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Digital Gaming => Computer Gaming => Topic started by: airboy on May 13, 2019, 04:30:16 PM

Title: Deity Empires on Sale at Steam
Post by: airboy on May 13, 2019, 04:30:16 PM
Is on sale at Steam for 40% off.  It (supposedly) compares favorably to Master of Magic, Age of Wonders III, Fallen Enchantress, Dominions, and Warlock. 
Title: Re: Diety Empires on Sale at Steam
Post by: Huw the Poo on May 13, 2019, 04:35:57 PM
It certainly seems comprehensive enough.  I haven't played it enough to draw any conclusions yet to be honest, but from the hour I've put into it it does show promise.  For £11.69 I'd say it's worth a punt if you're at all interested.  The community seems pretty devoted.
Title: Re: Diety Empires on Sale at Steam
Post by: Philippe on May 13, 2019, 05:45:36 PM
I'm temperamentally allergic to diets.

But I'd be curious to know what Jason Pratt thinks of this one.
Title: Re: Diety Empires on Sale at Steam
Post by: DennisS on May 13, 2019, 06:34:13 PM
Pardon me..I need to run down to Walgreen's to get a Steam Card. Back in a few!
Title: Re: Diety Empires on Sale at Steam
Post by: Steelgrave on May 13, 2019, 06:35:34 PM
I thought it said "Dirty Empires" and I was whipping it out....ummmm.....my credit card, I mean. Get your mind out of the gutter, Gus.
Title: Re: Diety Empires on Sale at Steam
Post by: JasonPratt on May 13, 2019, 06:43:27 PM
Quote from: Philippe on May 13, 2019, 05:45:36 PM
I'm temperamentally allergic to diets.

But I'd be curious to know what Jason Pratt thinks of this one.

lol'd at the joke about the thread title!

I didn't even know I have this game! I know nothing about it.

In fact, Steam thinks I have this game (I can write a review) and also has no idea I have this game (it's missing from my game list)...
Title: Re: Diety Empires on Sale at Steam
Post by: Gusington on May 13, 2019, 07:34:18 PM
 :-\
Title: Re: Diety Empires on Sale at Steam
Post by: CJReich46 on May 13, 2019, 11:04:26 PM
Intriguing. May consider. However Rule the Waves 2 is this week.

At the very least the demo... ::)
Title: Re: Diety Empires on Sale at Steam
Post by: Jarhead0331 on May 14, 2019, 06:35:38 AM
The graphics really turn me off on this one.

I'd still be interested to know how it compares to the Dominions series....
Title: Re: Diety Empires on Sale at Steam
Post by: Steelgrave on May 14, 2019, 07:37:31 AM
They certainly seem to be inspired by Dominions. And ditto on the graphics.
Title: Re: Deity Empires on Sale at Steam
Post by: airboy on May 14, 2019, 08:43:36 AM
I bought it.  It has been on my wishlist for more than a year.  I may not get around to playing it until Fall.

I read a very long review on Steam that hit my tipping point.  But I just completed a very long 4x binge and want to play a wargame or RPG for a bit.
Title: Re: Deity Empires on Sale at Steam
Post by: FarAway Sooner on May 14, 2019, 12:14:41 PM
This one looks very interesting.  I'm okay with bland graphics, so long as they cover tough strategic choices and challenging game play.

From reading one or two of the reviews on Steam, it sounds like some unit nerfing might still be needed?  This one is definitely worth keeping an eye on.
Title: Re: Deity Empires on Sale at Steam
Post by: W8taminute on May 14, 2019, 02:39:50 PM
I think I'll pick this one up since it's on sale atm.  Looks good. 

Title: Re: Diety Empires on Sale at Steam
Post by: DennisS on May 14, 2019, 02:52:10 PM
Quote from: Jarhead0331 on May 14, 2019, 06:35:38 AM
The graphics really turn me off on this one.

I'd still be interested to know how it compares to the Dominions series....

There are two workshop items, the first is for hi-res pictures of the units, the second is for hi-res pictures of the resources on the map.

As far as the gameplay, I am a whole 39 minutes, in, but I did watch Das Tactics' 3 hour plus let's play.

I have played just about every 4X game you can name, all the way back to Master's of Magic, and Civ I..and this most reminds me of Master's of Magic.

You can -
--Purchase spell books at start, just like MoM
--There is an ability to create your own OP items, like Itemmaker in MoM
--Worker placement is very reminiscent of Civ
--You can set the radius of the city at the start of the game. I had it set at 2 in all directions...you can set it at 10!
--Mammoth cities are available. Buildings are not finite in number..and you can develop + resources, or +% resources. This is huge for a developing city.
--Very deep tech tree. HUNDREDS of individual things to research
--Up to 16 opponents
--Map size...I started my learning game at 60x60. Not sure what the limit is..but I tested one at 300 x 300. This is 90 thousand hexes.....
--For every 1000 souls you kill, you get a soul gem. This enables ONE of your units to be immortal, and able to be resurrected. You can have an unbelievably powerful champion
--Game additions, effective yesterday, added ZOC, mana and health potions, and dungeons with deeper levels

I will report back later on, on other things I have discovered. After watching Das Tactic's game, I immediately went out and bought a steam card. This game is on sale for another six days, 40% off, at $14.99  American.
Title: Re: Deity Empires on Sale at Steam
Post by: Huw the Poo on May 14, 2019, 04:20:21 PM
Yeah and it has some unexpected nice little touches I haven't seen elsewhere, too.  Like, you can configure a lot of options for a city, then at the click of a button you can export those options to your other cities:

(https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/1007025121533467856/2FFE250A02B307C87AE5C3BC2FE7AC918C28B983/)

(https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/1007025121533468092/739A9D83F03D0A99AF80D249B795B6C60826708F/)
Title: Re: Deity Empires on Sale at Steam
Post by: Jarhead0331 on May 14, 2019, 04:21:09 PM
How many different races and/or empires are there? Can you customize an empire?
Title: Re: Diety Empires on Sale at Steam
Post by: Tpek on May 14, 2019, 06:05:03 PM
Quote from: JasonPratt on May 13, 2019, 06:43:27 PM
Quote from: Philippe on May 13, 2019, 05:45:36 PM
I'm temperamentally allergic to diets.

But I'd be curious to know what Jason Pratt thinks of this one.

lol'd at the joke about the thread title!

I didn't even know I have this game! I know nothing about it.

In fact, Steam thinks I have this game (I can write a review) and also has no idea I have this game (it's missing from my game list)...

This might answer your question:
http://grogheads.com/forums/index.php?topic=23213.msg639254#msg639254
Title: Re: Deity Empires on Sale at Steam
Post by: JasonPratt on May 14, 2019, 06:44:02 PM
Ah! -- yep, I can buy it not play it, but I can review it because I did buy it once and refunded it.

