But they do have a response: they can do it right back. Denying cross-border pillage to protect RC seems counter-productive, since RC can benefit from cross-border pillage as much as any other pre-Shadows faction, and can do so with considerably less risk or investment because their default unit is cavalry.



Besides which, RC should be doing a lot better with the T1-2 military nerf, which makes their mercenaries much stronger in comparison. RC Privateers might be the strongest T2 units in the game right now, an advantage that persists until at least mid T3 when their opponents have acquired enough strategics to take the military advantage; their mercenaries are certainly the strongest T1 units, but that's always been the case, and of limited use to them without Privateers. At the same time, they have the ultimate counter-intelligence in the form of Setseke Ho.



RC aren't exactly top tier, but the changes with Shadows and the accompanying patch only strengthen them.

KnightofPhoenix wrote:




You can crop it if you like

But that's not a render. I would like a render

Danimally wrote:
Hey, just a quick question: i want to make a guide about the Forgotten. Where can i find a nice image of Forgotten faction emblema? Thanks!

You can crop it if you like

Hey, just a quick question: i want to make a guide about the Forgotten. Where can i find a nice image of Forgotten faction emblema? Thanks!

Well, I play mostly Hard and Serious difficulty, and I never had problems winning with AI on these levels as vanilla Forgotten, even if I started on - ripe terrain.

I cannot say a thing about competitive multiplayer but it is easy to enter a bias and excuse every bad result due to "Underpowered faction".

I don't want to bash you, neatbender, I more want to focus on Forgotten and express that they are very rewarding to play once you get a hold on them. I personally played about 60 matches as only Forgotten since Shadows were released. I fell in love of their lore and gamestyle.

Yes, their quest is very painful to start rolling (you can lose a lot of time trying to track the initial quest village, Tower of the Consecrate comes late), aside from improved Ziema Adya and mentioned TotC quests rewards are underwhelming both in general and for a harassing/cloak and dagger faction, units need a lot of care early...

BUT they can reach 1-turn pillaging pretty easily, Assassins start rolling once equipped (pillaging), espionage is much stronger than counter -espionage, you can straightforwardly level a hero into an uncatchable spy (yes, it takes level 5 to be 100% immune to being put in jail, another 2 to save Science...errr..Dust for reviving) but in my feel it's still worth it.



Maybe they are not Cultist-like powerhouse and safe-pick, but far from unplayable/non-synergistic/unfun.



IMO the key is to maintain a small empire (empire plans-all branches other than Dust/economy are useful at all times; resources; keeping the pillage gains relatively high to your total output) and pick your battles intelligently. They cannot play the King-of-the-hill role Also, I realize that it is a luxury, but a Roving Clans hero with Feet on the Street lvl2 allows to dispatch a capital in 4 turns (3 turns of regaining ownership, 1 turn of Salting- Salt and Forget - pretty neat score for a faction without Weapons of the Enemy (*cough*OP*cough*I love it*cough*).



Forgotten enthusiast

This faction is really weak. Does any1 else think the same or is it just me.



To summarize it up, they pay the price of no "reseach" with they have to companse to be on top every other 4 = food, industry, influence and most of all gold without actually getting any benefits to be on top of these 4. IMPOSSIBLE. Also stealth is mostly useless, only good to cross closed borders but nothing much else. Sad to see a great concept to be so weak and unbalanced to unplayable levels. I can't beat AI not even on "hard" with this faction.

Muanh wrote:
I have a question, what does winter predictability do exactly?

In your turner there´s a prediction for how long summer/winter will last, with a minimum and a maximum number of turns for the seasons to change. That´s winter predictability.

myrec wrote:
I have an question. How does invisibility of Hero works ? I have army of forgotten units and one minor faction unit, lead by forgotten hero. And arden mages without watchtower saw me and great me, how is that possible ? They had no unit in range. And I cannot enter their realm without declaring war. BUT with my second army, without minor faction unit, I can easily wander inside their territory. Strange..

