There's some good information here and some good conflict in ideas. However:



The argument going back and forth is civil at the moment but it's a lot of "you're wrong" or "I've done it so everyone else should be able to" and less of "here's some general things I do each game that may help and why I do these things."



This discussion is about the perceived weakness of the Forgotten Faction and while some players can execute the faction with more success than others and there's some interesting thoughts on alternative ways to play, the discussion has devolved into an argument of supremacy and ego.



Let's get back on track, we're all here to share ideas and potentially help each other improve in the game we all enjoy playing.

Are we still talking about Forgotten balance, or has the topic changed? ;P

Jojo_Fr wrote:
Balkoth I leaved because game was over.



Beating A.I and making screenshots proove nothing and is a bit ridiculous.

You left because "I have 50k military and you have 7k." The screenshot of the city attack shows that I actually had three full armies of eight available within a turn or two of you leaving. The screenshot of the military score shows that I had considerably more than 7k military within a turn of you leaving. Which is why I said I wanted to play a few more turns. But you refused to wait and just decided to bail, assuming you were oh so superior. You assumed I was an idiot and had no clue about the game. Which you are still assuming.

Jojo_Fr wrote:
Don't worry we'll play others games and you'll understand that having a descent level against A.I is very different to have a descent level against humans.

And here we are again. Thanks for being incredibly (and wrongly) condescending, Jojo! Have a nice life.



P.S. To everyone else, I do want to explain something. Yes, I was angry about Jojo literally just saying "I assume I win and that you are an idiot and thus I'll leave." And the top half of the long post above with the screenshots isn't relevant on a broader level beyond that game Jojo abandoned. The second half, however, is entirely relevant. It discusses how Jojo (and possibly others) are setting up situations (intentionally or not) where the Forgotten are weaker than the default map style (and it affects more than just the Forgotten, good or bad, but the Forgotten are the subject of this thread). The map matters. For example, a map where everyone starts on their own island strongly favors factions with a strong early game economy and hurts factions who rely on early game military and/or expansion. Balance is not done in a vacuum -- or, if so, the "vacuum" is the default set-up unless there's a good rationale provided for an alternative.

Balkoth I leaved because game was over.



Beating A.I and making screenshots proove nothing and is a bit ridiculous.



Don't worry we'll play others games and you'll understand that having a descent level against A.I is very different to have a descent level against humans.



I don't want to make others out of subject discussions.

lilyophelia wrote:
I was merely stating my opinion.

Okay. And I'm merely presenting counter-arguments to your opinion which I think is misguided for the developers to read on a public forum.

Avilyss wrote:
The only time I'd suggest considering a more "buyout" based strategy is if your starting point was arid or a similar tile type with very little production and lots of dust to go around. With the proper governor and the "Prisoners, Slaves and Volunteers" tech combined with the proper Empire Plans, you can make a buyout based strategy work, but it's still less ideal than a production strategy with a capital economy.

Sure, if you have next to no Food and next to no Production, you don't have much choice but to rush some stuff along. But even that means you want to be buying out buildings (due to the Empire Plan you mentioned) and hard building units as much as possible. And for people wondering what Avilyss means by "proper governor," Wild Walker heroes can reduce building costs and Roving Clans/Necrophage heroes can reduce unit production costs (which makes it exponentially cheaper to buy out, it's not a linear equation).

Hey Jojo, some stuff you might find interesting...







Yeah, I took two losses because I was in a rush and didn't want to wait a few turns to actually siege and remove the Fortification bonus cause I was in a hurry to get a screenshot.



Oh, and that 7k military score that made you go "I QUIT AND REFUSE TO CONTINUE?" I literally just sold off the outdated units and was cranking out new ones which would have been ready by the time your armies arrived -- I was making preparations for your probable attack for a while.







Your units: 360 HP, 130 attack, 130 defense, 60 initiative, 120 damage, and disease.







My units: 320 HP, 130 attack, 120 defense, 70 initiative, 75 damage, ranged advantage for focus fire, and the 20% stacking debuff that makes my hits go 75, 90 (165 total), 108 (273 total), 130 (403 total). And yes, the stacking in fact works like that, test it yourself if you don't believe me.







In short: I want to continue that game. At this point I'll probably still lose since you were uncontested (for, like, everything on your side of the map and for deeds you really shouldn't have gotten) and simply rolled over two other players without any kind of resistance, just feeding you XP and cadavers (and new cities). And managed to be in the tech lead early game as Necros. And I had to settle cities in a line to a neighbor and then GIVE HIM THE ROADS TECH because he never got it. But I can put up far more of a fight than you seemed to think when you refused to even continue to play. I could also have 2-3 Guardians up in a few turns as well from where we stopped if I wanted.



If you want me to admit that in a 1v1 game of Forgotten vs Necrophages I would almost certainly lose to you, I'll cheerfully admit that Forgotten would likely lose in that situation. But this wasn't supposed to be a 1v1 game of you vs me, which is how it effectively turned out. And yeah, I probably should have just steamrolled Dark Blue (Wild Walkers) next to me if I was being "competitive" rather than offering peace and giving him techs he should have had ages ago -- you might recall that I got the Legendary Deed for "30 units up at once" (and yes, you were just about to get it yourself, I know, I was tracking it). I was trying to see if there was even a chance of not having a massive war.



Then, of course, there were other factors -- 6 person map with 70% land, and no islands, and spread start? That's like...50% more regions than the "standard" of 50% land and islands. And everyone is further away so I never even HAD a neighbor until I settled my way to him to force my trade routes through with a Roving Clans Governor (when I really should have just conquered him if I was being optimal). Even on turn 60+ with I think everyone having at least three cities (you at nine after conquering several and me at five) at least half the regions weren't even settled (like, at least 26 regions with a very fast count that could easily have missed a few). And the kicker? Grasssilk seemed to be one of the luxuries randomly chosen to NOT exist on the map. Which is fairly crippling, given how it literally winds up like tripling trade route income (due the National Craftsworks) -- 200% bonus to trade routes which are already your main source of income (which also depend on actual NEIGHBORS to go across the continent).



