Eador Genesis

[LibertyRansom]

No. It was stated over and over again by NH devs that the mod was developed with a single difficulty setting in mind. Once set your difficulty higher, you get hordes of AI opponents assaulting your provinces in the first week. Either you played on higher difficulty levels, or you are just bad at the game.

I've never seen this advice. What difficulty level is NH meant to be played at?

 

[Grimwulf]

I've never seen this advice. What difficulty level is NH meant to be played at?

It's literally in the mod description.

Рекомендованная сложность для прохождения - "Эксперт", и именно под неё затачивался баланс

 

[Raghar]

No. It was stated over and over again by NH devs that the mod was developed with a single difficulty setting in mind. Once set your difficulty higher, you get hordes of AI opponents assaulting your provinces in the first week. Either you played on higher difficulty levels, or you are just bad at the game.

I've never seen this advice. What difficulty level is NH meant to be played at?

Translation from that Russian means normal difficulty. What difficulty have you played?

 

[LibertyRansom]

Gotcha. I do not speak Russian. I generally play on Expert. Is that "normal?" Thanks.

 

[Jack Of Owls]

1. The balance in vanilla game is broken. It won't take you too long to figure out the most game-breaking spells, of which the most ridiculously broken one is

Spoiler

astral energy

and then just stick to one strategy during the rest of the campaign. Same goes for units. NH will keep you engaged and force you to practice different approaches depending on current map, opponents, situation.

2. Vanilla AI just doesn't work, period. Again, once you figure out the holes in balance, the game will stop being challenging. At all.

3. NH has a single downside and that is aesthetics. It adds a lot of content and some of it might feel misplaced. Witchers are probably the most notable of such additions. The fact that witcher's sprites look just like Geralt doesn't help things either (the NH devs on the official Rus forums stated they plan to change the sprite sometime in the future, though).

Heh, well this might be for the better actually since I've always been terrible at TBS games. I remember playing HoMM2 when it first came out and actually found it difficult to the point where I had to give up. I tried HoMM5 a few years later and STILL found it too difficult and had to give up, however not because it was too difficult but because the voice acting was so fucking horrible it caused an intense bout of clinical depression and had I gone on, I woulda surely found the nearest parking garage tower and jumped off. But thanks for the tips.

 

[Grimwulf]

The default setting (Expert) is the one to go.

It should go without saying NH is more difficult than Vanilla, but it's not unfair kind of difficult. Once you learn the game, the only thing that can bring you down is your own recklessness.

Spoiler

and occasional bad luck at the start

Eador is all about risk & rewards. "Can I take on this tier 2 orc site? I probably can. I got pikemen! Pikemen are pretty good against orcs, right? Right?"

Spoiler

no

 

[Dr Skeleton]

NH adds some cool stuff but it also raises complexity a lot (do we really need tier 1 units with 2 rows of abilities?)

It's a complex game to begin with. If you don't like complexity, why even play Eador Genesis?

In the vanilla game most basic units have 1-2 abilities (sometimes more with level ups), pikemen have first strike, barbarians berserker, lizards regeneration and swampwalk etc, you get the idea. in NH you have level 1-2 rats or drows that have like 5-6 skills out of the gate. That's excessive and makes them look like they're from a different game than the base game units that fill similar roles. It's not the end of the world but I see it as a bad design and just throwing everything they could to these new units just because they could.

No. It was stated over and over again by NH devs that the mod was developed with a single difficulty setting in mind. Once set your difficulty higher, you get hordes of AI opponents assaulting your provinces in the first week. Either you played on higher difficulty levels, or you are just bad at the game.

What do you mean by "cheating"? NH's AI has state-of-the-art algorithm. If you don't have ranged units and attack a group that has some, that group will not advance their melee fighters and shoot you from a distance until you get too close. Just one of most simple examples. In general, during tactical combat AI does not make mistakes and punishes your own mercilessly.

Strategic AI, while not genius, is still better than vanilla one. I've completed both vanilla and NH campaigns. First one was a slog. The latter was extremely fun and thought-evoking.