Every unit in the army needs the Stealth/Camouflage ability for the army to be stealth/camouflaged. The only units who can naturally get stealth are Forgotten. Every other unit can either equip Camouflage (which grants invisibility in Forest tiles) or get the Stealth ability through a Forgotten´s hero last tier faction Trait.



edit: By the way, Close Borders doesn´t apply if the closed faction can´t see your army, that´s why you could do it without the minor.

I have an question. How does invisibility of Hero works ? I have army of forgotten units and one minor faction unit, lead by forgotten hero. And arden mages without watchtower saw me and great me, how is that possible ? They had no unit in range. And I cannot enter their realm without declaring war. BUT with my second army, without minor faction unit, I can easily wander inside their territory. Strange..

I have a question, what does winter predictability do exactly?

ZenTractor wrote:
Do stealth and camouflage have any effect within a battle?

No, Stealth and Camouflage are only in effect on the strategic map, not during battle.

ZenTractor wrote:
Do stealthed or camouflaged units still show up in an army that is not entirely stealthed or camouflaged? ie: if the Forgotten hired a minor faction centaur and put it in an army with two assassins, would other empires see just a centaur moving around the map?

As far as I can tell, Stealth is checked on an Army level (given that it is a property of ClassArmy).

However, a mixed army of Stealth and Camouflage units will be invisible on forest tiles, as Stealth also counts as Camouflage.

ZenTractor wrote:
Do heroes count as units for stealth/camouflage calculations?

Yes, they do.

ZenTractor wrote:
It seems that all armies can detect stealthed units adjacent to them, is this correct?

Yes, that is true. Base detection range is 1, so all cities and armies can detect adjacent stealthed armies. In theory, all regional buildings can as well, but many of them only see their own tile.

ZenTractor wrote:
Does that hold for cities too, or do the cities need military units in them?

See above.

ZenTractor wrote:
It seems that extractors and villages do not reveal adjacent stealthed units.

This is a result of the vision range.

ZenTractor wrote:
In addition to getting score and treaty information, you also get market purchasing information from having a spy in an empire, similar to the Roving Clan's trait.

Yes, and it would be nice if the game actually informed us of that.





One more addition that is mentioned nowhere in the game: Pillage Speed depends on the Fortification Damage the army would cause per turn of siege. Tested with a level 6 Wyvern: 5 turns to pillage an extractor base, only 2 turns with CityBreaker3.

A few questions I probably know the answers to, but I feel should still be asked:

• Do stealth and camouflage have any effect within a battle?
• Do stealthed or camouflaged units still show up in an army that is not entirely stealthed or camouflaged? ie: if the Forgotten hired a minor faction centaur and put it in an army with two assassins, would other empires see just a centaur moving around the map?
• Do heroes count as units for stealth/camouflage calculations?
  
  

And some finer points:

• It seems that all armies can detect stealthed units adjacent to them, is this correct?
• Does that hold for cities too, or do the cities need military units in them?
• It seems that extractors and villages do not reveal adjacent stealthed units.
  
  

In addition to getting score and treaty information, you also get market purchasing information from having a spy in an empire, similar to the Roving Clan's trait.

Jojo_Fr wrote:
[Pillaginganextractorinaregionundersiegewon'tgiveanystrategicresources] It seems to me that is bug. I see no reason why it should not give you ressources.

Yes, this is an issue we're working on.

Jojo_Fr wrote:
Interesting tips, even if look me an abuse, because it means that roving clans can have a free purge which always work, for just one turn lost...

It actually depends on the number of boroughs you'll have to place again at the new location.

Jojo_Fr wrote:
I thik it's a bug. The vision should, NEED, to be immediately removed in the same turn, if not it means you can just heal your hurted hero spy and replace it...

Yep, good catch guys. This was not intended. Definitely a bug that will be fixed next time.

Jojo_Fr wrote:
[Twoempireswillonlyeverbeformally"introduced"forpurposesofdiplomacywithdetectionofeachothers'units/cities,sothatintroductionswon'ttipyouropponentofftothepresenceofanystealthyunits]

That is one of the features I love, because it means the devs have profondly think about all the consequences of Spying features. This is so good for the immersion and efficientcy of spying !

