@domino215

- I like you're 'coalition' event idea.

- If neutral cities were added into the game, then it would be possible for cities to rebel under high unrest and become netural. The trick here would be when conquering another faction's city, the player would require enough time to sufficiently deal with unrest. In addition, the AI would have to change their view on unrest buildings.....currently they are weighed very low....AI Plus mod addresses this nicely....so that when they conquer cities, the same thing doesn't happen to them.

- I disagree with your view on inpregnable cities. The last thing the game needs is a streamlined strategy where the player doesn't focus on militaristic expansion until the endgame only. If you push early, you should have the oppertunity of having that risk rewarded. However, adjusting the types of city defenders could be a good start to making encounters more unique. Have Horsemen defend Fortresses, Mages defend Conclaves, and Crossbowmen defend Towns.

- You bring an interesting point to empire size and technology scale. Currently there is no upkeep for constructed buildings. Imo that is a mistake. Yes...the player (and AI) is not burdened with additional micromangement as they can just toss everything into the queue however this generate the problem you describe.

• A simple upkeep system could be developed to manage empire growth:
• Each building tier would have increasing upkeep less one. Thus a Tier 1 building would have 0 gildar per turn. Tier 2 buildings would have 1 gildar per turn. etc.
• Additional Tier 2 and higher buildings of the same kind would have additonal upkeep based on the number built less one and the Tier level less one. Thus 4 Tier 2 buildings would have an additional empire upkeep of 3 gildar per turn. Thus 2 Tier 3 buildings would have an additional empire upkeep of 2 gildar per turn. It can be argued that tranporation costs exist between the different cities. It can be argued that additional buildings of the same type are not running at 100% due to partial redundancy. etc. Point is, additional cost for additional buildings forcing the player to decide IF more of that building should be built.
• Magical oriented buildings should have mana upkeep equal to the tier level less one. Failing to pay should result in risk of the building crumbling apart.
• So, as a combined example: Four tier two magical buildings throughout your empire would have the following upleep:
• 4 gildar per turn for the building tier
• 4 mana per turn for the magical requirement
• 3 gildar per turn for the empire impact
• Another example: Twelve Tier four magical buildings would have the following upkeep:
• 36 gildar per turn for the building tier
• 36 mana per turn for the magical requirement
• 33 mana per turn for the empire impact
• (not sure how often you would have 12 tier 4 building of one kind in your empire...especially considering that you have 3 types of city....you'd need 40 cities to consider the last example)

 - Iron, Crystal, and Mounts favor the player at the moment because the AI units are....unsatisfactory. This can be corrected given unit development time. AI Plus mod does a decent job at increasing the AI's ability to compete.

Yeah that works quite well in Dawn of War I always thought.

In a slightly similar way..... I haven't played the newer Total War series but in Medieval 2 you don't have to conquer everyone... just like 50% of territories or whatever it is... including a number of the key cities depending on what faction you play.

There's probably room for some additional victory conditions in a game like FE/LH, customizable ones even.  Wouldn't solve the late game issue but could help mix things up a bit... things that would might add a slight twist to the Conquest victory.  What if you could have victory conditions like:

- Allegiance Victory (where you have to eliminate all the faction of the opposite allegiance)

- Empiric Victory (first to get 10 cities to level 5)

- Shard Victory (control 75% of shards on the map)

With something like these you could play on a large map and not have to go around mopping up everyone to the last man.  Just a thought.

Medieval 2 also has factions that spawn later in the game, like the Mongols.  That's a kinda fun thing to given they appear in a semi-random location... they're nasty and you don't quite know when/where they will appear.  Adds a little something to late game.  We pretty much have that now with Events... but being able to spawn a faction rather than monsters might be cool.

I also really like the idea of Wildlands that grow in size gradually (GFireflyE's idea).  That'd be great.  Also have small "wildlands" or large monsters lairs appearing late game would also help maybe... as battling those things is fun.

More advanced diplomacy as mentioned, absolutely.... really hoping that 2.0 provides it.  That would help late game.

Lots of good ideas mentioned on how to make it more interesting.

You would need to scale it for the map size.

Having later factions spawn is an option - they should be scaled though to match the user's strength.

