Broken Bannor

[HanValen]

Hello from Brasil and nice to meet you everyone!


I've been playing FFH and wild mana from time to time for about two years and am quite a regular at reading the posts around here. I'm amazed at the amount of content that have been done ever since i played the 6.x version, congrats to the devs!

Now, this have bothered me and i'm pretty sure it is VERY broken. Maybe i've been lucky but here is the situation:

Started with bannor in a tiny map with me and 6 civs more with the leader that gives drill and combat to recon, disciple and some more unit types with Emperor and marathon settings.

Now, we know that when bannor start conquering there's no stopping to it but around turn 15 i've got an event pop that gave me a flesh golem with 6 strenght. HECK, conquered a city and there i was with a crusader in the middle of the prehistorical age!

I do realize that when facing human players or high difficulty AI opponents it's not a easy task to conquer a city that early in the game. If in any case you DO everything is settled and no one can do anything else to stop this! Specially with marathon settings. I would have easily conquered half of a giant map by turn 150 in deity with this.

Have this ever been looked at? What's your thoughts on this?

Sorry for any english errors...

Felipe.

 

[Neomega]

Flesh golems don't heal fast, or get experience, you have to sacrifice a unit to give them promotions. Gettign that event is hardly a game breaker. Perhaps you should have played your game through, and seen how powerful/powerless a flesh golem really is.

 

[Folket]

You were very lucky. I would rather congratulate you on your victory.

Other then that I think they are going to have a tech prereq for that event in the future versions. Enjoy your glory while it lasts. You might go down history with the fastest conquest win at Emperor ever.

 

[Neomega]

a giant map is much different than a crowded tiny map. I am sure even a crusader would quickly die trying to conquer the world on a huge map in wildmana. I think perhaps felipe should try playing before speculating. I see poison goblins and hill giants bringing his assurances of world domination to a quick end.

 

[rabican]

you are absolutely right. Unless the map is extra crowded with civilizations, there are always some barbarian cities to conquer. When playing singleplayer bannor i use 2 steps higher difficulty than i would normally use and quick game speed. When playing multiplayer... just don't.

Propose that you get lesser units before appropiate tech. Like axemen or something.

 

[tinstaafl]

Can't really balance a game for peculiar settings like 6 civs on a tiny map in marathon.

I had a crowded starting area on a standard size mountaincoast map. (The map was actually sparsely populated, i left out one opponent, but on mountaincoast 4 or 5 civs tend to be cluttered along the coast regardless). I got a "hill giant for a pig ressource" event in turn 60 or so, just after i was beat to my preferred 2nd city site and things began to really look dim. It allowed me to break out from my position and destroy the ljosalfar to my north (i sent about 12 warriors along).
It got 4 combat promotions and shock, but after the war it soon died when i had to fend off barbarian axemen (acheron settled north of me). Even with 95% battles, you can only win so many.

EDIT: I just noticed i don't really know how that bannor mechanic works. Can you get a veritable steamroll going where you just collect more and more free crusaders by conquering cities early?

 

[[to_xp]Gekko]

I guess the best thing would be to have the crusader's strength depend on how far along in the game you are... early game it's very powerful, later on it's useless since you can build as many as you want.

 

[HanValen]

@Neomega

I did continue the game on, didn't explain the rest of the game cause i thought it was pretty obvious. Even with the wild lands and raging barbarians features turned on they don't spawn so early in the game, giving me time to roam. By level two the saders are able to get march (the one that lets them heal while moving) and they already start with combat 1 and drill 2. I conquered everything pretty fast.

I wish i could test this in a huge map but my laptop is a bit old and only allows me for standard at most in the endgame.

What i think it would happen is you would get at least four cities of advantage by turn 100. Which can give you a science domination over everyone and then its only a matter of time and careful planning until everything is done with.

I keep defending with warriors while crusaders wreck havoc in the lands only to grow exponentially against the pathetic defense the other nations have. Even if i lose a city or two to the barbarians in the process i would just come back afterwards and conquer them again, just to win one more sader while losing a monument at most.

@tinstaafl

So, the effort you made to conquer the ljosalfars early on was deserved. You made the choice there to try it and you would need a lot of focus on military to keep it going. But with bannor you can focus on your empire while letting the freebies do the job. Its a win/win situation.

--------------------

This strat is really specific, depends on conquering a city early and wouldn't work properly in normal/quick games. I really like the ideas Gecko and Rabican proposes. Both would make the strategy have the same availability regardless of the speed settings you are playing on.

 

[Neomega]

@Neomega

I did continue the game on, didn't explain the rest of the game cause i thought it was pretty obvious. Even with the wild lands and raging barbarians features turned on they don't spawn so early in the game, giving me time to roam. By level two the saders are able to get march (the one that lets them heal while moving) and they already start with combat 1 and drill 2. I conquered everything pretty fast.

I wish i could test this in a huge map but my laptop is a bit old and only allows me for standard at most in the endgame.

What i think it would happen is you would get at least four cities of advantage by turn 100. Which can give you a science domination over everyone and then its only a matter of time and careful planning until everything is done with.

I keep defending with warriors while crusaders wreck havoc in the lands only to grow exponentially against the pathetic defense the other nations have. Even if i lose a city or two to the barbarians in the process i would just come back afterwards and conquer them again, just to win one more sader while losing a monument at most.

Yeah, I used to think getting animal handling early was an obvious way to easily dominate the game. An early four cities is a curse more than a blessing.

However, the crusaders probably do need to be toned down or require a tech to start popping, ill agree on that.

 

[Grimz101]

I haven't played Wildmana for a while (waiting for 9.0) but 4 extra cities early game would have crashed my economy and science rate early game. Then I'd imagine the barbarians would rape me from all directions, you seem lucky.

 

[Gaminic]

With the first Government civic you unlock (the one above God King), 4 extra cities will rake in more cash than it'll cost (if you have decent tiles/resources and workers). Once you've connected them, even the trade income will cover any expansion costs.

The only problem for rapid expansion is actually pumping out those Settlers without becoming an easy target for sneaky neighbors and barbarians.