Every faction can do this strategy successfully, it's just not as effective as the standard Industry-focused economy.



Buying population after a certain very low point is inefficient compared to simply buying buildings or buying units and taking over other cities. You'll eventually hit a point where you literally bought out everything you can for every city you have, at which point BL finally gets some time to shine simply because other factions would literally have nothing left to spend Dust on. The other factions are going to be faster at making the Dust eco switch and/or have better units to buy, while the BL only starts to benefit when you probably won the game already.



Simply put, BL Dust economy is much slower at starting and only marginally better due to Dust Efficient.

So in the new update the Broken Lords have been buffed. What are everyone's opinions on the method they have been strengthened and how effective is it?

They might have to change the name to Fixed lords instead of Broken Lords if they buff them. lol

As far as the quick fix goes it's ok, expansion seams bearable now, although tall approach is still preferred which sort of contradicts with supposed warlike playstyle. All of the problems not related to expansion still remain though.

My full analysis of Broken Lords after playing it quite a bit after the buff:



-They are still incredibly weak compared to other factions by a large margin, whether it's custom or not.



Suggestion: The non-custom Broken Lords should at least use up the 25 points that are not used up.



*****

-They have weak starts terrain-wise most of the time due to the inability to benefit from food bonuses on anomalies. It's not unusual to start with no anomaly nearby at all.



Suggestion: They should get +3 gold per anomaly as part of Appetite for Dust.

*****

-Their starting hero is very weak only because of Dust Efficiency 2 when Broken Lords have such a hard time getting high population early on.



Suggestion: Dust Boost 3 would be much better for helping out their tremendously weak early game. It would also open up some strategy for quick-leveling the starting hero to level 2 or 3 and sticking him in the city. Also, really need to nerf Wayra Sigo (Food Boost 2, Industry Boost 3) and Strikes Far (Food Boost 3, Industry Boost 2). They're so outrageously OP for everyone but Broken Lords who does not benefit from the Food Boost.

*****

-Their Faction quest is terrible at the "Research 12 Era 1 technologies" part. It's only worse because they don't have a Food tech to research, making at least 2 techs nearly useless comparative to Era 2 techs that could have been researched at the time.



Suggestion: Get rid of the "Research 12 Era 1 techs" stage and replace it with something else. It doesn't even make much sense since they aren't really Science-focused as a faction.

*****

-Appetites for Dust is mostly detrimental. Food is the second most powerful resource early game, as evidenced by usual opening builds going Founder's Memorial->Mill Foundry-> Seeding Mill. "Not having to worry about food" is not really a valid argument in terms of balance. The instant heal with Dust is very strong late game, while no regeneration is devastating early game. This doesn't balance each other out since games are mostly decided by the early-mid game leads.



Suggestion: Instead of "No Regeneration", I would like them to regenerate an amount equal to the Dust produced on the terrain they're standing in.

*****

Population still gets so expensive so fast. Taking over high-pop cities is the only realistic way to ensure a strong mid-late game economy.



Suggestion: On top of the current scaling, perhaps making population cheaper over time depending on the amount of dust produced from the city would be good. For example, every 100 dust produced from the city makes it 1 gold cheaper to increase population by 1. This would add more emphasis to the dust dependency of the faction, instead of the current iteration where increasing population is a matter of when to stop caring.

Im not espically very good at the game overall.



But you have my support never the less.

The BL have two core issues:



1) Population Curve



Everybody understand this. 4x games tend toward wide play, and BL are very focused on tall play. The primary need here is to make going tall worth it, or going wide more attainable. Lots of ways to handle that, and 1.07 was a step in the right direction so it's at least on the Dev's radar. The problem is



2) Non-standard terrain affinity.



This is where everything gets mucked up. It's really impossible to say where BL stand when they tend to get started in areas that would be good for any other faction and are terrible for a faction that doesn't have any use for food. Without consistent "foodless" tile starts it's borderline impossible to really figure out where BL needs help and where it's already good.



In my experience starting in areas rich with Industry and Water tiles results in pretty rapid and defensible growth for BL as a whole. North2 has some good points, but I don't agree with a couple of them (and I'll continue to not agree until I'm sure the BL actually need those kinds of raw number buffs, looking at you gold/anomaly). Doesn't mean they won't address issues, they just won't address the core issues I can see in BL mechanics.

North2 wrote:
My full analysis of Broken Lords after playing it quite a bit after the buff:



-They are still incredibly weak compared to other factions by a large margin, whether it's custom or not.



Suggestion: The non-custom Broken Lords should at least use up the 25 points that are not used up.



*****

-They have weak starts terrain-wise most of the time due to the inability to benefit from food bonuses on anomalies. It's not unusual to start with no anomaly nearby at all.



