I play these games a lot. Over the years I've settled on marquises (6-7 on enormous). Duke+ still rolls over me without much sweat; count and lower usually doesn't provide enough of a challenge. Marquis I find just about borderline between 'I got this' and 'Oh god Imma gonna die'. I.e. that sweet gambler's spot of a dopamine loop.
Although if I were to play with far fewer AIs, or a 1vs1, and not have the luxury of the opponent being semi-reliably distracted by other fronts, I'd probably need to lower the difficulty at least a notch.
Mate, CoE 2 was my childhood game. I knew almost every unit at the time, but I guess I still suck at it. Baron seems to be mid-tier skill though; I don't think I met anyone else who can even a survive a game past Marquis. Where do I find a good guide?
Also, I feel like the difficulty has been bumped up since CoE 3, which I still play on mobile. I've never lost a game on my usual settings on CoE 3, but wrecked my main armies every time on CoE 5.
First game, lost to something dumb like a high lord taking my citadel.
Second game went well. Dwarf Queen, 7 dvalas, and about to take 5 more mines. Three of the AI kept suiciding trying to take the king's lands and castle, killing each other, I accidentally even wiped out one. The baron level AI was getting pinned by my enhanced dwarves. 40 dorfs could cut through an army of about 80 of their units with few casualties. It was almost too easy, I had lots of 100% fire resistant furnace dwarfs and the fire breathing things couldn't even scratch them. Then they found the dwarf slaying machine: trees. 8 ents, just crushed my main stack inside a guard tower with only medium injuries.
Third game: overstretched myself. I pushed east where the easy mines were. Baron tier AI took over my main city around year 3, while my eastern army was overrun by barbarians.
Fourth game got really close. Dark ages game. Baron level senator to the south, kept them pinned. Found another dwarf to the far east, pushed them all the way to their base and kept a long siege. Dwarf capitals are almost impossible to take because of the defensive balistae. Then the fire nation attacked.
BTW dark ages can be brutal. 2/3 AI knights were killed by independents. One of my mines was actually overrun by fire ants. On a 10v10 furnace dwarf vs ants, the ants will win.
Inferno portal opened 3 months march from my capital. I severely underestimated it so I ignored it for half a year. I actually passed by the cultists earlier and ignored them even though it was an easy enough kill with 15 dwarves. Demons flooded in, destroyed the AI senator and wiped out another of my mines with 13 hell hounds or so.
I sent my remaining units, 50 dwarf workers or so on a suicide run to close the portal while my last troops build ballistae and seige the last remaining enemy.
They didn't die, surprisingly. The demons eventually got wiped out by other independent stacks (dark ages really is brutal).
Then... the portal reopens again. I practically kick myself because I knew they were stacking sinners there for a reason.
It was too strong to close this time. I send a last ditch effort to capture the last remaining citadel.
Oh wait, now they have 8 balistae, and an enhanced gate. While I was able to wipe out all the troops on a previous savescum except the dvala, this time a gemmed out 30 dwarf army with siege weapons doesn't even make it past the gates.
The correct strategy would have been to retreat west and let the fire ants expand and overwhelm the AI dwarves.
Anyway, really fun game. Losing is fun because it's well deserved, didn't feel like it was random luck like before. I love the Dwarf Queen changes, especially the mid game. Next time, I'll probably cluster a group of dvala instead of spreading them out.
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Topic: Conquest of Elysium 5 (Read 14247 times)