Urk, ran into a pretty wicked bug. If you take the upgrade for the archer hero that lets ranged units fire at the beginning of combat, he will do dick all for damage from that point onward.
This might be a result of having only one archer unit in the party (the hero). Maybe it'll fix if I add more. Basically it looks like that opening volley applies a huge reduction in attack power so that you don't just obliterate everything, but then it never resets afterward.
If I use Lethal Shot then I do basically normal attack damage, and everything else is 0-1...
Also, it's really difficult to protect shards. Putting an Outpost next to them isn't sufficient, because monsters will still roam by and attack the shard from time to time. Since they don't heal, and you can't park units on them, they'll eventually get taken down if you can't keep enemies completely out of the general vicinity. Looks like layers of outposts are the way to go.
Triptycho: A card-and-dice tabletop indie RPG currently in development and playtesting
Sorcerer King is officially released! If you were part of Steam’s Early Access you will be updated to the release version which adds the campaign which was not available until today. Enjoy!
I think making the minor factions into full-blown major factions was the right move. It seriously pumped up the replayability. There's been a ton of balance tweaks to unit and improvement build times and the mid-game especially is a lot more interesting.
The only things I would really like to see is a means to upgrade or perhaps enchant trained unit weapons, and a smidge more sov ability customization when making a custom sov.
Aside from that, SK is god damned leaps and bounds ahead of even LH. It's stunning.
EDIT: OH yeah, the game on Hard+ is legitimately fucking hard. Enemies come in massive stacks and have heaps of hitpoints. It's a real tooth and nail affair scraping through the early game.
EDIT: OH yeah, the game on Hard+ is legitimately fucking hard. Enemies come in massive stacks and have heaps of hitpoints. It's a real tooth and nail affair scraping through the early game.
How is the late game? I feel like the greatest potential of an asymmetric design is flipping the typical difficulty curve around on 4x games such that the late game becomes harder than the early game. Usually it's super difficult to survive until you snowball and just obliterate the AI. SK felt like it could still be difficult because of the ticking timer, but also has the potential of just unleashing horrific enemies on you in absurd waves later on. Does this happen?
Triptycho: A card-and-dice tabletop indie RPG currently in development and playtesting
You don't often feel like an unstoppable wrecking ball. It's actually fairly balanced. You can pump out a lot of units, but since you can't give them upgraded weapons, they're not ever truly muder-machines as such. But a lot of it depends on a lot of variables. You can get your stool pushed in, or have a cakewalk, with different results from game to game. Over all though, I feel like it's done as good a job with the end game as most any strategy game recently has.
Is Sorcerer King another stand-alone expansion (in the same vein as Legendary Heroes), or is it a full blown new game? Also, is it set in the same world, or is it a whole new setting?
Just watched a few videos and it seems to just be another reworking of Fallen Enchantress, and not sure I feel like paying a third time for the same game re-worked a tiny bit.
It's a new game in the sense that it doesn't really work like the other Elemental games at all. OTOH you might be able to see it as an expansion with a new game mode? Some of the core elements are pretty similar, like the combat system.
The main difference is that it's asymmetrical. You're up against the Sorcerer King, who is set to cast the ultimate mastery spell thing and win the game. You play a small survivor state that has been permitted to continue on as a sort of vassal, but as you grow and expand you start to irk the SK, who will then summon monster armies to destroy you.
There's a time limit of sorts, though more accurately it's a Doomsday Counter. If you do evil things, you can get immediate rewards, but you'll speed up Doomsday (which is Game Over). Also, there's these shards out in the world that the Sorcerer King wants to destroy. You have to try to protect them (which means expanding to them, basically); each destroyed shard is a big advancement of Doomsday.
A bunch of stuff has been largely reworked, too. City building has some familiar elements but is pretty different nonetheless, and spell research now works pretty much exactly like Master of Magic in that you have a random set of spells to choose from each time based on how many spellbooks (and what type) you own. There's item crafting, which is the major way you upgrade your heroes, and your sovereign is no longer a unit. Graphics have been revamped as well, much for the better.
I played several betas ago, though, so I'm not sure how much more has changed up to release.
Fleur de Alys on
Triptycho: A card-and-dice tabletop indie RPG currently in development and playtesting
It's a new game in the sense that it doesn't really work like the other Elemental games at all. OTOH you might be able to see it as an expansion with a new game mode? Some of the core elements are pretty similar, like the combat system.
