Balkoth wrote:
But we're looking for a *consistent* overall boost, right? Not "Once every five games it might make a difference in one battle."

Yes, I think a slight HP boost or a defence boost is consistent in the early game without it undermining the mid-late game, when Assassins become potent. The scenario I described, whereby Assassins would have had a stronger chance of survival early game if they had a bit more HP, was all too common in my experience.

A larger boost would, I think, be excessive as the Assassin is a good unit.

You would be wrong about no one using the starting hero as a governor for long. I typically go from starting hero to Roving Clans governor, with the exact swap point depending on how heavily forested the area is, how many anomalies there are, when/if a good Roving Clans governor appears on the market, and what trade routes I have accessible. Would I prefer a different starting governor? Sure. But in a heavily forested region, being able to get +5 Dust per tile is like having a mini Dust Transmuter. And the opportunity cost of hiring a new governor at level 1 (which includes the lost income while that governor levels up) is extremely large...and is during a time period where the Forgotten need all the Dust they can get (early game).

That is quite situational. I can see the benefits of a Forgotten governor in a heavily forested area (which is not guaranteed), but in the scenario where early spying is boosted and encouraged (by for instance, an innate seniority and / or reduced spying upkeep), there would be at least as much incentive to get her to spy early after an initial period of governance. There is also added incentive to spy early through the faction quest (which is also why I think Zeima needs a boost, to make following through the quest more interesting).



The suggestions I make should preferably be taken as a whole. I agree that, all else being equal, an influence boost on the starting hero is not going to change much, unless spying and following through the faction quest become more interesting prospects.



Which is, at the end of the day, what I think needs to be done. Instead of penalising or limiting alternative ways of playing, we should make their "main" playstyle more interesting.

KnightofPhoenix wrote:
Oh I've had scenarios early game where an extra little hp would have saved the unit from a lucky crit on retaliation.

But we're looking for a *consistent* overall boost, right? Not "Once every five games it might make a difference in one battle."

KnightofPhoenix wrote:
I don't think that little extra influence from the starting hero will translate into better empire plans throughout the game. The reason being that no one would use the starting hero as a governor for long, even with Dust boost 2 and influence boost 2. Forgotten heroes make terrible governors, with only one useful skill (dust on forests) that does not connect to anything else in the skill tree.

You would be wrong about no one using the starting hero as a governor for long. I typically go from starting hero to Roving Clans governor, with the exact swap point depending on how heavily forested the area is, how many anomalies there are, when/if a good Roving Clans governor appears on the market, and what trade routes I have accessible. Would I prefer a different starting governor? Sure. But in a heavily forested region, being able to get +5 Dust per tile is like having a mini Dust Transmuter. And the opportunity cost of hiring a new governor at level 1 (which includes the lost income while that governor levels up) is extremely large...and is during a time period where the Forgotten need all the Dust they can get (early game).

Balkoth wrote:
I think part of the issue is that Assassins seem to be intended to swarm a single target (the ability to do so is aided by things like Acrobat to pass through enemies)...but you can't really swarm a target early game when you only have two. I'm not even sure a 6-8 HP boost would make a noticeable difference overall, even early game (where if your Assassin is getting down to <10% HP, things are going badly anyway).

Oh I've had scenarios early game where an extra little hp would have saved the unit from a lucky crit on retaliation.

If not an HP boost, then a defence boost might be in order. Like the Mysts, Assassins should be elusive and hard to hit.

Balkoth wrote:


Problem is that you can turn that influence directly into better Empire plans instead (or, alternatively, more diplomacy), making it trivial to get even more peaceful economic perks (which includes cheaper units and an attack boost so it's easier to make the necessary military and you need less of it).

I don't think that little extra influence from the starting hero will translate into better empire plans throughout the game. The reason being that no one would use the starting hero as a governor for long, even with Dust boost 2 and influence boost 2. Forgotten heroes make terrible governors, with only one useful skill (dust on forests) that does not connect to anything else in the skill tree.



Rather, one would use the starting hero as a governor early game before infiltrating her into a city. Now yes, a player can use the bit of extra influence early game for a better empire plan, which I am not against in theory. But it won't really be the case that they will keep using the starting hero as a governor to keep having more influence for empire plans. If that is their intention, they will just get Ozek the Chosen and we can't really do anything to prevent it (nor should we).

