-
We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.
I was averaging over 200 turns... on impossible, largest map, continents. This was pre-release.
All I can add to what you say (which I agree with) is that perhaps you are not damaging the enemy's capability to research and then cast the spell.
and another game ended prematurely at turn 197. it's pointless to play the game until they either fix the unity winning condition or give us the ability to disable certain victory conditions. i consider this game breaking and it needs to be addressed asap.
there is quite a lot of things being wrong with the unity spell. simply put, 5000 mana isn't enough by a large margin.
a) neutral monsters are pretty strong on impossible and greater fire elementals are a real show stopper. that leads to the AI (or players, once MP hits) being too isolated and too protected from attacks. build three cities, mana farm them up, press enter 200 times, win the game.
b) a much bigger problem is that at 5000 mana, unity doesn't fit into the flow of the game. units cost so much, both in initial investment and upkeep that 5000 mana pale in comparision.
at the current costs, early midgame happens around turn 150. at that point you'll have 4-7 cities, depending on environment and the first small skirmishes will be waged. the game ends at turn 200. doesn't work.
everything below tier 2 units is utter crap. tier 1 dies to everything, even spamming them is not an option. tier 2 is barely manageable, but depends heavily on the units available. f.e. you can get quite far with vampires, but some other t2 choices are just as crap as tier 1. now consider that tier 2 already costs around 100-300 gold per unit. that is a lot. to even maintain 4 vampires (equivalent of an elder vampire @ 800 g) you need 5 cities, full with banks, farms and mana traps. it is impossible on impossible to invest into more than 1 or 2 different kinds units, because if you do, you'll be crippling yourself by having all that shiny tech occupying your space for food/tech/mana. i don't disagree that it should be hard getting units out on impossible and that you have to really think how to build up your cities - that is great - but if you do that, ending the game at turn 200 is simply not feasable.
ideally, you want to have tier 3 units. those cost around 1000 gold and require a lot of upkeep. you will need around 10 cities fully saturated with mints, mana farms and farms to support more than just a single one of those units. please note, that you'll hardly manage to even get one of these units out before turn 200 unless you had some insanely good starting location.
since unity happens around midgame, we don't need just a slight increase in cost. i estimate that around 100k mana would be the neccessary requirement on unity to bring the game into lategame. some people will certainly scream "but raw, that's totally overboard" and yes it is. just to do some math: with 5k mana requirement we now get to turn 200. assuming there is a linear progression 100k mana req. on unity would bring us to turn 4000. however, as I understand how these games work, the actual increase in mana over time is exponential, since over time more players get weeded out and cities get build and conquered so there is more mana per turn per user.
here is a little math. we know that after approx. 200 turns we reach 5000 mana. assuming a constant rate of flow, that means about 25 mana/turn. i think it's pretty obvious that we never see such a high number happening on the ressource bar. that means that both the trickle in-effects (by quests, loot, etc) and the exponential growth due to our expansion is significant.
if we assume exponential growth, we have to do some math first:
m(t) = exp(c*t)
dm/dt = c*exp(c*t)
m(t_f) = m_f = 5000
t_f = 200
c = ln(m_f)/t_f = ln(5000)/200 ~ 0.04
assuming we want the game to last 500 turns on average[*] before unity becomes generally available
=> m_f = exp(0.04*500) ~ 500 million mana
if we keep the linear ansatz:
=> m_f = 25*500 = 12.5k mana
the real behavior is somewhere between linear and exponential, so 100k seems like a good choice.
does that number sound ridiculous to you? that's because it is. mana is too readily available in the game, while gold is extremely scarce. you have trouble sustaining an army of more than 3 units, but can win the game via unity with 3+ cities no problem. we arrive at the inevitable conclusion that unity, in the current frame of the game, is completely broken.
tl;dr: build mana farms, ignore units, win the game
[*]remember, early midgame happens around turn 150.
there is quite a lot of things being wrong with the unity spell. simply put, 5000 mana isn't enough by a large margin.