The main difference is that it's asymmetrical. You're up against the Sorcerer King, who is set to cast the ultimate mastery spell thing and win the game. You play a small survivor state that has been permitted to continue on as a sort of vassal, but as you grow and expand you start to irk the SK, who will then summon monster armies to destroy you.
There's a time limit of sorts, though more accurately it's a Doomsday Counter. If you do evil things, you can get immediate rewards, but you'll speed up Doomsday (which is Game Over). Also, there's these shards out in the world that the Sorcerer King wants to destroy. You have to try to protect them (which means expanding to them, basically); each destroyed shard is a big advancement of Doomsday.
A bunch of stuff has been largely reworked, too. City building has some familiar elements but is pretty different nonetheless, and spell research now works pretty much exactly like Master of Magic in that you have a random set of spells to choose from each time based on how many spellbooks (and what type) you own. There's item crafting, which is the major way you upgrade your heroes, and your sovereign is no longer a unit.
I played several betas ago, though, so I'm not sure how much more has changed up to release.
This covers all the main points. The more generous interpretation is that this is a stand-alone-expansion or semi-sequel. The harsh interpretation is that this is the 3rd "do-over" of trying to get War of Magic right. Neither interpretation is precisely correct.
This game is the most radically different shift in the whole... series...(?) so far. It's introduced the biggest changes to mechanics and focus yet, with the overarching enemy in the SK, the doomsday counter, crafting system, entirely new magic research via spellbooks, and some other odds and ends. This game certainly feels the most like MoM of all the games they've made in this setting to this point.
Earlier in the beta there were minor factions which were more or less quest hubs. There was (I think but am not sure, i always go for victory by conquest) a way to win by aligning with all, or a lot of, the minor factions. Minor factions have been fleshed out and are essentially their own full fledged powers now, so they expand and build new cities and armies and such. Its no longer quite simply your faction vs the sk, but now its the whole world vs the SK, and you can choose to make alliances or not as you wish with the other full fledged powers. Just don't drag your feet, cause that doomsday counter is still ticking away..
Yeah you don't pick a faction as such. You pick a sov that defines some things about how your side plays out, and there's some light customization available instead of taking one of the pre-defined sovs. Also leveling up your sov during the game gives you the option of picking skills from different trees which can also adjust how you play, and taking different combinations of spell books makes things wildly different from game to game. But all the old factions are pretty much gone, there's just your people and the other minor (now major) factions. Pariden is one of them, but most are completely new, or not previously seen as true factions, such as the Imperium.
Each sov has a mechanic and some abilities that is truly unique to them, so while the cities and units generally tend to feel pretty samey, some of the faction-defining abilities and therefore game mechanics are massively different depending on which sov you pick.
I picked this game up because the premise was super interesting. I played about a dozen turns and then ran into an army that basically one shot my army. Whoops.
Okay, so on my third game things are going pretty well, except I ended up taking a talent that screwed me over. I can't remember the name of the talent exactly, but it is the ranger talent that allows all my archers to fire at the beginning of combat. I misunderstood this to be an additional attack, but instead it consumes all my archers turn, including my archer hero. So instead of doing all my cool arrow shots to silent, freeze, immolate their biggest threat, or rain of arrows to knock out several threats, he spends his first turn simply doing moderate damage to a target of the AI's choosing.
This has cost me to lose troops (Ben ) and reduces my ability to go fight after fight because now I take way more damage per fight. Is there a way to respec?
Within the game? No, I don't think so. Technically? Yes, you can change the xml for your particular character in your game. I don't have access to it currently to tell you where the xml is or what to change, but it can feasibly be modified. If you're extremely curious, I can dig around in it at some point and tell you where to look and how to change it.
That's unfortunate. Oh well, time to load up my entire army with archers and just have one tank in the front line, plus summons. Maybe I'll come out ahead that way.
I love the spider but i don't think he is beefy enough to justify keeping around. I only have so many mats to pass around.
Most (All?) of the Sov trees have a choice that lets you recruit a second full-blown hero, like one that you can give weapons and stuff to. You don't get to choose what you get, but I believe the game tries to give you something that compliments what you already have. You can try to pick up a second hero and see if you can get some sort of fighty hero to stand on the front line.