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

We are still talking about Forgotten balance. I was Forgotten in that game, and had I not said anything Jojo would have been posting stuff about how when I played Forgotten in an actual multiplayer game with him I did badly (compared to him) and that's proof what I'm saying is wrong. My point is the map settings he chose, the way the other four players in the game acted, and really bad luxury RNG were the real issues. Maybe I'm still wrong overall, but that particular game is not one you can draw that conclusion from.

KnightofPhoenix wrote:
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.

For the record, I'm willing to agree with this statement. It just so happens that you can strip out the espionage, pillaging, harassment, etc with a custom faction and have the best economy overall in the game, winning a Scientific/Economic Victory faster than anyone (which is still true for vanilla Forgotten compared to other vanilla factions...hell, maybe even compared to all other custom factions). Which means my broader point is more "Please be careful how you buff the Forgotten because you don't want to make their 'peaceful' play even more insane."

KnightofPhoenix wrote:
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.

I think part of the issue is that Assassins seem to be intended to swarm a single target (the ability to do so is aided by things like Acrobat to pass through enemies)...but you can't really swarm a target early game when you only have two. I'm not even sure a 6-8 HP boost would make a noticeable difference overall, even early game (where if your Assassin is getting down to <10% HP, things are going badly anyway).

KnightofPhoenix wrote:
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.

Just as an FYI, the dust cost is literally the Science cost (reduced by 20% if the Empire plan is activated). And reducing the increase in cost is an example of a buff that worries me as it makes the peaceful play even more powerful...while if your economy is poor you might not even notice much of a difference with the "intended" play. If anything I'd almost suggest making tech *more* expensive to buy past Era I but making *stealing* tech far more lucrative (through cheaper heroes, lower influence costs, faster stealing, whatever). Or making it so the Forgotten can fare better even with a tech disadvantage.

KnightofPhoenix wrote:
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.

Problem is that you can turn that influence directly into better Empire plans instead (or, alternatively, more diplomacy), making it trivial to get even more peaceful economic perks (which includes cheaper units and an attack boost so it's easier to make the necessary military and you need less of it).



I'm not trying to be a downer here -- I just don't want to see a situation where Amplitude puts out some buffs and the net result is people go "Wow, holy cow, this peaceful economic play Balkoth was talking about is completely insane now!" and that's widely considered to be the best strategy...when the point was to buff the non-peaceful and non-economic play.

I think it's always important to mention your focus (SP vs MP) and what speed you play on when you make your comments/observations.



It's pretty silly when we end up discussing one person's fast, MP observations versus someone else's Endless difficulty, Endless speed, SP experience. Two totally different games. ;P



---



On Endless speed in Single Player, for example, pillaging and learn from others are both incredibly strong. Learn From Others is so strong that it's unfun, even. You get 6-7 spies going, and it's nonstop leveling.

1 - "Their steal technology ability is their counter for having no access to science at all, so they should have some ability to use it more easily." - I don´t agree. I think Steal Technology is already an ubber ability that requires nothing to make it better. The Cult also doens´t get any extra source of influence apart from their hero - which everyone can buy - and they certainly need much more Influence much earlier.



2 - I don´t care how many people see the game the way I do. I´m good enough that while someone doesn´t beat me clearly using some strategy I think it´s not worth it, I won´t change my mind about it. I don´t care if the devs themselves designed the faction to be played in a way if that way is not what I find to be the most effective. I´m sure you might need a lot of forgotten heroes if you ever wish to keep up wth the science game - I´m also sure that trying to do so will equate defeat most times.



3 - Not it´s not harder to spy on them if they don´t go for that absurdly useless tech. I don´t think masters of spying are necessarily masters of counter-spying, because they´re completely different activities.



4 - I also disagree they need to start spying ASAP - or even that they heavily require spying, however awesome the ability might be. Their inherent extra chance to get rewards from ruins, plus the fact you don´t need to tech until you get Empire Plan´s discount, is all they need to get a really fast start. Leaving your hero parked in someone´s capital from too early on means less xp, less scouting in exchange for cheap, barely useful T1 techs. With dust boost, it´s much more worth it to have the hero getting these early techs for you in the form of dust, which can also be used for other things.



5 - Mysts.



6 - Their units are strong. They´re not strong in open warfare, but they do not need free units - unless they are to become strong in open warfare, which goes against the faction.



7 - I agree the spying system could be much better. I´m happy with the way it is, though.

lilyophelia wrote:
I think it's always important to mention your focus (SP vs MP) and what speed you play on when you make your comments/observations.