Obviously I can't comment on the current state. And I must have blanked it out of my mind immediately!  :hide:
Title: Re: Deity Empires on Sale at Steam
Post by: FarAway Sooner on May 15, 2019, 01:58:59 AM
I'd be curious to know if the different races or gods play differently, or if they're mostly just an abstracted bunch of bonuses that could be on a spreadsheet?
Title: Re: Deity Empires on Sale at Steam
Post by: solops on May 15, 2019, 04:21:20 PM
Two days ago my wife and I were on the way home from running errands and we decided to drive through a burger joint and get supper. I got a double meat burger and drink (no fries) and she got a burger Jr meal....for EIGHTEEN frickin' dollars!!! If a couple of crummy chain burgers is going to cost me that much I can blasted sure shell out 15 bucks for this game which will almost certainly give me a lot more pleasure than that burger did even if I just play it halfway through one time.
Title: Re: Deity Empires on Sale at Steam
Post by: Tpek on May 15, 2019, 05:11:12 PM
Quote from: solops on May 15, 2019, 04:21:20 PM
Two days ago my wife and I were on the way home from running errands and we decided to drive through a burger joint and get supper. I got a double meat burger and drink (no fries) and she got a burger Jr meal....for EIGHTEEN frickin' dollars!!! If a couple of crummy chain burgers is going to cost me that much I can blasted sure shell out 15 bucks for this game which will almost certainly give me a lot more pleasure than that burger did even if I just play it halfway through one time.

LoL, when you live in a country with ultra-cheap food and forget that in other countries around the world $18 would only get you one crummy burger :P
(I'm not poking fun at you, just at the fact you live in a country where the food is so very cheap while I'm in a country where the food is a bit over-priced)
Title: Re: Deity Empires on Sale at Steam
Post by: Tanaka on May 15, 2019, 10:58:30 PM
I put this one off because of the graphics. Bought it on sale because I kept hearing and reading good things but could not get past the graphics and put it on the shelf. One day I started perusing the forums and steam reviews and downloaded recommended graphics mods and finally decided to give it a chance and started playing. And then I could not stop playing. I have been blown away by the DEEPNESS, customization options, and Dev support of this game.

It is everything I ever wanted in a Fantasy 4X. It is Master of Magic Deluxe 100 times better. It is finally the true successor. So many game options offered and so moddable. Grab some mods and it looks and plays even better. This game is a hidden gem few have discovered yet. And the Devs keep adding what the players ask for. Be sure you subscribe to the Beta updates. Amazing support! Give this one a chance you will be glad you did! Just keeps getting better!

I highly recommend watching DasTactics new videos:

https://www.twitch.tv/dastactic/videos?filter=all&sort=time

Some other great reviews:

Recommended
93.7 hrs on record
POSTED: MARCH 4
As a player of AOWIII, Fallen Enchantress LH, Eador, Heroes Might and Magic, Warlock, Dominions 4, and Master of Magic, I can say this is the best game out there. It has Civic (Civilization) research, a building tree per each city, land development such as farms, mines , windmills, trader post, it has resources like wheat, wine, gold, silver, magic gems. City screen has 9 pages of info. A beautiful hex map, randomly generated and being able to set many options. Need food and resources to develop cities and roads. Tactical battles are on a huge hex map where terrain is important and you have direct control over units. Units are themed to their faction. There are numerous sites of neutral enemies to clear out to be able to establish more cities or gain gold, food, resources, experience. Already simple to install mods have made units, monsters, and structures on strategic map awesome. There is a great 10 page spreadsheet of units and also pages on all spells. The game is a beautiful blend of economics, research in civics, magic, empire building and warfare. Developer is continuously updating game, unfortunately he doesn't publicize this on store page but look under discussions to see their hard work and response to ideas. An excellent game and I whole heartily recommend.

Recommended
47.3 hrs on record
POSTED: MARCH 30
After playing hundreds of games over the last 30 years or so I've formed the opinion that the cream of the indie games are the best out there. Deity Empires, Aggressors Rome, Xenonauts, Spiderweb games etc. are, in my opinion, some of the best games in their respective genres. Why?
1. They respect your time. No long cut scenes and movies. No fluff. No tacked on, unnecessary "me too" features. Just tight, interesting game play loops.
2. They have good AI, or at least credible AI. No erratic, static or aimless back and forth AI unit movement.
3. They have interesting emergent game play based on the interaction of the AI routines and the game mechanics. Not relying on scripted linear story arcs with little replayability.
4. They have an open world/sandbox nature that invites you to experiment and try out your own myriad strategies.

Deity Empires is an excellent game for anyone who appreciates these features. There are also mods available to improve the 2D functional graphics if that's an issue. I quite like the arcane UI.....it's fun to discover the wealth of detail and stat. tracking going on behind the scenes as you dig down through the pages! You don't need to know half of it to enjoy the game.

Finally, my experience with all these indie games:

1st 5 minutes: What is this crap? Look at these tragic graphics! What's this 2 frame animation? (or none in this case)
30 minutes later: I'll just clear this lair/finish this task/build this unit..then I'll quit this lame game.
2 hours later: What just happened? How does that work? Oh no, what is that approaching?
Indeterminate future time: .....silence.....the world has been entered....the graphics look real....lost touch with reality!

Recommended
139.7 hrs on record
POSTED: MARCH 4
This review is from the perspective of someone who has played a significant amount of the Age of Wonders series and the Fall from Heaven 2 mod for Civ4. I've also dabbled in Endless Legend, Fallen Enchantress, Dominions, and Master of Magic.

Right now this game feels like a cross of Age of Wonders and FFH2, and I love it. Below are some of my thoughts:

City Development (Tall vs Wide):

Cities start weak but can become incredible powerhouses given time and investment. For example, a starting city will produce approximately 100 gold per turn, which is enough to fund a low tier army or a level 1 improvement every 5 turns. My capitol in my latest game, however, produces 4000 (!) gold a turn, and is still not yet fully developed. I basically don't have to care about income because this city is basically El Dorado.

Now, it was not cheap to get there. Development costs gold and a ton of it, which means that I had to neglect my other cities to develop my super city. I find this an elegant answer to the "tall vs wide" question - wide is cheap but doesn't scale super well, but tall takes a ton of resources to get off the ground.

Income per City to Unit Cost Ratio and City Defenses:

This ratio is useful for measuring how defensible cities are in general. For example, if each city can easily afford 10 armies, it is highly defensible - it has one army for city defense and 9 armies to defend in the field or attack. However, if a city can only afford 1/4 of an army, it is not defensible - you would need 4 cities to afford one army, which can only defend those cities with proper positioning (i.e., by intercepting hostile armies before they get to the cities).

In Deity Empires, cities have a high City Income/Unit Cost ratio. At the start, cities can afford approximately 1 stack of low tier units for defense. For clarification, low tier units cost from 8-30 gold per turn, middle tier units cost 30-80, and high tier units cost 100-180. (There exist some super units that can cost up to 500 gold, but those are rare). Going back to my super city above that produces 4000 gold, that city can afford 10 standard armies, which is more than enough to cover my fronts.

Now, this is important because losing cities is harsh. Unless the city is taken over by a deity of your race (or maybe alignment?), the city is instantly destroyed. If the city is not destroyed, the population will tank. Either way, you do not want to lose cities. Thankfully, several buildings contribute to defense. You can create and upgrade walls significantly, you can add up to 6 defensive towers (which themselves can be upgraded a ton) for ranged support, and several buildings provide bonuses to city combat. As a result, a powerful city can be super daunting to take down, especially if you're playing against a high difficulty AI, who will happily build every defensive building it can in addition to stocking large cities with its best troops. I love it.

Combat:

Hex based and relatively standard. Everything works as it's supposed to, and it's fun to figure out how all the systems work. Low and middle tier units remain useful all-game, and can often take down high tier units with proper magic support. My only criticism is that there is no default zone of control mechanic - it exists only as an upgrade for certain units with large shields, and is represented by a really odd looking magic effect.. I would prefer that a zone of control exist by default for all melee units.