So, yes, you managed to set up a situation where the Forgotten are significantly weaker than they would be otherwise. And then random elements (like the lack of Grassilk and a worse starting spot than yours) and the inability of the other four players (hell, the Orange Forgotten player didn't even get the Dust Transmuter tech!) made it even worse. If your ideal vision of Endless Legend involves a situation where on turn 60+ fast (or about 120+ normal) over half of the continent isn't settled and borders only touch in 3-4 spots across the continent, then sure, the Forgotten probably need a buff (though I didn't realize everyone else would expand so little or I could have settled more which would have helped). But I think the developers actually intended for most regions to be settled with borders touching all across the continent...which is why the "default" has like 33% less regions than your set-up did. And people playing Wild Walkers usually settle more than three regions total (my closest neighbor).



Maybe you'll just say "Blahblah" like you did in-game, but I wanted to lay this out for others to read. Because you've shown a consistent lack of ability to look at the broader picture. Like someone making a 6 region game (literally each of six players has one region only unless conquering occurs) and trying to make balance arguments based on that set-up. A few days ago I did a test game on Fast in single player, Endless difficulty, had Necrophage neighbors, and refused to do any kind of tech trading with the AI to make it closer to multiplayer. I had Serum of Iteru on turn 66 and won an Economic Victory on turn 73. And 43k income. On one city. Would that be slower in multiplayer? Sure, but that's the difference that actual neighbors and Grassilk make.



Oh, and before you start spouting something about obsessing over Grassilk? With Grassilk, income of 43k. Without Grassilk, income of 17k. *Minor* difference. Just nearly triple the income, no big deal.

Those are solid points Balkoth and I agree with them, I've made the same arguments in discussion several times.



The only time I'd suggest considering a more "buyout" based strategy is if your starting point was arid or a similar tile type with very little production and lots of dust to go around. With the proper governor and the "Prisoners, Slaves and Volunteers" tech combined with the proper Empire Plans, you can make a buyout based strategy work, but it's still less ideal than a production strategy with a capital economy.

I'm not so much interested in a heated debate; that takes too much time/energy and this thread seems to have been nothing but that so far. I was merely stating my opinion.

lilyophelia wrote:
They just seem to need a little extra, early oomph. Like +10-20 dust or +4-10 influence/turn starting from the early game.

That would like...double their economy right at the start (and Era I ain't the issue) or give them way too much influence early game (I mean, 9 Influence a turn alone is enough to get tier 2 of Military/Science/Expansion plan...yeah, 20% cheaper units/30% attack/20% research cost reduction/33% reduced building cost/25 approval sounds good, thanks!).



Here's a crazy thought: what if Forgotten innately only paid 50% upkeep on buildings? Because of their harsh background, they know how to make easily maintained villages/cities. That would be a 5 Dust boost on turn 1 and scale up to 10-15 Dust per turn in Era II (per city).



On another note, something I've been curious about -- has anyone actually tried taking the Era II tech that makes infiltration free during winter and used that to save influence? Also gives you the 80% reduced margin of error so you'll know within a turn or two when winter will hit as well. I personally have not, outside of taking it once to test it, as I don't do enough infiltration for me to think it's worth it...but if you're trying to get like half a dozen or more spies going it seems it could save a chunk of influence. Might also be something to buff as well -- like add in the 50% reduced Infiltration cost trait to that tech, so half cost normally with the tech and free in winter.

As an example, I will say that I think Forgotten could use just a little bit more dust or influence from somewhere.



Reduced hiring costs on heroes probably isn't right, but -25% to hero/military costs (possibly tied to Dust Sense) sounds like it could work.



A small amount of extra dust or influence on science tiles would be enough too.



They just seem to need a little extra, early oomph. Like +10-20 dust or +4-10 influence/turn starting from the early game.

Avilyss wrote:
and less of "here's some general things I do each game that may help and why I do these things."

I did talk about this a bit, but I'll repeat some of the most important points (from my perspective) so they're clear and not buried in a larger post...



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



1. Hire less spies, especially earlier in the game. Think of them less as your entire tech source and more as long term investments. You're primarily buying them to save 4-5x their initial hiring cost on a stolen tech down the line. And remember that unless you reveal the spy's presence, the enemy has no way of stopping the spy short of randomly doing round-ups in the FEAR you might have infiltrated a spy (and crippling that city for the duration). Be patient.



2. Use the extra FID that you have. You can skip spending Industry on science buildings, don't need strategics for them, don't need to "burn" a tech on them, don't have to pay upkeep on them. Also don't need to exploit tiles with science. Use that extra Dust to buy techs, use the extra Food/Industry to build more units to sell for Dust, or use the extra Food/Industry to avoid buying out as many units/buildings which means you have Dust for tech.



3. Era II sucks. Royally. Focus on getting out of it as soon as possible. Getting to Era III is not only a massive Economic/Tech boost with the Transmuter/Refinery but also a massive military boost with Tier 3 Iron and units starting at level 3.



4. Don't cripple your economy. Ever. Just like a Mezari player can't ignore FID in favor of pure Science, you can't ignore FID in favor of pure pillaging/scouting/spies. They are a supplement, but the core of your economy still needs to be functional. You also have stealth on your units which means you can afford to scout later if needed.



