Deity Empires

If it's a video game it goes here.

Moderators: LawBeefaroni, Arcanis, $iljanus

Yojimbo
Posts: 300
Joined: Fri Nov 05, 2004 9:54 am
Location: Out to pasture

Re: Deity Empires

Post by Yojimbo »

Yojimbo wrote: Sat Mar 09, 2019 11:39 am
3. The Developer does not update the "View Deity Empires update history" tab in Steam (using the News area) like other Steam Developers do. I get a splash screen when starting or loading a game immediately after an update - this is not enough for me. In a strategy game I want to know what circumstances changed to know if my plans need to change accordingly.
So, this looks to have changed - I am looking at a 1.1.36 update in the Steam News page. I want to give credit where it is due - this was a small pain for me but it looks to have changed for the better.

In the larger picture this in an active developer who is working hard to improve MOM's spiritual successor. If you love Turn-based combat, if you like magical civ-like 4X, if you secretly want to run an empire of gnomes - get this game.

I don't have an "in" with the Developer, never knowingly talked to them/her, I don't post in the Steam forums about this (or any) game. I just think this is the best use of a 20 dollar bill I have seen in a long time.
User avatar
ColdSteel
Posts: 3029
Joined: Sun Nov 06, 2005 2:03 pm

Re: Deity Empires

Post by ColdSteel »

Yojimbo wrote: Thu Mar 21, 2019 8:58 pm I start in the either and I stay in the either. From there I can be involved (Casting spells) in every combat until I run out of battle mana. If I am present I can only effect one fight at a time (I think - I only materilzed in a few games weeks ago and my memory is fuzzy). I do gain experience with spells in any schools that I cast in while combat happens. But I think my avatar remains puny.

Mid to late game I am fighting several battles per round and being "almost omnipresent" seems better than being present at one fight.
In the early game I don't have enough troops to have more than one army. For example, in my current game at turn 42 I have just finally gotten enough units for a full 8 man army. I also am just now finishing researching some decent spells. Due to that I have been employing a hybrid deity strategy that I think works well.

I start the game materialized and while I have only one army and very limited spells I run around with my deity's single army and get the deity as much XP and levels as possible. For example, in my current game on turn 42 my deity has gotten almost to level 6. At level 5 they were able to choose a level-up perk and I chose the one that adds +2 magic levels. They've also increased their mana and other attributes while leveling.

Now that I have 2 towns, as soon as I get enough troops to field two full armies, I will cast the "Etherealize" spell on my deity and start using them as an invisible, omnipresent caster as you do. At that point they will be a stronger caster than if they had not been materialized and actively gaining XP for a while.
"This game is best played with a warm cup of Folger's coffee in your hands, so you can actually smell the oppression while you relive the greatest period of all time. The period when white people discovered the world, and decided they didn't like it." - EUIV Steam user review
Yojimbo
Posts: 300
Joined: Fri Nov 05, 2004 9:54 am
Location: Out to pasture

Re: Deity Empires

Post by Yojimbo »

ColdSteel wrote: Fri Mar 22, 2019 9:32 am In the early game I don't have enough troops to have more than one army. For example, in my current game at turn 42 I have just finally gotten enough units for a full 8 man army. I also am just now finishing researching some decent spells. Due to that I have been employing a hybrid deity strategy that I think works well.

I start the game materialized and while I have only one army and very limited spells I run around with my deity's single army and get the deity as much XP and levels as possible. For example, in my current game on turn 42 my deity has gotten almost to level 6. At level 5 they were able to choose a level-up perk and I chose the one that adds +2 magic levels. They've also increased their mana and other attributes while leveling.

Now that I have 2 towns, as soon as I get enough troops to field two full armies, I will cast the "Etherealize" spell on my deity and start using them as an invisible, omnipresent caster as you do. At that point they will be a stronger caster than if they had not been materialized and actively gaining XP for a while.
I may need to try this - I pay with 12 unit stacks and it makes me far longer than 42 turns to get that up and running.

I am also seeing items in the latest build (Cloak, different rings, different amulets, spellbooks) and I wonder if they are for my wizard?
User avatar
ColdSteel
Posts: 3029
Joined: Sun Nov 06, 2005 2:03 pm

Re: Deity Empires

Post by ColdSteel »

Yojimbo wrote: Fri Mar 22, 2019 5:25 pm I am also seeing items in the latest build (Cloak, different rings, different amulets, spellbooks) and I wonder if they are for my wizard?
The extra item slots that were just added are only for deities and heroes. Heroes haven't been added to the game yet but they're working on them. From what I can tell, deities can't equip and use items unless they're materialized.
"This game is best played with a warm cup of Folger's coffee in your hands, so you can actually smell the oppression while you relive the greatest period of all time. The period when white people discovered the world, and decided they didn't like it." - EUIV Steam user review
User avatar
ColdSteel
Posts: 3029
Joined: Sun Nov 06, 2005 2:03 pm

Re: Deity Empires

Post by ColdSteel »

I posted this on Quarter to Three today and thought I'd cross-post it here:

Deity Empires is on sale right now at 40% off ($14.99) until May 20. I’ve been playing it a lot lately and I now give it my wholehearted recommendation. If you like this genre of games, you don’t mind the depth and learning curve of the Dominions games, and you loved Master of Magic, then this game is probably for you.