Though I burned myself out during the betas, I occasionally return to this game, amusing myself with different custom builds and oddball actions. Yet, the fun is still stymied by terrible AI and the often tedious endgame--problems that drove me back to these forums after many months away. Happy to see some clear thinkers still chipping away at the problems.  I hope devs/modders have been digesting these ideas and figuring out how to convert them from theory to implemented.

Brad spoiled many of us by personally investing so much effort into the GalCiv AI, and I kept expecting to be spoiled again by challenging games in the more complex environment of FE (Elemental reboot, heh).  Are there any non-superficial changes still being made to the core game?  I witness the AI being controlled by what can only be described as fatal mismanagement, and grind my teeth--it's a blight on an otherwise good sandbox game (I don't play above Hard level anymore because of the ridiculous, artificial boosts that try to take the place of AI strategy).

At any rate, here's a few questions/suggestions:

--Diplomacy is a tangled knot, but I agree with Heavenfall--it's worth serious effort to make it more complex (as an offshoot of generally smarter AI).  The AI, in effect, needs the largest boost to their sense of self preservation, because that is at the heart of their problems (others have mentioned their tendency to be passive against a bigger foe, or just "lay down and die")--they need to plot and squirm and kick and scream instead of bending over and taking it (unless that's a specific faction's M.O.--perhaps the Queen's, heh).

They "talk" to the player when another faction is getting too powerful, so this seems like a promising placeholder for actual scripting that makes them act upon it.  Why not make this diplomatic message followed up by a war alliance (for that war only) against a common foe?  This self-balancing act could be scripted to work in any fashion (for or against the player), and if implemented right, it would be more subtle than an all-or-nothing, kick-in-the-pants approach.  (And of course, it could be something more subtle, like "Let's cancel our trade agreements with the leader and reform the trade with each other.")

If the AI weren't so clumsy about gold/item payments, it would open up a whole new area for negotiations.  Attacking forces could sue for peace once their objectives were met.  As an example, let's say that 2 factions ganged up on the player faction who was expanding too aggressively, and in this entirely fictitious instance, were able to beat him back by each capturing one of his cities.  Then, just like in real life, they could send their diplomats to "punish" the player for his transgression: "For 10% of your gold or crystals or whatever, we will end this war and leave you alone for no less than 30 seasons." Or something like that.  This might be a bluff, depending on the player's situation, or it might be a genuinely viable alternative to taking a more serious beating.  This kind of interesting example can only be possible if the AI isn't terrible at strategy/optimizing, and if diplomacy gets the attention it deserves (both in making more options available, and making all options viable by understanding the maxim that unreasonable diplomacy isn't diplomacy at all).

Along those lines, it makes zero sense for an AI faction to sit by while their friendly neighbor is being overrun (the programmer knows it's a snowball effect, so why not put these perfectly reasonable hurdles in the game?).  It makes no sense that you cannot donate units (the game equivalent to covert arms supplying) or form war alliances to address the shifting landscape.  This is the type of thing that makes diplomacy viable, not just labeling a certain menu tab or function in the game "diplomacy" and thinking that will suffice.

You could even make factions intercede, like "We will give you x-amount of this item if you make peace with so-and-so for no less than 20 turns" or if they are more powerful or a trading partner, "We will cancel our agreements and consider war [implemented by placing a huge negative modifier on their attitude toward the player] if you do not stop this war."  Along that same vein, I have also found it far more tactically responsible to raze my enemy's cities and establish my own when/where I desire (yes, heh, I am a war criminal, but no one takes me to court for it), mainly because there is almost no negative pressure against such an action, and many negative hits to keep a captured city--there seems to have been almost no thought put into how to prevent a snowball effect through common sense (versus artificial means).  Why wouldn't razing cities lose you allies (once that is meaningful), or make permanent enemies, or spawn dangerous partisan units, or even negatively impact your own unrest (killing lots of people makes other people, even your own, very nervous, and with good reason)?  Stuff like that to slow the grind-to-dust campaign that too easily happens, without making the game overly tedious or unfair (unless the player selects an unfair challenge level, of course). IMO, if you make the endgame easy to win, you severely cheapen the early game struggle/accomplishments.