I'm not talking about combat ai or map movements, I like that the ai plays better, what I mean by "ai cheating" is that I played on expert (that's the 100% everything difficulty, right?) and was running into ai with multiple max level (or very close to max level) heroes with armies full of veteran units at about day 50. It's impossible to get those armies without some sort of xp boost even if you fought every single day, which is also impossible because you have to move between provinces and buy new units. I like that the ai plays better, I don't like that it gets broken armies out of nowhere. Maybe they've fixed that since I've played it.

 

[AgentFransis]

The AI definitely cheats. Sometimes you can play well and the AI will still show up with a full army of level 30 upgraded units before you're anywhere near ready to fight something like that (and it's practically impossibly for the player to achieve such an army at all). It doesn't happen as often anymore, but still can. And of course sometimes you can start in an impossible map position like a sliver of land surrounded by sea with the exit blocked by a barbarian province with a behemot. Game is still great though.

 

[Grimwulf]

In the vanilla game most basic units have 1-2 abilities (sometimes more with level ups), pikemen have first strike, barbarians berserker, lizards regeneration and swampwalk etc, you get the idea. in NH you have level 1-2 rats or drows that have like 5-6 skills out of the gate. That's excessive and makes them look like they're from a different game than the base game units that fill similar roles. It's not the end of the world but I see it as a bad design and just throwing everything they could to these new units just because they could.

Ok, first, by abilities you mean "traits". Only a select few tier 1 units have actual abilities (combat actions you may choose to use). It would indeed be over-complicated if every single unit had 6+ abilities.

Second, it's not like they left vanilla units unchanged while throwing a bunch of new complex unit on top of them. The lizards you mentioned got a whole new Interceptor trait that wasn't in vanilla at all. Gnolls and ratmen are new races developed from scratch and they really fit in Eador gameplay-wise. Which means they have a distinctive set of traits that makes playing them, as well as playing against them, very different from other species. Without any harm done to the balance.

I played on expert (that's the 100% everything difficulty, right?) and was running into ai with multiple max level (or very close to max level) heroes with armies full of veteran units at about day 50

Sometimes you can play well and the AI will still show up with a full army of level 30 upgraded units before you're anywhere near ready to fight something like that (and it's practically impossibly for the player to achieve such an army at all)

By turn 50 each AI should have a single squad of maxed-out hero and veteran units. Unless AI fucked up that is. The player should be ready for that, obviously. As a rule of thumb, if you don't intend to wage wars with AI early on, you should do your best to create highly defended chokepoints on your borders (you don't have to expand like crazy in Eador, 2-3 circles from your home province is enough until midgame stage) OR bribe your way into a NAP via diplomacy. If everything else fails, go defensive and try to negotiate peace.

Normally you shouldn't find yourself in a tight scenario unless you got a REALLY bad start. If you're completely clueless of how to play Eador, look up LP's on youtube. People play NH on maxed-out difficulty and win without much problems.

Playing Expert not that difficult.

 

[Dr Skeleton]

In the vanilla game most basic units have 1-2 abilities (sometimes more with level ups), pikemen have first strike, barbarians berserker, lizards regeneration and swampwalk etc, you get the idea. in NH you have level 1-2 rats or drows that have like 5-6 skills out of the gate. That's excessive and makes them look like they're from a different game than the base game units that fill similar roles. It's not the end of the world but I see it as a bad design and just throwing everything they could to these new units just because they could.

Ok, first, by abilities you mean "traits". Only a select few tier 1 units have actual abilities (combat actions you may choose to use). It would indeed be over-complicated if every single unit had 6+ abilities.

Second, it's not like they left vanilla units unchanged while throwing a bunch of new complex unit on top of them. The lizards you mentioned got a whole new Interceptor trait that wasn't in vanilla at all. Gnolls and ratmen are new races developed from scratch and they really fit in Eador gameplay-wise. Which means they have a distinctive set of traits that makes playing them, as well as playing against them, very different from other species. Without any harm done to the balance.

