Endless Legend Thread

Custom broken lords based around dust generation are definitely broken. I remember making over 3K dust a turn late game.

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Dear bug,

fuck off

t. vaulters et al.

REMOVE BUG

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I love playing Cultists, but I also hate playing Cultists.

Sometimes I imagine the master puppet thing is just a prank and they're just fucking around with all the subhumans.

WHERE THE FUCK ARE THE FLAMETHROWER CONSTRUCTS ZOLYA

Broken Lords are definitely my favourite, but I was surprised at how much fun I had with the Forgotten. I don't usually like that sort of sabotage/espionage thing but those guys are interesting.

How long has it been since you've played? That shit was patched months ago.

Elaborate?

I've never really done much with the espionage system, but for the times that I have used it it's been really fun to use.

Another reason the forgotten are fun is you can win a science victory by just buying all the other tech. The most lazy way of becoming the smartest people on the planet and also rather fun.

Yeah this is what I was doing.

Forgotten can't research tech at all, they have to either buy it or steal it off others.

i find it funny that the "thief" faction has to be black.

I know.

I fucking hate proliferators, you're punished if you fihgt them and can't win. I don't like this combat in general but the rest is fun

You gotta kill his early minor faction villages, it'll get you more exp for your units and they can't expand their city food from stockpiles due to killing minor factions.

Yeah and I try, sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't since we play on medium maps with 2 bots (for 5 players total), so its a big of a crap shoot on whether we can get on top of that or not.

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Nice city you had there
what a shame

Goy, please.

says the faggot who just runs away like a beetle

Because they won and went to endless space.

Why, who wouldn't run away from a stronk, independent wymin of mixed heritage? :^)
Also some major hutzpah on you trash talking migration mechanics considering you dumb goyim crashed your ship fencehopping Auriga.

Thank fuck, can I play the game now?

Yeah, the nerfs make playing anyone who isn't the Morgawr do-able now. Also the resource split between land and sea isn't so drastic anymore.

Seems pretty balanced in the current version, the only thing it's missing is more balanced custom factions and more world creation options.

I haven't played Morgawr yet, are the really that awful?

They're a pretty good and fun faction to play but in the newest patch you can't just live in the ocean and expect things to go perfect, you need to control minor factions and get a stable land army at least for defense.

I thought it still had some fuckery around a month ago, but it didn't seem to do anything too bad just now.

Any recommendations for game settings? Especially with the difficulty. I've found that the harder difficulties for the resources are not that fun since everything takes tens of turns.

I've had the most fun as Cultists on pangaea on serious. This was pre-morgowr though. Pre-Allayi too. Then they ruined the AI such that you could have guy down to his last city and he still wouldn't give you shit for peace. It's mostly fixed now, but the leery malus still effects peace negotiations, which is bullshit. Where I was going with this is, on higher difficulties were the AI get more resources than you, you should be taking them from the AI.

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Don't die yet.

I'm going to enjoy colonizing you backwards ass spearchuckers and steam all your Dust

>be ELVES
Talk shit, get hit.

So what's your favorite minor faction?

Among other things:

What a fag

Goy plz

Orcs, because they seem more like Russians than brutes. They also provide a decent ranged unit if your empire lacks one.

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I don't know, was appeasing space YHVH a good idea?

The game may end but not your legend, so go be legendary user.

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If you turn off score victory it is.

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Isn't that pretty much Stellaris?

Tie between Broken Lords (because vampire suits of armor) Vaulters (fucking spess mehreens) and Drakken (HELLO THANKS FOR LETTING ME KNOW WHERE YOUR CAPITAL IS TURN ONE BYE).

You can never go wrong with Eyeless Ones or Hurnas.

It speaks volumes about the faction variety and mechanics when every user has a favorite faction

Its nice to see they have Turk race there.

BARBARIANS OUT REEEEEEEEEEE

Stellairs isn't a 4x game though

They really did an excellent job mapping out the options. As you said, so many anons choosing different factions.