It's pretty silly when we end up discussing one person's fast, MP observations versus someone else's Endless difficulty, Endless speed, SP experience. Two totally different games. ;P



---



On Endless speed in Single Player, for example, pillaging and learn from others are both incredibly strong. Learn From Others is so strong that it's unfun, even. You get 6-7 spies going, and it's nonstop leveling.

They seem MUCH more usable on slower speed settings. But I agree, it's not fair at all to compare entirely different games... Honestly this game just doesn't seem to scale as well as I would like to different speeds.



However, I do think the game being generally balanced with all settings on normal is fair, and I don't think the Forgotten quite muster to that. MP balance is a different beast entirely, and I'm not sure a faction that relies on spying so much is every really going to balanced in MP. Humans simply don't respond to spying like the AI, meaning the spy activities will always have to be underpowered to not instantly enrage the human players, making them so weak they never compete and can be eliminated quickly; Or the spying activities have to be so overpowered the Forgotten player has to be eliminated quickly simply to keep them from dominating.



Anyways, I focus entirely on the single player experience in these sorts of discussions.

Avilyss wrote:
I think the Forgotten could use a small buff, sure, but I'm also partial as they're my favorite faction.



However, I think it should be pointed out that the faction doesn't require big changes to become competitive, all it needs is a few subtle or minor tweaks. Balance is a delicate issue and it's really easy to over-correct and actually make things worse.



I've played plenty of Forgotten games with only two or three heroes tops and have done just fine, the faction is more about being very intentional in your decision making and very decisive with your game plan. All more heroes allows you to do is make more mistakes with less penalty (you can steal more technologies or hinder your opponents a little better if you're using them as spies and cover up some ground you might lose for making bad choices or being frivolous with those choices).



Ultimately it's a faction about attrition. They don't play the open warfare game (they certainly can but I think you lose the feel of the faction doing so), they're more like the kingpins of the underworld, using extortion, bribery, assassinations, thievery, espionage, sabotage and other underhanded tactics to overcome their opposition. If you focus your game play on one specific path to victory and make every choice toward that goal, they're not incapable of being competitive.



Their primary weakness is their reliance on a solid Dust economy to be competitive and that weakness can be easily exploited by a skilled opponent. If they come under heavy military pressure and have to keep spending Dust to replace lost units, for instance, or if an opponent "inflates" the market so prices go up on heroes and units or other subtle things, life can become a lot harder for the Forgotten and this is primarily where they need help, in my opinion.

Certainly not anything big, but something to cater to their playstyle would help immensely. The problem I'm seeing with your point that they simply have to be played very intentionally, is that that applies to ANY faction. The only reason it applies so much to the Forgotten is because they are underpowered. They don't really have much to push them along their designed playstyle, the thing that makes them play differently than other factions, besides the fact that they are hamstrung at doing it any other way.



Look at the Broken Lords, the other faction with a dust dependency to progress. Look at how many bonuses they have in creating dust... and they are still rather underpowered (IMO, I hate playing them).

BPrado wrote:
I listed some of the many threads in which people have discussed forgotten already. They´re both interesting, so I thought you might want to read them if you´re concerned with balance.



I can surely go into more details. I´m going to quote ideas you approved from you steam thread-

Those were mine, so I'll respond. And, to be clear, the idea was certainly not to implement everything... Someone got that impression. I don't think they need a huge boost, but they do need some kind of buff.

BPrado wrote:
1 - Flat influence boost is too strong, and not for spying reasons. They can often choose to get to era 2 before the first empire plan (altough it´s usually not the best option), and even just being able to comfortably get two different level 1 ministries or an early assimilation without having to worry about the first inifltration could be the start of an immense snowball.

A flat boost may be too strong... depending. It could easily become too strong, but an extra point on the founder's memorial might be enough to get them going. It's primarily that soft start they have that's the issue, but they require influence to progress, and if no boost to it. Any other faction that requires something for their progress has buffs to their production of it. Their steal technology ability is their counter for having no access to science at all, so they should have some ability to use it more easily.

BPrado wrote:
2 - They don´t really need any more heroes than any other faction. They need two-three spies like everyone else, the only difference is that they need them earlier so that they can steal a few techs each. I don´t really care what their special techs or quest say (that is in fact something that could be changed) because they´re not worth the trouble. If a fast game lasted 200 turns, i´d consider getting an entire tech based on getting xp/turn on my heroes or +10 security on my cities, but in a game that lasts 80 turns tops, there is simply not enough practical reward.