Suggestion: They should get +3 gold per anomaly as part of Appetite for Dust.

*****

-Their starting hero is very weak only because of Dust Efficiency 2 when Broken Lords have such a hard time getting high population early on.



Suggestion: Dust Boost 3 would be much better for helping out their tremendously weak early game. It would also open up some strategy for quick-leveling the starting hero to level 2 or 3 and sticking him in the city. Also, really need to nerf Wayra Sigo (Food Boost 2, Industry Boost 3) and Strikes Far (Food Boost 3, Industry Boost 2). They're so outrageously OP for everyone but Broken Lords who does not benefit from the Food Boost.

*****

-Their Faction quest is terrible at the "Research 12 Era 1 technologies" part. It's only worse because they don't have a Food tech to research, making at least 2 techs nearly useless comparative to Era 2 techs that could have been researched at the time.



Suggestion: Get rid of the "Research 12 Era 1 techs" stage and replace it with something else. It doesn't even make much sense since they aren't really Science-focused as a faction.

*****

-Appetites for Dust is mostly detrimental. Food is the second most powerful resource early game, as evidenced by usual opening builds going Founder's Memorial->Mill Foundry-> Seeding Mill. "Not having to worry about food" is not really a valid argument in terms of balance. The instant heal with Dust is very strong late game, while no regeneration is devastating early game. This doesn't balance each other out since games are mostly decided by the early-mid game leads.



Suggestion: Instead of "No Regeneration", I would like them to regenerate an amount equal to the Dust produced on the terrain they're standing in.

*****

Population still gets so expensive so fast. Taking over high-pop cities is the only realistic way to ensure a strong mid-late game economy.



Suggestion: On top of the current scaling, perhaps making population cheaper over time depending on the amount of dust produced from the city would be good. For example, every 100 dust produced from the city makes it 1 gold cheaper to increase population by 1. This would add more emphasis to the dust dependency of the faction, instead of the current iteration where increasing population is a matter of when to stop caring.

I disagree with the "incredibly weak". In my ongoing game they look quite OK. Of course they are not as OP as the Vaulters or the Rovin Clans, but they look fine if you compare them to the others.



I agree about their early game which is not their strong momentum, and thus is quite critical because the mid and late game depend on that, it is true for every faction, but even more true for the BL.



I would say that the key thing with them is to choose the right moment to switch their eco : from prod (mandatory at the beginning) to full dust. From my experiences (before and after patch, actually the buff does not impact so much), it seems to be somewhere near the moment you unlock the -50% buyout (-25 from tech and -25 from empire plan) and have at least a confortable +200 dust per turn. Once the switch is done another important thing to not forget : Dust Water, maybe also Orchid Flower, and obviously fervent morale. Of course to have all these you need to have a vertical empire, otherwise it will be difficult.



I think that if you play them this way, with the current patch they are OK, not an overpowered faction, but no longer an underpowered one.



Concerning your suggestion, I agree that the "12 era1 tech" looks quite strange, because 1) it follows a "8 era1 tech" step, and 2) it does not seem to match their background (they are not techies, they are dust addicts who drain life from people to live!). I also think that their faction quest, and espescially their rewards, are not well timed. It would be nice for example that the Dust Crematorium (dust from battle xp) become available sooner, like the Penitent Chapel (regen) also. It would greatly help their early/mid game IMHO.



I am not very fan of the regen proposal and the revamp of the pop cost, I would prefere soft changes like unlocking DC and PC sooner for example.

I would say that the key thing with them is to choose the right moment to switch their eco : from prod (mandatory at the beginning) to full dust. From my experiences (before and after patch, actually the buff does not impact so much), it seems to be somewhere near the moment you unlock the -50% buyout (-25 from tech and -25 from empire plan) and have at least a confortable +200 dust per turn. Once the switch is done another important thing to not forget : Dust Water, maybe also Orchid Flower, and obviously fervent morale. Of course to have all these you need to have a vertical empire, otherwise it will be difficult.



I think that if you play them this way, with the current patch they are OK, not an overpowered faction, but no longer an underpowered one.

I've tried playing it this way. With everything optimized, the other factions sadly does this strategy better and faster than BL. Unfortunately, it's not particularly close either.



Admittedly, most of the reasons for this are due to the overpowered strategies that the Broken Lords cannot use effectively if at all. The biggest offender are the OP governors, since Wayra Sigo/Strikes Far allows for empires that are vertically gigantic AND horizontally massive on every faction but the Broken Lords. However, I cannot see much of a reason for them to ever be able to compete on a similar level even with all the OP strategies excluded. Their early game is weak, they have a harder time getting to the "Dust Switch" phase, and they aren't particularly better at spending or producing Dust.