Yeah, I lumped it all together, passive abilities and activated skills but I still see many of the new units as overdesigned, this especially goes for the dark elves and some ratmen, gnolls too iirc. New stuff for old units is good, I like pikemen with first aid and new spells for low level spellcasters for example.

By turn 50 each AI should have a single squad of maxed-out hero and veteran units.

How? Even with the NH improvements the ai is nowhere near good enough to level up that fast, it would lose units all the time and have to go back for new ones, that is assuming you could even theoretically get some of those heroes and armies I've seen playing by the same rules as the player. And sometimes it's 2 or 3 maxed heroes, so even if I believed (and I don't) that the ai can max out one hero and get a veteran army on day 50 without some xp fuckery going on, there's still something very wrong with how fast the ai levels up on some maps. It seems to happen more often later in the campaign and on larger shards but even that's not always true.

As a rule of thumb, if you don't intend to wage wars with AI early on, you should do your best to create highly defended chokepoints on your borders (you don't have to expand like crazy in Eador, 2-3 circles from your home province is enough until midgame stage) OR bribe your way into a NAP via diplomacy. If everything else fails, go defensive and try to negotiate peace.

Normally you shouldn't find yourself in a tight scenario unless you got a REALLY bad start. If you're completely clueless of how to play Eador, look up LP's on youtube. People play NH on maxed-out difficulty and win without much problems.

Yeah, you can sometimes beat it when it happens if you've advanced far enough and the map is shaped in your favor. That's not what I'm complaining about though. I'm saying that the ai leveling is broken and you're telling me how to beat it, how about they fix it instead? Or have it as a toggle? And I know the ai is cheating in the vanilla game as well, but there's a huge difference between "the ai doesn't pay for guards because it would go bankrupt in every game" and "the ai sometimes gets unbeatable armies just because".

Playing Expert not that difficult.

Sometimes it's not that difficult, sometimes it's a fun challenge, sometimes it's completely broken, and I don't know why and when the crazy broken ai activates. That's the problem.

 

[Grimwulf]

Yeah, I lumped it all together, passive abilities and activated skills but I still see many of the new units as overdesigned

I honestly don't see a problem here. All you have to do is read through new unit descriptions once. In other words, learn the rules before you play the game. It's the same principle as with any other game.

If the new races were somehow unbalanced, then yes. I would see it as a problem. But all of them fit really well.

How?

Same as vanilla, I assume. You said it yourself:

I know the ai is cheating in the vanilla game as well

The AI gets a certain advantage, depending on specific AI you're facing. The barbarian guy (forgot his name) gets alliance with centaurs at turn 1, for instance. Which is huge. Nameless local AI's get no advantage at all, and the same goes for NH.

I know some things about how AI works, not all of them though. If we speak campaign AI, it gets boosts to energy/turn (global turn, I mean), same as the player. The boosts increase every global turn. This simulates the conquest of shards. On higher difficulties, this boost increases more rapidly. You could tinker with these numbers in CampDiff.var.

Anyway, just like the player, AI buys different bonuses to start with. He might buy additional units, items, income increases, etc. And so should you! Even one additional tier 1 unit at the start makes a critical difference. It might very well determine the outcome of the shard.

the ai is nowhere near good enough to level up that fast, it would lose units all the time and have to go back for new ones

I assume you mean evil armies? Even so, it's not necessary to "go back" if you mean "go back to the home province". You can replenish armies in a number of ways. Fresh units do not appear magically in AI's armies - AI gets new units following the same rules as the player. You can easily verify that by seeing AI squad taking your provinces one after another, losing units as it goes. The losses stay. Then this army makes a step back to the nearest fort and there you go - a whole new army of green recruits.

that is assuming you could even theoretically get some of those heroes and armies I've seen playing by the same rules as the player

some xp fuckery going on

something very wrong with how fast the ai levels up

As a player, you can max out a vet army by turn 50 easily enough. In order to do that, you have to understand how xp system works and use it to your advantage. XP gain of both units and heroes depends on their activity in battles. As a rule of thumb, more experienced vets should act as back-up while your fresh recruits carve their way to victory. If you recruit several heroes and give them small (4-5 units tops) armies, they will level up very quickly. Then you pool your veteran units to the hero-general and recruit new units for other heroes. That is if your goal is to get a full stack of vets by turn 50.