Magic: Tons of spells. Combat summons and crowd control spells are super powerful. Most summon spells and upgrades can be applied out of combat as well. Some summoned units can summon other units, which is as hilarious and awesome as it sounds. For example 8 Angels with some +mana items can produce 16 lesser angels each battle. That's an instant, although extremely costly, game winner.

Direct damage spells start off weak but scale with your deity's or unit's magic level. For example, mass fireball with spell level 10 doubles the damage and increases the AOE by one hex (from 1-2, which adds about 12 additional hexes of range). That spell can wipe half a low tier army in one shot. It is awesome.]

Unit Development and Leveling:

Leveling comes slowly but can be game changing. Furthermore, units can be "cored," which gives them a morale boost and allows them to revived indefinitely, so you can keep units you like all game. I currently have a level 10 wizard unit that can cast the mass fireball spell mentioned above several times at spell level 15. He is a goddamn hero and one man siege machine. He has died at least once and has returned to wreck face. He is Wizard-Jesus.

However, magic units benefit from leveling much more than other units. They get extra mana, spell levels, and access to extra spells, while your melee units can get a few neat traits and extra hit chance. All units get some additional evasion, magic resist, and armor chance, but it feels insignificant. So, the best leveling plan involves focusing on your magic units. Which is fine, as experience wouldn't make a group of pikemen into demigods, whereas mages getting ridiculous is standard fantasy fare, but I would like non-magic units to get additional health or something.

There is no level cap, but it is difficult to get past level 10 in a standard game.

Items: You can make your own items which mainly cost mana. They are produced instantly but have a cooldown before they can be assigned to units. The cooldown is dependent on the cost of the item. Items are not lost upon unit death - instead, they enter a 5 turn cooldown and be re-assigned. They are super expensive but very worth it. You can add as many effects and bonuses to items as you can afford.

Diplomacy:

Not a focus. There is no real diplomacy, and everyone will eventually declare war on you Age of Wonders style. AIs with the persuasive trait can form alliances, but I have yet to do so myself. Contact with the AI will continually degrade relations, even if you are of the same alignment. This is a wargame.

AI: Solid. I play on very hard, and the AI is capable of developing cities and fielding solid stacks of units. I have lost several border cities to unexpected and coordinated pushes. The AI is smart enough to hit your cities/armies with several stacks in one turn, so you have to be careful and make sure you have enough battle mana to survive the entire turn.

Updates: The game has been updated several times in the last few weeks. They've added several new spells, units, mechanics, and a whole new race. The dev team also communicates regularly and takes feedback well.

Other Notes: There is no music, and that is weird (NEVER MIND, THEY JUST ADDED MUSIC LOL). Find a soundtrack you like and play it over the game. Graphics range from good to terrible, and can be at times inconsistent. Most units are cool, but some are just goofy as hell (I would delete the dwarf balloon bomber in an instant if I could). You can increase the stack size to 18, but the AI doesn't handle it well without gold boosts. Also, it makes cities less defensible (see above) and weakens the relative power of magic in any given fight, so stick to 8. Research and upgrades range from game-changing (portals! item creation! fireball towers!) to small incremental upgrades (+2% food). I like both.

Suggestions:

a) I would pay for more DLC. Please make more DLC or expansions. I would pay a lot.
b) Make it more worthwhile to level up non-magic units. Maybe just decrease the exp required for each level?
c) Weight the mercenary chance to units we can't produce normally
d) Add more options to the item creation. The less balanced the better. I mainly just make + mana and spell level items. It would be dope if I could add health/mana regen, access to spells that i've researched, etc.

Conclusion: Wizard-Jesus just took out half an army in one turn. Strongly recommend.

Title: Re: Deity Empires on Sale at Steam
Post by: RedArgo on May 16, 2019, 07:17:46 AM
Convinced, now just got to find time to play it.
Title: Re: Deity Empires on Sale at Steam
Post by: Gusington on May 16, 2019, 07:41:47 AM
Wow Tanaka - that is some writeup. Got me interested.
Title: Re: Deity Empires on Sale at Steam
Post by: Rayfer on May 16, 2019, 07:52:00 AM
Quote from: Gusington on May 16, 2019, 07:41:47 AM
Wow Tanaka - that is some writeup. Got me interested.

+1  Time to reconsider.
Title: Re: Deity Empires on Sale at Steam
Post by: airboy on May 16, 2019, 08:22:03 AM
This is what I was talking about.  I read several of those Steam reviews and decided to buy.  The one from the guy with 139.7 hours of play was the one who tipped the balance. 

I've not started play yet.  I have purchased and downloaded.  Have a lot to do over the next Month or so.
Title: Re: Deity Empires on Sale at Steam
Post by: W8taminute on May 16, 2019, 09:00:22 AM
Great post Tanaka!  I learned some things about the game through your review that I wasn't aware of as I'm only 95 minutes of play time into the game. 

Deity Empires rocks and if TBS fantasy setting is your bag then this game is for you. 
Title: Re: Deity Empires on Sale at Steam
Post by: Rayfer on May 16, 2019, 09:03:34 AM
Quote from: W8taminute on May 16, 2019, 09:00:22 AM
Great post Tanaka!  I learned some things about the game through your review that I wasn't aware of as I'm only 95 minutes of play time into the game. 

Deity Empires rocks and if TBS fantasy setting is your bag then this game is for you.

I love/hate you guys.  I was committed to purchasing nothing until Field of Glory: Empires comes out.  And now this game pops up out of nowhere.  My resolve has serous cracks but hasn't yet crumbles.  :hide:
Title: Re: Deity Empires on Sale at Steam
Post by: Gusington on May 16, 2019, 09:10:32 AM
Just wait a few minutes.
Title: Re: Deity Empires on Sale at Steam
Post by: DennisS on May 16, 2019, 09:34:18 AM
Quote from: Jarhead0331 on May 14, 2019, 04:21:09 PM
How many different races and/or empires are there? Can you customize an empire?

There are three different types of deities...good, neutral, and evil. Good deities have humies, dwarfs, and elves. Evil deities have orcs, blood elves, and someone else. Not sure what three races the neutral deity has.

So..nine races. Like Master of Magic, you're given a pool of points to spend. Either to buy spellbooks at 2 points each, or a rather large number of skills, at 1 to 10 points.

For my first game, I used a "good" deity, with elves. Took two books of nature magic. with 21 points (out of 25) remaining, I took Nature Mastery for 5, Merchant for 5, Artificer (to created magic items!) for 5, Battle caster for 5, and level 1 of "Rich" for a point.

There is an infinite combination of skills. I should have taken administrator and road building, to go along with merchant. I like enormous empires.
Title: Re: Deity Empires on Sale at Steam
Post by: solops on May 16, 2019, 11:20:53 AM
Quote from: Rayfer on May 16, 2019, 09:03:34 AM
Quote from: W8taminute on May 16, 2019, 09:00:22 AM
Great post Tanaka!  I learned some things about the game through your review that I wasn't aware of as I'm only 95 minutes of play time into the game. 

Deity Empires rocks and if TBS fantasy setting is your bag then this game is for you.

I love/hate you guys.  I was committed to purchasing nothing until Field of Glory: Empires comes out.  And now this game pops up out of nowhere.  My resolve has serous cracks but hasn't yet crumbles.  :hide:

Sale....you are missing a sale.....
Title: Re: Deity Empires on Sale at Steam
Post by: Pete Dero on May 16, 2019, 12:22:56 PM
Quote from: solops on May 16, 2019, 11:20:53 AM
Quote from: Rayfer on May 16, 2019, 09:03:34 AM
Quote from: W8taminute on May 16, 2019, 09:00:22 AM
Great post Tanaka!  I learned some things about the game through your review that I wasn't aware of as I'm only 95 minutes of play time into the game. 