5. Use Dust governors. If you have a bunch of forest tiles around you then a Forgotten hero with the +5 Dust per forest is good for a while, but long term you want Roving Clans governors in particular, their bonuses to trade routes are insane. If you want some Industry or Influence boosting governors for other cities as well, great, that's more than fine, but make sure you have at least one Roving Clans governor in your capital ideally (extra trade route). With the right buildings built and the right luxuries, a Roving Clans governor can literally generate 50-60k Dust per turn on one city under the right circumstances. Worst case scenario you might "only" get 30-40k Dust per turn.



6. Use your units wisely in combat. Assassins are not tanks, they're melee glass cannons with higher initiative who can lock down important enemy targets. If you want units good at soaking up damage, assimilate an appropriate minor faction. Predatores do insane damage when focus firing a target with their mark ability. But they are fragile. Mysts are kind of the opposite of Assassins -- Assassins are good against solo isolated targets (swarm it, very high damage per hit), Mysts are good against clumped up opponents (they hit the target and any enemy next to the target).



7. Buying out, especially on Fast speed, is significantly less efficient than Industry for units and (unless you have the Empire Plan bonus) the same is true for buildings as well, at least until Dust Depository/Refinery in Era III. If you have workers in a city on Dust and then are buying out units/buildings in that city, you are effectively losing Dust (you'd have more if you kept the workers on Industry and didn't buy out the units).



8. Remember that you can buy a tech you want at any point as long as you have the Dust. If it's not a tech that's immediately useful, try to skip it, you can pick it up the instant you actually need it. You can go 10 turns without buying a single tech and then buy five turns in one turn if you want.



9. Diplomacy helps you early game more than any other faction, in my opinion (because Era II sucks so much). Anything you can manage early game can massively help. This might be nothing in many/most multiplayer games, but keep an eye open for opportunities. If you can get to Era III in reasonable shape compared to everyone else, you should be in a relatively solid position. It's worth taking unfavorable deals solely to get out of Era II.



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



I'll add more/edit in more as I think of stuff.

I am so glad I am not involved in multiplayer.



In any case, I am ignoring most of this page. I will say that while I am intrigued by the alternative way Balkoth plays the Forgotten (commercial city-state), I think the Forgotten are not optimally built to be played the way they were meant to be played. What I mean by that is espionage (though I agree with Balkoth. It's not about quantity of spying but impact), hero-centric gameplay, and pillaging / harassment. I am basing this on the faction's lore, its faction quest and rewards, and its unique technologies.



To that effect, I will summarize what I think the Forgotten need, which can be taken individually or as a whole. Evidently, this is from the perspective of a, quite happy, single player gamer.



1. Very slight hp boost to the Assassin, as in +6-8 or so. The reason being is that Assassins are a bit too fragile early game. A small hp boost wouldn't change the nature of the unit or its role, but it would make the early game less stressful.



2. Slight increase in Forgotten units' raiding power. Their units should be inherently better pillagers. It, of course, should not be to the point where a lone assassin can pillage a village in one turn. But it should be so that you don't need to send massive armies to pillage quickly and effectively. It would make pillaging swifter and thus more immediately rewarding.



3. I personally like Zeima and I think it's worth getting her and having her recover. That said, once she recovers, she only has Fast Learner and no traits to improve units. I suggest Army Boost 3 or Army damage boost 3 or Army damage boost 2 / Army initiative boost 2. It also suits her biography and character.



4. Indirectly help the Forgotten dust economy. Unit upkeep cost reduction and / or Forgotten hero hiring cost reduction and / or hero upkeep reduction and / or spying upkeep reduction. Or reduction of how must tech dust cost increases from tech to tech.



5. Boost Forgotten espionage. Spies should gain infiltration levels faster, as a faction trait (perhaps immediately start with seniority 5 or something). Which makes sense, as they would have access to spying networks that other factions wouldn't have.



6. Give starting hero Influence boost 2 in addition to her dust boost 2. It will help the Forgotten early game with both dust as well as save a bit of influence for early spying.



EDIT: 7. Since their counter-espionage tech costs dust and makes everything else more expensive, it needs to be +20 security as opposed to +10.

BPrado wrote:
Well, I don´t know what else to tell you, Balkoth. You have your style, I suppose without settlers you might be able to build Canal Locks much before turn 18, which is when I´m usually finishing it, and maybe you don´t need resources; and maybe you always already have the population for Canal Locks to be worth it; and maybe you always have the dust to get to era 2 before turn 10 and to continue buying techs at an acceptable rate after that until era 3, and maybe you always can get the influence for it without compromising the rest of the game.

Canal Locks by 18 would probably depend on if I'm trying for the Museum or Megapole.



Don't need that many resources on one city for a while, market helps a lot.



Probably have, I dunno, like 6ish pop when Canal Locks are done? Plus at least one from a village (more if I didn't settle in starting zone).



I do think I can consistently get to Era 2 by turn 10, yes, it's been doable every game so far. Era 2 sucks, but I seem to get through it as fast or faster than other Forgotten I've seen (though, that said, they've all been terrible).



I think it's the reverse on the influence -- it's kind of like buying raw production with influence, if you will. Spend 20 extra Influence now, get 200+ Industry over 10 turns.

BPrado wrote:
I cannot claim this or that way is definitely more optimized, only what I find to work better and more often. I´ve played only forgotten on mp almost everyday for a month when they came out, I tried every build way more than once. It´s my opinion that this is a bad, worthless effort.

I'd be interested in doing a game with you if you'd like.

BPrado wrote:
edit: I´d like to add, from your post to Jojo, that you seriously need to play multiplayer with people who will bother you. Forgotten don´t have the best late economy in the game at all.

I assume you mean "bother me" to mean "be more on my skill level compared to the average players in lobbies," right? Would be nice, tough to find (meaning not many lobbies in general, let alone lobbies with upper tier players).



