I just finished my second game as the Cultist and trounced the AI (sadly) finishing on turn 366.



Some of my game settings:

Game speed = endless

Difficulty = serious

Empire Spawn - chaotic

Strategic Resources = rare

Luxury Resources = rare

Anomaly Odds = few

Minor Faction Difficulty = hard

Regional Size = small





Due to the game mechanics you have to pillage and trash every strategic item before attacking the city to get any value out of defeating your enemy. As such I send in my Cultist army and start attacking the village/s, the strategic and luxury resources one at a time while their armies sit inside the city twiddling their thumbs pretending to not see my big shiny and dare I say, sexy army doing naughty things.



After I finish with the country side I then head to the city with it's 6-8 units who have been waiting patiently for their turn, I siege the city, wait to see if they will attack when the extra defense gets to zero or wait for me to attack when it does. Either way they do not utilise the additional health bonus.





I did this for upwards of 20-30 regions. Not one of the AI ever did anything other than wait. This is ridiculous.





The enemy should have created several armies and ensured they were in close proximity and attacked me.

Capt.TeddyBear wrote:
After I finish with the country side I then head to the city with it's 6-8 units who have been waiting patiently for their turn, I siege the city, wait to see if they will attack when the extra defense gets to zero or wait for me to attack when it does. Either way they do not utilise the additional health bonus.

Just to make it clear - armies under siege will only get extra health from fortifications if the offender chooses to attack the fortifications. If the besieged army chooses to fight outside the city (by atacking the besieger) then there´s no health bonus.

Hi BPrado,



Thanks for the correction there.



I then think the mechanics around this are not well done as only the defending army is penalised whereas we all know from history that sieging a castle also has a cost for the sieger. Additionally far to quick to happen, the defender is always at a disadvantage which is wrong.

Indeed, Capt. Not only is there no Defender's Advantage, the attacker actually possesses the advantage in the sense that the defenders will start losing health once the Fortification is gone (plus the usual advantages like concentrating forces). Militia aren't significant mid to late game.