The developers are extremely active and have made 6 updates to the game just since the last post in this thread. There have been some major additions to the game and the developers continue to actively improve it. It’s clear they are in this for the long haul.

Some of the biggest recent additions are:

Added “Zone of Control’ game options, giving every unit a zone of control. When a unit moves into an enemies zone of control, it uses up all of its remaining movement points.

Added random lesser heroes. These lesser heroes are the same unit type as current units in the game, but have random rolled health and weapon stats (slightly stronger than their base unit type), and only 1 figure. They typically can utilize additional item slots. Currently these random heroes only make themselves available as random mercenaries available for hire in cities.

Added dungeon levels. Once all enemies are defeated in a dungeon, you can descend down a staircase to the next dungeon level, where new and unknown enemies await. Once you descend, treasure on the previous level will be lost forever. Enemies will get progressively harder and more numerous as you proceed further down dungeon levels. (Note that with this game option turned on in the settings, there’s actual gold, chests containing items, and other loot laying on the dungeon floors that you have to find and pickup before you go to the next level. There’s up to seven levels per dungeon to explore as much as you are able.)

Added heal and mana potions to the game. These will appear in dungeons with treasure, and can be produced in cities.

Greatly increased the effects of giving gifts to other deities. Allying with same-aligned deities will be much easier as a result, and appeasing (ie delaying war with) different aligned deities via gifts should now be a feasible strategy. (Note that Diplomacy improvements are still a WIP.)

Added Music to the game.

Units can now evolve. For example, if you summon a baby dragon using a world spell and then level it up to level 10, you can choose to evolve it into a young dragon which is much stronger. The young dragon will eventually evolve into a dragon and then, finally, an ancient dragon (which is pure death on wings).

That’s just the major stuff, They added a ton of more minor stuff and have implemented a ton of suggestions. The last patch implemented 3 of the suggestions I’d made including a new Necromancer Deity ability to pick at startup.

For those worried about the AI, I think this is the best 4X AI, I’ve seen. It’s very aggressive and it will destroy you. I played a game the other day on hard difficulty where I had constant pressure on my cities from 2 different deities. Both had out-built and out-produced me to an extreme degree. My best 2 unit stacks were able to protect my 3 cities but it was a losing battle. They just had way more high level units than I did and they threw them at me relentlessly. Basically the game has so many settings that you can make the game as hard or easy as you wish.

It took me quite a while to get a handle on this game. Once I finally figured out how things worked, I was hooked. Now I can’t stop thinking about it. If you have the patience to figure it out, it will reward you.
"This game is best played with a warm cup of Folger's coffee in your hands, so you can actually smell the oppression while you relive the greatest period of all time. The period when white people discovered the world, and decided they didn't like it." - EUIV Steam user review
Yojimbo
Posts: 300
Joined: Fri Nov 05, 2004 9:54 am
Location: Out to pasture

Re: Deity Empires

Post by Yojimbo »

I'm really enjoying this one still. TB Fantasy never gets old for me.

One strategy I have be using lately is using my early stack army (Starting game and right after) to attack sites, obtain resources, then move next to my first city and use the "Redistribute Supply" button to unload my resources and my extra food. This button is just above the End Turn button and it looks like an arrow curving Out of a wagon. This material makes its way into the city tally next turn - and I see my city grow directly proportional to the food available. There is a certain "rhythm" to this hunter/gather. I max out my trips so I return with a battered stack (but no dead units) so that they army can heal up waiting outside the city for a new trip out.

This kind of discovered strategy is just one of many in this game. Its deep and wide but not slick or fast.

I have really learned to dread the older dragons and lich lords. These enemy sites get a wide birth from me until mid-late game.
User avatar
ColdSteel
Posts: 3029
Joined: Sun Nov 06, 2005 2:03 pm

Re: Deity Empires

Post by ColdSteel »

Yojimbo wrote: Wed May 15, 2019 10:41 pm One strategy I have be using lately is using my early stack army (Starting game and right after) to attack sites, obtain resources, then move next to my first city and use the "Redistribute Supply" button to unload my resources and my extra food.
I've been doing that too although it can take forever to get through hills and forests back to your city. You can build a supply wagon unit and bring that with you. Then when your units get full of resources/food you can load it on the wagon and send it back to town to unload.
"This game is best played with a warm cup of Folger's coffee in your hands, so you can actually smell the oppression while you relive the greatest period of all time. The period when white people discovered the world, and decided they didn't like it." - EUIV Steam user review
User avatar
ColdSteel
Posts: 3029
Joined: Sun Nov 06, 2005 2:03 pm

Re: Deity Empires

Post by ColdSteel »

Some tips I put together for new players:

When your deity is materialized (as a unit operating in the game world) their spell power is the spell power number you see on the unit page and can be improved by leveling up. However, when they are dead (etherialized), then their spell power is determined solely by how many spells they have researched in a spell tree (fire, arcane, nature, etc.). You can see that info on the Deity tab at the top. To improve your etherialized deity's spell power in a spell tree, learn more spells. To improve your materialized deity's spell power, level up.