Glad you appreciate it because it took actually a bit of time on our side to find out what was the right/best move to do on that point.

I found what might be a bug. If a city is built on a strategic or luxury ressource (the city center or a borough), directly on it. You gain a free extractor (that's what we are used to), but an enemy army can pillage the extractor directly (while sieging it or not).

I don't know if this is meant to be like this or not, but it seems weird to me.

Hey guys,



We hope you are all liking the Shadows expansion. It introduces several new gameplay elements that we will develop in this guide: Endless Legend - Shadows - Quick Start Guide.pdf



Let us know if you have any comments or questions!





Sincerely,

• INVISIBILITY
• PILLAGE
• ESPIONAGE
• FORGOTTEN FACTION
  
  

I just don´t understand why make a vulnerable faction even more vulnerable, and why introduce a mechanic that a faction can do absolutely nothing against. Privateers are not an option.



edit: just to be clear, I´m talking about the fact other factions can pillage Roving Clans´ border improvements from inside their own borders, where RC can never attack them.

BPrado wrote:
Yeah, that screws the roving clans. Is it intentional?

I'm pretty sure this was intentional, and personally, I like it-- it leads to more "peaceful" conflict. If anything I think it's good for RC, because there wasn't much that RC could do with their factional units before. Now, they've got units with which they can harass a neighbor into war, with enough movement to make pillage work and to be capable of withdrawing to city defense rather than being caught flat-footed from pillage. (When I play against RC, they're always a top priority for closing borders, because they can't do anything to re-open the borders, and it keeps them from easily infiltrating me, scouting me, or pillaging me.)

Excellent tips Natev, as always. I guess you have all said, about what I know, at my knowledge.

natev wrote:
Advanced tips:

• So long as units are invisible, they can ignore closed borders-- but if you're detected, you'll be kicked out
• You can pillage a resource and siege a city at the same time with a single army
• Pillaging an extractor in a region under siege won't give any strategic resources
• Roving Clans players can use Setseke Ho to kick any spies out of their city
• Stealth grants camouflage, so you don't need both on one unit
• Stealthed armies can enter battle as reserves without warning, so beware of ambush!
• You can see if an infiltrated city is undergoing a roundup from its Security tooltip; this is a good time for any last-minute actions or exfiltration
• Infiltration actions are guaranteed, even if they lead to your spy's capture
• Even if your spy is disabled, you keep active vision on the city he or she had infiltrated, so you can re-infiltrate immediately
• Your best defense against infiltration is to prevent others from ever acquiring vision on your city center via closed borders, but beware those pesky stealthed units
• There's a new "graphs" option in game options that you can set to obscure information available from the Scores graph in the absence of infiltration
• Two empires will only ever be formally "introduced" for purposes of diplomacy with detection of each others' units/cities, so that introductions won't tip your opponent off to the presence of any stealthy units
• Via vision actions, you can hopscotch infiltrators across an empire to, say, a capital upon which you have never previously laid eyes
  
  

Pillaging an extractor in a region under siege won't give any strategic resources

It seems to me that is bug. I see no reason why it should not give you ressources.

Roving Clans players can use Setseke Ho to kick any spies out of their city

Interesting tips, even if look me an abuse, because it means that roving clans can have a free purge which always work, for just one turn losted...

It would be good that the kicked spy, could keep his experience in the city, if he come back immediately the following turn.

Even if your spy is disabled, you keep active vision on the city he or she had infiltrated, so you can re-infiltrate immediately

I thik it's a bug. The vision should, NEED, to be immediately removed in the same turn, if not it means you can just heal your hurted hero spy and replace it...

Two empires will only ever be formally "introduced" for purposes of diplomacy with detection of each others' units/cities, so that introductions won't tip your opponent off to the presence of any stealthy units



That is one of the features I love, because it means the devs have profondly think about all the consequences of Spying features. This is so good for the immersion and efficientcy of spying !