Deity Empires rocks and if TBS fantasy setting is your bag then this game is for you.

I love/hate you guys.  I was committed to purchasing nothing until Field of Glory: Empires comes out.  And now this game pops up out of nowhere.  My resolve has serous cracks but hasn't yet crumbles.  :hide:

Steam Summer Sale 2019 date leaked as per tradition, it will begin on June 25, 2019 at 10AM PST and will last for two weeks.


Sale....you are missing a sale.....
Title: Re: Deity Empires on Sale at Steam
Post by: Tanaka on May 16, 2019, 01:39:22 PM
Quote from: DennisS on May 16, 2019, 09:34:18 AM
Quote from: Jarhead0331 on May 14, 2019, 04:21:09 PM
How many different races and/or empires are there? Can you customize an empire?

There are three different types of deities...good, neutral, and evil. Good deities have humies, dwarfs, and elves. Evil deities have orcs, blood elves, and someone else. Not sure what three races the neutral deity has.

So..nine races. Like Master of Magic, you're given a pool of points to spend. Either to buy spellbooks at 2 points each, or a rather large number of skills, at 1 to 10 points.

For my first game, I used a "good" deity, with elves. Took two books of nature magic. with 21 points (out of 25) remaining, I took Nature Mastery for 5, Merchant for 5, Artificer (to created magic items!) for 5, Battle caster for 5, and level 1 of "Rich" for a point.

There is an infinite combination of skills. I should have taken administrator and road building, to go along with merchant. I like enormous empires.


Correct. The neutral races are the Northmen, Grey Gnomes, and Lizardmen. And they just added a Necromancer pick that is really cool. Also one of the reviews I posted above they wished for more music and for the units in game having a zone of control and that all has just been added as well. Pretty much ask for it or talk about it and the Devs respond. Never been so impressed!
Title: Re: Deity Empires on Sale at Steam
Post by: Tanaka on May 16, 2019, 01:44:47 PM
Thanks guys! I'm telling you I hardly ever recommend a game publicly like this but this one for $15 is a hidden gem steal. Get it now you will not regret it. Believe me once you start playing it is so deep you will have a million questions but check out the help file in game and the steam forums and you will find answers. Also here are some really good newb tips:

A few things I wish I'd known when I started playing this game
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.
-----------

These are the mods I recommend:
Title: Re: Deity Empires on Sale at Steam
Post by: Sparhawk on May 16, 2019, 07:30:11 PM
I did not have this game on my radar at all. After reading the steam reviews a couple of days ago there was no way I wouldn't get it. Deity Empires is right up my alley. I've got some momentum going on a Gothic 3 play through that I'm loath to pause for fear I may be gone to long and need to start over. My desire for depth and immersion in a game is driving me to download this though. I can't get enough of deep 4x  games.
Title: Re: Deity Empires on Sale at Steam
Post by: Skwerl on May 17, 2019, 09:27:15 AM
I downloaded this last night and played a couple of hours.  Don't be put off by the "rudimentary" graphics.   You will completely forget about them after the first 15 minutes of play.  So far, the gameplay has been great.  It does have quite a bit of a learning curve but not one that's overwhelming.  Very highly recommended!
Title: Re: Deity Empires on Sale at Steam
Post by: devoncop on May 17, 2019, 09:33:55 AM
Quote from: Skwerl on May 17, 2019, 09:27:15 AM
I downloaded this last night and played a couple of hours.  Don't be put off by the "rudimentary" graphics.   You will completely forget about them after the first 15 minutes of play.  So far, the gameplay has been great.  It does have quite a bit of a learning curve but not one that's overwhelming.  Very highly recommended!

There is a very smooth running "Improved Map Resolution Mod" and "Improved Unit Resolution  Mod" available on Steam Workshop in case you don't have them. Highly recommended.
Title: Re: Deity Empires on Sale at Steam
Post by: Rayfer on May 17, 2019, 10:07:29 AM
Quote from: devoncop on May 17, 2019, 09:33:55 AM
Quote from: Skwerl on May 17, 2019, 09:27:15 AM
I downloaded this last night and played a couple of hours.  Don't be put off by the "rudimentary" graphics.   You will completely forget about them after the first 15 minutes of play.  So far, the gameplay has been great.  It does have quite a bit of a learning curve but not one that's overwhelming.  Very highly recommended!

There is a very smooth running "Improved Map Resolution Mod" and "Improved Unit Resolution  Mod" available on Steam Workshop in case you don't have them. Highly recommended.

Haven't read the entire thread so sorry if already asked....does it have a tutorial covering the basics?
Title: Re: Deity Empires on Sale at Steam
Post by: Huw the Poo on May 17, 2019, 02:11:25 PM
Anyone put off by the basic graphics needs to look no further than Dominions.  Graphics are nice, but they ain't everything.
Title: Re: Deity Empires on Sale at Steam
Post by: Rayfer on May 17, 2019, 02:14:24 PM
Couldn't resist...picked it while still on sale on Steam.  It is addictive with that 'just one more turn' feel to it.  Only an hour and a half into my first campaign.  It is a lot like the old Masters of Magic game. I'm still peeling away the layers of depth so I can't make any final conclusions.  But it sure is fun to play.
Title: Re: Deity Empires on Sale at Steam
Post by: Steelgrave on May 17, 2019, 02:23:34 PM
You guys wore me down with your logic, so I bought it and added the recommended mods. Haven't fired it up yet but it's #1 on my weekend playlist. A special "Thumbs up" to Tanaka and DennisS for your insights and recommendations  O0 O0
Title: Re: Deity Empires on Sale at Steam
Post by: Gusington on May 17, 2019, 02:46:46 PM
Jeez you people are dropping like flies. I will rely on my horrible memory to forget about buying this later.
Title: Re: Deity Empires on Sale at Steam
Post by: Steelgrave on May 17, 2019, 04:28:35 PM
You already knew I was easy, Gus.
Title: Re: Deity Empires on Sale at Steam
Post by: bobarossa on May 17, 2019, 04:44:32 PM
This game is what I backed Worlds of Magic to get and got nothing in return. Sale ends Monday.  I'm hoping I get the Steam eGift card by then (from writing a positive review of a Seasonic power supply I purchased).  Otherwise, I'll have to use real money on it.
Title: Re: Deity Empires on Sale at Steam
Post by: solops on May 17, 2019, 05:30:30 PM
Quote from: bobarossa on May 17, 2019, 04:44:32 PM
This game is what I backed Worlds of Magic to get and got nothing in return.
+1
Title: Re: Deity Empires on Sale at Steam
Post by: Gusington on May 17, 2019, 08:15:56 PM
Damn I did forget all about this until returning to the thread...
Title: Re: Deity Empires on Sale at Steam
Post by: GroggyGrognard on May 17, 2019, 09:21:12 PM
Over the past several months I have kept my eye on this game due to the positive feedback it has received. I have come close to buying it a couple of times, but because of this thread I have  finally buckled and bought the game. Looking forward to trying it out.


Quote from: devoncop on May 17, 2019, 09:33:55 AM
There is a very smooth running "Improved Map Resolution Mod" and "Improved Unit Resolution  Mod" available on Steam Workshop in case you don't have them. Highly recommended.