The amount of resources and gold you get in the game from your cities depends on population. The more population you have, the more city workers you get to work the city hexes.

Every time your city grows another 1000 population, you can build another civic structure there. The number of buildings you can build in your city depends entirely on how much population it has.

Population growth rate depends on enough enough excess food being grown your cities. For that reason, at the start of the game your engineer should concentrate on building farms around your city.

After you build improvements (like farms) with your engineer you can then improve them in up to 2 different ways. Some improvements have levels (like mana farms) that go from 1 to 5 or 1 to 10. After building the initial improvement for 500 gold, you can then level it up but each level you build costs more.

The second way to improve them is to build roads on the improvement. This needs to be done for farms because your farms initially don't have levels like some other improvements do until you first research the appropriate civic technology and then you can level up farms as well. Once you build a road, you can widen/improve the road by building a road again on the same hex at a higher cost. Each time you build a road on a hex, you increase the number of city workers that can work that hex. THIS IS HUGE. I really wish I'd figured this out sooner as it is the key to expanding your city. Build lots of roads on farms.

The first civic structures you should build in your town are the production structures. They allow you to build following stuff faster.

Building stuff in town requires both production and resources. At first the resources your town gets per turn will be lower than your production per turn so your build speed will be capped by that.

When your units fight critters in outdoor lairs and dungeons, they get food and resources afterwards. They can only carry so much so when they get full, you need to go to the nearest city and transfer it to the city's resource and food warehouses. If that city has less resources than production per turn, then it can pull from the warehouse you just filled to max out production speed until the warehouse is empty. There are civic buildings to increase the size of warehouses.

You can build a supply wagon unit and take it with you to dungeons and lairs. When your units get full you can dump the food and resources into the supply wagon and then send it back to town to unload.
"This game is best played with a warm cup of Folger's coffee in your hands, so you can actually smell the oppression while you relive the greatest period of all time. The period when white people discovered the world, and decided they didn't like it." - EUIV Steam user review
T
Posts: 804
Joined: Fri Dec 24, 2004 8:18 pm
Location: NY

Re: Deity Empires

Post by T »

Thanks for the tips CS. This was on my list to buy. Now with the sale, devs who update it frequently and a competent AI, I'm in.
User avatar
RMC
Posts: 6739
Joined: Wed Oct 13, 2004 1:49 pm
Location: Elyria, Ohio
Contact:

Re: Deity Empires

Post by RMC »

T wrote: Fri May 17, 2019 1:41 pm Thanks for the tips CS. This was on my list to buy. Now with the sale, devs who update it frequently and a competent AI, I'm in.
I am sad to say I bought this a ways back, and still have not done anything with it. I will try to change that this weekend. :)
Difficulties mastered are opportunities won. - Winston Churchill
Sheesh, this is one small box. Thankfully, everything's packed in nicely this time. Not too tight nor too loose (someone's sig in 3, 2, ...). - Hepcat
Yojimbo
Posts: 300
Joined: Fri Nov 05, 2004 9:54 am
Location: Out to pasture

Re: Deity Empires

Post by Yojimbo »

Thanks for the tips - I play with the gorgeous minerals mod and I think some version of that should probably be incorporated into standard.

I play beta builds so I never know what has made it to the public game, but this Developer has published 3 updates in the last week. They are active and working hard - that kind of interest matters to me.

Start on Easy or Normal and ratchet that up after a game or two. I have over 500 hours in this game and only yesterday did I notice the Forward/Back arrows at the bottom of the Turn Report pop-up. This lets you quickly review 'turn news updates' from the last several turns to remind yourself what has been going on in your game.
User avatar
ColdSteel
Posts: 3029
Joined: Sun Nov 06, 2005 2:03 pm

Re: Deity Empires

Post by ColdSteel »

Yojimbo wrote: Fri May 17, 2019 3:12 pm I play beta builds so I never know what has made it to the public game, but this Developer has published 3 updates in the last week. They are active and working hard - that kind of interest matters to me.
I'd recommend everyone opt into the beta builds for this one to get the latest additions to the game. They do a good job making sure they are playable. I haven't really run into any issues with playing the beta versions.
"This game is best played with a warm cup of Folger's coffee in your hands, so you can actually smell the oppression while you relive the greatest period of all time. The period when white people discovered the world, and decided they didn't like it." - EUIV Steam user review
User avatar
Lorini
Posts: 8282
Joined: Wed Oct 13, 2004 8:52 am
Location: Santa Clarita, California

Re: Deity Empires

Post by Lorini »

How do you turn the music off???
Black Lives Matter
User avatar
ColdSteel
Posts: 3029
Joined: Sun Nov 06, 2005 2:03 pm

Re: Deity Empires

Post by ColdSteel »

Lorini wrote: Fri May 17, 2019 10:02 pm How do you turn the music off???
Once you're in-game on the main screen, look at the bottom right where there are some icons and one of them looks like a gear. Click that and it will bring up the game settings menu. It has a slider there for sound and music to adjust volume or turn it off. There are also a ton of other game settings there. For example, that's where you can turn on/off dungeon loot and levels, adjust the size of dungeons, turn on/off zone of control and a whole lot more.