a) neutral monsters are pretty strong on impossible and greater fire elementals are a real show stopper. that leads to the AI (or players, once MP hits) being too isolated and too protected from attacks. build three cities, mana farm them up, press enter 200 times, win the game.
b) a much bigger problem is that at 5000 mana, unity doesn't fit into the flow of the game. units cost so much, both in initial investment and upkeep that 5000 mana pale in comparision.
at the current costs, early midgame happens around turn 150. at that point you'll have 4-7 cities, depending on environment and the first small skirmishes will be waged. the game ends at turn 200. doesn't work.
everything below tier 2 units is utter crap. tier 1 dies to everything, even spamming them is not an option. tier 2 is barely manageable, but depends heavily on the units available. f.e. you can get quite far with vampires, but some other t2 choices are just as crap as tier 1. now consider that tier 2 already costs around 100-300 gold per unit. that is a lot. to even maintain 4 vampires (equivalent of an elder vampire @ 800 g) you need 5 cities, full with banks, farms and mana traps. it is impossible on impossible to invest into more than 1 or 2 different kinds units, because if you do, you'll be crippling yourself by having all that shiny tech occupying your space for food/tech/mana. i don't disagree that it should be hard getting units out on impossible and that you have to really think how to build up your cities - that is great - but if you do that, ending the game at turn 200 is simply not feasable.
ideally, you want to have tier 3 units. those cost around 1000 gold and require a lot of upkeep. you will need around 10 cities fully saturated with mints, mana farms and farms to support more than just a single one of those units. please note, that you'll hardly manage to even get one of these units out before turn 200 unless you had some insanely good starting location.
since unity happens around midgame, we don't need just a slight increase in cost. i estimate that around 100k mana would be the neccessary requirement on unity to bring the game into lategame. some people will certainly scream "but raw, that's totally overboard" and yes it is. just to do some math: with 5k mana requirement we now get to turn 200. assuming there is a linear progression 100k mana req. on unity would bring us to turn 4000. however, as I understand how these games work, the actual increase in mana over time is exponential, since over time more players get weeded out and cities get build and conquered so there is more mana per turn per user.
here is a little math. we know that after approx. 200 turns we reach 5000 mana. assuming a constant rate of flow, that means about 25 mana/turn. i think it's pretty obvious that we never see such a high number happening on the ressource bar. that means that both the trickle in-effects (by quests, loot, etc) and the exponential growth due to our expansion is significant.
if we assume exponential growth, we have to do some math first:
m(t) = exp(c*t)
dm/dt = c*exp(c*t)
m(t_f) = m_f = 5000
t_f = 200
c = ln(m_f)/t_f = ln(5000)/200 ~ 0.04
assuming we want the game to last 500 turns on average[*] before unity becomes generally available
=> m_f = exp(0.04*500) ~ 500 million mana
if we keep the linear ansatz:
=> m_f = 25*500 = 12.5k mana
the real behavior is somewhere between linear and exponential, so 100k seems like a good choice.
does that number sound ridiculous to you? that's because it is. mana is too readily available in the game, while gold is extremely scarce. you have trouble sustaining an army of more than 3 units, but can win the game via unity with 3+ cities no problem. we arrive at the inevitable conclusion that unity, in the current frame of the game, is completely broken.
tl;dr: build mana farms, ignore units, win the game
[*]remember, early midgame happens around turn 150.
Last edited:
Unity game breaking? 
Are you guys trying to use counterspell to stop it? Because for me unity felt very useless... I had stopped an AI from casting it for 20-25 turns until i destroyed their capital. And the last game i had stopped one while destroying another enemy...
They usually try to cast it few times, and them stop ( thats happened to me both times ).
Unity takes like 10 turns to cast... so you could stop at least 9 simultaneous enemies if you want. If you lack exploration i recommend to use an invisible flying unit with all the scout upgrades and haste buffs, its really easy to find everyone.
Are you guys trying to use counterspell to stop it? Because for me unity felt very useless... I had stopped an AI from casting it for 20-25 turns until i destroyed their capital. And the last game i had stopped one while destroying another enemy...
They usually try to cast it few times, and them stop ( thats happened to me both times ).