They barely need particular governors. They don´t need a science city which means one less ardent mages governor in an ideal game. Mostly any other but Vaulters are good choices for different reasons, most of which derive from the fact they don´t need science (rc gives dust from anomaly+discount on units=pop on food/inf; drakken become better inf generators than Cult, necro gives food/ind+discount on unit=pop on dust/inf)

You seem to be in the minority on this opinion, so we may agree to disagree about them being hero-centric. As well, another point mentioned in a post the length and difficulty of the game plays a huge factor. If the quest benefit does exactly what I suggested, it would seem the suggestion is already implemented, AND that it was a point recognized as they designed the faction.

BPrado wrote:
3 - I don´t see why it should be harder to spy on them. I can understand that being a choice or even a quest reward, but not from turn 1. They don´t have detect, for example. And in a very impractical way, they already are better counter-spies since their faction heroes can theoretically be detecting spies earlier.



I can understand and agree with the feeling that they should have some sort of exclusivity in the spying system beyond the extra heroes and some tech or quest reward. But I don´t think it´s through more heroes or more security.

It already IS harder to spy on them from their unique tech, and I think it makes perfect sense that the masters of the spying game are harder to spy on themselves. I don't think the extra 10 security does it though, the chances of actually stopping a spying action are still too low. Against the AI, there isn't really anything you can do about noticing a spying action... There's no diplomacy option to even recognize it. An inherent Forgotten hero capacity for another 10 security might be a possibility... that would create the situation where setting up Forgotten heroes as governors actually has a reason, and wouldn't give them an exclusive ability (since anyone can hire Forgotten heroes). There's currently not much reason to use Forgotten heroes as governors, even as that faction.

BPrado wrote:
4 - Another hero is overpowered, yes. We proposed another Assassin in the community balance mod, and I liked the effect. One single unit makes their start much much faster, it´s incredible.

I was overlooking that they GET another hero early in the questline. It was, again, another situation already addressed by the design. An extra assassin unit at the start seems like it might be a workable option too, but the point remains that they need to get spying ASAP, and have no real specific strength in doing so.

BPrado wrote:
5 - I don´t think so, not because it would greatly help Forgotten in any way, but because the game would become hell. Every faction will or should have a couple of forgotten spies.

Doubling their movement was an off-the-cuff suggestion, and overmuch. I do still think they need additional maneuverability, and it seems in line with their theme. I'd suggest either a flat 50% bonus, putting them between infantry and cavalry, or the ability to ignore terrain costs. A slightly increased vision, inherent, would also be in theme... The point here is without something to set them apart from regular infantry, they have trouble taking real advantage of their stealth ability. By the time they see someone they are already on top of them. These issues can be improved with gear, so I'd only suggest they get an inherent minor ability *less* than the gear provides.

BPrado wrote:
6 - Their units don´t need that much help. Conversion has nothing to do with the faction, and any sort of constant free unit would be way too strong.

Conversation has nothing to do with the faction theme. Getting your enemies to double cross their allegiances is very much in the espionage theme however. It would probably make more sense to implement as an influence cost, rather than a dust cost. None of their reliance on dust really makes sense (who are they buying tech from??), so it's all a bit shoehorned in to make the faction workable. As it stands they are very vulnerable to an early rush, to which they can do very little, especially in MP. It's one of their major weaknesses. If they had the ability to turn even one army, or one unit, that early rush would be far less crushing, making an early rush far less of a sure thing.

BPrado wrote:
7 - Maybe.

Honestly, I think the spying game should simply be expanded a bit. This is one idea, along with the ability to steal strategic or luxury resources, the ability to hurt a city's approval rating, etc. The ability to steal dust just addresses a specific shortcoming in the Forgotten: their reliance on dust with little boost towards attaining it, especially in the early game.



I really don't think they need as much of a buff as some people think... A lot of people seem to *want* them to be worse than they are, simply because they were losing... usually from overlooking key points.

Groo wrote:
In my experience the forgotten suffer in tech area II, because there's no tech to improve dust production and techs are getting more expensive. So it's difficult to go as fast as possible to tech area III where two techs, that improve dust produvction are available. A development break other factions use to strengthen - even if I have a "hard working spy" stealing techs meanwhile...