The icon to the right of the game settings menu icon that looks like a book page is the Compendium. It has 2 tabs. One for units and one for spells.
"This game is best played with a warm cup of Folger's coffee in your hands, so you can actually smell the oppression while you relive the greatest period of all time. The period when white people discovered the world, and decided they didn't like it." - EUIV Steam user review
T
Posts: 804
Joined: Fri Dec 24, 2004 8:18 pm
Location: NY

Re: Deity Empires

Post by T »

More settings are in a text file in the game directory, I don't have my laptop handy so I don't recall the exact name. I used that to make the font bigger as I found it way too small.

I poked around last night and read the in-game manual and I must see my initial impressions are that I am very impressed so far. I've watched a few of DasTactic's videos since release and the graphics really turned me off. But, after having it in my hands, I'm fine with them. The UI seems to be well done too.
User avatar
ColdSteel
Posts: 3029
Joined: Sun Nov 06, 2005 2:03 pm

Re: Deity Empires

Post by ColdSteel »

T wrote: Sat May 18, 2019 1:44 pm More settings are in a text file in the game directory, I don't have my laptop handy so I don't recall the exact name.
There are two files in the main game folder you can tweak the game settings in. This is in addition to the in-game settings.

The one T is referring to is named ui_settings.txt. That one allows you to tweak the font size and thickness and other UI settings.

The other one, that is more commonly used, is named game_settings.txt and is in the same folder. Below are the settings that I changed in there and why:

starting_battle_mana = 30
starting_meditation = 40


Someone on the forums recommended these changes for new players and I agree with them. Starting battle mana is 20 by default. This is the amount of mana your deity has to cast in battles every turn. To increase it requires casting an "increase battle mana" world spell over and over at the exclusion of anything else and takes a log time to ramp up. A lot of players, including me, like to jump start it a bit.

Starting meditation is similar and also has a default of 20. Meditation is the amount of mana that is used to cast world spells every turn (including summons and unit buffs) and is used to replenish battle mana. Like battle mana above, to increase it you have to cast a world spell. Again, I like to jump start it by doubling it because it takes forever to increase it in-game with world spells unless you take certain deity abilities.

item_drop_rate_factor = 200

This is the chance for equipment and items to drop in lairs and dungeons. The default is 100, which imo is too low. You get a lot of crap items you can't even equip or use in the game and you'll get very few of them with the default setting. Doubling it to 200 causes things to drop at a rate I think is good. Also note there is a world spell you can cast to increase the size of your Item Vault if it starts to fill up.
"This game is best played with a warm cup of Folger's coffee in your hands, so you can actually smell the oppression while you relive the greatest period of all time. The period when white people discovered the world, and decided they didn't like it." - EUIV Steam user review
User avatar
TheMix
Posts: 10904
Joined: Thu Oct 14, 2004 5:19 pm
Location: Broomfield, Colorado

Re: Deity Empires

Post by TheMix »

Good thing I'm still learning the game... having to restart my second game because all of sudden it just decided to stop recognizing a mod. Or something. Worked last night just fine. Neither the game nor the mods have updated. But it won't let me load the save game. It says there is a mod mismatch. I unchecked the option to load the mods and was able to load the save file. It "auto-loads" the mods from the save file (which is pretty handy). Looks like it just arbitrarily decided that it didn't want to recognize one of the mods (based on all the little purple squares where there should be icons).

So... off to start a new game. Again.

Guess I'll try a new race. Though I had just gotten to love the Dwarf golems for their wall-breaking ability. I didn't see it spelled out anywhere, but I had one golem hit a wall for 100 damage. And regularly hit for 30+.

Black Lives Matter

Isgrimnur - Facebook makes you hate your friends and family. LinkedIn makes you hate you co-workers. NextDoor makes you hate your neighbors.
User avatar
ColdSteel
Posts: 3029
Joined: Sun Nov 06, 2005 2:03 pm

Re: Deity Empires

Post by ColdSteel »

