death_relic0 wrote:




Also, if anyone has any links to some good tutorial (video or text, anything) please do link them.



Thanks.

Try some of Panczasu's videos. Some of them are a bit old, and was recorded in the alpha/beta, but I followed all of them during development and they are excellent. Pan is also quite active on the forums, a very nice guy and entertaining to listen to, all the while giving very good advice for intermediate players (in other words, once you know the basics).



You can find his channel here. Give his Roving Clan series a watch for specific Clan strategies

Yes. You can test it on your hero (assuming the hero doesn't have a natural damage boost capacity). Look at damage before any accessories. Look at damage with titanium ring / unit damage boost. Look at damage with titanium necklace / army damage boost. Look at damage with both equipped at the same time.

Autocthon wrote:
If it is impossible to retrofit mercenaries (and yes I know the difference) then nobody told my wargs. Who are kicking titanium gear and privateering their way through enemy territory. And yes, the stats check out.



Seriously. Everybody assumes I'm NOT double checking. I've only checked in three different games so far. Maybe next game people will believe. Or maybe on the tenth game. Who knows.

How do you do it? Step by step.

So if I have a titanium item on my unit and a titanium army boost of hero I will get both?

Autocthon wrote:
If it is impossible to retrofit mercenaries (and yes I know the difference) then nobody told my wargs. Who are kicking titanium gear and privateering their way through enemy territory. And yes, the stats check out.



Seriously. Everybody assumes I'm NOT double checking. I've only checked in three different games so far. Maybe next game people will believe. Or maybe on the tenth game. Who knows.

Whaaaaat? Serious? Thats crazy... I wonder if it is a bug/exploit. Because then privateers are absolutely bloody amazing. Does the Merc life bonus from roving clans apply as well?

death_relic0 wrote:
Have you turned science victory off? cause usually for me by that time some AI has already won . on impossible difficulty at least.

Was on Serious. The AI was actually at 4/5 techs and likely only a few turns away ^ ^

Army damage boost is a different capacity to the damage boost though.

aimlessgun wrote:
Yeah have to either be in forests or have a ranged hero bonus for 4 range attacks. But many battlescapes are too restrictive and I ended up fighting necrophages a lot and their flyer swarms make hit and run impossible anyways.



However luckily the necros didn't do a serious invasion when I was weak before I got the dust engine up and running. So a few hours after complaining about Clans in this thread my game ended in an economic win on turn 220 even after basically ignoring the quest until turn 120 and many other mistakes. Especially expanding beyond 6 regions would have made things quite a lot faster, though midgame I would have been very vulnerable to attack. So my outlook on them is now much more positive

Have you turned science victory off? cause usually for me by that time some AI has already won . on impossible difficulty at least.

Antistone wrote:
I'm pretty sure that if you get two capacities of the same type, you just get the better one--they're not added together. So if you have an inherent damage boost 1, and equip a trinket that has damage boost 2, then you get damage boost 2 and your inherent damage boost 1 is wasted.

VieuxChat wrote:
I confirm that.

Cheers guys..that's interesting. I think my armies and financies just got stronger. I been stacking it up. Buying heros with damage boost, equipping them with army damage boost and then putting damage boost items on the troops themselves. It's nice to learn two out the three are useless

nnwork wrote:
Could it be about misunderstanding with the two types of units? There's marketplace recruits and minor faction city-built units. I think people usually refer to units obtained via marketplace as mercenaries. Those are the ones you cannot retrofit, at least I didn't when I last played Clans. Minor faction units that you're able to build in your cities work out just like your usual faction units.

If it is impossible to retrofit mercenaries (and yes I know the difference) then nobody told my wargs. Who are kicking titanium gear and privateering their way through enemy territory. And yes, the stats check out.



Seriously. Everybody assumes I'm NOT double checking. I've only checked in three different games so far. Maybe next game people will believe. Or maybe on the tenth game. Who knows.

Antistone wrote:
I'm pretty sure that if you get two capacities of the same type, you just get the better one--they're not added together. So if you have an inherent damage boost 1, and equip a trinket that has damage boost 2, then you get damage boost 2 and your inherent damage boost 1 is wasted.

I confirm that.

timally wrote:
Quick question, can I go above level 3 on army boosts? If my hero has an inherent level 3 damage boost, will the plus 3 damage titanium trinket add damage?

I'm pretty sure that if you get two capacities of the same type, you just get the better one--they're not added together. So if you have an inherent damage boost 1, and equip a trinket that has damage boost 2, then you get damage boost 2 and your inherent damage boost 1 is wasted.

