Forum Overview :: What Are You Playing Right Now? :: Re: By the way, I am pro-CoE.

[quote name="Mischief Maker"][quote name="pinback"]Maybe I'm wrong. MM, can you play CoE4 as a casual? Is there any point to DELVING BACK IN to 4, knowing that I cannot be arsed to read pages of statistics, or, you know, think all that hard about things? I know Dominions is right out, but CoE seems at least remotely approachable because the overmap plays like Empire Deluxe with worse graphic design.[/quote] Yes, the thing with CoE4 is you don't have much control over what troops make up your armies, so the stats aren't something you really need to delve into. If you're nerdy enough to appreciate ICJ's video games, you're going to intuitively know what kind of special powers and weaknesses undead units are going to have. The main issue is how you're going to recruit those units and at what tier. Every faction plays differently (and I would NOT recommend starting with the Troll King, try the Necromancer instead) but all have between 2 and 4 different means of recruiting troops: (buying mercenaries/siege equipment/wizards and commander for gold/iron, some form of free recruitment, using your faction-specific resource for summoning rituals, and upgrading weaker units at certain buildings.) Most factions revolve around a type of wizard and those wizards can use the faction resource (like fungus for witches, gems for warlocks, or hands of glory for necromancers) to level a wizard up. Higher level summoning rituals bring more/higher quality troops, but the result is still random. So if you're playing a Necromancer, for example, your earlygame involves letting your hapless level 1 apprentice raise the dead for free at graveyards and gallows (driving the apprentice insane in the process) until you have enough troops to capture a large city that provides more hands of glory. Once you have a decent hand of glory income, you start doing lesser summons to get ghost troops in your army that walk through the walls of cities, while using your gold to hire new apprentices to replace your now-batshit-crazy original. When your hand income is large, you start do a ritual of grand mastery on your main necromancer, giving him a level 3 (the max) combat spell while also searching for a ruined castle or a temple where he can ascend to undeadhood. Once you find the appropriate building, your main necromancer becomes either a vampire or a lich, with the power of immortality so long as the building where they ascended is never lost. At this point your undead leader abandons their army and begins solo-attacking enemy strongholds, either decimating them with his spells and undead physical abilities, or resurrecting without harm back at their home base. Meanwhile your high-tier summons bring powerful nether demons who can take over leadership of your armies. While that's going on, you pick the best of his apprentices and start leveling <I>them</I> up to an undead. Eventually you're going to get the power to enter the nether plane and things get even more interesting/apocalyptic...[/quote]