TheMix wrote: Sun May 19, 2019 1:04 pm having to restart my second game because all of sudden it just decided to stop recognizing a mod.
There was a new update released overnight that may have messed with games with installed mods. I'm thinking maybe the highlighted item below is the culprit. Starting a new game (as you have) should resolve it.
1.1.47
• (2019-05-18)
• The snaring effects of Grappling Hooks, Bola Balls and Entangling Shot attacks now have a max duration of 3 combat rounds plus 1 round per 5 units levels. Units can still break free of the effects at any time.
• Removed the Inhibit Movement ability as a level up option from all units except Mud Goblin Blocker. This reverts back to the original unit abilities.
• Individual units can be automated during battle. These units act when you hit the End Turn button.
• Updated the way the enabled/disabled status of mods is stored on the local hard disk. This may help prevent some anti-virus software from triggering alerts when mods are downloaded.
• Added a setting to game_settings.txt to make the AI more likely to target hurt enemies. The “target_most_hurt_unit” key will increase the likelihood of targetting hurt enemies. A value of 100 increases the chance by 100%, while a value of 500 increases the chance by 500%.
• Auto Battle (AI): units will attempt to pickup treasure in dungeons once all enemies have been defeated.
• You can press F5 during battle to see which tiles you haven't seen yet. Useful to determine where you still need to explore in dungeons.
• Fixed a crash caused when pressing the right/left arrow keys while viewing a unit that isn't in an army (eg an unhired mercenary unit in the City Screen, or a preview of a unit from the Building Tree or Unit Compendium).
• Color coded city graphics. Does not apply to mods.
"This game is best played with a warm cup of Folger's coffee in your hands, so you can actually smell the oppression while you relive the greatest period of all time. The period when white people discovered the world, and decided they didn't like it." - EUIV Steam user review
User avatar
TheMix
Posts: 10904
Joined: Thu Oct 14, 2004 5:19 pm
Location: Broomfield, Colorado

Re: Deity Empires

Post by TheMix »

Thanks. I thought I looked in the correct places to see if there were any updates, but apparently not. Oh well. The new game is going pretty well. Especially since I seem to have the island to myself. :D

I've been playing with not overdoing the number of monster spawns to begin with, but then increasing the rate at which there are new ones. Too few to begin with, though, and the other deities grab up the city options; too many and I have a hard problem getting going. But I like the option to have them respawn. It allows me options to continue getting items and materials.

Black Lives Matter

Isgrimnur - Facebook makes you hate your friends and family. LinkedIn makes you hate you co-workers. NextDoor makes you hate your neighbors.
User avatar
ColdSteel
Posts: 3029
Joined: Sun Nov 06, 2005 2:03 pm

Re: Deity Empires

Post by ColdSteel »

TheMix wrote: Sun May 19, 2019 3:15 pm Especially since I seem to have the island to myself.
I like to play on a single big continent with no islands so I don't get stuck with nowhere to expand early. The map creator in the game start is really nice and can do a lot of things most folks don't realize:
Don't forget you can do a full land map by setting each of Continents, Large island and Small islands to none. This will give you no ocean or shallows, only lakes.

You can also scroll the mousewheel when the mouse is over the map preview to change the ocean/grassland/hills/mountains ratios on that map. Right click on the map preview to change which terrain type the mousewheel is affecting. And Ctrl+left click on the map to reset the values to default.

You can also edit the file randommap.txt to change the likelihoods of any of the terrain types. Putting this into the game UI is on the to-do list, but is way down the list.
"This game is best played with a warm cup of Folger's coffee in your hands, so you can actually smell the oppression while you relive the greatest period of all time. The period when white people discovered the world, and decided they didn't like it." - EUIV Steam user review
User avatar
TheMix
Posts: 10904
Joined: Thu Oct 14, 2004 5:19 pm
Location: Broomfield, Colorado

Re: Deity Empires

Post by TheMix »

Okay... I must be missing something.

I was playing with 4 AI opponents, but it never gave me a win based on population. So I ended up wiping out everything on the map. When I killed the last ship it told me I lost. Huh? Is it not possible to "win"?

Black Lives Matter

Isgrimnur - Facebook makes you hate your friends and family. LinkedIn makes you hate you co-workers. NextDoor makes you hate your neighbors.
User avatar
ColdSteel
Posts: 3029
Joined: Sun Nov 06, 2005 2:03 pm

Re: Deity Empires

Post by ColdSteel »

TheMix wrote: Thu May 23, 2019 12:57 pm I was playing with 4 AI opponents, but it never gave me a win based on population. So I ended up wiping out everything on the map. When I killed the last ship it told me I lost. Huh? Is it not possible to "win"?
Can you load up a save game from right before you killed that ship and check the "Deities" tab at the top right? On the first screen for each deity it will have a "% World Population" number. In my current game it says there I have 47% of the world population. You need 60% to win if you just left the win condition at the default at start up. There should be numbers there for the deities you've encountered. If at the start of the game you set the population win setting from 60 to 0, then that is the conquest victory condition.

I think you may have to turn off the population win condition to win a conquest victory. Did you raze all the AI cities to get rid of their population before you killed all their units? If not, one of them may have still had enough pop to keep you from the 60% win condition.