The roving clans are my favourite so far. When you have mercs you can boost them with a hero, minor tribe bonuses or both. When you go privateers you lose the hero. If the quest tells you to get a wild walkers hero, I generally equip roads of dust, do the couple of quests and then have it as my "start-up" governor. Every city i found I use it to give the city a big boost to building at the start. I usually play small regions to give more expansion possibilities..so you can usually expand quite late. In one game I had a fully boosted hero who took a build queue of 240 turns and changed it to 14 when he was assigned (most turns I had 2 buildings out). He's awesome for the wonder victory as well.



With the mage version of the quest I either have a science city, or use him as a hero for army bonuses, making sure I use the boost experience (no idle hands?) skill for my mercs.



When I start my first couple cities I try grab as many anomolies as possible as they give you a good early cash boost with the clan hero's first faction skill. I take two levels of that (plus 6 gold per anomoly) then race to the cold operator and black market skills. After the city is built up with happiness and I have the roads/trade skill and building, I move the city to a better place. It's about now I try decide best victory type..can i get to the marked city for the quest easily, or will I go the dust or science route, or will I start pumping out privateers. Heros are easy to grab with the cash available. I prefer all clans and one WW hero for governor. For my wn troops I prefer clans generals for movement and attack, but WW do as well. For the mercs most heros are good and add to their capabilities..I generally try choose a leader with two army boost bonuses.



Quick question, can I go above level 3 on army boosts? If my hero has an inherent level 3 damage boost, will the plus 3 damage titanium trinket add damage?

Hey guys,

Been trying to win with roving clans. Played 3 or 4 games so far with no luck and starting to really dislike roving clans. here are my issues



[LIST=1]

By mid of second era, all areas of the map have been colonized, so you need some sort of war to get more areas from the enemy. The 'war' strategy with roving clans is, buy mercenaries (with +100%HP), make them privateers, attack, destroy, build. There are many MANY flaws with this

1: mercenaries cannot be upgraded. they have the worse equipment ever on them, so they get more. The 100hp boost is awesome, but they get more useless as time passes

2: apparently privateers cannot 'group together' as reinforcements. so if it is mid game for example, one army of privateers will never be enough to defeat an army of the AI.You will have to build multiple armies of privateers and attack the AI one by one with them to ever hope to capture a city. This really REALLY increases your losses

3: even after all this, you dont get the city! you still have to build it from scratch

4: near the late mid game, which is when you can really afford to buy mercenaries, the mercenary market dries up as there are no minor faction villages left and no AI is selling any units. So now you'r stuck with nothing to do really.

They are made for economic victory which never happens

They seem to be a bit 'geared' towards trade which really doesnt come into play significantly until the third era (even if you get the technology in the second era, building "right of way" in you cities takes a while). Even then, the benefits of trade don't really seem that great

[/LIST]

death_relic0 wrote:
Havent tried the mounted archers yet, but even if you move and attack, you will be max 2 blocks away from the enemy, which means the enemy can get to you and hit you unless they have only 1 movement point which is very rare. So how can you hit and run?



Though if you could 'hit then move' would be nice, but apparently you can only 'move then hit'

Yeah have to either be in forests or have a ranged hero bonus for 4 range attacks. But many battlescapes are too restrictive and I ended up fighting necrophages a lot and their flyer swarms make hit and run impossible anyways.



However luckily the necros didn't do a serious invasion when I was weak before I got the dust engine up and running. So a few hours after complaining about Clans in this thread my game ended in an economic win on turn 220 even after basically ignoring the quest until turn 120 and many other mistakes. Especially expanding beyond 6 regions would have made things quite a lot faster, though midgame I would have been very vulnerable to attack. So my outlook on them is now much more positive

aimlessgun wrote:
Awesome thanks for the help! I assumed the ruins worked like Civ haha. And being able to fully control the mounted archers is going to be amazing.

Havent tried the mounted archers yet, but even if you move and attack, you will be max 2 blocks away from the enemy, which means the enemy can get to you and hit you unless they have only 1 movement point which is very rare. So how can you hit and run?



Though if you could 'hit then move' would be nice, but apparently you can only 'move then hit'



Also, if anyone has any links to some good tutorial (video or text, anything) please do link them.



Thanks.

Antistone wrote:
You actually can, the game just never bothers to tell you that you can: right-click the space you want to move to, then CTRL+right-click the enemy you want them to attack.





Necrophage have a faction trait called "pitiless" that prevents them from forming a peace agreement with anyone under any circumstances.





Every ruin can be searched by every player--it doesn't matter if someone else has already searched them as long as you haven't.