Thanks for the mod recommendations. I am definitely going to try these out.




Groggy
Title: Re: Deity Empires on Sale at Steam
Post by: devoncop on May 18, 2019, 01:33:17 AM
Quote from: GroggyGrognard on May 17, 2019, 09:21:12 PM
Over the past several months I have kept my eye on this game due to the positive feedback it has received. I have come close to buying it a couple of times, but because of this thread I have  finally buckled and bought the game. Looking forward to trying it out.


Quote from: devoncop on May 17, 2019, 09:33:55 AM
There is a very smooth running "Improved Map Resolution Mod" and "Improved Unit Resolution  Mod" available on Steam Workshop in case you don't have them. Highly recommended.

Thanks for the mod recommendations. I am definitely going to try these out.




Groggy


No problem Groggy. Let us know what you think !
Title: Re: Deity Empires on Sale at Steam
Post by: DennisS on May 18, 2019, 04:21:29 PM
Quote from: Rayfer on May 17, 2019, 02:14:24 PM
Couldn't resist...picked it while still on sale on Steam.  It is addictive with that 'just one more turn' feel to it.  Only an hour and a half into my first campaign.  It is a lot like the old Masters of Magic game. I'm still peeling away the layers of depth so I can't make any final conclusions.  But it sure is fun to play.

It IS similar to MoM..in a good way!

General play tips:

Development of a cities resources and productions is almost exponential, rather than linear. This is HUGE.

I have a sea hex with no special resource. I get 200 fish per turn. Slap on a dock? add 300. Slap on a shipyard? add 300. Add a fishing vessel? Add 500. Add in a fish resource square? add 1600. Add in THREE MORE CITIZENS? Total of 8000+ food..from one square!

This works the same for resources. Cities start with ten. If you have a clam resource, that's six by itself...and four citizens on that square give you 10 + 24 for the clams. That's a lot of clams!

When you army attacks a lair or creature location, they get from 1 to a lot of resources as loot. Rinse, repeat. You might be out for many battles. Each of your army figures can hold 100 resources. Say your three man army has filled up, with 300 resources. Look at all your cities, and review which of them has more production capacity than resource generation capacity.

For example... 10 resources, 30 production. If you give them an additional 300 resources, they can use an extra 20 per turn, for the 15 turns until the windfall of resources is used up. If you use those twenty turns to increase your resource production, even better.

I tend to have one production center on each "end" of my civilization..the one place I dump my resource loot to. These locations are where I have all of the major production facilities...and the ones that can use the extra resources in a huge burst of building.

There are some trade cities that can generate 4,000 gold per turn...just a massive amount.

One thing that I like, a LOT...is that settler generation is fixed. For me, it is 125 settler generation points per turn, and 15,000 needed to crank out a new settler. This is done, EVEN IF YOU ARE BUILDING SOMETHING ELSE!!!! Your civ "pulses" every 120 turns. I currently have eight cities. In 120 turns, I will have 16. In 120 turns after that, I will have 32. The limit I have on the number of cities in my empire is ...wait for it... TEN THOUSAND.

The parameters I set for the number of hexes, for this game, is 400 x 400. This is one hundred and sixty thousand hexes. Read that again. I don't know what the theoretical maximum is...but I learned something. There is a base number of a new lair to form, and a base number for each lair to send out a war party. After 400 turns, I am waiting up to a minute for these creatures to take their turn. I have explored perhaps a 50 x 40 area, with eight cities. This is 4,000 hexes, or 2.5% of the map. I cannot imagine how long it is going to take this game to play, and how long it will take to tame the wild. As I push back the fog of war, there are lairs every 2 or 3 squares. They get stronger over time, as well. Their initial strength is also a parameter you can set, as is their frequency.

I will start again, with the dead lowest settings for lair frequency, strength, and expansion. It's going to be hard enough as it is.

Strong recommendation from me. I believe that I have played almost every 4x game ever made..and this one really works for me. There are layers of depth that I am continuing to discover.

Each city can have a "fat cross" of 2 hexes in each direction, up to 6! Can you imagine how vast that city can become, with a six hex radius? This means no city can be founded unless it is 13 hexes away..and NO city can be founded if there is a lair within it's initial build radius.
Title: Re: Deity Empires on Sale at Steam
Post by: Rayfer on May 18, 2019, 05:35:54 PM
Thanks DS....I'm 3 hours into a game and much of what you posted about production and cities was new to me.  I'm surviving but not thriving.  May start a new campaign....not sure.
Title: Re: Deity Empires on Sale at Steam
Post by: Tanaka on May 18, 2019, 06:30:07 PM
Quote from: DennisS on May 18, 2019, 04:21:29 PM
Quote from: Rayfer on May 17, 2019, 02:14:24 PM
Couldn't resist...picked it while still on sale on Steam.  It is addictive with that 'just one more turn' feel to it.  Only an hour and a half into my first campaign.  It is a lot like the old Masters of Magic game. I'm still peeling away the layers of depth so I can't make any final conclusions.  But it sure is fun to play.

It IS similar to MoM..in a good way!

General play tips:

Development of a cities resources and productions is almost exponential, rather than linear. This is HUGE.

I have a sea hex with no special resource. I get 200 fish per turn. Slap on a dock? add 300. Slap on a shipyard? add 300. Add a fishing vessel? Add 500. Add in a fish resource square? add 1600. Add in THREE MORE CITIZENS? Total of 8000+ food..from one square!

This works the same for resources. Cities start with ten. If you have a clam resource, that's six by itself...and four citizens on that square give you 10 + 24 for the clams. That's a lot of clams!

When you army attacks a lair or creature location, they get from 1 to a lot of resources as loot. Rinse, repeat. You might be out for many battles. Each of your army figures can hold 100 resources. Say your three man army has filled up, with 300 resources. Look at all your cities, and review which of them has more production capacity than resource generation capacity.

For example... 10 resources, 30 production. If you give them an additional 300 resources, they can use an extra 20 per turn, for the 15 turns until the windfall of resources is used up. If you use those twenty turns to increase your resource production, even better.

I tend to have one production center on each "end" of my civilization..the one place I dump my resource loot to. These locations are where I have all of the major production facilities...and the ones that can use the extra resources in a huge burst of building.

There are some trade cities that can generate 4,000 gold per turn...just a massive amount.

One thing that I like, a LOT...is that settler generation is fixed. For me, it is 125 settler generation points per turn, and 15,000 needed to crank out a new settler. This is done, EVEN IF YOU ARE BUILDING SOMETHING ELSE!!!! Your civ "pulses" every 120 turns. I currently have eight cities. In 120 turns, I will have 16. In 120 turns after that, I will have 32. The limit I have on the number of cities in my empire is ...wait for it... TEN THOUSAND.

The parameters I set for the number of hexes, for this game, is 400 x 400. This is one hundred and sixty thousand hexes. Read that again. I don't know what the theoretical maximum is...but I learned something. There is a base number of a new lair to form, and a base number for each lair to send out a war party. After 400 turns, I am waiting up to a minute for these creatures to take their turn. I have explored perhaps a 50 x 40 area, with eight cities. This is 4,000 hexes, or 2.5% of the map. I cannot imagine how long it is going to take this game to play, and how long it will take to tame the wild. As I push back the fog of war, there are lairs every 2 or 3 squares. They get stronger over time, as well. Their initial strength is also a parameter you can set, as is their frequency.