Another thing you can check (that's sort of hard to find) is at the very bottom right of the main screen. There is a second tab you can select there. And at the very bottom on that tab is 'Turn Number: XXX' and to the left of that is a graph icon. Click on that to bring up 24 game graph tabs. The first one is population.
"This game is best played with a warm cup of Folger's coffee in your hands, so you can actually smell the oppression while you relive the greatest period of all time. The period when white people discovered the world, and decided they didn't like it." - EUIV Steam user review
User avatar
TheMix
Posts: 10904
Joined: Thu Oct 14, 2004 5:19 pm
Location: Broomfield, Colorado

Re: Deity Empires

Post by TheMix »

I had 100% of the population. It shows that in the upper right corner (your total/current leader's total). I'd been watching that since I hit 60%... and wondering why it never gave me the victory.

All the other Deities had 0 population. In fact, the owner of the last ship was at 0 before I killed the ship.

I definitely did not have the box unchecked at the beginning. Also, I don't see how you can change that %. It just lists how much % you need for each number of Deities playing.

I was playing a neutral Deity. So I razed all the cities for the good/evil Deities. I did leave a few of the other neutral ones (I actually didn't even get an option to raze if the city is the same alignment). But I know he had 0 pop because he was the first one I took out.

I'm hoping it was just a fluke.

Black Lives Matter

Isgrimnur - Facebook makes you hate your friends and family. LinkedIn makes you hate you co-workers. NextDoor makes you hate your neighbors.
User avatar
ColdSteel
Posts: 3029
Joined: Sun Nov 06, 2005 2:03 pm

Re: Deity Empires

Post by ColdSteel »

TheMix wrote: Thu May 23, 2019 6:44 pm I had 100% of the population. It shows that in the upper right corner (your total/current leader's total). I'd been watching that since I hit 60%... and wondering why it never gave me the victory.
Hmm, sounds like a bug if you have the start up win condition set to 60. You can check it by starting a new game and going to that page with the setting. The settings from your last game are saved so if it says 60 there, it's a bug.

I would post this issue in the Steam forum under the bugs thread and keep that last save game to send to the developer. They'll want you to send it to them to check out. They are very fast at fixing issues and very responsive.
"This game is best played with a warm cup of Folger's coffee in your hands, so you can actually smell the oppression while you relive the greatest period of all time. The period when white people discovered the world, and decided they didn't like it." - EUIV Steam user review
User avatar
TheMix
Posts: 10904
Joined: Thu Oct 14, 2004 5:19 pm
Location: Broomfield, Colorado

Re: Deity Empires

Post by TheMix »

Crisis(?) averted. I took a break from my new game to show gilraen the issue. Except, of course, this time it worked like a charm. Well, sort of. At least I got a win after I killed the last guy. I'm still not sure why it didn't give it to me at 60%. I would have preferred to skip the last slog.

Black Lives Matter

Isgrimnur - Facebook makes you hate your friends and family. LinkedIn makes you hate you co-workers. NextDoor makes you hate your neighbors.
User avatar
ColdSteel
Posts: 3029
Joined: Sun Nov 06, 2005 2:03 pm

Re: Deity Empires

Post by ColdSteel »

Glad it got resolved.

I know the pop victory works because I lost to it a few weeks ago. I was just playing along and, wham, you lost. I didn't know what had happened at first until I learned where to check population percent. After that I turned it off (set the 60 to 0) so I didn't need to worry about what the AIs were doing. I'll likely turn it back on once I stop experimenting with different strategies/races/etc.
"This game is best played with a warm cup of Folger's coffee in your hands, so you can actually smell the oppression while you relive the greatest period of all time. The period when white people discovered the world, and decided they didn't like it." - EUIV Steam user review
User avatar
TheMix
Posts: 10904
Joined: Thu Oct 14, 2004 5:19 pm
Location: Broomfield, Colorado

Re: Deity Empires

Post by TheMix »

Finished my first Hard game.

Couple of thoughts...
Damn... and I thought the last game became a slog...
Black dragons are awesome. Ancient Black Dragons are WIN!!! wrapped in a pretty package.
That said, too many Ancient Black Dragons will bankrupt you in no time. Thankfully, clearing dungeons becomes really fast (as long as you don't run into levels with Black Dragons).
Not sure I like playing on a single continent. At least not while the computer AIs ignore each other and coordinate their attacks against me. It was definitely challenging there for a bit.
I really wish there was an option to sell magic items for gold instead of mana. I was swimming in the latter.

Still having fun, though I probably need to take a little break. I do need to try a game without Black Dragons. If you can last long enough to evolve them, the game becomes pretty easy.

Black Lives Matter

Isgrimnur - Facebook makes you hate your friends and family. LinkedIn makes you hate you co-workers. NextDoor makes you hate your neighbors.
User avatar
dbemont
Posts: 852
Joined: Fri Feb 11, 2005 9:55 pm

Re: Deity Empires

Post by dbemont »

When this game first came out, I thought it had a ton of promise, but the weaknesses of the game were hard to ignore. But I went back to it recently, and omg, they have really nailed it. In my opinion, it is now the best computer strategy game out there... assuming you do one essential thing, and that is that you play the game on the beta branch at Steam. I have no idea why so many of the improvements are only in the beta branch, but whatever.