Id love the game more if I could just fucking slow down tech. I already play on slower speeds but a new era dawns before ive comfortably understood the current era. Is there a mod that can help with this?

Yeah, don't add vaulters or ardent mages to the game.

but what if I play Vaulters

Enjoy getting the best techs first.

Yay science!

A thing you have to be on the watch for however is that advancing to a new era increases production costs of all units. I'd suggest getting as many settlers and such out early game because it's much faster to build them.

Is there any particular version of the game I should pirate?

Get the base game. From that point you decide what else you want:
I honestly played the base game for the longest time until I eventually caved and bought the DLC.

Why do people like Vaulters? They're boring.

Space elves are better.
Fluffy moth bats are better.
And they're both gay as fuck.

Teleportation and science

It's like you hate fun or something.

Wind Walkers > Vaulters architecture

They aren't your typical tree hugger elves though.
They are about realizing that their barbarian past was fur faggotry and building big beautiful walls and towers is a lot more sensible.

Please tell me you know the slavery trick?
offer peace for loads of resources, that's half the fun, having concrete things apart from the win condition to war for. Hell I normal war for econ and strategic purposes and close it out with the wonder with the slavery trick, to avoid long marches to every fucking capital.

Everything up to the lost tales or all the way to latest patch. They fucked the AI in the middle, it's still a little iffy.

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Also the fucking Cultists quest is gut-wrenching.

Is there a reason to advance the Cultist quest past that really fucking neat amulet you get for your units?

If you are being very dilligent with converting and maintaining your brainwashed villages Shrine of Whispers is an amazing science boon for the lategame. Past that is All Beings are Siblings which is a nice boost to recruited units but not essential, though helpful if you are going full crazy conqueror. Past even that is just the conclusion to your quest victory. Plus of course the ending storyline of the Disobedient.

Are you telling me you identify with the knife eared spearchuckers over your glorious robot overlords? Do you not feel the purpose of a thousand men and robots marching in lock-step?

There's also the mask whose name eludes me right now that adds more percentage stat boosts as well as winter immunity.

Who's this chimichanga chomper?

I'm wondering which faction quest is the most useful for their faction. I've only really done the vaulters one and early winter immunity is so good on cities.

Wait, does Slavery actually work with converted villages in other regions? That seems like an oversight.

Nope, it's intentional, build that fucking wonder in 8 turns, bitches. Compensation for one damn build queue. Hello 3 nameless per turn.

I can say for a fact that Morgawr and Necrophage are complete shit for usefulness. Fucking morgowr has like 3 things of wait 10 turns in it, it's ridiculous. Also I thought the Morgawr totems wouldn't steal health when garrisoned, but they fucking do.

The Vaulters I found so so, I generally am not pumping out enough strategics at the time to get the winter shelters as soon as they come. They're low priority to me vs abusing technolover and I don't find the early winters to hurt at all.

Allayi getting a fucking free Skyfin super early on is absolutely bonkers. That shit has stupid amounts of movement and vision.

t. The Necrophages

And that's not all.
If you make a custom faction you can take off that pesky Weapons of the Enemy faction specialty.

You mean the queen? No the queen is a rogue AI. Only 3 days late to tell you.

But it's shit, has to be by itself, and is only good for the resource boost. In a fight it just gets fucked.

Then you don't let it get into fights. If something attacks it you just retreat. The entire purpose of the skyfin that early is to scout around everything and giving you a clear view of what are the best spots to settle before your opponents can settle there. Information is key.

Remove Endless.

That really doesn't make it "bonkers". Early game intel, oo so op!

Sure, in a very specific circumstance.

You don't play a lot of 4x, do you you stupid shit. That early game intel makes or breaks games. What are the best expansion spots, where the enemy armies are and what is their strength and composition, location of problem rival factions like bugs or cultists, what are the places to rush a settler for and where you delay them… this is shit you have to expend time building units and sending them away. A free flying unit with bonkers movement range and vision as early as turn 6 gives you an insane edge.