Unity takes like 10 turns to cast... so you could stop at least 9 simultaneous enemies if you want. If you lack exploration i recommend to use an invisible flying unit with all the scout upgrades and haste buffs, its really easy to find everyone.
Yes, counterspell would work but here is the catch:
a) Why isn't the AI interrupting the spell?
b) Unity comes available too early in the game. Spells research too fast.
Maybe it's just me though. I kinda think of unity as the space shuttle in Civ IV. Victory conditions becoming available at the end of the game and not in the beginning.
Last edited:
I dont know why it doesnt stop it, but what i know is that currently its useless. In MP, 5000 mana would be too much to take the risk and get countered (remember that AI gets infinte mana, or really big bonuses but even it seems to stop casting for a while).
Unity needs to be changed, its either annoying ( because you have to stop it always ) or useless.
5000 is the opposite from being enough. Yes it is too easy to counterspell it, but on the other hand you have to consider that the land is hardly occupied and cities and borders are hardly connected/have hardly emerged, you're lucky if you've T3 tech, but you've already blown through your whole spell research. Comparatively, Unity becomes available hundreds of turns earlier than the other victory conditions.
Unity should be changed to a space shuttle-esqe victory: have people research multiple parts of the spell and then put it at a price that you actually have to work for but make it impossible to counterspell. Or smth. like that. And make spell research actually take time. Avg. Turns per spell is around 5. That's nothing on impossible. And I am fairly sure you can exploit tech to go down alot. I'll have to do a mana/learning tech game and see how it fares.
Last edited:
another game another loss to unity. This time around I picked Elpiritster the Eternal, who usually wins the game thanks to his research bonus. This choice delayed the Unity Victory by some 30 Turns to De Torvega. And the problem why neither I nor the enemy can prevent Unity from happening is precisely because of the strong NPCs. None of the AI nor I knew where De Torvega was. I tried sending at least a dozen invisible bats, but with the sea serpents hermetically shutting down any path across the sea, I can understand why none of the other AIs knew about him. Unfortunately we don't have access to a spell that simply reveals a portion of the map.
The game is also in dire need of a counter that displays the turn remaining until Unity victory.
The game is also in dire need of a counter that displays the turn remaining until Unity victory.
I'm not sure that would be enough - if your problem is that you can't stop the spell, knowing how long you have left before you are doomed won't really help.
If there isn't a "someone is trying to cast Unity" alert, on the other hand, there should be one. Given that the spell is supposed to bind control of all magic everywhere to the caster, it's the kind of thing that should wake every mage in the world up in their beds the second it begins.
I know that it won't help in this case, but currently it is impossible to know wether Unity has been countered or if it's still ticking down.
The display seems to be bugged. It either only displays once per mage, even if he reattempts casting unity 25 times, or it randomly doesn't appear at all. Either way, needs to be addressed.
Simple fix that would fix Unity for everyone: Reveal the mage that is casting it.
Unity spell cost and time to cast should scale with map size.
Also, most of the mages should become hostile to the one attempting this spell.
Also, most of the mages should become hostile to the one attempting this spell.
A game that ships with issues like the ones you mention (and I agree, are likely to happen) clearly shows that it was made for a human vs. AI experience. Throwing multiplayer in later definitely brings a multitude of issues to light and will most certainly cause a huge fuss. IMO, they should have designed it and playtested it in multiplayer from the beginning. As it stands, we're in a rocky ride as it converts.
There's no need to troll. If you can't make suggestions without insulting someone then don't make them at all.
"Fingerpaint".... lol. :huh: Anyway in that reply I was referring to any major unbalancing caused by adding multiplayer... Ive been asking for the game to be much harder than the games Ive been playing.
Dont feed the trolls.... and they wont regenerate!:mellow:
In the games I've played so far Unity hasn't been a problem at all. Even on impossible difficulty I've usually only got one opponent left by the time they try to cast Unity. At that point you just counterspell them. I guess if you're playing on an XL map and just playing city developer all game it could be a problem, but even then you'll have plenty of mana to counterspell.