Opposite to razing a city, why shouldn't returning a city be a large (if temporary) boon to relations, when the player chooses to take that path? Why would any faction in their right mind choose to form economic/research pacts with the most powerful faction, unless they were allies?  Why wouldn't they form a pact with lesser factions to help boost both of them closer to the leader?  The AI helping the leader to win is one of the ways this game breaks itself.

--Unrest is an aspect of the game that adds no challenge, no change, no fun.  Eunomiac makes some fantastic points about rising unrest leading to possible rebellion/other kinds of instability like poor output/strikes (though I think any random, heavy-handed implementation of this would be a terrible idea that would hurt the game more than helping because it would be seen as unjust rather than a tactical opportunity to nip a problem in the bud).  The starting point, nature of, and degree could all be altered randomly to help replayability without making it a game killer ("hey, you just had half your empire declare independence without warning--have fun with that" is not a good example of how to do it, heh).  Part of this elegant solution could be financial/resource-oriented, which could also double as a maintenance/upkeep cost for larger cities (I agree with a previous poster that the simplistic build-everything mentality really hurts any tactical aspect of city-building--why is this even feasible?).  For example, paying double maintenance costs lowers unrest (i.e., more sophisticated than a simple tax/unrest dicotemy--I wonder how many players even bother to tweak that?); donating mana or crystals eases unrest in Conclaves; iron donations to the war machine diverts unrest in Fortresses.  You can see how this could be a tactical decision between paying something to help unrest, or using force (stationed troops), or ignoring and playing the dangerous game against resentment of the common citizen.  Border pressure from other factions and even from wildlands could be great triggers that would all make sense to a player, rather than the senselessness of a random event--a little of randomness per game goes a long way, so I suggest having a large pool of random events, but never allowing more than a few to happen in any single game.

--Endgame-specific ideas: Events like the blood moon, the one increasing creature levels, or spawning more mobs are at least thinking about the problem, if not in the proper direction (because they are superficial additives, which in FE's current environment are always a joke).  Perhaps if they were more carefully constructed to be meaningful without cheesy (scaled by faction power, as DsRaider suggested), they would be nothing but a welcomed addition to the randomness that should make a 4x game stand out.

Again, I think the idea of subtle empire problems/threatening instability is a golden idea, and hope devs look into it, because like many important suggestions, it's probably too big to simply mod in.  The implementation would have to find the sweet spot in between micro-management frustration and yet another inconsequential fly to be swatted away.

I agree with GFireflyE about Wildlands--at least some of them ought to scale and grow to make them more interesting in the late game, but like more cutscenes/events, they cannot be a welcomed addition while the core problems still remain, because then those additions spawn a new host of problems to tack onto the complexity of previously unfixed bugs/poor AI.  Speaking of Wildlands, why not consider a sea or large lake-based wildland that threatens the nearby coastal areas until it's dealt with?

While I don't agree with Eunomiac's attrition warfare idea (because that's just another predictability, and it's just not possible to implement well within the framework of this game), it's similar to an idea that would increase the unpredictability of the endgame and slow the snowball effect. What if certain factions (or random?) would decide at some point that if they are getting taken out, then they will sabotage the enemy with everything they have (like attacking a backfield city or cities that are not well defended and razing them--even GalCiv2 did something like this, penalizing the player for trying to cheat all their forces up to the "front" lines)?  Of course, things like this will only work if the AI armies aren't a laughing stock.

--Optimization:  It cannot be overstated, that nothing in this game is worth much if the AI is not optimized to present a challenge (preferably along the lines of GalCiv2 where at times it seemed player-controlled)--the AI shouldn't behave as poorly as it does now above the easiest setting. Also, many subtle ways to challenge players is far superior to one or two big "game changers" like Total War series' barbarian invasions or the realm divide (though credit is due to them for implementing something to challenge the late game).  For FE to be a whole game, the late game must be designed to be challenging--it simply isn't finished until then, no matter how many new factions or widgets that get added. For it to be challenging without being too frustrating for your average 4x junkie, the AI must perform optimally (at Challenging+ levels) and be programmed cleverly enough to seem unpredictable at times.