I gotta check to see how close I am on the tree to that particular skill. I saw it in the tree for sure, so this sov has it, but i think i took another branch entirely.
Its one of the options I usually go for pretty early actually because it gives you a second seriously viable army. Its hard to field something super-dangerous without a hero at the helm. Their skills are way better and more versatile than the bog standard units, plus all the perks they get from leveling, and the ability to upgrade weapons. It can feel like you only have 1 army you can trust in the early game to do the heavy lifting. Getting that second hero to lead a second full army opens the game up.
So dominate seems too good. Managed to steal three dragons and a failed wizard to cast embiggen at no cost to me. Not even the sorcerer king came close to stopping me.
I did, at one point, lose an entire army and its hero with no warning. No combat or anything, maybe too much dominate had something to do with. I didn't think losing heroes was possible.
Starting units can now equip weapons and armor! We have included an "auto equip" button to remove some of the tedium of equipping units. We have also added some cool new abilities to these soldiers to make them a bit more formidable in battle. You will also find that your trained units have these benefits as well. In addition, starting units no longer cost any logistics.
Resources now accumulate! There are some units in the game that require resources other than simple logistics to be trained. We have altered the system a bit so that now when you claim a metal mine, pasture, or crystal mine, the resources accumulate and grow by 1 each turn. When you train a unit, you consume the required amount of resources and must accumulate more.
Remnant Factions are stronger and smarter! The remnant factions that you meet throughout the game have been given a buff to their AI so that they provide more challenge (or assistance, if you decided to become allies) to you. They will attack enemies more aggressively and charge you more for units they provide.
The Sorcerer King now has a greater variance of units that he will spawn every round! The Doomsday counter also raises after every 8 turns instead of every 10.
The new scouting report feature will allow you to get a head start on your adventures by
scoping out places on the map that are harder to get a scout unit to quickly at the beginning of the game.
The fog of war will be absent from some points of interest, allowing you to gain some information on
the surrounding region.
Until now, there were no "take-backsies" in war - now, with the new improvement razing feature,
you can choose to destroy an improvement you've built in order to make room for something else.
With this feature, you are no longer locked into your early game decisions and can instead adjust in order
to be more prepared to face the endgame.
Stardock has revealed the stand-alone expansion for its fantasy 4X strategy game, Sorcerer King. Sorcerer King: Rivals flips the original game's premise on its head by giving the player the ability to become a god with your rivals trying to stop you through any means necessary.
Rivals has two new playable races complete with new sovereigns, spells, units, and abilities. Three new lieutenants join the Sorcerer King's army, each with new and unique abilities to challenge you. A new quest editor and Steam Workshop support allows you to write your own epic quest lines and share them with other players around the world.
Boy, they sure like their stand-alone sequels, don't they?
I don't know how they've iterated the same game so many times without ever getting the formula as good as Endless Legend has (Elemental: War of Magic, Fallen Enchantress, Fallen Enchantress: Legendary Heroes, Sorcerer King, Sorcerer King: Rivals - what am I missing?)
kaliyama on
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BroloBroseidonLord of the BroceanRegistered Userregular
Boy, they sure like their stand-alone sequels, don't they?
I don't know how they've iterated the same game so many times without ever getting the formula as good as Endless Legend has (Elemental: War of Magic, Fallen Enchantress, Fallen Enchantress: Legendary Heroes, Sorcerer King, Sorcerer King: Rivals - what am I missing?)
Super Turbo EX Plus Alpha Hyper Fighting - Challenge of the World Warriors Edition
To be fair, the Sorcerer King variants are pretty different games from what its predecessors and Endless Legend were doing. Somehow it still wound up feeling too much like a weird scenario mode in Civilization instead of a brand-new stand-alone game, though. I appreciated the innovation, but building atop an aged and never terribly successful engine didn't help matters. The price tag was admittedly fair.
I'll peek back in if the series vanishes and comes out with a whole new engine and a series of innovative takes on 4x, probably, but I've gotten exhausted from this incremental approach. Playing a 4x where you start as the remnants of a failed state as the villain is about to own the world is a really cool idea, but it was very clear that it was built atop a chassis designed for traditional 4x play. I think the engine would have been built differently from the ground-up had that been the original pitch for the series.