Which is not a smart strategy at all. But it's doable. If a player can do it, then a perfectly-tuned AI should be able to do it as well.

I'm saying that the ai leveling is broken and you're telling me how to beat it, how about they fix it instead?

There is nothing to fix. AI is being improved and fine-tuned, like every other feature of NH. But it's not broken.

Or have it as a toggle?

You can toggle it. There is an option in Eador.cfg

Dammit, men. You play complex games using complex mods, why can't you read the documentation?

There is a whole team working on NH, and they did a damn fine job balance-wise. Especially when it comes to AI. So go ahead, toggle it off and see for yourself. You'll be painting an empty map while vanilla AI will struggle in the cap-circle. Might as well play Eador without any opponents whatsoever.

 

[Dr Skeleton]

I honestly don't see a problem here. All you have to do is read through new unit descriptions once. In other words, learn the rules before you play the game. It's the same principle as with any other game.

If the new races were somehow unbalanced, then yes. I would see it as a problem. But all of them fit really well.

It's feature bloat. It's a minor issue, really, I just think new units have so many traits/skills because they wanted to have as much AWESOME stuff as possible and not because it makes any sense or adds to the gameplay. A halberdier has armor cleaving and recuperation, cavalry has charge, dark elf, ratman or gnoll tier 2 infantry has 2 rows of traits/abilities. Not the end of the world, but I don't like it.

If we speak campaign AI, it gets boosts to energy/turn (global turn, I mean), same as the player. The boosts increase every global turn. This simulates the conquest of shards. On higher difficulties, this boost increases more rapidly. You could tinker with these numbers in CampDiff.var.

Anyway, just like the player, AI buys different bonuses to start with. He might buy additional units, items, income increases, etc. And so should you! Even one additional tier 1 unit at the start makes a critical difference. It might very well determine the outcome of the shard.

Now that might actually explain it. If the ai gets boosts to the starting army, it could maybe snowball to the ridiculous degree you sometimes see on the larger shards in the campaign. I still don't think that's enough, but maybe?

I assume you mean evil armies? Even so, it's not necessary to "go back" if you mean "go back to the home province". You can replenish armies in a number of ways. Fresh units do not appear magically in AI's armies - AI gets new units following the same rules as the player. You can easily verify that by seeing AI squad taking your provinces one after another, losing units as it goes. The losses stay. Then this army makes a step back to the nearest fort and there you go - a whole new army of green recruits.

I never said the ai got free units, I suspected it got some sort (intentional or not) boost to experience from battles.

As a player, you can max out a vet army by turn 50 easily enough. In order to do that, you have to understand how xp system works and use it to your advantage. XP gain of both units and heroes depends on their activity in battles. As a rule of thumb, more experienced vets should act as back-up while your fresh recruits carve their way to victory. If you recruit several heroes and give them small (4-5 units tops) armies, they will level up very quickly. Then you pool your veteran units to the hero-general and recruit new units for other heroes. That is if your goal is to get a full stack of vets by turn 50.

Ok, show me a video where a human player gets multiple heroes to max (or close to max) level with high level veteran armies by turn 50. I never claimed to be a pro at Eador but I can play vanilla just fine on expert and I can play NH on expert most of the time, when I don't have to fight 3 max level heroes on day 50.

Which is not a smart strategy at all. But it's doable. If a player can do it, then a perfectly-tuned AI should be able to doit as well.

The ai is not as smart as a human player in combat though, it should lose more and level up slower, so how in the hell does the ai outpace the human player (or me and other people complaining about it at least) in leveling up by so much? You can maybe do it with a warrior or a commander with an xp boost skill, but that's not when I saw from the ai, and not with multiple heroes with all army slots full.

There is nothing to fix. AI is being improved and fine-tuned, like every other feature of NH. But it's not broken.

I will 100% admit I was wrong if I see a human player get 2-3 heroes with max(ish) level and an army full of high level veterans by day 50. That's what I saw from the ai, if the ai can do it, human players should be able to even better.