EvilDM wrote:
You can pillage things across the border even if they are closed to you.

Yeah, that screws the roving clans. Is it intentional?

Thank you this was a very informative thread

Much appreciated XD

You can pillage things across the border even if they are closed to you.

Advanced tips:

• So long as units are invisible, they can ignore closed borders-- but if you're detected, you'll be kicked out
• You can pillage a resource and siege a city at the same time with a single army
• Pillaging an extractor in a region under siege won't give any strategic resources
• Roving Clans players can use Setseke Ho to kick any spies out of their city
• Stealth grants camouflage, so you don't need both on one unit
• Stealthed armies can enter battle as reserves without warning, so beware of ambush!
• You can see if an infiltrated city is undergoing a roundup from its Security tooltip; this is a good time for any last-minute actions or exfiltration
• Infiltration actions are guaranteed, even if they lead to your spy's capture
• Even if your spy is disabled, you keep active vision on the city he or she had infiltrated, so you can re-infiltrate immediately
• Your best defense against infiltration is to prevent others from ever acquiring vision on your city center via closed borders, but beware those pesky stealthed units
• There's a new "graphs" option in game options that you can set to obscure information available from the Scores graph in the absence of infiltration
• Two empires will only ever be formally "introduced" for purposes of diplomacy with detection of each others' units/cities, so that introductions won't tip your opponent off to the presence of any stealthy units
• Via vision actions, you can hopscotch infiltrators across an empire to, say, a capital upon which you have never previously laid eyes
  
  

AFFINITY & TRAITS

• The Forgotten faction cannot see, gather or use Science. Instead, technologies can be bought out, instantly, by spending Dust.
• They can copy enemy Technologies using their special “Steal Technology” Espionage action. This action replaces “Decrease Research Production”.
• They can gain loot when destroying hostile Minor Faction villages.
• They get a boost of +1 to Pillage and Siege Power for each unit in their armies.
• Starting Technologies: “Pillage” and “Search Party”.
  
  

EXCLUSIVE TECHNOLOGIES

• Experience bonus per turn on Heroes, and per infiltrated Hero.
• Security bonus on all cities.
• +100% on Dust income upon completing a pillage.
• Bonus of 80% winter predictability, and -100% on cost of Infiltration in winter.
  
  

UNIQUE UNIT ABILITIES

• Dual Wield: some Forgotten units can equip a weapon in each hand, with a slight Attack penalty on the left hand.
• Stealth: Armies composed exclusively of Forgotten units are invisible everywhere.
• Acrobat: Assassins can move through enemy units on the tactical map as though they were allies.
• Faster Than Shadows: Mysts' attacks hit travel from their original target through up to 2 additional enemy units, dealing full damage.
  
  

Information revealed by espionage



On the infiltrated city

• Infiltrating a city enables you to see the inside of the city in real time as though it were yours (what is being constructed, what the garrison is, etc.), though you cannot control the city in any way.
• Infiltrating a city allows you to perform actions against the infiltrated city: Target Governor / Decrease Fortifications / Decrease Production / Decrease Population.
  
  

On the infiltrated Empire

• Infiltrating a city also means infiltrating an empire. It therefore gives you access to some very important strategical information such as:
  
  
  • The scores and victory-progressions of the infiltrated empire (assuming the option has been set in the game menu through the game settings menu)
  • The diplomatic relations, treaties and mood of the other empires towards the empire you have infiltrated. This is accessible through the Leader Screen.
    
    
• Infiltrating an empire allows you to perform actions against the infiltrated city: Steal Technology (if Forgotten) / Decrease Science Production (if not Forgotten) / Steal Vision / Decrease Diplomatic Cost / Reveal Spy / Decrease Morale.
  
  

Infiltration



Infiltrating Cities

• Heroes can now also be assigned to Spy on a foreign city, provided the city is visible. Your empire can only place one Spy in each opposing city.
• Infiltrating has a cost in influence bound to your current Era and the scale of your empire, and also the target city population
• Spies always start at level 1 of infiltration once infiltrated.
  