Fleur de Alys on
Triptycho: A card-and-dice tabletop indie RPG currently in development and playtesting
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kaliyamaLeft to find less-moderated foraRegistered Userregular
To be fair, the Sorcerer King variants are pretty different games from what its predecessors and Endless Legend were doing. Somehow it still wound up feeling too much like a weird scenario mode in Civilization instead of a brand-new stand-alone game, though. I appreciated the innovation, but building atop an aged and never terribly successful engine didn't help matters. The price tag was admittedly fair.
I'll peek back in if the series vanishes and comes out with a whole new engine and a series of innovative takes on 4x, probably, but I've gotten exhausted from this incremental approach. Playing a 4x where you start as the remnants of a failed state as the villain is about to own the world is a really cool idea, but it was very clear that it was built atop a chassis designed for traditional 4x play. I think the engine would have been built differently from the ground-up had that been the original pitch for the series.
My recollection at the time is that Elemental's failure nearly ruined Stardock. I'd assume they were pushing out iterative products in the hope of recouping development fees on a rolling basis to keep cash coming in and minimize the exposure at any one time if the project failed again. It seems like the cost to that was that these iterative revisions meant they were constantly making tweaks to a mediocre old engine instead of creating a fully-polished new product like the one you describe.
I'm not certain it almost ruined Stardock. It almost ruined Stardock's gaming arm but Stardock's various Window UI enhancements products were always (and still are!) profitable. They had to sell Impulse, but I think that was because they didn't want to just fire the entire gaming division and they needed some cash.
v2.1 introduces a whole new campaign that starts in a nearby inn with a single, mysterious letter. The writer has sent you an ancient artifact called the Crux of Az-Adoras, which is capable of piercing the magical wards that seal off your realm from the rest of the Sorcerer King's world. But, where did it come from? Who sent it? This isn't a world where things are ever done for free.
Posts
Why thank you, don't mind if I do
This might be a result of having only one archer unit in the party (the hero). Maybe it'll fix if I add more. Basically it looks like that opening volley applies a huge reduction in attack power so that you don't just obliterate everything, but then it never resets afterward.
If I use Lethal Shot then I do basically normal attack damage, and everything else is 0-1...
Also, it's really difficult to protect shards. Putting an Outpost next to them isn't sufficient, because monsters will still roam by and attack the shard from time to time. Since they don't heal, and you can't park units on them, they'll eventually get taken down if you can't keep enemies completely out of the general vicinity. Looks like layers of outposts are the way to go.
Lots of stuff in this update including:
I've been playing this off and on through beta5.
I think making the minor factions into full-blown major factions was the right move. It seriously pumped up the replayability. There's been a ton of balance tweaks to unit and improvement build times and the mid-game especially is a lot more interesting.
The only things I would really like to see is a means to upgrade or perhaps enchant trained unit weapons, and a smidge more sov ability customization when making a custom sov.
Aside from that, SK is god damned leaps and bounds ahead of even LH. It's stunning.
EDIT: OH yeah, the game on Hard+ is legitimately fucking hard. Enemies come in massive stacks and have heaps of hitpoints. It's a real tooth and nail affair scraping through the early game.
Just watched a few videos and it seems to just be another reworking of Fallen Enchantress, and not sure I feel like paying a third time for the same game re-worked a tiny bit.
The main difference is that it's asymmetrical. You're up against the Sorcerer King, who is set to cast the ultimate mastery spell thing and win the game. You play a small survivor state that has been permitted to continue on as a sort of vassal, but as you grow and expand you start to irk the SK, who will then summon monster armies to destroy you.
There's a time limit of sorts, though more accurately it's a Doomsday Counter. If you do evil things, you can get immediate rewards, but you'll speed up Doomsday (which is Game Over). Also, there's these shards out in the world that the Sorcerer King wants to destroy. You have to try to protect them (which means expanding to them, basically); each destroyed shard is a big advancement of Doomsday.
A bunch of stuff has been largely reworked, too. City building has some familiar elements but is pretty different nonetheless, and spell research now works pretty much exactly like Master of Magic in that you have a random set of spells to choose from each time based on how many spellbooks (and what type) you own. There's item crafting, which is the major way you upgrade your heroes, and your sovereign is no longer a unit. Graphics have been revamped as well, much for the better.
I played several betas ago, though, so I'm not sure how much more has changed up to release.