Not really. The enemy won't have an army at the beginning of the game for you to scout out and record their stats. There's no need to rush for expansions early unless you want to crash your economy and dust supply which you need for quick buying of things. You wait for the retarded other guy to do it and then just take his town with the army you could easily fund and get going long before he could.

Someone who places such value on intel, end-game and tactical thought should know better.

NOW I CAN SEE THE WHAAAAALES

Sisters of mercy because bitches with swords

shit games

Are you proposing we shut it down? :^)

If you're settling right you should be generating more net income with another city and you can still build settlers with your pop set to maximum dust. Also if you get a favorable pacification quest you can do it with the skyfin and get an instant +3 pop in your second city. I'm playing the Allayi now and they're pissing me off, they're almost a straight upgrade over the cult. Fucking Luxury Alchemy, reeeee. Especially with the fact that they patched in luxury costs for the cult to increase by 1 for each village, so you can never break even with resource income.

I wish the resource leech rate was back to 0.1 per village, or even lower and the flat booster cost again.

What faction do I play to force myself to not rush trade routes, caravanserais and influence and swim in so much dust and science that I get bored and quit? This is a real problem with the Morgawr.

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He's clearly the beauteous master race and holds the Jews in his hand. You won't fool me with your reptilian schlomo tricks.

sage again for my double posting ass

Cult or Necros, I'm not even sure the Necros can even trade at all.

uwot fam
Stellaris has GSG traits but its a 4x first and foremost

Except because the way only one faction can found one city per region it is not about fast expansion and rather being there first. There is no forward settling like Civ - there is just being first at that region with the three anomalies sitting right next to each other.

Waiting for the enemy to settle before taking a city is a valid strategy - but the enemy might settle in a suboptimal place (especially if you are playing a faction that grants tile bonuses or needs specific FIDSI - Vaulters, Necrophages, Broken Lords, Wild Walkers…) and taking a city is risky because it favors the defender.

But the absolute bestcase scenario is not outright war - it is spotting the enemy settler moving and intercepting him first and settling the city yourself. That is the best way of crippling an opponent without actually having to waste influence and units and going to war.

Bugs and Cultists. Necrophages are my pick because you get so much fucking food from killing stuff it just naturally lends itself to a conquest strategy.

Anyone else notice that the way that guy on the left is holding his crossbow the bowstring would hit his hand if he decided to shoot something?

I really like the Necrophage economy but really dislike their army. Wound up choosing Forgotten since they don't get as much from trade as other factions and are relatively aggressive.

This start is disgustingly good. Teal is Necrophage but I already have three pacified Silic villages.

What are the anomalies at the bottom-left of Ipedan? Are there better FIDSI where you first settled?

Ipedan's next to Dragon Tree and Clay, to the southwest there's (bottom to top) Minerals, Giant Tree and Mychordia. I spawned roughly where I settled, below the cliff so I couldn't see the southwest. Only a slight FIDSI difference I think especially since you can't hit the approval anomaly and the minerals at the same time if you settled southwest, and the travel time also makes a difference.

Looks okay then. I once had a friend who would spend so much time roaming around searching for the best fucking place to settle he would lose his initial army in the process.

Don't like the Proliferator?

Small update on how the game's going.
Necrophage attacked, because Necrophage always attacks and he caught me nogging his tech. While my troops are pinned defending Golcwin, the smug Drakken cunt teams me from behind and takes a city because I was stupid enough to not research roads and there's forest everywhere so my main stack takes a way too long march. Thankfully I remembered movement accessories existed to just barely reach the second city in time, so now it's time to cook some lizards. Games like these is where the fun's at.

They get kind of boring, in all honesty.

Check the turn count on my image, you're telling me. It's why I advocate going for the wonder as cult. The game could really use some kind of end game mobility thing ala AC's drop pods.

Even the AI knows that Drakken units are hella tanky and attacks all the time. I'd put Drakken as the best for Supremeacy because of force peace.

Do you ever end up using stealth or camouflage? Can't say I ever have, I should play the forgotten some time myself.

To sneak spies or quest ruins mostly. You could maybe try to use stealth pillagers to annoy people you're at cold war with and fuck with their remote expansions.

