Ok...I have not played a ton with broken lords, so someone help explain this for me?



I was playing a MP game last night, fast paced 4 players, ect. I was Vaulters and doing as well as I ever have. By turn 20 i had my capital to pop 5, my second city founded working on my 3rd, an army of 4 marines fully equipped with T1 gear that was wrecking villages and making the land safe for peoples. I had just hit second age I think and was saving up coin to upgrade my units after they returned victorous in a neighboring region that was being primed for settlers.



Then bam...the broken lords who share a border with this neutral region that divids us shows up. Keep in mind this is only around turn 30 ish in a fast paced game. My army has been unstoppable and I look at his units. 3 infantry a settler and a hero vs my 4 marines and a hero I like them odds with my supiorior range and I'll be damned if I let these rust buckets take the region my marines have spilled blood to cleanse. To battle!



I group my marines on the edge of a forest and begin lobbing volly after volley on the oncoming mence...but they don't fall. Nearly every one of my units deals 0 damage in round one. Round 2 same thing and now the enemy has closed...my marines are in disbelief as foe after foe has fallen to their might, but these metal menaces continue to march and begin chopping them to peices with a malice that lacks mercy.



My hero and 2 wounded units barely get out with their lives, only to retreat to my capital which is torn asunder by the same enemies a few turns later.



My question is...how the hell did they get 90+ defense so quickly? I felt my economy was on par for best in the game at that point but I had no chance to fully kit my units with second age tech. I've read that the BL generally have a slow start so I was flabbergasted. I know they start with the T1 armor tech and technically he could have equipped all his units with the T2 anti archer item, but damn. I didn't stand a chance. The game crashed shortly after and I never got a chance to ask him how he did it. So all you BL out there...tell me yo....WTF?!?!

Come to think of it...I should have the last save file still on my PC. Maybe I will load it up and choose his faction in the MP launch screen and see what he had before he aniallated me.

Could be he unlocked the third tier titan/glass armour through a ruins quest?

Pretty expensive though.

No I opened my save file...he had 3 cities at pop 5 and was about 5-10 turns ahead of me on tech and equipment.



Curse that BL insta growth on cities. They have a huge advantage in that respect when every city can literally start at pop 3 if they get a good starting local.

The cost to buy pop is less now for BL so yes I can imagine on Fast pace they are now quite deadly if they get a good dust starting point, plus the fact none of that pop needs to go into food to speed growth but can go into dust. The reason why that is advantageous as well is flexibility, dust gives you population/buying units/retroffiting units/bribes etc. It is gives you the most choice on what you can invest it into when you need (and it stockpiles). On an impossible A.I game I played I started on a river leading to the sea and had a mineral anamoly (7 production) next to the river tiles. My starting industry was fifteen(from tiles) with lots of dust and a little science. That start was so good, but I have only experienced those kind of speed starts with BL. With regards to defence stalwarts start 52 defence so maybe a couple of levels and tier 2 iron armour plus hero's defence bonus to units would easily make it to that base. I can imagine with some morale bonus and forest tile bonuses you might face defence well over 100 by that point :S. I must say though I wonder what your attack was? I have had some horrendous experiences with the RNG on this game and you may have gotten really unlucky.

Pretty sure it was high 60s. I was basicly able to kill any and all minot factions so quickly I took little to no damage every battle.

Broken Lords are dust based, they don't use food (they don't even "see" food on the map), and have the ability to buyout population units.



1-. Governor BL heroes have two early dust generation abilities (Aquatic Dust, that nets +1/+2/+3 dust on tiles with river - remember that levels are cumulative, that means 6dust/turn at level 3 on river tiles - and Dust Diviner, that nets +1/+1/+1 dust - again cumulative, that's +3dust/turn - on tiles that grant dust), and even more later on, so depending on the terrain, you start creating dust factories out of your cities like crazy.



2 Concentrate on science and dust gains on your cities and buyout all you need, you just keep some production at hand not to build, but to reduce buyout costs on whatever you're building/training every turn. Most pop will be dedicated to Dust or Science gains, with some influence to get the Empire plan "combo" rolling.