You can toggle it. There is an option in Eador.cfg

Dammit, men. You play complex games using complex mods, why can't you read the documentation?

The toggle is for the smart combat ai (iirc, I don't have it installed), not what I was talking about. I want the ai to play smart, I just suspect it's playing dirty.

 

[Grimwulf]

It's feature bloat. It's a minor issue, really, I just think new units have so many traits/skills because they wanted to have as much AWESOME stuff as possible and not because it makes any sense or adds to the gameplay. A halberdier has armor cleaving and recuperation, cavalry has charge, dark elf, ratman or gnoll tier 2 infantry has 2 rows of traits/abilities. Not the end of the world, but I don't like it.

Let's face it, vanilla Eador was lacking in content to keep the campaign interesting and diverse till the end. It felt repetitive after a dozen first shards, if not sooner. Same units, same compositions, same battles. The modders wanted to make the game more engaging, so new stuff had to be added. Would you rather have 7 kinds of cavalry, 9 different swordsmen and 24 kinds of archers, whose only difference is color? I would not.

And if you, as a modder, add new stuff - you gotta make it new.

Now that might actually explain it. If the ai gets boosts to the starting army, it could maybe snowball to the ridiculous degree you sometimes see on the larger shards in the campaign. I still don't think that's enough, but maybe?

Why don't you take a boost and try it out yourself? It's how the game supposed to be played. Hell, just taking a single fairy at the start while starting as a general hero with swordsmen squad can turn you into a massive snowball with little to no effort.

Ok, show me a video where a human player gets multiple heroes to max (or close to max) level with high level veteran armies by turn 50. I never claimed to be a pro at Eador but I can play vanilla just fine on expert and I can play NH on expert most of the time, when I don't have to fight 3 max level heroes on day 50.

I told you it's a bad strategy. You don't need a vet army in midgame, ffs, it's going to kill your economy. You want me to do what, spend a whole day on youtube searching for vet players doing something inane? AND COUNT TURNS MYSELF while doing so? No, thanks. But I'll give you some links to good players, you can search for whatever tactics yourself:

This guy is playing against 7 Overlords (max difficulty AI).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GERixZ_4fN0
On 10:30:00 he's fighting a Tarrask. At the end of the fight his hero gains 3 (!!) levels and becomes level 19 Necromancer. After just a single battle.

This guy has 200+ Eador videos, all on high difficulty levels.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLp25WI8NeU5iQrh2wqapLxZhrfGAtIzmn
I've skimmed through a few. He makes mistakes, quite a lot of them, but pulls through nonetheless. On Overlord.

The ai is not as smart as a human player in combat though, it should lose more and level up slower, so how in the hell does the ai outpace the human player (or me and other people complaining about it at least) in leveling up by so much? You can maybe do it with a warrior or a commander with an xp boost skill, but that's not when I saw from the ai, and not with multiple heroes with all army slots full.

Wrong. Thinking.

The AI lacks the creativity of a human player, but AI never makes mistakes. It punishes you for making mistakes, but is never mistaken itself. If anything, it is easier for AI to expand and develop. It knows the game. It doesn't need to calculate risks vs rewards - it simply knows what's doable and what's not.

I will 100% admit I was wrong if I see a human player get 2-3 heroes with max(ish) level and an army full of high level veterans by day 50. That's what I saw from the ai

What you probably saw is one hero 28-30 level and two other heroes 20+ level. If you saw 3 lvl 30 heroes on turn 50, they were from different opponents. Or you wasn't playing expert.

Maxing out a single hero by turn 50 is not only doable, it's easy. With some starting boosts, sure. Not on your first shard - of course. I don't believe you never had a lvl 27-28 hero by turn 50.

As for the FULL ARMY, it's silly. Having a few maxed out vets by that time is sensible, they won't kill your income. Most likely.

I usually rush a duelist (easy to get, fast to develop, strong under certain buffs) and have a 26-30 lvl duelist by that time, no matter what alignment I play.