Also seems like lack of Defender's Advantage would be at its worst in the early game for "serious" games. Let's even assume I stay on one city for a little. If I build up stuff like Canal Locks, Public Granary, etc then I'm dead if someone else builds units and rushes me. On the flip side, if I build up units to be able to fend off that attack and everyone else builds economy, then I'm dead long term if I don't rush someone. Normally you'd have this idea of "Build a reasonable amount of defenses and Defender's Advantage will ensure you can survive even against a larger attack"...but it's completely missing in Endless Legend. There basically IS no reasonable amount of defenses. If the attacker has even like 20% more strength than you then he'll win easily and you're dead. But unless you dedicate yourself to building military you can't possibly have enough.



And this isn't even getting into the fun of getting attacked while you attack someone else or the person attacking you having armies show up at their door! Argh! You can't even keep "enough" defenses at home short of keeping your whole army at home, basically.

Well, I don´t know what else to tell you, Balkoth. You have your style, I suppose without settlers you might be able to build Canal Locks much before turn 18, which is when I´m usually finishing it, and maybe you don´t need resources; and maybe you always already have the population for Canal Locks to be worth it; and maybe you always have the dust to get to era 2 before turn 10 and to continue buying techs at an acceptable rate after that until era 3, and maybe you always can get the influence for it without compromising the rest of the game.



I cannot claim this or that way is definitely more optimized, only what I find to work better and more often. I´ve played only forgotten on mp almost everyday for a month when they came out, I tried every build way more than once. It´s my opinion that this is a bad, worthless effort.



edit: I´d like to add, from your post to Jojo, that you seriously need to play multiplayer with people who will bother you. Forgotten don´t have the best late economy in the game at all.

Frogsquadron wrote:
I think you guys are talking about different things and lumping them with the same name:



You talk about the state of their economy (let's call it their budget)

Balkoth talks about their ability to generate dust and get it going to generate more dust (let's call it their dust engine)

I don't think that's quite true. I think my point is more that, from my (limited) perspective it sounds like many Forgotten players are focusing too much on hiring too many spies or having too many scouts and NOT focusing enough on basic economy. I'm not suggesting they take it to my extreme of a custom Forgotten faction with things like "Make Trade Not War" and all the pillaging stuff removed, just that maybe hire a few LESS spies and have a scout or two less. Feels like a Vaulter/Mezari player focusing entirely on Science and then complaining they can't actually make anything. Like, yeah, Science is good for you...and you have advantages in that area...but you still need to get some Food/Industry/Dust. Still need to balance things as a whole.



We both agree that Era II sucks for Forgotten. My argument is "That means you should be focusing on getting OUT of Era II as soon as possible" while it sounds like many people are saying "I'm spending the money I *could* use to get 1-2 Era II techs on buying spy after spy that won't pay off for 15 turns or whatever." Which keeps prolonging the misery of Era II.



And then, yeah, my "broader" argument is that once the dust engine gets revved up, I feel like the Forgotten are unstoppable -- no one else can keep up at that point. But, like Broken Lords, the early game is weaker.

Frogsquadron wrote:
Also, reiterating the obvious but apparently necessary: we take all points of view into account, not just the hardcore multiplayer aficionados.

I appreciate that. I find it hilarious that The Forgotten can win a peaceful Science victory faster than any other faction...and on one city to boot. I've done it in both single player and less hardcore multiplayer games. Sure, people can do stuff like refuse to settle around me or destroy their roads to deny me trade routes or whatever in a truly "hardcore" setting...but that kind of raises questions like "What if a faction was the weakest faction in a 1v1 'duel' but the strongest in a 6 person FFA?" I'd rather not destroy the character of the game in favor of trying to make a turn based SC2 (note that I play SC2 and love it, but it's a very different game).



And, unfortunately, I don't see an easy way to "fix" the problem off-hand.



1, make techs in later Eras more expensive? Screws over people not using Roving Clans governors.



2, change the Roving Clans governor? Screws over everyone else who can't use the feedback loop of the Forgotten.



3, weaken trade routes overall? Hurts other factions LIKE the Roving Clans specifically and doubly hurts people not using Roving Clans governors.



4, nerf Grassilk? Hurts Roving Clans/Broken Lords especially.



You could do a broader overhaul, like weakening the Roving Clans governor but giving some of those benefits to Roving Clans innately, plus giving other buffs to Broken Lords to compensate, and so on...but it'd be a complicated fix.

Jojo_Fr wrote:
- First, the argument of authority : If several of the most experimented players (as BigBalls, BPrado, me or) specially in competitive multiplayers, have said that the Forgottens are very weaks and need a big buff, it's because it's the reality. We know what we saying. There is no doubt about it.

Well, let's look at a few things here...



1, so far, despite only "arriving" on the scene about a month ago, I've never seen or read anyone else talk about what I realized about the Forgotten economy. No one's ever mentioned that the Forgotten can win a Science Victory (and, obviously, an Economic Victory) faster than anyone. That immediately puts doubt in my mind. Now, you could argue that you're playing the Forgotten as intended and I am not, which means your way not working and my way *potentially* working means something should change to buff your playstyle and nerf my playstyle. But that is a different argument than whether the Forgotten are inherently very weak. In other words, I'm wondering if you're trying to fit a square peg in a round hole to some degree -- I had to point out in this thread that the Forgotten DO have an advantage in that they don't have to spend Industry on Science buildings, can get more FID since they can ignore Science tiles, and have more tech freedom each Era (actually, I don't think I mentioned that last one as an advantage earlier, but I'm mentioning it now). I'm not sure people are actually *thinking* about what that means -- that is, they need to spend less Dust buying things out since they have more Industry. It's sounded like people are treating Dust as they would with every other faction rather than thinking "Hey, I need to conserve enough Dust for tech."



