Conquest of Elysium 3

[Huw the Poo]

I can't put CoE3 down.  I had to force myself to switch it off this morning before going to work.  I never play games before going to work!

I've started a new game with an ally against a team of two enemies.  I'm the barbarians again.  I'm learning how important it is to capture some structures and consolidate your position early on, lest you risk being steamrolled by the wandering independents and never having enough gold to buy troops.  Maybe I should put off buying Dom3 after all!

[Huw the Poo]

I finally won my first game!  I quit playing with allies because they're back-stabbing bastards.  Any time I lost an unguarded town to a roving band of independent creatures, my "ally" would be straight in there capturing it for himself.  This happened several times until I had barely any holdings left, and obviously no income, crippling me.

So I started again as a necromancer, which is quite a frustrating class to play because your commanders spend so much time being insane and therefore completely unable to do anything.  Time and again I watched as the enemy conquered all the holdings around me while I was powerless to react.

Eventually, though, I managed to level up my main commander, after which he started going insane a lot less often.  Necromancers really start to build up momentum when you start winning battles; after each fight, simply "raise dead" and your army size is instantly doubled.  The undead armies are laughably weak, but when you have 500 or 600 of them in a stack they can overwhelm all but the strongest opponents:



Eventually my main necromancer became a Demilich, whose traits took me completely by surprise.  For the low price of two hands of glory, he can move anywhere...at least in theory.  It isn't very accurate and he landed in battles more often than not.  Also he cannot take any other units with him when he does this.  However, being more or less immortal and impervious to non-magical attacks, he was singlehandedly responsible for a few victories, even against a couple of hundred units.  He was also capable of raising enormous amounts of undead, which I'd bring another hero along to collect.  Thus my main force became almost a thousand units large and was capable of mopping up the enemy resistance.

[son_of_montfort]

Huw, the undead races in both CoE3 and Dom3 are always like steamrollers. You start off looking for graveyards or battlefields to raise huge numbers of zombies and longdeads, while summoning the occasional wight or other nasty undead leader. Once you do that, you basically lumber over the map until you control it all. That is... unless you have a side playing a Holy-heavy race. Then they start banishing all of your units en masse and are able to scorch your leaders mightily. That is why is is always nice to have human agents in at least one backup army when playing as the undead.

[Huw the Poo]

Yeah, I did notice that weakness, so in the end game my main stack had a couple of hundred archers as well.  Archers are very good units; the obvious ability to shoot from the rear rank is complemented nicely by a sword attack which is just as powerful, so they can put up a good fight even when the mid and front ranks are gone.  Cheap, too.

You're right about the undead leaders too.  I had a wraith who singlehandedly defended half a dozen holdings from independents in the late game, and that Ziz you can see in my first screenshot wreaked havoc among the enemy ranks in many a battle.  Those major summoning rituals are splendid!

I'm going to start a game as the troll king next.  Oh god I can't wait to get Dominions 3.  Hopefully I'll be able to pick it up on pay day.

[PanzersEast]

How is the single player experience?  I occasionally play multiplayer, however the bulk is single player because of time..... just wondering how this stacks up for a single player user.
Thanks

PE

[Huw the Poo]

Well, until I'm more accomplished I've been playing at low difficulty levels and the AI is definitely no genius; not doing anything particularly stupid but not being very aggressive either.  I do intend to ramp the difficulty up soon though.  As for the rest of the experience, it's fine - the AI takes no time at all to decide which moves to play and everything proceeds very smoothly, plus there's no diplomacy to worry about.  I think it's a great single player experience for a number of reasons...it's very quick to play, it's extremely replayable, plenty of starting options (you can choose AI's classes as well as your own, plus the rough geography, teams etc).

If time is your chief concern, CoE3 will suit you fine.  You can get a lot done in little time because it's so easy and quick to play.  It loads in a couple of seconds and there's no wait to create worlds or anything.  Battle speed can be varied or resolved instantly.

But hey, don't take my word for it - there's a demo available on Desura and probably Steam as well. :)

Desura page

Steam page

Gamersgate page

[PanzersEast]

I had considered picking up Dominions 3 instead of this, however I heard the AI in D3 was really weak.....

PE

[Huw the Poo]

Well, as great as CoE is (and it really is), the reason I also want Dominions is for the times I want to play something more involved and complex.  CoE can seem like strategy-lite, since most of the time you're just moving two or three stacks around on the map.  There's no building, diplomacy, or anything else.  It lends itself to very easy play, and is perfect for the time-poor.  I really enjoy playing it, but on Friday and Saturday nights I want something a bit...heavier, and if Dom is basically CoE with a lot more meat, then I want it too.

As for AI...I'm not the world's greatest strategist, and I'm willing to bet that I won't be able to beat the Dom AI on its harder difficulty levels.  I could be wrong of course, but I doubt it.  I've seen plenty of Dom players say that the AI's reputation is unfair.

[Ubercat]

I had considered picking up Dominions 3 instead of this, however I heard the AI in D3 was really weak.....

PE

The AI is good enough to test new strategies on before taking them to MP. And MP in Dom3 is the best gaming experience I've ever had.

[Yskonyn]

I had considered picking up Dominions 3 instead of this, however I heard the AI in D3 was really weak.....

PE

The AI is good enough to test new strategies on before taking them to MP. And MP in Dom3 is the best gaming experience I've ever had.

+1

[Huw the Poo]

Just won my second game, this time with the troll king.  It's a satisfying class to play; your recruitable units are almost as bad as the undead, but your hero units are extremely powerful.  I had used them on their own to conquer half the map before I even knew where my opponent was.  I did eventually lose one to a vampire lord late in the game, but by that time I had a ridiculous gold income and numerous recruitment centres, so I was able to raise armies in their hundreds.  Completely steamrolled the enemy.

When I quit I thought I was probably done with the game for a while...but then made the mistake of taking a look at the class list and realising I've only scratched the surface.  I think I'll start a new one tomorrow. :D

[Nefaro]

After it became too easy, I kept inching the difficulty up and started putting the AI sides into teams so they didn't kill each other off so quickly in the beginning.  That can definitely raise the difficulty.

I suppose that once I've settled into Dominions 3, it looks like I'll have to use a mix of difficulty, teams and/or some small house rules to keep the single player tough.  It can be done. 

If you think there are a lot of classes/factions to play in COE3, you'll be surprised when you see how many Dom3 has.   ;D 

[Huw the Poo]

If you think there are a lot of classes/factions to play in COE3, you'll be surprised when you see how many Dom3 has.   ;D 

Yeah, I've read that there are around 20 per age, with three ages.  I love it when strategy games are so amazingly diverse in their content that they sometimes seem like they don't even have any rules.  I can't wait to get Dom 3!

[Sparhawk]

My favorite class so far has been the enchanter. I love making the golems and until you can make very many of them necrotods actually convert opponents to your side which can build quite a varied army.

[Huw the Poo]

Sounds cool - I think I'll play the enchanter on my next game. :)