The toggle is for the smart combat ai (iirc, I don't have it installed), not what I was talking about.

It reverses AI to vanilla.

I want the ai to play smart, I just suspect it's playing dirty.

If you want the AI to play smart, that's what you get. The challenge.

If you want it to be dumb, toggle it off.

Honestly, I don't even mean this as an offense, but I think you're just bad at the game. NH provides the player with a whole ocean of methods to win against overwhelming odds. You're not supposed to have a full stack of vets by turn 50. You can, but you're not supposed to. You would fare better choosing an actually good strategic approach.

The AI, on the other hand, must rely on perfect-execution-of-expansion-and-development. It's simply the only method AI can use to outplay the human. Raw Power.

 

[Dr Skeleton]

Why don't you take a boost and try it out yourself? It's how the game supposed to be played. Hell, just taking a single fairy at the start while starting as a general hero with swordsmen squad can turn you into a massive snowball with little to no effort.

I know that shard boosts make a huge difference, in NH they're a lot stronger too. I didn't know the ai got them too, that's all.

Wrong. Thinking.

The AI lacks the creativity of a human player, but AI never makes mistakes. It punishes you for making mistakes, but is never mistaken itself. If anything, it is easier for AI to expand and develop. It knows the game. It doesn't need to calculate risks vs rewards - it simply knows what's doable and what's not.

Doesn't it lose units fighting neutral enemies then? It's better than the vanilla AI but it's not as good as a human player, when I fight it I still beat it in combat unless it has an overwhelming advantage and I can still kill much of a strong squad with my guards, and you're telling me the same ai that loses half of its army to my shitty province defenders can somehow play so perfectly on the shard map and in every fight vs neutrals that it levels up all its heroes and units without a hitch until it meets me? I'm not buying it.

What you probably saw is one hero 28-30 level and two other heroes 20+ level. If you saw 3 lvl 30 heroes on turn 50, they were from different opponents. Or you wasn't playing expert.

Maxing out a single hero by turn 50 is not only doable, it's easy. With some starting boosts, sure. Not on your first shard - of course. I don't believe you never had a lvl 27-28 hero by turn 50.

As for the FULL ARMY, it's silly. Having a few maxed out vets by that time is sensible, they won't kill your income. Most likely.

Maybe, that was some time ago, but the specific example I was thinking about was ai on expert and the same opponent, one hero was 30(ish), 2 at least in the mid 20, all with huge armies with many veteran units of different tiers. You might not believe me, or I might be remembering it wrong (maybe it was turn 60? Maybe the ai got upped for some reason despite me playing on expert?) but I got completely overwhelmed despite playing at roughly the same pace I would play vs the ai of the same level in the same campaign. Most people who played NH will tell you it's happening, because it is something that is happening.

Honestly, I don't even mean this as an offense, but I think you're just bad at the game. NH provides the player with a whole ocean of methods to win against overwhelming odds. You're not supposed to have a full stack of vets by turn 50. You can, but you're not supposed to. You would fare better choosing an actually good strategic approach.

Well... yeah, probably. There are much better players out there, but if me and everyone else playing the game outside of 10 people who have played it for 1337h are too weak to play on expert (which should be the default setting because it sets the modifiers to 1.00) then that middle setting of NH is nowhere near what the middle setting of the vanilla game is, or what a default setting should be. And the "sudden level 30 ai heroes" doesn't even happen consistently, it just sometimes does.

 

[Grimwulf]

and you're telling me the same ai that loses half of its army to my shitty province defenders can somehow play so perfectly on the shard map and in every fight vs neutrals that it levels up all its heroes and units without a hitch until it meets me?

You might not believe me, or I might be remembering it wrong (maybe it was turn 60? Maybe the ai got upped for some reason despite me playing on expert?)

And the "sudden level 30 ai heroes" doesn't even happen consistently, it just sometimes does.