2, "truly" competitive multiplayer might not be the appropriate ruleset to balance around. If games where massive amounts of Endless Legend are ignored wind up causing the Forgotten to be too weak...but buffing them means that in casual multiplayer or single player they're obscenely overpowered...then maybe they just have to settle for being too weak in "hardcore" games. Look at Venice in Civ V, for example -- you COULD buff them enough so that they're competitive in those "teamer" RUSH CHARIOT ARCHERS AND STUFF games...but then they'd be brokenly overpowered in all other situations. And I don't think the Forgotten are anywhere close to being as crippled as Venice is in "competitive" games.



In short, I'm doubting your authority...and, even if I granted you that authority, I'm questioning whether that authority is necessarily applicable to the broader situation. And I also wonder whether this is at least in part due to the lack of Defender's Advantage -- it's harder to say "Yeah, you suck at X stage of the game, just need to grit your teeth and get through it" when bunkering down isn't really an option.

Jojo_Fr wrote:
It's exactely the inverse : the Forgottens have the worst mid to late game economy in the entire game due to their very high usage of dust.

That's...just...factually wrong. No other faction can go through Era V and VI as fast as they can. No other faction can use the Dust feedback loop to get more Dust techs to get more Dust to get more Dust techs...

Jojo_Fr wrote:
- Hire more spy hero to infiltrate more cities.

- Create more influence point to infiltrate and use spy action (so you need to divert the citizen from others output to the influence output so you slowdown your economic growth).

How many more spies do they need to hire? I assume you mean this in reference to stealing techs, yes? Because every faction can use the other things. Which goes hand in hand with...how much more Influence do they really need to generate? Because every other faction needs to generate the same influence for the non-tech stealing actions.

Jojo_Fr wrote:
- Their general FIDS output is very diminued because they don't produce any science, including in the high science city output their have stolen or in scientific FIDSI regions.

Yes, Science regions are bad for the Forgotten. Just like Food regions are bad for the Broken Lords. They also don't have to SPEND Industry on Science buildings, pay upkeep on Science buildings, use Strategics on Science buildings, or pick Science techs as part of their "tech budget per Era." They can also ignore science tiles which means their FID is higher than other factions.



Is their overall FIDS still too low compared to other factions after all of that is factored in? It's possible. But it sounds like you're not even considering all these points in favor of focusing on the immediately obvious stuff. And this kind of thing is *precisely* why I have broader doubts, *because* I've seen no sign of you pondering this stuff.

Jojo_Fr wrote:
- Their need to build stack of units to raid improvement. These units cost them industry, and dust.

Why, exactly?



I can see a few possible arguments here (and potential counter-arguments), but I'm curious about your actual reasoning. Also note that a stack of units during Era II or Era III is relatively far less expensive than a stack of units in Era I or something, so *when* you "need" this stack is very important as well.

Jojo_Fr wrote:
And, more than everything, the very high amount of dust required by building tech.

Okay? So what's your argument? There's too much Dust required for Tech at every point of the game? Or is it specific Eras (or parts of Eras) where you feel it's a problem? Keep in mind you have MORE Industry than other factions which means you need to buy out stuff less, which alone should be be some extra Dust. Is it enough extra Dust? Possibly not, but let's try to actually get some details in here.

Jojo_Fr wrote:
So, to be short, unless you play vs a total noob which does not know how to round up, you cannot stay more than 20 turns generally, because your presence will be discovered soon or later, and he will start round up until kick the ass of your spy. Unless you got a big luck, your spy will be hurted. With high unluck, your spy will be captured for some turns, and so you can just press ALT+F4 because you will just have loose an important amount of dust.

In general, this is true for EVERY faction, yes? It's only relevant for the Forgotten specifically when it comes to stealing Tech. So here's a question -- if you hire a spy for, say, 400 Dust...and steal an Era IV or Era V tech that would have cost you 2000 Dust or whatever...isn't that still a significant gain in Dust? Just *one* tech, pretend they get captured, worst case scenario. Still seems to generally be a very good investment.

Jojo_Fr wrote:
It's a bad idea to let assassins in garrison, because it means you will no exploration, no idea where to plan cities, no quest, no ruins opened (ruins largely compensate the upkeep of the units) and no idea where your ennemy is...

And it's essential to be exploring during turns 1-10 rather than turns 11-20 or 21-30...why exactly? I mean, your budget is tightest in Era I (if you want to hit Era II by turn 10) and then in Era II...but at least in Era II you have more infrastructure and a higher governor level to give you more room to afford explorers. Most of the quests I get at the start are bad anyway -- they require more forces than I have available right then, need a hero to do stuff, are completely useless overall, etc.



It feels like you're saying "This is the exact time of the game I can least afford explorers...so naturally I'm going to insist on sending out explorers at that point."

Jojo_Fr wrote:
A last argument : don't forget that playing with AI does not give a fair experience of the forgottens economy because A.I is buggued about pillager which are stealth. The A.I never search and destroy the stealth units. So from the middle of era II, when you can have real produtive cities in industry, you can start buldings armies which will feed as a monkey on a banana tree on the ennemy.

I never pillaged in these games. I never bothered stealing tech in these games. Stealing a tech or three would have helped slightly but it ultimately wasn't a big gain and I decided not to piss the AI off by doing it.

Jojo_Fr wrote:
Off course, I am not against your participation in this topic, because it can be interesting that every profil say his opinion, but I think it would be better to listen the experience of a guy with 1713 hours played in Endless Legend, with most of them in competitive multiplayer...

If I was arguing the same thing as you were, you'd probably be correct. I'm not saying I can do exactly what you're doing, but better. I'm saying I can play *differently,* it seems it might give better results than your efforts, and as far as I can tell you haven't even considered or tried my suggested tactics. You might be the best person in the world at hammering in nails. But maybe this is a problem which needs a screwdriver, not a hammer.