3-. Once BL's reach the first empire plan, they get their Era1 combo: +3 dust/pop and +20% science gains. Since BL's buyout pop, will usually have more pop than other factions, that will net BL's more dust from the plan (and the extra pop will usually be assigned to city dust gains, for even more dust), and since they tend to concentrate on science, they can develop faster - even more than Vaulters - early on.



4-. Finally, there's an Era2 marketplace improvement (Imperial Coinage) that allows for buying-selling resources. That usually means that once you reach era2 you can immediately research coinage, then buyout the mats (titanium/glasstell usually start costing 20d a piece, easily paid with lords), retrofit some units you have around and maybe a bought hero with nasty glassteel/titanium weapons and armor (skills researched from Era1 in order to reach Era 2) and then start kicking asses and writing names.



- - -



Call it "BL rush" if you want:



- Settle ASAP in a river/science/dust gain terrain

- Set your base hero as Governor with the dust gain abilities (depending if you settle in a river, or in dust terrain)

- Set your population on Dust and Science gains mainly, just be sure to reach enough influence at turn 20 for Era1 Empire Plan "combo"

- Research dust and science improvement buildings, then marketplace and glassteel/titanium weapon/armors, then whatever you want.

- Buyout pop and dust/science generation buildings, burroughs to get more dust, then hire a military hero and maybe buyout extra troops

- Set Era 1 plan combo. Era1 plans cost 20 influence per owned city and you need to enable two plans, that's 40inf x <# of owned cities> in case you expanded.

- Once you reach Era 2, research coinage

- Buyout required titanium/glasssteel from marketplace.

- Retrofit units.

- !!!, Profit.

Yorien, I'm curious about your strategy, because I've settled on an industry-focused (admittedly custom) BL instead. I found that gains from city tiles outstrip gains from pop, and the costs in industry are so much lower than buyout costs. I still rush-- I just started an impossible, normal-speed game where I eliminated my first, 3 province, empire at turn 40 (doh forgot to buy my plan before taking their last city lol). I launched the war at maybe turn 30. I had 3 provinces when the war started but settled a fourth during the war.



At what difficulty and speed have you been playing? At what turn do you begin waging war?



In addition to industry, I also focus on science-- but for different reasons. Dust Bishops eliminate my dependence on dust for healing and are a tier 2 priority. Imperial Coinage lets me buy those early Titan Bones/Dust Orchids/Moonleaves at a time when they're still affordable for my empire. I usually live with only 2 pop on each city, both on industry.

natev wrote:
Yorien, I'm curious about your strategy, because I've settled on an industry-focused (admittedly custom) BL instead. I found that gains from city tiles outstrip gains from pop, and the costs in industry are so much lower than buyout costs. I still rush-- I just started an impossible, normal-speed game where I eliminated my first, 3 province, empire at turn 40 (doh forgot to buy my plan before taking their last city lol). I launched the war at maybe turn 30. I had 3 provinces when the war started but settled a fourth during the war.



At what difficulty and speed have you been playing? At what turn do you begin waging war?



In addition to industry, I also focus on science-- but for different reasons. Dust Bishops eliminate my dependence on dust for healing and are a tier 2 priority. Imperial Coinage lets me buy those early Titan Bones/Dust Orchids/Moonleaves at a time when they're still affordable for my empire. I usually live with only 2 pop on each city, both on industry.

The best moment to start your conquest is right after you research Imperial Coinage, so you can quickly buyout some titanium/glasstell and suddenly, your "normal" armies become beasts.



And, about industry vs Dust , Pi2r just explained this awesomely in his/her FDSI (DSI for Broken Lords) topic few minutes ago, better check it out:



/#/endless-legend/forum/9-tips-tricks/thread/3822-you-don-t-have-to-be-broken-to-ignore-industry-a-fdsi-primer



That is the trick. Dust costs seem high at first glance... but BL's will gain several times more dust than they get production; and once you get to Era 2, enable some production/buyout costs from empire plans, and research Prisoners, Slaves, and Volunteers from era 2 (nets 25% buyout reduction for both units and buildings); and completing buildings and units much faster (sometimes in a single turn) is way more valuable than the extra cost. dust costs start ramping up the more advanced the unit/building, but even if a unit/building costs double in dust, by the time costs ramp up that much you may be gathering three, four times more dust than production.

Thanks yorien, I'll ask more in Pi2r's thread