Dungeons are now an exciting part of the game, and underground combat is very different from surface combat. Level ups present interesting choices. City development involves tough choices. Civic research turns out to be even more interesting and strategic than magic research. Most of the UI issues have been worked out, and recent updates have added some polish. And the AI is highly competitive.

Graphics might turn some people off, but a lot of that can be overcome using mods from the Steam workshop. Very little buzz, probably because the game was supposedly released so long before it was ready. But remember that Master of Magic was rather shaking in its initial release state, too.
Commish of OOTP online league Dog Days Baseball
User avatar
TheMix
Posts: 10904
Joined: Thu Oct 14, 2004 5:19 pm
Location: Broomfield, Colorado

Re: Deity Empires

Post by TheMix »

<AceVentura>Reh-eee-aaa-llllllyyy</AceVentura>

I played it a ton a while back. But haven't tried it recently. I must have turned something off, too. I haven't gotten any notifications of changes is a long time. I'll have to take a look and see what changed.

Black Lives Matter

Isgrimnur - Facebook makes you hate your friends and family. LinkedIn makes you hate you co-workers. NextDoor makes you hate your neighbors.
User avatar
TheMix
Posts: 10904
Joined: Thu Oct 14, 2004 5:19 pm
Location: Broomfield, Colorado

Re: Deity Empires

Post by TheMix »

I started a new game. Though it looks like there aren't that many changes from the last time I played. Only two new versions. But if you hadn't played with some of the earlier updates, then, yeah, I can see it being a big change.

Black Lives Matter

Isgrimnur - Facebook makes you hate your friends and family. LinkedIn makes you hate you co-workers. NextDoor makes you hate your neighbors.
Yojimbo
Posts: 300
Joined: Fri Nov 05, 2004 9:54 am
Location: Out to pasture

Re: Deity Empires

Post by Yojimbo »

I'm 1000 hours in now (largely due to some hospital play time last year).

I still enjoy the game, all of the updates have been for the better (save for the glowing star halo cursor active unit marker - I could live without that).

Some of the settings are in game setup, some in game (Gear icon lower Right). It can be hard for new players to find what is where.

Its a great magical 4x where the developer is active and working (what more can I ask?). I hope they keep improving and I would be on board for a version with better graphics. This fills the niche that Dominions used to fill in my play rotation.
User avatar
TheMix
Posts: 10904
Joined: Thu Oct 14, 2004 5:19 pm
Location: Broomfield, Colorado

Re: Deity Empires

Post by TheMix »

So what settings are people using?

I was using size 2 cities, but found that left me with way too many to manage. So I went to 4 in the latest game. But I'm finding that a bit overwhelming. So I hoping that 3 will be the sweet spot.

Also trying a faster game this time around. While I do like it, I think I should have gone with "Above Normal" instead of "Fast".

For army size I tend to bounce between 8 and 12. Right now I'm running 10. The problem is that dungeons become tedious to manage. I find that I do most of the fighting with the same 4-6 units most of the time. I just have to drag the rest along. I think I might drop back to 8 for future games.

Currently I'm running with a Lair Density of 35 (bumped up from 30 for my last game). It feels a little too much. Though that could be because I was slower to get stuff cleared in this game allowing for more spawning. But practically every tile is taken now. Though that is allowing me to rake in the loot now that I have a couple of really good armies. I also bumped the Lair Respawn Rate up to 100 this time around. I think that was a mistake. I probably need to drop that back to ~75. I boosted Lair Difficulty to 7, but so far that seems fine. I have plenty of easy stuff (probably from the respawning) with lots of deep dungeons mixed in. I seem to have mostly missed the really hard outside ones this time around (usually dragons).

The other thing I want to fiddle with in the future is the size of the dungeons. I wonder if making the floors bigger would help with the crowded feeling and allow more of my units to participate in fights.


My current game I'm running with Northmen. The food bonus for Tundra is pretty nice. But I hate running into White dragons. :)

I'd like to see some diplomacy added in, but I can live without it.

Black Lives Matter

Isgrimnur - Facebook makes you hate your friends and family. LinkedIn makes you hate you co-workers. NextDoor makes you hate your neighbors.
Yojimbo
Posts: 300
Joined: Fri Nov 05, 2004 9:54 am
Location: Out to pasture

Re: Deity Empires

Post by Yojimbo »

My normal game:
Spoiler:
Game Speed: 3.Normal
AI: 3.Hard
Max AI Army: 14
Max Human Army: 12
City Tile Range: 4
No max cities
Lair Density: 57 (that which does not kill us...)
Lair Respawn: 60
Lair Difficulty 3 (I like this low early, but late game lair are a bit of a breeze)
Starting Settlers: 1
Random Settler Races: No
Bonus resource freq: between 200 and 400 (I like the bonus tiles)
User avatar
dbemont
Posts: 852
Joined: Fri Feb 11, 2005 9:55 pm

Re: Deity Empires

Post by dbemont »