There's also a tech in (IIRC) era 4 that lets you search every ruin a second time (not that I necessarily recommend getting it...)

Awesome thanks for the help! I assumed the ruins worked like Civ haha. And being able to fully control the mounted archers is going to be amazing.

Autocthon wrote:
You know I seem to consistently be able to retrofit mercenary troops which I have assimilated a faction of. But hey everyone else says it's not working, despite it definitely working for me.

Could it be about misunderstanding with the two types of units? There's marketplace recruits and minor faction city-built units. I think people usually refer to units obtained via marketplace as mercenaries. Those are the ones you cannot retrofit, at least I didn't when I last played Clans. Minor faction units that you're able to build in your cities work out just like your usual faction units.

aimlessgun wrote:
The Clan mounted archers could be awesome in theory but hit and run seems very hard to pull off in this game as I cannot order them to move to a specific place AND attack a specific unit.

You actually can, the game just never bothers to tell you that you can: right-click the space you want to move to, then CTRL+right-click the enemy you want them to attack.

aimlessgun wrote:
My continent is now almost covered by an expansionist Necrophage (whom I apparently cannot make peace with?)

Necrophage have a faction trait called "pitiless" that prevents them from forming a peace agreement with anyone under any circumstances.

aimlessgun wrote:
at this point I doubt there are even 3 unexplored temple ruins left on the map

Every ruin can be searched by every player--it doesn't matter if someone else has already searched them as long as you haven't.



There's also a tech in (IIRC) era 4 that lets you search every ruin a second time (not that I necessarily recommend getting it...)

You want futile, try Broken Lords. The Roving Clans can be plenty powerful. I don't always play the Warmonger, and the Roving Clans are perfect for that. Find a good location that has lots of production, and food and use it to grow big cities for later relocation. Talk about being powerful.

On turn 120 with a Clans game and I also have issues with the faction.



The moving city bonus is awesome but seems useless most of the time (luxury trick is a nice tip, but it seems like an exploit). In single player 8% market cut basically does nothing so far, and I don't know if the market ban would really be useful vs the AI either.



Their base units don't seem that good, but maybe that's because my last game was Ardent Mages and blue fire ranged casters are just overpowered. The Clan mounted archers could be awesome in theory but hit and run seems very hard to pull off in this game as I cannot order them to move to a specific place AND attack a specific unit. Most of the time they move but then don't attack, no matter the default settings I've tried. And even on the rare occasions they do move and shoot, you can't guarantee they will focus fire. As for mercenaries, not being able to change equipt is balanced by the innate bonuses but from a personal taste standpoint I really hate not being able to customize them



However a lot of the issues I'm running into are specific to this game. My continent is now almost covered by an expansionist Necrophage (whom I apparently cannot make peace with?), this kills trade (especially since clan heroes are not showing up on the market at ALL). My faction quest stalled out as I had to explore 3 temple ruins with an Ardent Mage hero and my small exploring army was completely shut down by closed borders and relentless AI attacks, and at this point I doubt there are even 3 unexplored temple ruins left on the map.



And lastly my problems may be largely philosophical. From death_relics excellent post

i) A wide empire with many adjacent/sea-adjacent cities

ii) As many enemy palaces (for extra trade route, which you get by sniping them with privateers)

If I have to build a large empire with a trading culture, that just seems wrong Though how many regions is considered 'wide'? I'm at 6 right now.



EDIT: question, is the AI actually going to build docks so I can trade with people outside my continent? And do sea trade routes need an unbroken sealane, or do docks in inland seas work?



Another question, why do AIs just break peace with no apparent reason? They aren't invading, no recent interactions at all, and then out of nowhere they don't want the peace state anymore. Is Peace a timed relationship that automatically expires?

Autocthon wrote:
You know I seem to consistently be able to retrofit mercenary troops which I have assimilated a faction of. But hey everyone else says it's not working, despite it definitely working for me.

Havent tried that, but wish you could sell your own troops then buy them back as mercenaries

You know I seem to consistently be able to retrofit mercenary troops which I have assimilated a faction of. But hey everyone else says it's not working, despite it definitely working for me.

EzekielMoerdyk wrote:
Hi!



I know how ridiculously annoying it is if you've had a (few) bad experience(s) with a specific faction, believing it to be imbalanced, and then have someone pop in to say that they've had the total opposite experience... so I apologize, because I'm doing exactly that. By the way, not so long ago the general meta was that Roving Clans are absolutely OP and should be nerfed...