I will start again, with the dead lowest settings for lair frequency, strength, and expansion. It's going to be hard enough as it is.

Strong recommendation from me. I believe that I have played almost every 4x game ever made..and this one really works for me. There are layers of depth that I am continuing to discover.

Each city can have a "fat cross" of 2 hexes in each direction, up to 6! Can you imagine how vast that city can become, with a six hex radius? This means no city can be founded unless it is 13 hexes away..and NO city can be founded if there is a lair within it's initial build radius.

Actually I am playing with a city radius of 8 on a 300x300 map so 8 is the maximum. ;-)

I think the maximum map size is 750x750 and it would take years lol. I tried 500 and it was way too much. 300 seems to be the biggest I would want to play but that is even too big for a lot of folks. 100 max is standard. And yeah I had to adjust the lairs myself according to the map size. Never played a game more customizable or with more options. Amazing! Any play style is possible.
Title: Re: Deity Empires on Sale at Steam
Post by: Tanaka on May 18, 2019, 11:25:45 PM
Great update on the recent game changes from Das:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNj419IyqNs
Title: Re: Deity Empires on Sale at Steam
Post by: DennisS on May 19, 2019, 11:17:22 AM
Strongly encourage you all to tone done the percent frequency of lairs, and their initial strength. For a massive map, they'll just continue to grow, and grow, and grow.

With six enemy to a stack, and six for me, there were some stacks that were literally impossible for me to win. Six BIG dragons.

So, with that in mind, I reset the parameters for my most recent game. Max six for AI, max in a stack for me? 10. Heh heh heh. Makes it a big fairer.

ALSO..and this is significant, the very first civic upgrade you MUST research is the one that enables you to upgrade your farms...followed by the road. You can have one square generate 4,000 food, very early in the game.

ALSO..if you can find a banana, get on it. The amount of food for a banana square is stupid high...FAR higher than a wheat symbol, or even a fish.
Title: Re: Deity Empires on Sale at Steam
Post by: Rayfer on May 19, 2019, 11:25:35 AM
DS....great advise, keep them coming!   :notworthy:
Title: Re: Deity Empires on Sale at Steam
Post by: FarAway Sooner on May 19, 2019, 02:37:56 PM
Guys, I'm not sure, but I think Dennis just told us to jump on his banana?

;D

Awesome stuff.  I've been deep in a couple campaigns of Eador: Lost Horizons for the last few months, but I'm on the verge of losing to that damn Barbarian Lord, trying to defend my home shard, which means GAME OVER, dude.  I might just switch over to Deity Empires at some point soon.

I kinda like a campaign game that has to be played in Iron Man mode, where you get a few restarts sometimes (at a significant cost), but there are some occasions where your back is to the wall and all you can do is play the hand your dealt!  It's a more fatalistic world view, but as long as the play experience is fun, I'm good with that in my gaming...

Dennis, I appreciate the breakdown of Alignments and Races.  That does sound like it'd add a lot to replay.  A few follow-up questions, as I'm really intrigued by everything I'm hearing here:

This one is looking like it might be on the Father's Day request list!
Title: Re: Deity Empires on Sale at Steam
Post by: CJReich46 on May 19, 2019, 04:31:33 PM
Figured what the hell, and it was payday...  :buck2:

If anything there is going to need to be a tutorial or a manual at the least.  I thought Dominions was a tough dive.

Meanwhile I am digging the dwarf units.  Muskets, Halberds (with grappling hooks) Balloons (with pikes and bombs) and Grenade tossing.

Took me a while to understand the research on spells.  First game I was wondering why I had no research. Easy. NO spell books!

I haven't finished a game but I restart and learn and try again. But the AI isn't passive. Watch your back for those raids. I had a game last night where two dragons looted my town.

Soundtrack isn't bad either. There's a lot to like, and it has potential too.

Title: Re: Deity Empires on Sale at Steam
Post by: Tanaka on May 19, 2019, 07:10:11 PM
Quote from: DennisS on May 19, 2019, 11:17:22 AM
Strongly encourage you all to tone done the percent frequency of lairs, and their initial strength. For a massive map, they'll just continue to grow, and grow, and grow.

With six enemy to a stack, and six for me, there were some stacks that were literally impossible for me to win. Six BIG dragons.

So, with that in mind, I reset the parameters for my most recent game. Max six for AI, max in a stack for me? 10. Heh heh heh. Makes it a big fairer.

ALSO..and this is significant, the very first civic upgrade you MUST research is the one that enables you to upgrade your farms...followed by the road. You can have one square generate 4,000 food, very early in the game.

ALSO..if you can find a banana, get on it. The amount of food for a banana square is stupid high...FAR higher than a wheat symbol, or even a fish.

Exactly the bigger the map the more you need to tone down and spread out lairs. Also the bigger the map the harder your AI opponents will be with more room to expand. I play on normal on a 300X300 map and the other AI's are much stronger than me.
Title: Re: Deity Empires on Sale at Steam
Post by: DennisS on May 20, 2019, 03:54:13 PM
Quote from: FarAway Sooner on May 19, 2019, 02:37:56 PM

  • Do the different races have totally different units, one unique unit (e.g., a Gnome Panzer?), or just the same units but with different bonuses (similar to the original MoM)?

Yes. The elves have archers, the Orcs have Blood Orc Warriors, etc. Each unit has its own abilities, and it the case of casters, their own individual spells.

  • How much game customization is offered in the set-up?  (From earlier posts, it sounds like you can adjust neutral monsters and lairs up or down, which is awesome.  For example, could I play a race of Northmen in a world otherwise surrounded by Evil gods and races, or does it all get randomized.  I see lots of map customization options, but that's the only screen I've seen.

You have the ability to set the number of AI players, as well as their alignment, as well as their type, or to leave them all random. You can play as "Good" Dwarves, and play against 15 Orc tribes if you wish.

  • Are there legitimately different ways to play, or are there a handful of units who are overpowered, so it's about a race to get to them, or have the Devs been pretty good about nerfing and balancing?  (e.g., the post about giving an Immortality Core to a high-level wizard and just Fireball spamming:  Sounds like fun the first time, but I've already done the overpowered combo in MoM (e.g., Adamantium-enhanced Hammerhands if you're a Dwarf, Paladin-spam backed by a pair of Wizards if you're a High Man, etc.)

I have only played about 40 hours. Occasionally, there are "Hero" units available, which are quite strong. But..mitigated by that there is just one unit in the stack, for hit points. You may see a hero with 50 hit points..with another unit having six figures with eight damage points each. Hero units can be much more squishy.

  • Is there a "Summon Vorpal Bunny" spell available?
This one is looking like it might be on the Father's Day request list!

I strongly recommend this game...the more I play, the more depth I discover. The cities I have are developing exponentially, not linearly...and I have cities with over 100,000 citizens. I have as many as four citizens on a square, doing the development actions. Instead of one citizen for 400 food...I have FOUR citizens, with a road, with TEN LEVELS of development. Each level doesn't increase just the base level of food, but it also adds a PERCENTAGE increase. This is how you go from 400 to 16,000 food for ONE SQUARE. Just amazing, but it works. Cities of 100,000 don't increase 100 peeps a turn, we're talking close to a thousand peeps per turn.