North2 wrote:
I've tried playing it this way. With everything optimized, the other factions sadly does this strategy better and faster than BL. Unfortunately, it's not particularly close either.

Maybe the Rovin Clan can apply this strategy, but I am not at all sure that they would have as success as a the Broken Lord, due to the very heavy dust consumption.



Apart them, no others faction can apply this strategy with success, so I am quite confused with your statment.



Looking at this thread, I really hope that the dev will work on an overall faction balancing soon, as the overpower of some (Vaulters, Rovin Clans) make some other look underpowered (Broken Lords), and thus lead to some quite overstated statment, like the "BL are incredibly weak", which is wrong now, IMHO.



That being said, some hero may be very very powerfull in some conditions, and the dev should look on that also, you are right.

Adventurer_Blitz wrote:
On the whole this seems like an interesting idea to increase the FIDSI of a faction and make use of ruins. However, while this might go along with the Broken Lords theme of architects and city-builders, I don't think that if such a mechanic was implemented it would or should be exclusive to any one faction. either way, it would probably go along with the Cultists theme of using Endless technology more than the Broken Lords lore. And Nasarog, which problems in particular would apply to singleplayer only, or multiplayer only and not translate?

Empire expansion. In MP, i don't think too many people play on huge maps, and in SP you play vs the retarded er, handyincapable AI.

Broken Lords are definitely better after the patch. We had 2 BL players in a multiplayer match and they both did well, seemed to keep pace on overall economy and had some nice armies. I think they are a viable choice now, but there still needs to be balancing.



Here's some graphs (BL players were light blue and pink) from that game:































Of course, this is only one game, but you can see where they kept pace or led in most categories and had a massive advantage on until they shifted to later in the game.



I'd like to see claims of them being weak (post 1.0.7 patch) supplemented up with some evidence and not theory.

Your graph look consistent with what I have seen in my mp games, BL are able to keep pace with others faction now.



On the single player side, I am now able to achieve a wonder victory in ~150 turns with them (serious), which looks in the average of all the faction, whereas before patch it was very challenging to achieve this in less than ~180 turns, so they really look better balanced now.



Still, I think that maybe some of their faction tech unlocked via the faction quest could be available a little bit sooner, to make their early game slightly more confortable, but it is quite minor actually.

Playing around with ciustom traits and so far my favorit combo to balance their trait points out is



Song of Ice, Only Ice

Landscapist



Addresses Anomaly "weakness" and holy hell is that movement boost amazing during winter.

The broken lords faction quest is extremely annoying...research 12 level 1 techs? Totally throws off the pacing. Especially because in my opinion the BL need a few era 2 techs fast for their armies to be viable against archer death squads... dust bishops, army size, and probably t2 glassteel weapons. Besides there's the 25% buyout reduction and the marketplace. Not much time to go back and research 4 less useful era 1 techs.

alate wrote:
The broken lords faction quest is extremely annoying...research 12 level 1 techs? Totally throws off the pacing. Especially because in my opinion the BL need a few era 2 techs fast for their armies to be viable against archer death squads... dust bishops, army size, and probably t2 glassteel weapons. Besides there's the 25% buyout reduction and the marketplace. Not much time to go back and research 4 less useful era 1 techs.

/agreed



This step one of the (if not the) worst I have seen of all faction quest I tried (Rovin Clans, Drakkens, Necrophages & BL of course).



I think it participates heavily in their weak and fragile early development.

Kruos wrote:
/agreed



This step one of the (if not the) worst I have seen of all faction quest I tried (Rovin Clans, Drakkens, Necrophages & BL of course).



I think it participates heavily in their weak and fragile early development.

Put off the 4 era 1 techs until you get the Military/Economic techs in E2. Then fill out with 4 E1 techs of choice.



You're not going for a wonder victory anyway, so you don;t need to rush that hard. It's a bad quest design, but it's not hard to complete the quest itself.

Autocthon wrote:
Put off the 4 era 1 techs until you get the Military/Economic techs in E2. Then fill out with 4 E1 techs of choice.



You're not going for a wonder victory anyway, so you don;t need to rush that hard. It's a bad quest design, but it's not hard to complete the quest itself.

Actually I like to go for a wonder victory, so I rush it as hard as possible in general.

The changes in 1.07/8 helped them some, but it's not enough.

Kruos wrote:
Actually I like to go for a wonder victory, so I rush it as hard as possible in general.

You're weird :P



Though even then waiting the 2 really really good techs is worth it IMO, then going back to fill stuff out. Makes a big momentum difference. Admittedly I tend to use Production up until I hit E3 or E4 from my population and build pure dust buildings with a minor concession to tech.