My last Clan playthrough I won in turn 203 against Impossible AI with an economic victory, which was predominantly because of trade. I had to be warlike in a few instances, where I used the privateers to a very, very good use to snipe a few key targets and immediately drop a Beetle with some Borough Government improvements (+ fortification, unit heal, etc.) which the enemy just couldn't retake (and forced them to declare war, so I could retalliate in full).



Now, your concerns are valid, but I see them rather as a weakness of the Clans rather than an imbalance, which most factions have. (As an example: if you play Cultists in MP, you will be targeted immediately since you are weak early game, but massively strong late game, which is a weakness rather than an imbalance). As the roving clans, assuming that you are a decent player, you really need two things to win: i) Lots, lots, lots of dust, and ii) lots, lots, lots of land (which will give you lots of dust as well). If you had a bad start, or were unable to secure land early on, it will be more difficult later in the game.



However, it is not the end of the world. In MP, it is relatively easy to goad another player in declaring war on you (and once it is done, it cannot be reversed unless you agree to it or are playing against Drakken), since the marketplace ban can really hurt a player to the point that they will force/politically play you to relieve them of it. In SP, there are a few strategies that you can employ to get the AI to declare war on you. Lots of warnings, continously roaming their lands, having adjacent territories, killing their settlers... all of these will anger another AI to make it easier for them to declare war. Your privateers you can also buy early and level up as normal mercs (by assigning a hero with +XP boost) before converting to privateers. In addition, they are really mostly useful as snipers, in order to take out a very key city of the enemy, rather than large armies with which to engage a full-scale war. If you plan to take over an enemy city through privateers, keep a roving, semi-powerful city close by to immediately take the region and start producing/buying units.



Economically, the Clans receive some boosts early game. You can buy out much needed luxuries when they are cheap, and either hold on to them to sell later or to use when you don't have many cities. You can also grow much faster by settling a new region with an existing city, and placing new cities in areas with large food/production output before walking them to other places. You can also take islands early on with developed cities. However, all of this is moot without trade. Trade for all other factions provide an extra boost to your economy, whereas for the Roving Clans it is your economy. There are a few guides on the internet/steam which shows how to maximize trade, but in general you need:



i) A wide empire with many adjacent/sea-adjacent cities

ii) All of the trade bonus buildings (Caravans, the science trade upgrade (which also gives an extra trade route))

iii) As many enemy palaces (for extra trade route, which you get by sniping them with privateers)

iv) Emeralds (very NB)

v) Roving clan governors with all the extra trade skills (very NB)

vi) Faction quest upgrades (gives massive bonuses, make sure to finish your faction quest ASAP)

vii) All +% dust buildings (eg. Dust refinery), and resources (Dustwater, dust orchid...).

viii) A Fervent empire



The last two points are a bit obfuscated. Trade gives a base income to your city, which is subject to +% increases from buildings, heroes' skills, capacities and equipment, luxuries and happiness. (See this post of mine). Therefore, having a trade income of 100 dust in a city is equivalent to having a tile which gives 100 dust... which is absolutely massive. These things scale enormously and is probably the easiest path to an economic victory.



Having many factions at peace also helps your trade alot, as the game will automatically create longer trade routes for larger dust bonuses. However, one of the last Roving Clans hero skills allow you to form trade routes with empires in cold war/war... which is also very very nice.



Finally, if you really have trouble, there are two advantages (or possibly exploits) which you can use. In the early game (late game it becomes to much to micro-manage) you can Setseke-Ho! all or some of your cities right before you activate luxuries, which reduces the cost. In other words, if you have 6 cities (which would've cost you 35 of any luxury to activate), you can uproot all six of them for a single turn, and then activate your luxuries for only 5 each. It costs you a turn of FIDS, but you can activate tons of luxuries which you can buy for cheap early on (including late game luxuries such as Dust Orchid). This can help your early game a lot. The other (possible exploit) is related to sieges. When you siege an enemy city whom you are not at war with with privateers, if you place your normal (faction) armies on exploited tiles they will add their power to the siege, even though they cannot instigate it. It helps if you have to take down a truly fortified city. Whether these two bugs/exploits/little-known advantages are still in the game, I'm not sure - it might have been removed somewhere along the line. I haven't used them in my last game.



Hope some advice helps!

Wow dude, thanks a lot! spent the last 3 days losing with roving clans so was obviously frustrated. but the tips you gave are really really good. Will definately look for more tutorials with roving clan's. Any more tips would be much appreciated.



I usually play against Impossible AI so early game is the toughest. And there are some pretty obvious tips you gave which I never tried (i.e buying luxuries early game and using them) but will definitely give those a try.



But a few points. That the AI never declares war on you unless it is much stronger than you, and if it is weaker than you, no amount of warnings seem to work.



