the game is perfect and I admit that it definitely needs some more QA, I still think that Amplitude has done an AWESOME job with this game.

Maybe some features need a bit more balance, but overall I'd call it pretty good ...

Slashman wrote:
I find it hilarious that people complain that they want more challenge and innovation from 4x games then turn around and immediately complain when they get exactly that.



They don't play like other factions and I think that's great. No you can't randomly and endlessly expand. You need to use the tools specific to them to gain an advantage. Also, you can build a unit that sucks up resources from ANYWHERE on the map. That is freaking awesome!

I suppose it could look like complaining. As is, I am enjoying my first game. It just seems odd that this faction's hero is ranged, with the range tree, but has no groupable ranged units. Since it can heal like eyeless, I would expect it to be Support, with that skill tree, instead. Ranged is simply wasted on them. I don't see myself every hiring another hero of this race. All you need is one to move around to reduce building pearl cost (maybe). But then, one game, that I have not even finished, does not make me an expert here by any means.



The Skyfin is an excellent unit. I think its stats are perfect, and I like that it costs the same amount of pearls as two districts. Gives you choices on how to proceed. Also, the food/morale traits seem appropriate. On normal speed, I just find myself waiting for winter. Can't do much until then, besides build the altar, and maybe one district if you are lucky with ruins.



I have not yet gotten in a war, but I can already see that it could be crippling. And since they are encouraged to war in winter, I think it makes sense to have something to compensate. Like maybe being able to raze on taking a city. Even if only during winter.

gecko67 wrote:
It just seems odd that this faction's hero is ranged, with the range tree, but has no groupable ranged units.

I actually think a ranged hero complements the Allayi, in different ways. The +1/+1 movement for instance works really well with the already substantial mobility of the Allayi, which in turn makes the empire plan for increased mobility less important so you can spend influence on other empire plans. In addition, the attack boost and extra accessory are also quite helpful.



I personally prefer to focus more on the Allayi racial tree than the ranged tree, as it has very nice skills (Auriga affinity and safe retreat especially).