I am getting ready to "pulse" out another eight cities. I have 43% of all the population in the world. When it gets to 60%, I will win. I only had six total empires for my 300 x 300 hex map. Next game, I will start with 16 civs. I am on turn 400 or so, and will probably win around turn 1000.
Title: Re: Deity Empires on Sale at Steam
Post by: W8taminute on May 23, 2019, 11:54:47 AM
I'll just add to the comments now that I have over 10 hours of gameplay into Deity Empires.  It's a wonderfully addictive game and very rewarding when you get a couple of cities to be growth and production powerhouses. 

From what little I've played I can honestly say that many of the features and gameplay options are not there for filler or fluff.  An astute player can leverage all of these mechanics to dominate and it feels so good.
Title: Re: Deity Empires on Sale at Steam
Post by: DennisS on May 23, 2019, 04:28:14 PM
Quote from: W8taminute on May 23, 2019, 11:54:47 AM
I'll just add to the comments now that I have over 10 hours of gameplay into Deity Empires.  It's a wonderfully addictive game and very rewarding when you get a couple of cities to be growth and production powerhouses. 

From what little I've played I can honestly say that many of the features and gameplay options are not there for filler or fluff.  An astute player can leverage all of these mechanics to dominate and it feels so good.

There are a very large number of levers to move in this game. I tend to play the economic card, and just win by pure population pressure. In this game, you can toggle the parameter that allows you to win if  you have 60% of the population. The AI builds reasonably quickly, but I am a BEAST at creating the optimum city. Screw production, get the people, and production will take care of itself.
Title: Re: Deity Empires on Sale at Steam
Post by: bobarossa on May 25, 2019, 10:06:17 AM
Picked this up on the last day of sale.  Started playing a couple days ago.  Very nice game.  Seems way more fleshed out than the old Master of Magic (although my memory has faded on that one).  Picked up a hero with Trainer ability through the mercenary system.  Unfortunately he can only train units that are lower in experience than him and he's at 0.  Should I march him out front in each battle to build up experience quickly?  I'm not even too sure I understand the experience system anyway.  I see XP gain listed at end of battle.  Is that the total gain of all units? 

Also, don't trust the power estimate for Medusa lairs.  You will lose units even when you're way more powerful. 
Title: Re: Deity Empires on Sale at Steam
Post by: solops on May 25, 2019, 11:30:23 AM
I am having trouble with the UI. How do you research magic? I am generating mana and research pts but the magic tree is empty. Also, the build Queue is weird. Buildings on one side and units on the other with no explanation about which (or both?) Is being built. And my cities seem to always build settlers even with the autobuild settlers turned off and the city set to manual production.
Title: Re: Deity Empires on Sale at Steam
Post by: bobarossa on May 25, 2019, 01:31:07 PM
I think you have to conjure a spellbook before you can research spells.  I only got one spell in my first level Cold spellbook (COLD).  Got two more spells in the next one.  I had expected a lot more spells per book based on other fantasy games I've played.  You have to select a magic category in setup (using those 26 points) to have access to conjuring spellbooks in that field. 

And to answer my own question.  I did a test and the number of XP's listed in the battle summary is the number of XP points added to each unit.  Units that kill a unit get additional points.  Killing conjured garrison units don't count (I think based on one battle).
Title: Re: Deity Empires on Sale at Steam
Post by: W8taminute on May 25, 2019, 03:03:14 PM
In the upper left side of the screen is a dropdown called 'Cast Magic' or something like that.  Click on it and you will be presented with a list of spells you can cast.  Among them should be something like conjure spellbook. 
Title: Re: Deity Empires on Sale at Steam
Post by: bobarossa on May 26, 2019, 10:38:21 AM
Quote from: solops on May 25, 2019, 11:30:23 AM
I am having trouble with the UI. How do you research magic? I am generating mana and research pts but the magic tree is empty. Also, the build Queue is weird. Buildings on one side and units on the other with no explanation about which (or both?) Is being built. And my cities seem to always build settlers even with the autobuild settlers turned off and the city set to manual production.
Other than the constant settler construction, there should only be one thing being constructed at once.  I know the buildings are ordered with the top one being worked on and the ones below being queued for later construction.  I think units are always constructed first if you select one.  Not sure if you can queue them because a unit will stay in continuous production until you stop it.  There is a text file in the steam folder for the game that claims it is autogenerated from the ingame manual.  It contains a lot of use stuff (much of which is in there several times) in a searchable form. 

Not sure what's going on with the settlers since I haven't tried turning them off.  I don't think they use any resources or production points.  If you click on the Cities button at the top and scroll through the pages there is a list of your cities and settler construction that shows you how fast they are being built in autobuild mode. 
Title: Re: Deity Empires on Sale at Steam
Post by: JasonPratt on May 26, 2019, 01:02:28 PM
This might have a bearing on this game -- I don't know yet -- but I finally (after however many years since Master of Magic) figured out that I'm better off never scheduling more than one thing for construction or training. There are at least two connected reasons why.

1.) No game will start construction until your resources are available to begin. But if you tell the computer you're planning to start a Wizard's Tower (for example), then that city will be focused on preparing to do that -- INSTEAD OF focusing on generating extra gold or mana or some other resource (e.g. research). The normal incomes will still be going on, but there's typically a set of extra orders for generating more of some resource (e.g. population) than normal rates. So unless I'm going to start working on another project instantly, I should order my city to be focusing on extra resource production of some kind (usually cash).

2.) Once a project has been completed, the next project moves to the front of the line of course -- where it sits there waiting for enough resources to start. Not only does this distract the city from focusing on extra resource generation meanwhile (as in problem #1), but it is practically impossible to predict ahead of time whether I'll really have enough resources to start every new project advancing to the start of the line on any given turn. Usually some project(s) will kick off ahead of the others. But the situation may have changed so that I need some specific project(s) to start now, if possible, and not others!

If I just ignore the option to schedule projects in advance, I not only gain maximum extra resources in any situation, but I also have maximum flexibility to focus on starting projects at the most efficient times as circumstances vary. For example, oh a hero has shown up wanting to be hired, and now I've not only got extra cash on hand that I wouldn't have had before, but I can flexibly decide which project(s) I can delay starting in order to hire the hero asap -- or, alternately, I can decide whether I really need to start all those projects even if the hero may ride away before I can gather up enough resources again to hire.
Title: Re: Deity Empires on Sale at Steam
Post by: bobarossa on May 26, 2019, 05:00:32 PM
Anyone know how to get a prospector?  I guess you build them but they're not an option at any of my cities.  Is there a building I need?  Kind of hard to search for one.  I really want to start mining Mithril, etc so I can craft items.

edit:  Found it!  Have to build Builders Hall, Mason Guild, Miner Guild and then Prospector Guild.  There is also a civic research path to increase prospecting success rate.

Jason, I'm not sure I get your comments about saving up to build something.  Setting a city to create trade goods uses up the resources you are collecting each turn from that cities area so nothing gets put in storage.  You can set up a city to collect resources so that it will have plenty when you want to start building things.  I haven't checked to see the breakeven point on that as there is an initial penalty to resource production when you set it to collect.  You can also set a city to transfer its resources to other cities but I don't know how it determines which city gets it or how to select the target city. 

I have tried running a supply wagon around with my army to collect food and resources from battles and then send it off to dump in a city that can use them (has higher production value than resource income).
Title: Re: Deity Empires on Sale at Steam
Post by: JasonPratt on May 26, 2019, 06:15:35 PM
No, I was just curious whether Deity Empires would function the same as prior Civ-type fantasy games along that line; so I described them for the comparison.

(I'm running an mp game in AoW3 and a pseudo-mp in AoW:SM right now, which is when I finally learned it's significantly more efficient not to queue up production schedules.)
Title: Re: Deity Empires on Sale at Steam
Post by: solops on May 27, 2019, 10:32:01 AM
Attached is a save from my throw-away Deity Empires game. When I get a new game I do a run-through to learn the mechanics, so the game itself is pretty ugly. Anyway, can someone tell me why I cannot initiate Magic Research and what has to happen for me to do so? You'll have to rename the file by eliminating the"dot-txt" extension.
Title: Re: Deity Empires on Sale at Steam
Post by: bobarossa on May 27, 2019, 02:02:48 PM
I get an error on loading saying it has a bad save game version.  Which shouldn't be possible on Steam.  Also your file is 4x the size of my save files.  Did you use a really large map?

edit: in your game, click on the Deities button on top right of map screen and tell me how many spellbooks you have in what magic categories (I have 4 spellbooks each in Cold and Nature magic).
edit2:  I checked my earliest games to refresh my memory and I had to conjure (cast) my first spellbook in each category.  That gave me the chance to research the same spellbook.  After researching both of my spellbook categories, the conjure (cast) option came back up again.  After conjuring them a second time I finally had level 1 spells to research.  And there was only 1 spell in the level one spellbook.  Was very unintuitive. 
Title: Re: Deity Empires on Sale at Steam
Post by: Tuna on May 27, 2019, 02:11:06 PM
Quote from: solops on May 27, 2019, 10:32:01 AM
Attached is a save from my throw-away Deity Empires game. When I get a new game I do a run-through to learn the mechanics, so the game itself is pretty ugly. Anyway, can someone tell me why I cannot initiate Magic Research and what has to happen for me to do so? You'll have to rename the file by eliminating the"dot-txt" extension.

I didn't load it.. but when your Deity i on the board, you can't research Magic right?
Title: Re: Deity Empires on Sale at Steam
Post by: bobarossa on May 27, 2019, 02:21:04 PM
I thought you couldn't cast spells.  I assumed that meant battle spells but it might mean both types.  My diety is 'dead' (not on board). 

edit: reread the part of the help file on spellbooks.  You can only cast a spell of level X if you have X+1 spellbooks.  So you get no spells with the first spellbook.  You have to research/conjure 2 spellbooks in a magic category before you have access to research your first spell.
Title: Re: Deity Empires on Sale at Steam
Post by: FarAway Sooner on May 27, 2019, 04:31:59 PM
So you can add spellbooks as the game goes on?  You don't have to just get really lucky searching an Abandoned Wizard's Tower?

(And why do wizards always live in towers, anyways?  Never a manse, a pyramid, or even a keep?)
Title: Re: Deity Empires on Sale at Steam
Post by: bobarossa on May 27, 2019, 05:42:28 PM
You can't add new categories of magic unless you find one (I haven't yet) but you can increase the number of spellbooks of one you already own (and gain spells and strength) through that whole conjure/research thing.
Title: Re: Deity Empires on Sale at Steam
Post by: solops on June 07, 2019, 05:46:41 PM
This game got its hooks into me. I have played nothing else for about two weeks, other than co-op Rome2 with my son. I tried the hi-res graphics but found that I like the stock graphics better.
Title: Re: Deity Empires on Sale at Steam
Post by: W8taminute on June 08, 2019, 01:41:50 PM
Quote from: solops on June 07, 2019, 05:46:41 PM
This game got its hooks into me. I have played nothing else for about two weeks, other than co-op Rome2 with my son. I tried the hi-res graphics but found that I like the stock graphics better.

Yeah those high res graphics contrast badly with the rest of the game to the point where it's difficult to tell what those units are supposed to be.  I kept the high res terrain graphics though and reverted to the stock unit graphics.
Title: Re: Deity Empires on Sale at Steam
Post by: bobarossa on June 28, 2019, 05:13:56 PM
Well I've played about 3 games of this now and although I really like the game design, the AI seems brain dead.  I approached two enemy ciities with moderate size armies in them.  Instead of combining them against me  (combined they were about my strength), they sat there and let me destroy each one in turn.  Then they sent two very weak armies through a portal and let me destroy them too.  Anyone else notice this?

Not sure I want to try to even it out by giving the AI big bonuses since crushing tons of weak armies does not seem fun to me.  I've also seen almost no advanced units in the AI armies.
Title: Re: Deity Empires on Sale at Steam
Post by: Tuna on June 28, 2019, 08:51:41 PM
There doesn't seem to be any diplomacy, peace is not an option.
Title: Re: Deity Empires on Sale at Steam
Post by: bobarossa on June 28, 2019, 09:12:05 PM
Yea, I haven't been able to figure out if I can ally with another faction of the same alignment.
Title: Re: Deity Empires on Sale at Steam
Post by: FarAway Sooner on July 09, 2019, 12:40:24 PM
Honestly, I'd rather see a bare-bones Diplomacy system like currently exists, rather than a more complicated one that has all the limitations of virtually every other Diplomacy system I have yet to encounter.  It's not great, but for an indie developer building a niche game, I'd rather see them work on trying to build out other parts of the game for now (e.g., enriching the "flavor" of different schools of magic, or providing more transparency in the UI).

I've been playing it for two weeks now, and I've got to say, I am REALLY impressed.  What seems like a fairly simple game with a tough UI is turning out to be a delightfully nuanced game with layer after layer of complexity.

This gem is still in the process of being polished up, but the devs are continuing to release updates on a regular basis (e.g., every few weeks), and those updates consist of new content as well as bug fixes and balance tweaks.
This little gem is still being polished up, but for anybody who's a fan of the 4x genre, supporting this game should be a no-brainer.

With a more polished UI and a few tweaks to the AI, this one could be an all-time classic.  As is, it's just a dang fine game for $25!!
Title: Re: Deity Empires on Sale at Steam
Post by: solops on February 19, 2020, 10:08:00 PM
New beta patch is out v1.1.56

https://steamcommunity.com/app/889080/discussions/0/1743393754706047844/
Title: Re: Deity Empires on Sale at Steam
Post by: solops on February 21, 2020, 08:17:49 PM
And now 1.1.57 is out.
Title: Re: Deity Empires on Sale at Steam
Post by: Tanaka on February 22, 2020, 12:05:42 AM
Love this game some great new updates after the Devs had some issues to deal with. I've never seen such responsive devs to player input than I have with this gem. Just keeps getting better!
Title: Re: Deity Empires on Sale at Steam
Post by: FarAway Sooner on February 23, 2020, 02:02:17 AM
It is a great, deep, deep game.

I'd love it if they switched over to working on some DLC (maybe featuring a significantly expanded spell selection, with more variation in the way different magic schools play, and certain spells that combine multiple schools of magic).  I don't care so much whether it's a major DLC or a minor DLC.  I love the free add-ons.  I just want them making enough money that they can continue to plow efforts into this.
Title: Re: Deity Empires on Sale at Steam
Post by: bobarossa on February 23, 2020, 07:02:33 PM
When I played it shortly after it came out, the tactical AI was brain dead.  This ruined it for me as battles weren't fun when they could have been.  I would start each battle by moving my forces towards which side edge had the closest enemey.  The AI would send it's units against me as fast as possible resulting in their destruction a few at a time.  When I attacked a city with superior numbers, the AI would send their weak units out to die when they should have pulled them back to their towers and waited for me to advance.  Then they could have met me after my troops had been whittled down by arrow fire from the towers. 

Did any of the patches change this?