You said it yourself, it's not every time a lvl 30 hero comes banging on your door at turn 50. Sometimes the AI does fail the early game. I remember one shard where the evil-wizard-AI-guy (the second one you meet, forgot his name) failed to expand past first cap circle. I had no idea wtf he was doing until I came close enough to his territories. The terrain made him locked up inside the first circle, surrounding him with mountains and seas. The only way to break out was to claim a single chokepoint province. Which was still neutral gnoll province. I attacked it and saw a tier 3 gnoll, lvl 30. The gnoll that turns into an upgraded demon upon death. Poor AI attacked this province god knows how many times. Enough for the gnoll to max out on his levels.

Then I proceed into AI's territory. Poor thing had all provinces in the cap circle 100% scouted. There was not a single site he didn't reveal OR beaten. All provinces were pristine clear. And it seems like he couldn't build wharves, most likely lacking the technology. He attacked the gnolls as it was the only option. Wearing them down with each attack, maybe hoping to win this on his 200+ attempt, who knows. Oh, that AI had no veteran units, by the way.

So, my point. Sometimes AI gets great early game. Just like the player. Sometimes it gets bad luck. Just like the player. The difference is, when AI gets a good start, it is much better at using it to full potential. That's when you get lvl 30 heroes on turn 50. Doesn't happen every game. Barely ever the AI actually attacks your home province on turn 50. What usually happens is the player foolishly trying to over-expand early on, and getting border tensions. Be humble. Focus on your closest provinces.

About the best thing to do in early game is to ask yourself a question: "What do I do to achieve massive kickstart?" Don't clean-up trivial sites using your main hero. Aim higher, be smarter. See that site with 6 slugs? No way in hell you can beat them, you say? Well, maybe there is a way to beat them. How about casting Mephit? That will do the trick. Now you can take a site that is far beyond your level and get rewards that will kickstart your progress. Or give you a contract with nasty province defenders that even the AI won't be able to beat.

Figuring out the "key" to high-level sites is the goal. Each site has its own theme, each theme can be beaten without any losses with a number of certain spell/unit combinations. To figure out these ideas is part of the fun.

There are much better players out there, but if me and everyone else playing the game outside of 10 people who have played it for 1337h

Steam says I have 531 hours playing Eador. Which is about how long it takes to complete the campaign on Expert.

then that middle setting of NH is nowhere near what the middle setting of the vanilla game is, or what a default setting should be.

Indeed, the default difficulties of NH and vanilla are two different beasts altogether. Have you even tried playing vanilla game on Expert? It's not a game. It's a sandbox. All your opponents are doing jack shit, just waiting for you to come and slaughter them.

NH's default difficulty is by design the only difficulty you get. It's not meant to be easy. It is challenging by design.

Why don't you switch to Beginner, by the way? The devs also give this advice to struggling players. It's in the FAQ even. It will break NH's balance, but it will make it much easier for new players.

 

[Dr Skeleton]

About the best thing to do in early game is to ask yourself a question: "What do I do to achieve massive kickstart?" Don't clean-up trivial sites using your main hero. Aim higher, be smarter. See that site with 6 slugs? No way in hell you can beat them, you say? Well, maybe there is a way to beat them. How about casting Mephit? That will do the trick. Now you can take a site that is far beyond your level and get rewards that will kickstart your progress. Or give you a contract with nasty province defenders that even the AI won't be able to beat.

You can defiantly squeeze loot and xp from sites faster than I do, if you know more good unit/spell combos or more ways to abuse unit ai. I just have a hard time believing the ai can do it so much faster and more efficiently than me (good start or not) when I see it lose half its army to my tier 1 province defenders.

Why don't you switch to Beginner, by the way? The devs also give this advice to struggling players. It's in the FAQ even. It will break NH's balance, but it will make it much easier for new players.

Because 1. I like neutrals and other setting at 1.00, 2. I can play it and beat expert ai just fine unless it gets these very early max level heroes. So if I play NH next time, I'll just hope the ai doesn't get as many sudden strokes of genius, maybe I'll even get better in the meantime.