What do the others think about ?

I think they can make use of either roads+central market or level 1 economic empire plan at that point. At least until Dust Transmuter is available.

In my experience the forgotten suffer in tech area II, because there's no tech to improve dust production and techs are getting more expensive. So it's difficult to go as fast as possible to tech area III where two techs, that improve dust produvction are available. A development break other factions use to strengthen - even if I have a "hard working spy" stealing techs meanwhile...



What do the others think about ?

I think the Forgotten could use a small buff, sure, but I'm also partial as they're my favorite faction.



However, I think it should be pointed out that the faction doesn't require big changes to become competitive, all it needs is a few subtle or minor tweaks. Balance is a delicate issue and it's really easy to over-correct and actually make things worse.



I've played plenty of Forgotten games with only two or three heroes tops and have done just fine, the faction is more about being very intentional in your decision making and very decisive with your game plan. All more heroes allows you to do is make more mistakes with less penalty (you can steal more technologies or hinder your opponents a little better if you're using them as spies and cover up some ground you might lose for making bad choices or being frivolous with those choices).



Ultimately it's a faction about attrition. They don't play the open warfare game (they certainly can but I think you lose the feel of the faction doing so), they're more like the kingpins of the underworld, using extortion, bribery, assassinations, thievery, espionage, sabotage and other underhanded tactics to overcome their opposition. If you focus your game play on one specific path to victory and make every choice toward that goal, they're not incapable of being competitive.



Their primary weakness is their reliance on a solid Dust economy to be competitive and that weakness can be easily exploited by a skilled opponent. If they come under heavy military pressure and have to keep spending Dust to replace lost units, for instance, or if an opponent "inflates" the market so prices go up on heroes and units or other subtle things, life can become a lot harder for the Forgotten and this is primarily where they need help, in my opinion.

idlih10 wrote:
Yes, pillaging is a lucrative business but that still requires a decent army early on to fight off those annoying minor faction armies and another to do quests. I also wouldn't recommend players who are already familiar with the game mechanics to play on normal even as Forgotten. The AI is just too weak (for lack of a better word) to put up a proper mid and late game challenge despite the early difficulties faced by the Forgotten.

Agreed. I find Serious the best balance between fun and challenging, and that also applies to the Forgotten.

As for pillaging enemy AIs, that applies more to mid-late game, when strategic resources become a more important factor.



I think the Forgotten can get a decent army early on through their faction quest. Two free predatores / assassins are nothing to laugh at, which you can sell later as you can't upgrade them. I tend to use them to loot MF villages and start to apply pressure on a nearby empire.

Yes, pillaging is a lucrative business but that still requires a decent army early on to fight off those annoying minor faction armies and another to do quests. I also wouldn't recommend players who are already familiar with the game mechanics to play on normal even as Forgotten. The AI is just too weak (for lack of a better word) to put up a proper mid and late game challenge despite the early difficulties faced by the Forgotten.

idlih10 wrote:
I just won a supremacy victory on a normal Forgotten game but it felt hollow because I took almost 200 turns to complete and could have played better. I must have been doing something wrong because I was not generating enough resources fast enough to retrofit all my units quickly and depended a lot on buying up strategic resources from the market

Against the AI, esp normal, keep pillaging their villages and extractors. You'll get resources easily that way.

I just won a supremacy victory on a normal Forgotten game but it felt hollow because I took almost 200 turns to complete and could have played better. I must have been doing something wrong because I was not generating enough resources fast enough to retrofit all my units quickly and depended a lot on buying up strategic resources from the market, so yes, they make tons of money late game, then again, which faction doesn't? I was rushing recruitment late game to quickly eliminate the cultists as they were very far ahead of me in the quest victory progress and close to winning that.



Another lesson was that the AI factions develop so fast especially the cultists. It's true that the AI is quite passive militarily on normal, but they are aggressive in terms of research and building tall, even spying occasionally. This meant that our armies were quite evenly matched, which wasn't surprising as they researched strategic weapons/armor before I did and I stole those techs. My spies get wounded at an alarmingly frequent rate whenever they steal techs and I ended up having around 8 heroes (only 1 was a cultist city governor, the rest were purely Forgotten heroes dedicated to spying/stealth armies). I was forced to sell 1 hero as I could not afford his upkeep when my treasury reached negative per turn during winter. It was only after I got this special 1 per empire dust bonus building (can't remember the name) that my income started to stabilize and pick up. Dust wasn't a problem late game, but strategic resources were. I'm inclined to disable quest victory in my next game as it seems like a cheap stunt for a faction to win in this manner, especially the AI that somehow always ends up so far ahead in this area, forcing me to build up my armies for a quick rush at the last minute before they reach their final quest goal.



