Clarification: If your solo ruins scavengers get jumped on, you can retreat twice before being forced to sell your unit. With 5 movement, most armies will only get one hit on you so you can usually live. The biggest killer is the "Avenging Army" centaur that has 6 movement and they will chase you literally forever. Finding this guy from ruins usually means selling your guy on the next turn.

Wayra Sigo and Strike Far are brokenly OP heros in comparison to every other hero in the game. I suggest removing Food boost from Wayra Sigo, and removing Industry Boost from Strikes Far. This leaves them perfectly in-line and STILL DESIRABLE even after a major nerf. That's just how unbelievably OP they are at the moment.



I'll be publishing a Vaulters Guide: Endless Difficulty, Word Settings:Hard in the coming weeks. You can get these heros on TURN 3 from the marketplace if you get lucky with your 3 exclusive hero choices. You then get 10 Heros to choose from around Turn 15, and if you get either of them their, then the game is still broken. The walkthrough I've decided to publish will be a game where neither of these heroes was available at Turn 3 or Turn 15, because including them in a walkthrough is pointless in trying to teach proper mechanics in a normal game at the hardest difficulty level possible.



I really hope the next update fixes these 2 heroes.



Making units only sell-able in regions you occupy seems very reasonable as well. However, my guide will detail a strategy that'll use units that are basically impossible to catch. So I don't think it'll effect the strength of the strategy.

Apheirox wrote:
Sounds like the ability to sell units that are outside of your territory (or, perhaps even more strict: outside cities) should be removed. It makes no sense that you are able to do so anyway, is definitely not the gameplay Amplitude intends and only serves to facilitate exploits like described. Get on in, Amplitude!



OP: Nice thread, informative and helpful.

That's a good suggestion as well. It's so easy to exploit because they sell for a good chunk of dust too.

RaceyB wrote:
OK, when I play at normal difficulty, the heroes are only about 330 dust at turn 29. I wonder why the newbie difficulty has them much higher. All in all, the OP got me to change my style. I do split the army and hit the temples early, but when I see my very first roaming army, I head back to defend the city and form up one army.



Not a bad opening strat at all. But I do lose out on lust for loot quest, but no biggie.

Weird...I have no idea why it costs so much either. The Lust for Loot quest is so good that I do go out of my way to complete them though. This opener actually gives you higher chances to get the quest in the first place since you're finding more ruins, plus it can give you a head start since you can just reassign your hero to whichever army that reaches the ruins first. It does leave your hero vulnerable for 5 turns since you're locked in though, which has gotten me into ugly situations.

OK, when I play at normal difficulty, the heroes are only about 330 dust at turn 29. I wonder why the newbie difficulty has them much higher. All in all, the OP got me to change my style. I do split the army and hit the temples early, but when I see my very first roaming army, I head back to defend the city and form up one army.



Not a bad opening strat at all. But I do lose out on lust for loot quest, but no biggie.

Sounds like the ability to sell units that are outside of your territory (or, perhaps even more strict: outside cities) should be removed. It makes no sense that you are able to do so anyway, is definitely not the gameplay Amplitude intends and only serves to facilitate exploits like described. Get on in, Amplitude!



OP: Nice thread, informative and helpful.

Do you have a hero in each city? And perhaps a hero or two leading an army? Doesn't this get very expensive? I typically spend quite a bit more upkeep on heroes than armies. Can you get heroes other way than quests and marketplace?

Maybe the lower difficulty AIs start with no hero? They could be jacking up the price by buying up all the heroes, I dunno. 1200 still seems a bit much, but around turn 16 it's usually around 300 gold for me at Impossible difficulty.



Wayra Sigo and Strikes Far certainly doesn't show up all the time. It's probably less than half even, but when they do show up they are irreplacable assets so grab them fast. Most factions don't start with heroes that have good Boost traits, so even if the two heroes don't show up, it's probably a good idea to grab a hero with "xx Boost 3" trait. Food Boost and Industry Boost are prime candidates, and I'd be willing to settle for Boost 2 of either. Science Boost is also really good for early stages of the game, although they're usually Vaulters and they make crappy heroes in general aside from being ranged. New heroes rotate every 15 turns, so waiting for the next batch for better choices is probably a worse choice than just buying a hero now and then selling it 15 turns later if a better replacement shows up. Of course, by turn 31 there's a good chance you'll have a second/third city and you will need more heroes for governing anyways.

RaceyB wrote:
To the OP, are you playing the version that is currently on Steam? Merc forces are 300-400 dust each, the heros you mention don't exist on my market, and they are 1200 dust at turn 16, normal speed. I don't understand this.... Sure you are not playing a different copy?

I have the same experience as the OP. I play default everything, and heros start the game at a couple hundred dust. By the time I can afford it, it's usually 350-400.

I do a very similar opening to the OP. I split everyone up, and make my first hero a governor. I then explore with separate units until I see that units have spawned from the neutral villages. (Not sure exactly when this happens, but seems like that is around turn 20) As soon as I can, I'll buy a second hero. Depending on what my hero starts with, and what's available, I'll get either a governor specific, or military specific new hero, and use my existing hero as the opposite. I'll then recombine my units, pull in the military hero, and start pacifying neutrals.

To the OP, are you playing the version that is currently on Steam? Merc forces are 300-400 dust each, the heros you mention don't exist on my market, and they are 1200 dust at turn 16, normal speed. I don't understand this.... Sure you are not playing a different copy?

Twinsen wrote:
RaceyB, what is the speed of the game and what round was it when those hero cost like 1200?