Game Speed: 3.Normal
AI: 3.Hard
Max AI Army: 8
Max Human Army: 8
City Tile Range: 2
Max cities allowed: 7 (Conflicted on this, but micro later on becomes a downer)
Lair Density: 49
Lair Respawn: 12 (I may try this a bit higher)
Lair Difficulty 3
Starting Settlers: 1
Random Settler Races: No
Bonus resource freq: 75, but I think I will raise this next time
6 AI opponents on a 63x63 all land map (no continents, no large islands, no small islands); none of these opponents of my alignment
Commish of OOTP online league Dog Days Baseball
User avatar
TheMix
Posts: 10904
Joined: Thu Oct 14, 2004 5:19 pm
Location: Broomfield, Colorado

Re: Deity Empires

Post by TheMix »

Interesting. I never thought about having no opponents of the same alignment. Or of limiting the cities. The latter may be useful since the opponents always seem to spam cities. I have no idea how they can pump out settlers so quickly. But it bugs the hell out of me when they explore a juicy dungeon with tons of levels. I'm fairly certain they only explore the top level or so and bail. They just want to remove it from the map so they can settle. But limiting the number of cities would at least prevent them from constantly trying to encroach on my territory.

Black Lives Matter

Isgrimnur - Facebook makes you hate your friends and family. LinkedIn makes you hate you co-workers. NextDoor makes you hate your neighbors.
User avatar
dbemont
Posts: 852
Joined: Fri Feb 11, 2005 9:55 pm

Re: Deity Empires

Post by dbemont »

TheMix wrote: Fri Mar 06, 2020 10:28 am I'm fairly certain they only explore the top level or so and bail.
When they fight within your unit's vision, you can watch their battles. And although I see them go down a few levels, they don't dive very far. But I don't think they do that just to clear area for cities, they also seem smart enough to clear a path towards you, and, it seems, to provide food for themselves on their travels.
Commish of OOTP online league Dog Days Baseball
User avatar
tylertoo
Posts: 285
Joined: Thu Jul 13, 2006 7:05 pm

Re: Deity Empires

Post by tylertoo »

Yojimbo wrote: Thu Mar 05, 2020 12:47 pm (save for the glowing star halo cursor active unit marker - I could live without that)
You can go back to just the blinking unit in Game Options -- scroll to near bottom -- unselect Blink/Animate Selected Army and Blink/Animate Selected Unit.
Yojimbo
Posts: 300
Joined: Fri Nov 05, 2004 9:54 am
Location: Out to pasture

Re: Deity Empires

Post by Yojimbo »

tylertoo wrote: Sat Mar 07, 2020 1:06 pm
Yojimbo wrote: Thu Mar 05, 2020 12:47 pm (save for the glowing star halo cursor active unit marker - I could live without that)
You can go back to just the blinking unit in Game Options -- scroll to near bottom -- unselect Blink/Animate Selected Army and Blink/Animate Selected Unit.
Thank you! I never scrolled down that far.
User avatar
TheMix
Posts: 10904
Joined: Thu Oct 14, 2004 5:19 pm
Location: Broomfield, Colorado

Re: Deity Empires

Post by TheMix »

I put one game on hold. It seems to be going well. I have some really powerful armies. But I think I made the world too large. I've only met one other Deity. And only seen one small stack of his. At the rate it's going, that game is going to take months.

So I've started a few more (and mostly dropped them). I've been playing with larger cities (just got the 1 million population achievement). But I had to dial it back. So far 5 seems to be manageable. Once you accept that you are always going to have unhappy folks when it grows that fast. I tried the option of not having any other deities that are the same alignment. I think that may be a mistake. In the few games I dropped, it meant that as soon as I meet one, they all declare war on me. Hopefully I'm alone on my island this time. I just need to crank out a couple of stacks of ships to protect my coastline.

I thought I'd played at least one game with every type of magic. But I realized I've never summoned the top level liches. So maybe I never played Death magic...

Black Lives Matter

Isgrimnur - Facebook makes you hate your friends and family. LinkedIn makes you hate you co-workers. NextDoor makes you hate your neighbors.
User avatar
TheMix
Posts: 10904
Joined: Thu Oct 14, 2004 5:19 pm
Location: Broomfield, Colorado

Re: Deity Empires

Post by TheMix »

Got the Tree Trimmer achievement last night. Steam says only .6% of players have it.

I have also discovered the pure joy of a well equipped Greater Hero. The monk solo'd 10 Ancient Tree-Ents. And didn't break a sweat. It was awesome. I'm working on a stack of heroes that I can use to clear dungeons. The biggest problem is the Ancient Dragons. Apparently they are especially dangerous with the smaller dungeon sizes. People talk about bringing along some of each type of dragon to serve as choke-point blockers by being immune to specific types of damage. Seems like it would only serve to slow you down. So not sure yet how I'm going to handle that.

But I just fully kitted out a Dwarven Stalwart hero, and he's got 40 magic resistance. So I'm hoping he will be able to take on most things.

Black Lives Matter

Isgrimnur - Facebook makes you hate your friends and family. LinkedIn makes you hate you co-workers. NextDoor makes you hate your neighbors.
Post Reply