  

Unlocking Infiltration Actions

• Once infiltrated, your Spy gains Infiltration Points every turn. Spies proceed to the next Infiltration Level when they have accumulated enough Infiltration Points.
• Spies gain access to different Infiltration actions based on their current Infiltration Level.
• Each category of action has a cost in influence that is bound to the current Era and the scale of your empire.
• Each time a Spy performs an Infiltration Action it loses all its Infiltration Points and so returns to Infiltration Level 1.
  
  

Seniority

• Each action triggered grants a bonus of “Infiltration Points per turn” to your Spy. This bonus is equal to the level of the action triggered. These bonuses stack: they represent the Seniority of your Spy for this specific infiltration of this specific city.
• Seniority, Hero Skills and Hero Abilities are the only way that a Hero’s Infiltration Point gain can be accelerated.
• The Seniority bonus is reset if your Spy leaves the city for any reason.
  
  

City Security

• Spies always succeed in performing their Infiltration Actions. Their action may have consequences though, depending on the Security level of the City they have infiltrated.
• The higher the Security is, the higher the odds that the Spy will be Wounded (-50% of Max Life), Disabled or even Captured.
• Only if your Spy is captured, disabled or wounded is the targeted empire notified or their presence in a cities and so may well launch a roundup (see more below).
• In general, if your spy remains unnoticed, the targeted empire is also notified but are not told where the Spy is or who sent it.
• In most cases a low security means a higher chance that your Spy will remain unscathed and, ideally, unnoticed.
  
  

City Roundup

• Any city can start a roundup at any time.
• Once activated, the Roundup starts accumulating Security bonuses at the cost of 50% of the per pop city production.
• After a few turns of activation, it will try to flush spies in the city, based on the current city security value (like if a spy was performing an action).
  
  

Special Cases



Spies in Cities Destroyed

• Spies infiltrated in cities when they are destroyed are Disabled and sent back to the Academy.
  
  

Captured Spies in Empire Destroyed

• Spies captured in empires that are destroyed are sent back to the Academy with no penalties.
  
  

How It Works





Prerequisites

• The Pillage army action can be unlocked through a new Technology in Era I.
• Pillage is only possible in Cold War or War and not possible from the sea.
• To pillage, an army must be located next to a pacified and rebuilt village, a watchtower or an extractor belonging to another empire. Converted villages cannot be pillaged.
• As with Siege power, the Pillage Power of an army is directly bound to the level of its units and can be modified by Hero abilities granted by some items.
  
  

Pillage Power & Building Defence

• Items and Hero skills increasing Siege Power also increase the Pillage Power, and vice-versa.
• Each regional building has its own Pillage Defence value which depends on its type, level (for watch towers) and, where applicable, City improvements and Hero Governor items.
• When a pillage is interrupted regional building regenerate Pillage Defence each turn at a rate determined by similar factors.
  
  

Pillage Effects



Once all the building’s Pillage Defence points have been depleted, the following effects are applied:





Watch Towers

• Disables vision and regeneration for X turns (depending on game speed)
• Instantly grants Dust and Life Points to each unit in the pillaging army (bound to the time of deactivation)
  
  

Extractors

• Disables resource production for X turns (depending on game speed)
• Instantly grants Dust and resources (bound to the time of deactivation). The resource type depends on the type of extractor.
  
  

Pacified-&-Built Villages

• Disables any pacification bonuses granted by the village. If this village is the only non-pillaged village of an assimilated minor-faction then this factions assimilation bonuses are likewise removed.
• Instantly grants Dust (bound to the time of deactivation) plus a random “loot” reward generated from the same set as ruins.
  
  

How It Works





Stealth

• Armies are invisible on all tiles if all units of the army have this ability
  
  

Camouflage

• Armies are invisible on Forest tiles if all units of the army have this ability
  
  

Detection

• Armies with Detection can see invisible armies (stealth and camouflage) within their range of vision
• Watch Tower buildings can also see invisible armies within their range of vision