It's a very tricky faction to play as there are so many factors that you need to play right in order to get by until the late game like getting heroes with influence/spying bonus traits and not settling until just after the empire plan is made to reduce the expansion influence cost. You also have to get at least say 4 cities and build tall before say turn 100 to kickstart your influence and economy. At the same time, go on the Ziema quest to upgrade her abilities. Overall, I think a lot depends on the difficulty and map settings, which affect gameplay for Forgotten just as they do for any other faction. That said, I think lower hero hiring costs and hero upkeep would make this faction more enjoyable to play early on considering their heavy reliance on spies until mid game at least.

BPrade, do you support my idea to boost them with a -50 % hiring cost for forgottens hero (Forgotten brotherhood new natural trait) ?



It would give them much more tech early games, much more experiences, much more fortifications + surprise attack too...

You have right about the background reason (lived in very harsh environnements), so that is a good possible background argument. ^^

Jojo_Fr wrote:
Reducing the military upkeep could be good, but disadvantages are :



- At early game, you don't need military, you need to pacify, or you don't have some production capacity. But hero and spies would be greatly usefull (spying ennemy rush, stealing tech, winning experience with them).



- There is no real background reason that Forgottens have a lower cost of military upkeep (contrary to Necrophages, warmonger horde faction by nature). But reduction of hiring forgotten hero is more logical.

Well I was thinking that they need the military early (+ 2 Assassins / Predatores which they can acquire with the faction quest, very early), to pillage MF villages to kickstart their economy (unless the pacification quests are easy and / or rewarding).



Also, I do think there is a good background reason. The Forgotten have lived in very harsh environments, so they have learned to live with less. If military upkeep is supposed to represent maintaining an army, then the Forgotten would need less maintenance.



But having just consulted the unit table, Forgotten units tend to be cheap, and so the combination of reduced military upkeep with that might end up encouraging the Forgotten players to spam, which should not be how the faction is played. I definitely do not want to see the Forgotten as a warmonger horde, so you might be right.



As I said earlier, I agree with reduced Forgotten hero costs and / or upkeep. I also think the Forgotten were meant to be played hero-centric, both in terms of leading armies as well as espionage. Reduced costs would see Forgotten heroes used quicker, which I think would address BPrado's very valid point of the Forgotten needing to get into espionage earlier (as opposed to more) than others.

Reducing the military upkeep could be good, but disadvantages are :



- At early game, you don't need military, you need to pacify, or you don't have some production capacity. But hero and spies would be greatly usefull (spying ennemy rush, stealing tech, winning experience with them).



- There is no real background reason that Forgottens have a lower cost of military upkeep (contrary to Necrophages, warmonger horde faction by nature). But reduction of hiring forgotten hero is more logical.

Jojo_Fr wrote:
I know how to play Forgottens, as others good players. Forgottens are very very weaks in multiplayer, they are completley dust dependant and never stop sniffing their dust coke from all the game. It must be changed.



In solo they can raid the A.I eco without retaliation (broken AI) so it's more easy to grow. Not in multiplayer.



Some persons proposed in this forum, suggestions to improve them. I did too.



But my main suggestion is simple : reducing the forggoten hero hiring cost from -50 % (forgotten brotherhood).



It would be a great help the have more hero spys, so more tech, so less dust needed to buy tech, more to build units, to raid with pillage and snowball etc.







It would be a good start to see what it does change in game.

(worth mentioning again that I do not have nearly the same legitimacy as Jojo_fr, BPrado, and others, when it comes to such matters)



But I am inclined to agree with Jojo_fr's proposition that the main weakness of the Forgotten is dust, and that indirect ways to help with dust, such as reduced hero cost and / or upkeep would help.



I also suggested in the Balance section, to have reduced military upkeep for the Forgotten. It might help them early game, allowing them to scout aggressively and pillage MF villages with less costs. And it won't really make the Forgotten too powerful late game, as upkeep becomes irrelevant by then (unless you're Necrophage). That and it would suit their lore, as survivors who have lived in very harsh environments and who don't need the same sort of maintenance as other factions.