I can't believe I know all these tricks but didn't think of that, that really helps.

Drakken are perfect for early game aggression because not only can the hero keep healing your broken starter infantry they get exp super fast and you already know where the enemy capitals are. You just march there killing every minor faction unit you find on the way and you will soon be knocking on their door with level 4-5 Drakkenlings. Shit's crazy.

He's the only one two handing a one handed crossbow, he'll learn his lesson soon.

Stealth is great from an infowars point of view. You can have one army that isn't stealthed escorted by a stealthed army, and when someone attacks the visible army thinking they can take it they get run over by surprise reinforcements. Or attack in one location to draw forces over there to set up for your stealth army attacking another location.

Forgotten heroes get a skill that lets their entire army be stealthed, and infantry heroes are pretty decent army generals anyway. There's also a ruins-quest hero accessory that gives stealth to the whole army. So you can get crazy stuff like stealthed Necrophages and shit.

I just pirated endless legends because of this thread and played through the tutorial and went "wow, this is like a more complex civilization game"

Plus the best damn OST ever.

Somewhat accurate. You must get all expansions for the full experience, though. (with the newest patch because the last expansion, as good as it is, was not balanced well)

It is also CHEAPER then Civ in my experience, gets dirt low during sales so "All Expansions" is less a investment then one would think.

I kinda like Allayi since they get a strong start with that early Skyfin and not being too deeply specialized and the abillity to go FUCK WINTER, making it easy to explore, expand exploit, which are three of the 4X. I also kinda like their TRUE CHILDREN OF AURIGA spiel and how their storyline blows them the fuck out in regards to that.

I've actually found that one myself. The problem I find with Endless Legend is no built in **civilopedia*. I always forget what the mithrite/hyperium accessories do and never end up building any of them

IIRC it's really easy to alt tab out of EL so just use the online wiki:
endlesslegend.gamepedia.com/Accessories

Is there any way to see what a unit's traits do ingame besides going to the edit screen? You can't see what the traits for units you get from quests or possession do and it's really annoying.

You should be able to hover over the traits in combat mode, just make sure the unit you want is selected

You think they'll finish Endless Space 2 in time for Summer?

You mean during a battle? I always use auto mode. That shit takes too long.

What are these white orbs with the golden glow? I don't know what to look up to search for them so I figured I'd ask here

Yeah, it seems like you have to edit the unit to see trait details.

>I always use auto mode
how do you not lose every fucking fight you get in

Forgotten are proving to be pretty fun. My economy is in the shitter, I get zero influence income and barely any dust surplus, but somehow everything still works and I'm keeping up decently with tech. Surprising how much having to rely on the AI to research not-stupid techs changes things.

Pearls of Auriga or some shit like that.

Set animation speed to fastest, then it starts being tolerable.

Pearls, collect them to fuck everyone else over during winter.

New player here. Any advice to get gud? Best plans for expansion?

Even having 4 areas is pushing it for most factions due how Populations HATE expansion.

Don't expand too quickly despite how tempting it is, Spend the first 20 or so turns exploring on or after turn 20 you settle whatever particularly rich area you found, why 20? That is when you get your first Empire plan, which increases for every City, so making your second before that is basically robbing yourself.

Quality over quantity.

Fuck i mean settle your SECOND city, for the fist you basically plop down where you get put down or one of the surrounding areas, it is generally not worth being too picky about your first city.

Got it, just plop down the first one, then search for a resource rich area, then make your second city after turn 20/after you get your first Empire plan.

Populations hate expansion, but in mid to late game you can research techs to reduce the expansion malus by 25% each, total of 50%. Bread and Circuses at era 3, State Approved Theatre at era 5. Luxuries are also really important, not just for their specific bonus but for the global happiness increase; Wine in particular gives +30, which is 3 cities worth of expansion malus without malus reducing tech. Level 2 Borough Streets also give +5 happiness each in that city, so if you have enough of them you'll just hit fervent naturally.