Is this truly too much to ask?  Heh.

The 4x games that seem to manage this best is in my experience Dominions. Due to extremely drastic end-game spells, while some players will usually be sure losers during early and mid game, there is often a action-filled endgame. Granted, this depends on the AI being able to use the spells as LH is single-player only, but even in Dominions the AI is harder end-game than in LH.

Things that make Dominions succeed better at this include, I think:

1. Effective countermeasures against everything. Sure, you can make an expensive "stack of doom" of super-troops, like dead gods you've free from Tartarus, but they'll get permanent afflictions in no time due to the enemy's countertactics. Sure, you can send your mages through the astral planes to hunt the minds of your enemy's champions, but the opponent can summon eldritch horrors that'll go after those yummy astral-tainted mages of yours.

2. Drastic end-game spells with diverse and radical effects. Things like "whenever any other players casts a spell they send me mana", "the population of the whole world starts to die off", "reanimate and release dead gods from Tartarus", "summon an eldritch horror to possess an enemy champions, whose mere vicinity will cause other enemies to go insane", "take permanent control of all enemies in tactical combat unless they resist", "turn the bodies of all allies into living lead" etc etc. Spells that can destroy armies by themselves. The existance of spells like that means any opponent that is left unchecked, even if they are weak, can cause serious harm, especially if they team up with someone else.

I empathize, but nontheless 'knowing' you will win deflates a lot of the fun.

My bet is that a sudden difficulty spike will at least throw the game back into contention, and keep it more interesting.

Also, I need "god troops" to fight, to remain challenged. : )

Unfinished? I think that is way too harsh. Many other 4X games have the "mop-up phase" syndrome.

It's time for Hard/Hard, I think. If you're being smoked on tech by the AI on challenging, well...

It's not the AI. It's YOU.

Even the civ series gooses its AI economy on higher difficulty levels. Time to play against a worthier opponent, instead of knocking Stardock.

Difficulty++.

Try ridiculous/ridiculous next.

I have tried ridiculous once. Million times more worse than expert. ><

Whole world colonized, wildlands cleared, and full tech tree researched plus multiplers researched like eight times.

I cannot even fathom why ridiculous difficulty exists at all.

One thing that I saw on Civs games (I believe it was introduced with Fall to Heaven) is the ablility of "players" appearing and going or vanishing during the game. So a new civ appear of the middle of no where right beside your borders, of raiders decide your are a good target for them.

This way you simulate a real world situation, where new empires come and collapse, nomadic tribes attack or a formally peaceful area became suddenly hostile.

One nice thing in LH would be the ability of former outlaw camps became civs, of perhaps a troll civilization?

About end game situations, a game that you will not win until "kills" all the monster lairs or clear the whole wildlands (which should became much stronger if they have a growing civilization mechanic) would be interesting. The key here (besides the strategies discussed above) is having a ever evoluing, dangerous envinronment where you can never be sure what will happen last.

A closing thought, the main problem here I believe is the fact that it comes to a time where you are so strong that you cannot be challenged by other civs anymore. But from where does your power came from? From your resources, shards and cities, from your armies as well. Its easy for a nomadic army to raze much of your strenght before you are able to deal with them properly, by the time the damage was done...

By the way, although I love the cloudwalk and freeze like spells, but they make the game very overpowered, first because is very difficult to make the AI use it properly ( and avoid human players ruses for example) and because they leave out one of the biggests problems with real armies, that is: logistics. Even nowadays, with all the kinds of planes and so, it is an important issue. Imagine the time when you didnt have those facilities. It made necessary to protect each and every border with strong armies (esp. those near unrule "allies) to constantly move armies from one place to another, and to try and prevent most of the invasions. That is one of the key factor that made big empires so difficult to rule.

And you also have, corruption, diseases and many complicator factors. The cost of having so many armies, the allegiance of soldiers of different (or conquered) places, etc. All these are complicator factor to a big, long standing empire, and even if they couldn't (although some times they could) destroy an empire by themselves they could at leat creat a breach, that smaller civs or treats could use. Then, is a domino effect as well, but not the one to lead a player to victory!

N/A