BPrado wrote:
You need 30 influence for level 2 empire plan. 10 comes naturally from your city center if you settle turn 1, you can very often get another 10 inlfuence for 50 dust from Too Many Chiefs, and you need 10(or 20) from your population, which is another 5 turns with a Pop(or two) there.

You're missing Founder's and Sewers. And yes, you'll need to give up some Industry to work a little Influence. Let's say that your city averages 40 Industry from turns 10-20 (because of things like Canal Locks going up or whatever). That's 400 Industry total generated. If you use all of it on buildings, the Era II plan generates another 200 Industry, in effect (but better because the buildings finish sooner so you get the benefits longer). So say you get 10 from capital, 7 from Founder's, and 3 from sewers..."spending" 20 Industry to generate 10 influence (cause 4 from workers vs 2 from workers) will then generate 200 Industry for a 180 Industry net gain. Even with a delay, I'd happily trade 20 Industry "now" for 200 Industry over the next 10 turns. That makes the Mill Foundry look pathetic in comparison (spend 38 Industry now, gain 6 + 15% back each turn, after 10 turns might have generated like 120 Industry if you're lucky).

BPrado wrote:
It doesn´t seem hard in theory - but for one, you will have spent every penny increasing the cost of your techs at a rate higher than necessary, because you simply cannot build/buy out everything you´re unlocking; and also according to the "principle of the short blanket" (which is worst with forgotten since they have a good chance to waste yields), the extra population you´re putting on influence will be missed on your food, industry or dust (unless you have an unusual start, which can´t be taken as measure).

I think you'll agree that, looking at the two pictures I link, I certainly didn't have an unusual start...unless you want to count it as unusually bad. Even the "better" try had five 3 yield tiles, one 2 yield tile, and one 9 yield tile. Granted, one of the tiles was a Wizard's Stone (or something similar) that gave 10 Approval and that was nice, but this is nothing compared to the "many" anomalies setting and I'd still probably consider it subpar for a normal start.



Hell, the first try had 10 less food and 9 less Industry (but two more Dust) on turn 10 than the second try. And despite that, I *did* build everything I unlocked. Well, I didn't build the Emerald Extractor in try 1 but...y'know...Emeralds. Did some of it get delayed slightly due to having to spend some workers on Influence for turn 8 and 9? Technically, yeah, but as I pointed out above, it's nearly a tenfold saving in Industry (or generation, however you prefer to describe it) over the next 10 turns. Think of it this way if you'd like -- if you could build a structure that cost 200 Industry and generated 100 Industry per turn for 10 turns, then disappeared (but could be rebuilt at that point), would you build it every 10 turns?



Of course! It's 1000 extra Industry for a 800 Industry profit every 10 turns.



I also did a test run where I actually kept track of how much Industry I saved in a test game on fast speed. The answer? With a bad production start (literally, 5 Industry initially), I still got 213 extra Industry from turns 11-20 via the Empire Plan. I will happily pay, say, 20 Influence/40 Industry (worst case scenario) and 65 Dust (max amount saved, see below) during turns 1-10 to get 213 Industry during turns 11-20.

BPrado wrote:
All of that in order to spend about 8 turns (optimistically, considering you need settlers at some point, and you need to grow in the first 5-6 turns at least) building T1 buildings that will get a proportionally small discount in a period you don´t even have that much industry to go around.

I don't understand what you're saying here exactly. Are you saying you're working food early game?



I'm sure about to challenge the conventional wisdom here to a staggering degree, but I usually stay on one city for many factions (especially the Forgotten) for a while. Why? Well, there are numerous reasons that deal with the AI, but I'm going to ignore those for the moment and focus on reasons that are relevant for multiplayer:



1, settling new cities massively sets your capital back. You lose both the production cost of the settler and a population from your capital (and presumably your new city is focusing on getting its basic infrastructure up first, so you're literally losing production per turn in your capital toward more advanced buildings or units for a while). You also get a -10 approval hit in both cities, making it harder to maintain either Happy or Fervent.



2, settling new cities makes you massively more vulnerable, which goes hand in hand with the above. Given the fact that the OFFENSE effectively has the advantage in Endless Legend, a city is not a firm stake in the ground or a fortress that can fend for itself a bit. This isn't Civ V where you need a dedicated force and a significant advantage to take a city or a RTS where you can easily place down some cheap static defenses to help fend off a rush. If you have a neighbor and he focuses on producing units while you focus on making a settler or two...your cities are now his. Each settler is literally pretty close to the cost of an entire unit, plus you're not growing while building it, plus you're losing the production from the lost population (though given that the growth curve isn't linear means effect 2 and 3 are probably a wash, so probably simpler to just phrase it as "You lose 4 Industry a turn in your capital). You remember your whole comment of "The forgotten has a horrible early game and its so bad that the other factions can send in two stacks of troops and wipe them out by turn 15-20?" Yeah. Building a settler seems like it's practically asking for that to happen to any faction.



3, your main city can't support the others. This isn't an established capital that can contribute Dust to rush buy stuff or buy a hero to assign there to pick things up. It's not a capital that needs other cities for trade routes (not yet, at least). It's not a Canal Locks or Industrial Megapole production center that can pump out units to defend new cities. Etc.



Now, I will mention that if you're playing with the "Bazillion Anomalies" setting (which skews starts even more) that this probably is less true -- settling a new city when you can get 3-4 anomalies is, y'know, a massive boost (like having an extra Mill Foundry, Empire Mint, and Sewer System or something). But it still does leave you more vulnerable to an early rush and slows down your infrastructure in your capital, just to a lesser degree.



