Video: Let's Play Return of the Elves

[Selmack]

Black Minotaurs - Just looked at google. Under the description it does not say when they can be build also. What size city I mean. I built the earlier buildings but in game it just says can't be built yet in red I believe. I have many of these in the current game. Why not say - Can be built when city size is ???. Also, putting the tree in the game in a text for in order would be better than that out of order list that is there now.

As I said in earlier post - I don't know what to waste a space building while I am waiting to building the building I want. As if city size is so important to buildings, there should be information somewhere on what to do to get your cities to grow faster. Is there a way to impove the terrain? Do you need more food gold or what? In game this information should be stated somewhere!!!!

I know they want to focas on attacking and so on but you can not do that without the buildings for the troops. An overhaul of the building listing would make the game so much more fun and so much less frustrating.

As I said, I did look at the huge amount of google informaiton I though i could have missed it - I did not see an place when it mentioned that the city had to be a specific size or something else had to happen other than the fact that a specific building had to be build first.

I know in the videos he has mentioned the lack of information in the game also.

Thanks for the help!!!!!

 

[player1 fanatic]

Back Minotaurs (minotaur upgrade), Royal Guardsmen (halberdier upgrade), Elf Sharpshooter (elven archer upgrade) and Dwarven Overcomers (dwarf upgrade) training buildings can only be build in city of population level 10+.

 

[unmerged(170187)]

How do you defend against the elementals from other worlds? Other than the gods you get? I have the healer and the wizard I think. But I have to many portals to defend. I use them to defend ogres and other large units also. There must be a better way.

Even with units leveling well there hits are so small it is not worth attacking. I am just leveling the attacking units rather than defending cities.

Elementals coming through portals are pretty straight forward. Just hit them with lots of firepower and kill them. They tend to be weaker against spirit damage so if you have any units that can do spirit game then use them. Also you make is sound like a bad thing they take a lot of hits, it's a great way to get easy XP.

The biggest problem with elementals from the portal though can be since they only take a little bit of damage at a time they tend to run away back through the portal, heal and come back again. So you end up with the same elemental over and over doing harassment tactics. If your not interested in XP farming off it and simply want to kill it then you need to park a unit on the portal. This way it can not retreat back to the other world to heal up. Make sure it's a unit that wouldn't retreat and leave the portal unguarded.

Also, when you have so many cities, buildings, and units? How do you keep track of what citiy is building what and not get completely lost. There should be a way to view a list of all cities, their buildings, and which units were built where. If there is already, please let me know this also.

It gets easier to keep track when you realize the vast majority of what your doing is already set on a single path. For example once you setup a gold city it's just a matter of building the next building in the gold specialization line. The same holds true for every other specialization type. The building icons are easy enough to learn so when you open a city you should know exactly what the city is doing and what building comes next. The number of building option in the game is extremely limited. The only choice involved is where to place the building to improve the roadways in your empire.

For unit building the icons over the city show you what the city is building on the main map so there is no need to zoom in on the city. At the start of each turn it displays which units finished being built that turn. I use that to go to each city which made a new unit and queue up the next unit in the city. Like I mentioned before you should have a few specialized troop production cities and they should be constantly producing troops. This is because troop production cities have high upkeep cost and it's a waste if they aren't actually in use, so don't build to many and don't leave them idle.

And there seems to be no way to deal with attacks of spirit magic also. How do you defend it?

More HP.

There are only 2 perks that give some spirit resistance, ghost armor and adamantium armor. I don't recall if there is an enchantment that boost it. But basically it's among the rarest damage type in the game and the one that pretty much all units are vulnerable too. As a result perk that give + spirit damage are well worth it.

I just can't get a handle on the specializing. No matter how I specialize the cities I always end up with food, mana, research in negative and gold extremely low. I think starting near water is what is keeping to gold up as you get 50% gold for each port at sea. Also, many of my cities just do not level or level very quickly. There has to be a way to increase the speed. I just have not figured it out.

It's hard to know what your doing wrong without actually seeing what your doing. Maybe post a save file?

Cities grow at a fixed rate. There is only 2 spells in the game that increase growth speed but they are late game spells. Also make sure you don't go negative food because it slows down city growth.

 

[Selmack]

Just created some new stronger units. Just happened to see a star on some units and realized I could upgrade them. I wish it would mention not just that new units are available but go you your units as it does with perks and give you the chance to upgrade them one by one. Its to expensive to do them all now but by accident I did locate one which the upgrade worked well. I had always thought I would have to completely remove some units so I could pay for the new ones. Upgrading is a good thing - searching through all of them is now.

Thanks!!!!

 

[Selmack]

Thanks for that huge post Spyre. I did find one unit that I could upgrade (star) that had an option that worked well with one elemental. I am putting units in the way to take hits and gain xp. I am using heal when needed to keep them in play. Yet, I was surprised how easy it was to take out. I figure in a higher level game it would be harder.

Regarding keeping track of cities and buildings I have been using the cities name to remind me over time what I was doing in that city or wanted to do next. I change the name to the name or the next couple buildings I want to build. But even then when you come back to the game you have two mana cities going for example and I cant remember if this was the one for flying ships or going the other route or if I had started one at all. I just dont want two cities (at times) doing the same thing when I had another idea at first.

Another thing is still the trees for different mages. Humans seem to have better gold buildings. Rats I cant figure yet and others I have not seen enough to know yet. I realize these are things I will learn in time. In the current game I am seeing upper lvl units are expensive so even as things are going well I still can not affort to upgrade units till more gold is made. Knowing that at a certain point the game is going to automatically attack me with masses of units really make me nervious. The game is quite predictable in that respect. So no matter what level you play you have to be ready at a certain point for a mass attack.

Regarding posting a game, I am not sure how to do that at the moment. I am sure I could get a lot of feed back though. Can you tell me how to upload a game file please in depth.

One last thought please - When you are waiting for the building that can not be built till whatever level of the city, is there a strategy to what to building in the mean time? Please let me know this also. I would like to hear what people are building. When I am trying to specialize, it seems like a waste of a building space.

Thanks for the assistance!!!!!!

 

[Selmack]

In video 19, I was surprised how effective Thunderstorm was in the two attacks. I've run into many spells now in the long game I am playing and thought he would use armagedin or a massive spell to hit the entire line. In 19, I see many similar things I have been running into. I get so caught up in one fight I leave the back door open for another mage or spawns of indepentant units to attack.

Now that I am really learning the game, I just have to get better at building the right specialized city at the right time. He is right when he says the game uses massive amounts of gold. I am only making a third of the gold he is in the game. I wish I had thought about making more spirit of light rather than many low level units then clicking on the star to upgrade but I do like the bowmasters.

Last I really love the bowmasters. The stun in so good when grouping many together.

I am also learning not to put a strong unit on a city to defend when it has just been taken. If it is not a missle unit, all they have to do is send in a weak unit. You win move off the city, then they retake it without a fight.

Except for the constant crashes that I have reported, this is a nice game.

Question, when does the game actually save when you save it. If you look after saving - it is not in the save list. Does it save after a turn is complete? I tend to exit the game after a while to make sure the game has saved. I seem to go back in a lot and have to redo turns.

Can't wait to see video 20!!!

Thanks!!!

 

[UncleJJ]

Das, I've watched a couple of your later videos and one particular habit you have is build a lot of magical towers. You use these to "protect a coastline" or to guard a portal exit. They are expensive and weak at those jobs. Towers only make sense in the very frontline (like where you're fighting the Serpent Queen) and there the main task is drawing enemy fire rather than inflicting damage, they now cost zero pop to replace and the AI seems to prioritise them, making them a great distraction and they're effectively a cheap replaceable troop. As soon as the frontline moves forward just ditch the tower for a resource building.

But for the guarding duties you use them for they are really bad. The damage they do is a measly 9 elemental damage, they cost 1G 1M upkeep and take up a building slot that could give between 4 and 9 gold (assuming you build a market or craftsmens district). So they effectively cost you between 6 and 11 resources each turn hmy:.

If you build gold building instead of the tower and recruit another Iril Bow you get a unit that can move and fire and cover several cities and gain resources. This unit gains experience and promotions, is also upgradable and can be given perks (but only if needed). I find that 2 or 3 archers and other cheap fast units like goblin spears or rogues can cover a lot of cities once they are all connected by "roads" and can easily beat off AI invasions, ships and monsters and also deal with the monster events that drop a load of generators and monsters behind your lines.

After a time these garrison troops are of course a source of experienced troops (and perhaps partly perked) if you need another army to work in another direction or to face an emergency elsewhere. Much better than towers, they can move and actually cost less if you use basic troops.

JJ

 

[stars2heaven]

Das, I've watched a couple of your later videos and one particular habit you have is build a lot of magical towers.

JJ

I agree. I'd dispense with the towers all together. I play on the same type map and difficulty that Das does, and I hardly ever even leave a unit behind to defend. Summons and other spells like ice block are sufficient for dealing with random spawns. You should always have a good idea whether an AI player is likely to attack you, and where. Resource buildings and units are always superior to towers.