Anyway, back to the original point, I do think the ai is somehow cheating (or is bugged) with how fast it levels up sometimes, you're telling me it's the super advanced ai that just had a good start, maybe that's even true (especially if it starts with shard bonuses, I haven't factored that in previously), but either way I wouldn't recommend anyone to start with NH if they haven't played vanilla Eador. Vanilla might be easy for you or even for me, but we've played it for 100h+ and know how it works and what can be abused, for someone who has no idea how to play vanilla is not an easy game. You don't have to beat the vanilla campaign (I haven't, never got around to it) but IMO you should at least comfortably beat vanilla expert ai before even trying NH. Playing below expert teaches you to completely misjudge strength of neutral provinces and sites because of hp modifiers, so essentially to play the game wrong.

 

[Grimwulf]

As for my original point, anyone starting Eador campaign in vanilla should be ready to abandon it before they reach even 1/4 of the campaign sinking dozens, if not hundreds of hours. A couple first shards will be fun. Then it's a sandbox of repetitive abusing of the same mechanic(s). It's just tedious.

Playing NH you will fail. A lot. But in the process, you'll get better at the game and eventually emerge victorious. You'll be proud of yourself and feel genuine satisfaction of beating a worthy opponent.

The only real downside of NH is the aesthetics. A matter of taste, I know, but personally I cannot stand the silly actor-portraits. Or women heroes for that matter, just because their sprites are still male. If you're like me, be sure to download a custom portrait pack (there are many) and toggle women heroes in Eador.cfg.

Have fun and git gud.

 

[Dr Skeleton]

Oh, that's right, some of that new art in NH is godawful, i didn't even mention that. Who thought adding random mtg card arts and sexy fantasy waifus was a good idea. It's a shame too because many of the new unit sprites are great, they look like they might as well have been made by the original artist, and even the bad/placeholder sprites are passable. The new hero and masters art, what the fuck were they thinking

 

[Grimwulf]

True, some artistic choices are questionable at best. Well, it takes an autistic special kind of mentality to play Eador Genesis. And very special indeed to mod it. So it shouldn't come as a surprise.

Thankfully it's easy to fix. I'm using this portrait pack:

Link to zip-archive (unzip it in your Eador directory)

More packs on the official forum.

 

[LibertyRansom]

GrimWulf - Agreed that the mod portraits are bad. Thanks for the above content, looks much better.

Also, I know you two had fun bickering about the A.I. but...you both might be right. There was a rare bug where on rare occasions on turn 20 or so the AI would ride over the horizon with a lvl 30 hero with fully upgraded and maxed units. I got slammed by a lvl 30 general hero with fully upgraded archers + catapults on turn 25 one time. Was anniliated on first round of combat. This is on expert difficulty. The English forums mention the bug being present two updates ago. I experienced it twice in like 20 or so games. I haven't experienced it in the most recent patched version.

 

[Citizen]

GrimWulf - Agreed that the mod portraits are bad. Thanks for the above content, looks much better.

Also, I know you two had fun bickering about the A.I. but...you both might be right. There was a rare bug where on rare occasions on turn 20 or so the AI would ride over the horizon with a lvl 30 hero with fully upgraded and maxed units. I got slammed by a lvl 30 general hero with fully upgraded archers + catapults on turn 25 one time. Was anniliated on first round of combat. This is on expert difficulty. The English forums mention the bug being present two updates ago. I experienced it twice in like 20 or so games. I haven't experienced it in the most recent patched version.

Yes, that was hilarious the first time it happened, but then it became annoying. When I last played Eador vanilla I used an internet suggested workaround - add more water to the map. Somehow, this more complex map geography was preventing AI from snowballing

 

[Raghar]

I thought it was a bug.

 

[LibertyRansom]

Anyone who speaks Russian know when/if a new version will be released of the New Horizon Mod? It's been over a year. Would be sad if the MOD is stopped at this point, always enjoyed getting new changes every six months or so.

 

[Citizen]

Anyone who speaks Russian know when/if a new version will be released of the New Horizon Mod? It's been over a year. Would be sad if the MOD is stopped at this point, always enjoyed getting new changes every six months or so.

Itz in works, there was a patchnote announce in september

 

[Matod]

Hello any good experienced player wanna play vs expert (me ) in new horizonts duel 1v1?