This covers all the main points. The more generous interpretation is that this is a stand-alone-expansion or semi-sequel. The harsh interpretation is that this is the 3rd "do-over" of trying to get War of Magic right. Neither interpretation is precisely correct.
This game is the most radically different shift in the whole... series...(?) so far. It's introduced the biggest changes to mechanics and focus yet, with the overarching enemy in the SK, the doomsday counter, crafting system, entirely new magic research via spellbooks, and some other odds and ends. This game certainly feels the most like MoM of all the games they've made in this setting to this point.
Earlier in the beta there were minor factions which were more or less quest hubs. There was (I think but am not sure, i always go for victory by conquest) a way to win by aligning with all, or a lot of, the minor factions. Minor factions have been fleshed out and are essentially their own full fledged powers now, so they expand and build new cities and armies and such. Its no longer quite simply your faction vs the sk, but now its the whole world vs the SK, and you can choose to make alliances or not as you wish with the other full fledged powers. Just don't drag your feet, cause that doomsday counter is still ticking away..
Each sov has a mechanic and some abilities that is truly unique to them, so while the cities and units generally tend to feel pretty samey, some of the faction-defining abilities and therefore game mechanics are massively different depending on which sov you pick.
Going to start attempt #2 after work today.
Edit: Attempt #2 pretty much had the same result.
Nintendo ID: Pastalonius
Smite\LoL:Gremlidin \ WoW & Overwatch & Hots: Gremlidin#1734
3ds: 3282-2248-0453
This has cost me to lose troops (Ben
Nintendo ID: Pastalonius
Smite\LoL:Gremlidin \ WoW & Overwatch & Hots: Gremlidin#1734
3ds: 3282-2248-0453
I love the spider but i don't think he is beefy enough to justify keeping around. I only have so many mats to pass around.
Nintendo ID: Pastalonius
Smite\LoL:Gremlidin \ WoW & Overwatch & Hots: Gremlidin#1734
3ds: 3282-2248-0453
Nintendo ID: Pastalonius
Smite\LoL:Gremlidin \ WoW & Overwatch & Hots: Gremlidin#1734
3ds: 3282-2248-0453
I did, at one point, lose an entire army and its hero with no warning. No combat or anything, maybe too much dominate had something to do with. I didn't think losing heroes was possible.
Also, this game is really, really good.
Nintendo ID: Pastalonius
Smite\LoL:Gremlidin \ WoW & Overwatch & Hots: Gremlidin#1734
3ds: 3282-2248-0453
Full changelog: http://forums.sorcererking.com/473905/
and balance updates, and more.
Info and full changelog here: http://forums.sorcererking.com/477873/
http://forums.sorcererking.com/479042/
http://www.sorcererking.com/rivals
I don't know how they've iterated the same game so many times without ever getting the formula as good as Endless Legend has (Elemental: War of Magic, Fallen Enchantress, Fallen Enchantress: Legendary Heroes, Sorcerer King, Sorcerer King: Rivals - what am I missing?)
Super Turbo EX Plus Alpha Hyper Fighting - Challenge of the World Warriors Edition
I'll peek back in if the series vanishes and comes out with a whole new engine and a series of innovative takes on 4x, probably, but I've gotten exhausted from this incremental approach. Playing a 4x where you start as the remnants of a failed state as the villain is about to own the world is a really cool idea, but it was very clear that it was built atop a chassis designed for traditional 4x play. I think the engine would have been built differently from the ground-up had that been the original pitch for the series.
My recollection at the time is that Elemental's failure nearly ruined Stardock. I'd assume they were pushing out iterative products in the hope of recouping development fees on a rolling basis to keep cash coming in and minimize the exposure at any one time if the project failed again. It seems like the cost to that was that these iterative revisions meant they were constantly making tweaks to a mediocre old engine instead of creating a fully-polished new product like the one you describe.
http://forums.sorcererking.com/478801/
v2.1 introduces a whole new campaign that starts in a nearby inn with a single, mysterious letter. The writer has sent you an ancient artifact called the Crux of Az-Adoras, which is capable of piercing the magical wards that seal off your realm from the rest of the Sorcerer King's world. But, where did it come from? Who sent it? This isn't a world where things are ever done for free.
More info: http://forums.sorcererking.com/481756
@IslandDog could always hook me up for all the free advertising from this thread's history.. :winky: