Eador: Masters of the Broken World (Play Through)

[Nefaro]

Yeah.  I had that same sense.  Try using the "Raise Undead" spell.  Makes your PEW PEW spells a lot more effective when the enemy is chewing on Zombies and Skeletons raised from among their own fallen ranks.

The only high-level units that will have anywhere near a full host of units are Commanders.  It's actually game-balanced that way.  The trial-and-error when you figure out what provinces you can conquer when is a bit painful, but doable. 

A Lvl 11 Mage with Raise Undead ought to be able to win the final fight, but not without Raise Undead and only if you have decent Level 1 Troops of some sort (better than Slingers and Peasants, anyways).  Without the use of that one spell, Mages are the most underpowered of any characters (at least so long as they're limited to Tier 1 spells).

Exploring too much with non-Ranger heroes is a drag.  Rangers, on the other hand, get all sorts of exploration bonuses, which make it much easier to pick things out.  Lastly, exploring Plains goes faster than exploring Hills or Forests, which goes faster than exploring Swamps.  All of which is, again, built into the play-balancing.

I found the tutorial a bit frustrating as well, but once you get past the first one, you start to get a much better appreciation for the depth of game play and trade-offs you have to manage.  The biggest thing going against Genesis is the lack of documentation to help you start to unwrap these different playing styles on their own.

Oh.. I grabbed the Raise Undead spells when I had the chance, as I aimed for Necromancer from the start.  IIRC, I have two or three of those available per fight, along with a good deal of direct damage spells to actually create corpses to raise (raze?).  The problem I run into is that even the second tier of human fodder dies in one or two hits to all but the lowest random troops.  This is the the problem I have with tackling the end boss, as my troops get murderized faster than I can raise skeletons, which aren't any better at being speed bumps than the best available.  Staying power is .. lacking.  And now the XP grind.

[FarAway Sooner]

Ah.  Do you have any Swordsmen or (better yet for the Wizard) Pikemen?  They go a ways towards soaking up the missile firepower.  The trick is killing enough bad guys, and raising enough Zombies in their rear ranks, to decimate the Archers and Slingers while the other guys dribble forward piecemeal.

All of which does require a bit of an XP grind, to be sure...

[Nefaro]

Ah.  Do you have any Swordsmen or (better yet for the Wizard) Pikemen?  They go a ways towards soaking up the missile firepower.  The trick is killing enough bad guys, and raising enough Zombies in their rear ranks, to decimate the Archers and Slingers while the other guys dribble forward piecemeal.

All of which does require a bit of an XP grind, to be sure...

No, no swordsmen (IIRC) and definitely no Pikemen.  I have all the buildings available to be built at the moment but my best human unit is the Scout and the rare Barbarian mercenary that pops up.  I did get a Swordsman merc at one point but he got smashed in a really tough battle against a bunch of giant spiders or something, and I've not seen one since. 

Perhaps I'm missing a building, but I thought I had built all the ones available in the first part.  ???

[FarAway Sooner]

Yeah, that's another aspect of the interface that isn't so obvious and where the original Indie effort shows the shortcomings typical of a single-person effort (poor documentation and no English-language manual).  You are given 10 or 11 Level 1 Creature Dwelling options, but can only choose to build any 4 of them.

The only two creature dwellings you can build at the start are the ones that require no prerequisite buildings:  Slingers and Militia quarters can be bought with no other purchases.  If you want Spearmen or Archers, you must build a Workshop first (which also gives you the ability to buy spears, bows, shields, etc. for your heroes if they can use them).  If you want Swords or Pikemen's quarters, you must build a Forge (which also gives you the ability to buy basic chain mail, Short swords, etc. for your heroes).  If you want Crossbowmen's quarter, you must first build a Forge and a Workshop. 

On the less savory alignment side for Tier 1 units, Barbarians quarters can be built once you have a Pub, and the same goes for Thieves and (I think) Brigands.  Shaman Huts can be recruited once you have an Altar. 

Until you buy the prerequisites, those buildings are grayed out (you can figure out which prerequisites you need via right-clicks, and the UI there is even pretty slick, but it's not terribly intuitive).  Once you've bought all 4 of your Tier 1 dwellings, they're grayed out forever.  You get some basic mercenaries coming by every few turns if you have a Tavern, and if you buy upgrades to the Tavern (I think Inn comes next, followed by Mercenary Guild once you unlock that one) you'll get better Mercenary units you can hire and/or more frequent Mercenary options.

You can recruit units of different alignments, and the results will be lower morale, which is a drag but not the end of the world.  The fact that you can only choose 4 out of the 11 (?) possible Tier 1 Units makes players evaulate some really tough trade-offs.  The fact that the better Level 1 dwellings typically require prerequisite buildings also make you evaluate some tough trade-offs, as Gold is scarce in the early game. 

There's a balancing of early-expansion needs versus later-game potential.  And the fact that many of the better units cost a lot less if you have basic resources available (e.g., Spearman require one unit of Wood while Swordsmen require two Iron), and that different resources are available in different quantities on different types of Shards (e.g., Timber is easy to find in a Forest Shard while Iron is easy to find in a Hills Shard) means that there is no one optimal build path. 

As you consider dwellings with prerequisites, you also evaluate what else the prerequisite buildings give you in the early game.  A Forge is nice to give you Swordsmen, but it doesn't generate any income.  It does give you the ability to buy basic metal weapons, so if you have a Warrior or Commander hero, that might be a good investment (getting Chain Mail early can make a big difference in surviving an encounter versus losing it).  But if you have a Ranger, he can't use Chain Mail and primarily uses wooden weapons (e.g., Bows and Arrows), so the build path to get to Swordsmen earlier in the game also involves trade-offs.

This is the sort of deep game play that I found so appealing abou Eador after I got past the lack of an English-language manual and the sometimes unintuitive interface.  Based on youtube demos I've seen for Master of a Broken World, I think the tool tips will be much better and I assume there will be a good English-language manual.  There's actually a huge wealth of info about Eador: Genesis out there, but most of it is in Russian on Russian-language forums.

Apologies if you already know all this stuff, but the questions you raise are indicative of the sort of deep gameplay that players can unlock if they invest the time in it.  I don't mean to ramble, but I have been VERY impressed by this game and hope to encourage more folks to try it.

[Nefaro]

Thanks for the tips FAS.  I didn't realize I had limited slots in which to choose stuff.  But fill them, I did.

The "scout" unit I was referring to is the Spearmen, which I can build.  I just can't build swordsmen, so I must've ran out of build slots before getting all the prereqs for it (despite having a Forge).  I wonder if there's some way to deconstruct one, to make room, or if it's permanent once built?  I've not really delved into the google translate version of the manual all that much yet, so I have no idea if it mentions such details or not.  It's pretty cool that you're forced to specialize, but as you said - the in-game UI doesn't lay out the building tree too well so there will be lots of rt-clicking to piece it all together.

However, I did manage to find two Swordsmen mercs during this morning's run along with a Crossbowman!  When it rains, it pours.  The grinding is a bit easier now that I've realized there is plenty of time to sit in my provinces and spam the Explore command for building XP faster, so I've also gained more troop & spell slots along with some new spells & loot.

This game is very cool, I just happened to take one of the slowest progressing classes I suppose.  I should probably finish reading the Game Concepts in the manual to be sure I'm not overlooking other things, too.  :D

[Greybriar]

I have been keeping an eye out for units I can't produce showing up randomly at my castle. So far I've gotten two swordsmen and two longbowmen. It's an annoyance having to check every turn or two or three, but the effort is worth it in my opinion.

[CptHowdy]

Thanks for the tips FAS.  I didn't realize I had limited slots in which to choose stuff.  But fill them, I did.