Thanks again man!

Hi!



I know how ridiculously annoying it is if you've had a (few) bad experience(s) with a specific faction, believing it to be imbalanced, and then have someone pop in to say that they've had the total opposite experience... so I apologize, because I'm doing exactly that. By the way, not so long ago the general meta was that Roving Clans are absolutely OP and should be nerfed...



My last Clan playthrough I won in turn 203 against Impossible AI with an economic victory, which was predominantly because of trade. I had to be warlike in a few instances, where I used the privateers to a very, very good use to snipe a few key targets and immediately drop a Beetle with some Borough Government improvements (+ fortification, unit heal, etc.) which the enemy just couldn't retake (and forced them to declare war, so I could retalliate in full).



Now, your concerns are valid, but I see them rather as a weakness of the Clans rather than an imbalance, which most factions have. (As an example: if you play Cultists in MP, you will be targeted immediately since you are weak early game, but massively strong late game, which is a weakness rather than an imbalance). As the roving clans, assuming that you are a decent player, you really need two things to win: i) Lots, lots, lots of dust, and ii) lots, lots, lots of land (which will give you lots of dust as well). If you had a bad start, or were unable to secure land early on, it will be more difficult later in the game.



However, it is not the end of the world. In MP, it is relatively easy to goad another player in declaring war on you (and once it is done, it cannot be reversed unless you agree to it or are playing against Drakken), since the marketplace ban can really hurt a player to the point that they will force/politically play you to relieve them of it. In SP, there are a few strategies that you can employ to get the AI to declare war on you. Lots of warnings, continously roaming their lands, having adjacent territories, killing their settlers... all of these will anger another AI to make it easier for them to declare war. Your privateers you can also buy early and level up as normal mercs (by assigning a hero with +XP boost) before converting to privateers. In addition, they are really mostly useful as snipers, in order to take out a very key city of the enemy, rather than large armies with which to engage a full-scale war. If you plan to take over an enemy city through privateers, keep a roving, semi-powerful city close by to immediately take the region and start producing/buying units.



Economically, the Clans receive some boosts early game. You can buy out much needed luxuries when they are cheap, and either hold on to them to sell later or to use when you don't have many cities. You can also grow much faster by settling a new region with an existing city, and placing new cities in areas with large food/production output before walking them to other places. You can also take islands early on with developed cities. However, all of this is moot without trade. Trade for all other factions provide an extra boost to your economy, whereas for the Roving Clans it is your economy. There are a few guides on the internet/steam which shows how to maximize trade, but in general you need:



i) A wide empire with many adjacent/sea-adjacent cities

ii) All of the trade bonus buildings (Caravans, the science trade upgrade (which also gives an extra trade route))

iii) As many enemy palaces (for extra trade route, which you get by sniping them with privateers)

iv) Emeralds (very NB)

v) Roving clan governors with all the extra trade skills (very NB)

vi) Faction quest upgrades (gives massive bonuses, make sure to finish your faction quest ASAP)

vii) All +% dust buildings (eg. Dust refinery), and resources (Dustwater, dust orchid...).

viii) A Fervent empire



The last two points are a bit obfuscated. Trade gives a base income to your city, which is subject to +% increases from buildings, heroes' skills, capacities and equipment, luxuries and happiness. (See this post of mine). Therefore, having a trade income of 100 dust in a city is equivalent to having a tile which gives 100 dust... which is absolutely massive. These things scale enormously and is probably the easiest path to an economic victory.



Having many factions at peace also helps your trade alot, as the game will automatically create longer trade routes for larger dust bonuses. However, one of the last Roving Clans hero skills allow you to form trade routes with empires in cold war/war... which is also very very nice.



Finally, if you really have trouble, there are two advantages (or possibly exploits) which you can use. In the early game (late game it becomes to much to micro-manage) you can Setseke-Ho! all or some of your cities right before you activate luxuries, which reduces the cost. In other words, if you have 6 cities (which would've cost you 35 of any luxury to activate), you can uproot all six of them for a single turn, and then activate your luxuries for only 5 each. It costs you a turn of FIDS, but you can activate tons of luxuries which you can buy for cheap early on (including late game luxuries such as Dust Orchid). This can help your early game a lot. The other (possible exploit) is related to sieges. When you siege an enemy city whom you are not at war with with privateers, if you place your normal (faction) armies on exploited tiles they will add their power to the siege, even though they cannot instigate it. It helps if you have to take down a truly fortified city. Whether these two bugs/exploits/little-known advantages are still in the game, I'm not sure - it might have been removed somewhere along the line. I haven't used them in my last game.



Hope some advice helps!