I gotta say, if you play Iron Man mode, this move is pretty risky.

All default settings on game speed, etc., but I was playing as newbie.... so I was surprised by turn 16 when I only had 300 dust saved up, and the heroes were all 1200 or more dust. Also, many of the ruins I searched popped up quests, some with 10-15 turn ti8me limits I could not complete as I had just started and had no army.

Hello. First post here, I'm loving the game and have played it quite a bit. I'm most fond of how each faction plays out so differently, but with that said I've found an opener that's so strong and not-so-fun that every faction plays exactly the same. This is for single-player pangea on Impossible/Endless difficulty.



1) Split off your starting 2 military units into two armies of 1 unit each by individually using the "Transfer" option, leaving only the settler and your Hero in the original army.



2) Settle wherever, leaving your hero alone with 0 army.



3) Retrofit your units with +1 movement accessory, followed by your hero with the same thing.



4) Explore the map in 3 different directions and reap the benefits.



5) Research Mercenary Market as your 2nd or 3rd research, depending on science output.



6) Buy either Wayra Sigo (sp?) or Strikes Far from the Heroes Market, probably on the 16th turn unless you were lucky enough with your 3 exclusives from Turn 1-15. If neither are available, get the hero with the best "xx Boost" trait.

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With 5 movement, your units will have a hard time getting caught by anything so you can keep exploring. Each army costs 5 dust, but it's very easily counteracted by the amount you find from ruins. When one of them finally gets cornered, sell them off to the market. If your hero gets cornered, just unassign him. Most factions will want him governing the moment he hits lvl2 anyways, and since he's alone he won't leave anyone behind.



You'll easily have 300-500 dust by the time turn 16 rolls around from all the ruins, and then you can buy Wayra Sigo (Food Boost 2 and Industry Boost 3) or Strikes Far(Food Boost 3 and Industry Boost 2). Either hero as governor will catapult your city's development, and they will be invaluable for any new expansion cities you make unless you're Broken Lords.

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This opener is not particularly fun for me compared to when I was newer to the game, when I just had my standing army clumped together. It was way more enjoyable to explore the land, do quests, and engage in battles along the way. This opener is all about just exploring, grabbing ruins, completing freebie quests (like the "no enemy for 5 turns" quest) and retreating from every engagement.

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Suggestions:



1) Make Ruins give 50% less rewards when Searched by an army with no hero.



2) I don't think any hero should ever have two Governor traits personally, especially 2 Boosts, even more so when those two Boosts are Food and Industry. A new city with a lvl4+ Wayra Sigo or Strikes Far as governor will develop 4 times faster than normal, which is just too much in my book. I like variance in desirability for heroes, but it's just too much.

Twinsen wrote:
RaceyB, what is the speed of the game and what round was it when those hero cost like 1200?



I gotta say, if you play Iron Man mode, this move is pretty risky.

The heroes cost around 280-310 the last time I checked, and I have no mods on. I play Iron Man mode with the exception of misclicks that are immediately recognized, and this method is way safer. I don't plan to get my guys back, they are on a suicide mission for ruins. They make up for their lives very easily with the amount of ruins they search.

Mansen wrote:
One downside of splitting and keeping split are less XP for your initial hero - As well as the risk of running into a neutral army with a grudge.

Your initial hero will get lvl2 just as fast unless you plan to fight very early to rush it for some kind of governor bonus, which is a risky proposition in itself. The biggest downside from my experience is the 5 gold it costs to maintain each 'army', which is paid for very easily.

Lynneiah wrote:
Not so sure about common sense. Keeping a single recon party of your starting hero and units in the early game seems way more intuitive to me. Different playstyles and all that.

It was also more intuitive at first for me, and I still find it much more enjoyable.

red_locust wrote:
Isn't this all just common sense? Split your units up, increase their movement to mop up ruins more quickly and recon the surroundings? It's not really a build.

Not so sure about common sense. Keeping a single recon party of your starting hero and units in the early game seems way more intuitive to me. Different playstyles and all that.

One downside of splitting and keeping split are less XP for your initial hero - As well as the risk of running into a neutral army with a grudge.

RaceyB, what is the speed of the game and what round was it when those hero cost like 1200?



I gotta say, if you play Iron Man mode, this move is pretty risky.

I don't know about it. I'm trying to play Iron Man (no reloads) so letting my units run by themselves seems risky to me. They meet neutrals or some other factions and I'm crippled to the point that the game may be lost as you can't spend time on military early and any neutral can siege your capital.

I must be playing the wrong game.... or you have a strange version (cough) I followed your tips, and the cheapest hero is 1200 dust, and neither hero mentioned is on the list. Also, the cost for mercenary units is way more than you posted. Most of the ruins I did hit were either nothing, or 30 dust, sprinkled in with some luxury resources. I thought maybe you were playing a beta or something, but you just joined the forums, so I'm at a loss as to this guide.... Not to mention all the blown side quests that are opened because you have no army to complete them...

The boosts are certainly great and does exactly what the name implies. Even heroes with one strong boost makes great governors for new cities, but two boosts is way too strong imo. The fact that it's Food and Industry makes it even more insane.



I'm very familiar with 4x games, but I liked the original impression of the game much more than what I'm doing now. Having an exploration party that does quests and kills things along the way was much more entertaining than running away from everything and scrounging ruins.

I believe your post is a good introduction to those who are new to 4X game. This post should be moved to tips/tricks.



Anyway, those hero's "Boost" skills are amazing.