The "scout" unit I was referring to is the Spearmen, which I can build.  I just can't build swordsmen, so I must've ran out of build slots before getting all the prereqs for it (despite having a Forge).  I wonder if there's some way to deconstruct one, to make room, or if it's permanent once built?  I've not really delved into the google translate version of the manual all that much yet, so I have no idea if it mentions such details or not.  It's pretty cool that you're forced to specialize, but as you said - the in-game UI doesn't lay out the building tree too well so there will be lots of rt-clicking to piece it all together.

However, I did manage to find two Swordsmen mercs during this morning's run along with a Crossbowman!  When it rains, it pours.  The grinding is a bit easier now that I've realized there is plenty of time to sit in my provinces and spam the Explore command for building XP faster, so I've also gained more troop & spell slots along with some new spells & loot.

This game is very cool, I just happened to take one of the slowest progressing classes I suppose.  I should probably finish reading the Game Concepts in the manual to be sure I'm not overlooking other things, too.  :D

actually i believe in the tutorial you can only build 4 troop buildings, you wont have an option for the others. i think i had everything built in the tutorial and like 20k gold. you wont get more options until you finish the tutorial and are able to attack your first shard.

[FarAway Sooner]

You may well be right on that, CptHowdy.  I remember being struck how much easier the tutorial was the 2nd time I tried it.

It gives you a feel for the difficulty of the game when you have to play the Tutorial twice to win that.   :)

[CptHowdy]

You may well be right on that, CptHowdy.  I remember being struck how much easier the tutorial was the 2nd time I tried it.

It gives you a feel for the difficulty of the game when you have to play the Tutorial twice to win that.   :)

yeah once i got to first shard i got my ass handed to me. ai lords were very aggressive so i couldnt sit back and build everything, i needed to be more aggressive in taking over their territory. I havent beaten a shard. i just found that i couldnt replace my army faster than the ai was coming at me. will have to be more frugal with my funds and not try and build or upgrade everything so fast!

[tgb]

I got a key for the new beta build today, and all I can say is -

Wow.

What a huge step backwards and a major disappointment compared to the first build. The new building interface is a confusing, buggy mess, combat is slow as molasses unless you set the graphics to the lowest setting and the combat to the highest speed, combat results still appear before the animation starts and there are still no combat sound effects other than the occasional grunt, and turn resolutions are excruciatingly slow - like Pride of Nations slow.

I enjoyed the first Beta, but have no desire to go back to this. I hope they address these issues, even if it means pushing the release back a couple of months.

[Nefaro]

Damn.  :(

Sounds like the guy is having a helluva time getting this second game in shape.   I hope he takes his time and gets it right (eventually) before releasing.

[undercovergeek]

Damn.  :(

Sounds like the guy is having a helluva time getting this second game in shape.   I hope he takes his time and gets it right (eventually) before releasing.

balls - id heard April was a date for release

Nef - not saying its you - but have others reported these issues?

[tgb]

Damn.  :(

Sounds like the guy is having a helluva time getting this second game in shape.   I hope he takes his time and gets it right (eventually) before releasing.

balls - id heard April was a date for release

Nef - not saying its you - but have others reported these issues?

Yes.  I don't know what happened between the two betas, or why they would release a beta in such rotten shape to the world with no NDA.  I've already uninstalled it.  I would suggest that if it does get released in a month that everyone wait for impressions.  I seriously doubt that these problems can be adequately addressed by then.

[Nefaro]

Nef - not saying its you - but have others reported these issues?

LOL - it's certainly not me!  I haven't played the beta. 

But all the impressions I've heard the past couple months haven't been terribly good just yet.  No worries, since it's a beta and still being fixed up for release.  I just hope it's up to snuff on release, or else it gets delayed a bit if not, because we all know how a buggy release will kill a game for it's lifespan.  :-[   Maybe it'll end up in excellent condition on arrival next month.. *shrug*

[Martok]

Thanks for the update, tgb.  Sounds like I'll want to wait til it gets patched up more, especially if the release date isn't pushed back.