Also, multiple cities are good. I am *NOT* claiming that multiple cities is bad. I *AM* claiming that trying to SETTLE multiple cities in the EARLY game seems very risky and counter-productive. Yeah, in 20-30 turns or whatever you'll be in a better place than the guy with one city. But that doesn't matter if you get bulldozed while you're still trying to get your cities on their feet. And the question is then "Which of these cases leads to the best outcome?"



1, settle multiple cities early on and build them all with all of them being weak for a while



2, stick to one city until it's established and then settle multiple cities, using the power of the first city to get the new ones up to speed quickly



3, stick to one city until it's established, and just conquer any other cities (unless there's none around) using the power of the first city to crank out a better military that people settling multiple cities can't match for a while



I'm not sure which is the best option, but my experience thus far seems to indicate the answer is either 2 or 3. Unless you KNOW you won't get rushed (and have no targets to rush), making #1 more attractive, perhaps.

BPrado wrote:
I don´t have any other value except for this one I remember from my thread, but your 4th tech without Empire Plan discount costs the same as your 8th tech in case you activate it before buying the fourth (edit: 34 dust). I consider this to be really significant, since the game is made of 2 dust here and 2 dust there. It´s also very convenient for me because, apart from extractors, I see no reason to research anything other than Parlay, Mill Foundry and Empire Mint with forgotten in the first 10 turns. After I got that, I would 100% times start building settlers, so it just makes no sense to me.

If you're curious, under the default cost the prices seem to be 14, 21, 31, 42, 56, 72, and 91 (for the first seven bought techs, meaning nine counting the initial two). 327 total. So even if you saved 20% on every single tech in Era I, you're talking a 65.4 Dust savings...and clearly you have to buy a few techs. How are you even getting this 34 number? I'm assuming that's 42 * 0.8 = 33.6 rounded up to 34, which is the fourth tech bought. Very confused here.



And yeah, as I mentioned above, this is assuming no settlers for a while, at least not until turn 20+ most likely. So hitting Era II means getting access to things like Canal Locks, Imperial Coinage, units starting at level 2, Iron 2 gear for units, etc.

BPrado wrote:
I preffer to use only 10 of whatever influence I have and hopefully have enough spare to be able to set a high empire plan on turn 20 with 3 cities (which is not trivial), or a high empire plan with 2 cities and an assimilation.

Is this a question of preference or a question of optimization?



I mean, maybe we should do an experiment of sorts. Get a turn 1 save we agree is reasonable but not insanely good or bad and play it out until a designated turn. Then compare the status of each.

BPrado wrote:
Endless Legend is very sudden. I think that´s what makes people have this impression. For the 10 turns someone has a nice empire plan, a nice luxury and/or equipment advantage, the good players will usually attack their neighbors because it makes no sense not to do so, even if they´re friendly or even allies. The game has no mechanism to maintain the peace.

I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with your statement right now...just pointing out that if true this favors having only one city for a bit. Easier to defend, can get better military faster, etc.

I think you guys are talking about different things and lumping them with the same name:



You talk about the state of their economy (let's call it their budget)

Balkoth talks about their ability to generate dust and get it going to generate more dust (let's call it their dust engine)





Also, reiterating the obvious but apparently necessary: we take all points of view into account, not just the hardcore multiplayer aficionados.

Balkoth, I don't wanted to answer you because I think you have no point of what you are saying. But I cannot let your thesis influence people :



- First, the argument of authority : If several of the most experimented players (as BigBalls, BPrado, me or) specially in competitive multiplayers, have said that the Forgottens are very weaks and need a big buff, it's because it's the reality. We know what we saying. There is no doubt about it.



We are not pro or against Forgottens, I don't represent myself the Forgottens lobby.



- Two, I comment that :

The Forgotten have the best mid to late game economy in the entire game due to the massive Dust ramp up. I've effectively produced over 70k Science a turn (meaning 56k Dust) on *one city* as the Forgotten and can get through all of Era VI in about 10 turns or less on Normal speed. And gone through Era V in like 3-4 turns on Normal speed. But they are really awful in Era II in particular. Just be careful about early game buffs because once they get rolling no one else can keep up.



Also, I think a significant issue is the cost of non-garrisoned units in the very early game. A garrisoned Assassin in the first few turns costs 1 Dust a turn. A non-garrisoned Assassin costs 6 Dust a turn. So by garrisoning the starting Assassins you're effectively producing 10 extra Science a turn. Trying to explore initially as the Forgotten is extremely punishing. Perhaps something to reduce early-game upkeep values would help promote the playstyle you want -- simply giving more dust means they can do even better by focusing on economy.

It's exactely the inverse : the Forgottens have the worst mid to late game economy in the entire game due to their very high usage of dust. In comparaison to the others factions, they need dust to :



- Hire more spy hero to infiltrate more cities.

- Create more influence point to infiltrate and use spy action (so you need to divert the citizen from others output to the influence output so you slowdown your economic growth).

- Their general FIDS output is very diminued because they don't produce any science, including in the high science city output their have stolen or in scientific FIDSI regions.

- Their need to build stack of units to raid improvement. These units cost them industry, and dust.

- And, more than everything, the very high amount of dust required by building tech.



So, to be short, unless you play vs a total noob which does not know how to round up, you cannot stay more than 20 turns generally, because your presence will be discovered soon or later, and he will start round up until kick the ass of your spy. Unless you got a big luck, your spy will be hurted. With high unluck, your spy will be captured for some turns, and so you can just press ALT+F4 because you will just have loose an important amount of dust.



It's a bad idea to let assassins in garrison, because it means you will no exploration, no idea where to plan cities, no quest, no ruins opened (ruins largely compensate the upkeep of the units) and no idea where your ennemy is...



A last argument : don't forget that playing with AI does not give a fair experience of the forgottens economy because A.I is buggued about pillager which are stealth. The A.I never search and destroy the stealth units. So from the middle of era II, when you can have real produtive cities in industry, you can start buldings armies which will feed as a monkey on a banana tree on the ennemy.



But this situation should not exist, A.I should try to localise who are raping their land, and off course, it does not work in multiplayer. In multiplayer you need to pick isolated place from armies, or you need to lure armies into another place to split it, or you need to pillage very fast etc.







Off course, I am not against your participation in this topic, because it can be interesting that every profil say his opinion, but I think it would be better to listen the experience of a guy with 1713 hours played in Endless Legend, with most of them in competitive multiplayer...

Balkoth wrote:
Why isn't it very smart with the Forgotten? Sure, you don't have the 20% discount yet, but the tech costs are also still so low that you're not "losing" much Dust. And 33% cheaper buildings saves hundreds of Industry to put on units (or more buildings).

You need 30 influence for level 2 empire plan. 10 comes naturally from your city center if you settle turn 1, you can very often get another 10 inlfuence for 50 dust from Too Many Chiefs, and you need 10(or 20) from your population, which is another 5 turns with a Pop(or two) there.



It doesn´t seem hard in theory - but for one, you will have spent every penny increasing the cost of your techs at a rate higher than necessary, because you simply cannot build/buy out everything you´re unlocking; and also according to the "principle of the short blanket" (which is worst with forgotten since they have a good chance to waste yields), the extra population you´re putting on influence will be missed on your food, industry or dust (unless you have an unusual start, which can´t be taken as measure).



All of that in order to spend about 8 turns (optimistically, considering you need settlers at some point, and you need to grow in the first 5-6 turns at least) building T1 buildings that will get a proportionally small discount in a period you don´t even have that much industry to go around.



I don´t have any other value except for this one I remember from my thread, but your 4th tech without Empire Plan discount costs the same as your 8th tech in case you activate it before buying the fourth (edit: 34 dust). I consider this to be really significant, since the game is made of 2 dust here and 2 dust there. It´s also very convenient for me because, apart from extractors, I see no reason to research anything other than Parlay, Mill Foundry and Empire Mint with forgotten in the first 10 turns. After I got that, I would 100% times start building settlers, so it just makes no sense to me.



I preffer to use only 10 of whatever influence I have and hopefully have enough spare to be able to set a high empire plan on turn 20 with 3 cities (which is not trivial), or a high empire plan with 2 cities and an assimilation.

I'm referring to these "SUPER COMPETITIVE ULTRA HARDCORE CUTTHROAT" games that are being discussed specifically -- I've seen MP games in general.

Endless Legend is very sudden. I think that´s what makes people have this impression. For the 10 turns someone has a nice empire plan, a nice luxury and/or equipment advantage, the good players will usually attack their neighbors because it makes no sense not to do so, even if they´re friendly or even allies. The game has no mechanism to maintain the peace.



But maybe I haven´t played these games too, any game with me in it is a little less competitive. (:

Frogsquadron wrote:
- If you want to make suggestions, keep them concise and to the point. While we appreciate a well-supported argument, it will be a lot easier for Kaboomer and Willbefast to look at your proposals and evaluate them against one another if you stay brief.

The Forgotten have the best mid to late game economy in the entire game due to the massive Dust ramp up. I've effectively produced over 70k Science a turn (meaning 56k Dust) on *one city* as the Forgotten and can get through all of Era VI in about 10 turns or less on Normal speed. And gone through Era V in like 3-4 turns on Normal speed. But they are really awful in Era II in particular. Just be careful about early game buffs because once they get rolling no one else can keep up.



Also, I think a significant issue is the cost of non-garrisoned units in the very early game. A garrisoned Assassin in the first few turns costs 1 Dust a turn. A non-garrisoned Assassin costs 6 Dust a turn. So by garrisoning the starting Assassins you're effectively producing 10 extra Science a turn. Trying to explore initially as the Forgotten is extremely punishing. Perhaps something to reduce early-game upkeep values would help promote the playstyle you want -- simply giving more dust means they can do even better by focusing on economy.

TheDeadDude wrote:
In multiplayer people build up for war by turn 20

By turn 10 I had every basic building done, was in Era II, and could build up for war. And let's be crystal clear, they do NOT do that in most multiplayer games. They might do that in the specific types of games you're discussing where most of the 4X elements are effectively ripped out, just like the "teamers" in Civ V.

TheDeadDude wrote:
this is turn 46 and as you can see the game is already getting close to finished. The necrophage has 8 stacks of 6, drakken has expanded out the arse and now that i'm dead hes going to start grinding his engines to train troops like no tommorow and wild walker is just chilling out.

You realize that turn 46 on Fast is roughly equivalent to turn 92 on Normal, right? And *Dust Refinery* (probably second Era III tech) is being "researched" on turn 92 Normal? Like...I don't even see how that's possible. When did you hit Era II (should have been turn 10 or close to it)? When did you hit Era III? How many spies did you hire and how many buildings/units did you buy out?

BPrado wrote:
I´d just like to point out this is barely possible with factions that not Drakken, obviously, Ardent Mages, Vaulters and Forgotten; and it´s still pretty hard with the last three to get both enough techs and influence, not to mention not very smart with forgotten.

Why isn't it very smart with the Forgotten? Sure, you don't have the 20% discount yet, but the tech costs are also still so low that you're not "losing" much Dust. And 33% cheaper buildings saves hundreds of Industry to put on units (or more buildings).

BPrado wrote:
People are in general much nicer than your average strategy mp, which is funny considering how military el is. The things you mentioned will vary with each game and player, but people will tend to gang up on annoying Roving Clans like that. ^^

I'm referring to these "SUPER COMPETITIVE ULTRA HARDCORE CUTTHROAT" games that are being discussed specifically -- I've seen MP games in general.