I agree that four cities is generally pushing it pre-era3, depending on how many luxuries you have reliable access to. After that, you should be safe to expand more, up to about 6-8 cities. It's hard to give concrete numbers given how much it'll depend on luxury availability.

i overleveled my hero and now im bleeding money

god damnit

Probably Fall-Early December

Get at least 3 cities by early age 2. For any more, EL has a handy mechanic for seeing how much more you can expand, empire approval. Happy is about what you're aiming for but Content is fine if you're expanding and haven't yet built approval buildings. Fervent means you should expand through any means necessary. The more spare approval you have, the more you should expand.

This is very wrong. Do not do this. Being Fervent gives you +30% to Food, Industry, Dust, and Science output on that city. You want all your cities to become Fervent and stay Fervent.

You're very right. But I don't think expansion is any less important than approval. Expansion vs. Approval is a question of long term vs short term and sometimes more happy cities make a stronger empire than less fervent cities.

It's the old adage. The more you expand the more units you will be able to build, but it will come at the cost of happiness and some loss of FIDSI in your cities. The less you expand the easier it is to keep your cities happy including the use of boosters, but you won't be able to crank out units as quickly unless you are swimming in Dust. Each game is different and you have to make a conscious decision of staying in Content or Happy or try to get Fervent if your cities are productive enough for it.

I was going to say that certain civs would tend to be wide vs tall (and they do), but I don't think the percentage boost/malus of approval is enough (in the early game at least) to not go wide. The only thing you need to consider is if you're competitive for wonders or not, and would rather go for the megapole or make more settlers.

Why does this game make my toaster so hot.

Power of Unity and Drakken dick.

(checked)

The main issue with going wide is the increase of cost when it comes to boosters, going wide truly goes better on a map where resources are set to abundant.

(Thanks Satan)
The early game is always going for 4-5 city expansion. What you do after that depends on the circumstances and neighbors, because lategame 30% bonus to every city is enormous.

There will never be enough Drakken and Allayi porn

I'd like furfags to leave.

Furfags are better than you

Literal SEMEN demon. The difference is important.

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They're technically different

It was my first multiplayer game and first time playing the cultists but they are so much fun.

Such is life in the Cult. For similar rage quit inducement, as Necrophage take a city and sacrifice its entire population to "Demanding Gods".

It could be by summer. Only two more factions left now that Horatio is in and then they need to polish. Summer's not till June.

Almost as good was the fact that he got really mad and gave all his researched techs to the other two players before quitting in the hopes that it would make it harder for me. It screwed them though because the forgotten player now needed crazy amounts of dust to research anything new and the Vaulter was taking too long to get the tech he was hoping to use to attack me during winter.

I'll probably try the Allayi next, see if I can make them rage by dancing around their empires while they can't move in winter. That or just play Broken lords properly and rush dust production instead of wasting time on wonders or unnecessary research like he did.

Anyone paid attention to the main quest? I finished the game thru it multiple times before, but today was the first time I paid attention to what exactly is being said. Who has the best questline?
I did Wild Walkers just now.

I like it, the leader realizes that their old wood elf lifestyle would only lead to extinction so he forces his people to change and turns them into a highly advanced city building people. His end goal is to make a massive tower into the heavens/space.

Anyone got torrent with the dlc?

We cannot save Mother Auriga

I will forever say the Cult, just for the sheer feeling of conquest.

Most masculine storyline. From Gaia loving (female) to sky piercing (male) space trip.

Haven't played in a while but mages had some of the best units. A squad of phoenixes in auto calc (fuck manual battle) was pretty much unbeatable, no losses even. They could attack every turn and stomp cities

This
unless they significantly nerfed the mages since the last time I played they were unstoppable rape machines

The problem most people have is that Warlocks are garbage. They've got low initiative, low defense, and low HP, so if your opponent has ranged units and/or knows how to focus fire they just get mulched. They're glass cannons that aren't fast enough to do their job. Zealots and Pheonixes are crazy good, though.

So basically weak early game with OP late game elites. Exactly what you would expect from quadratic wizards

God fuck those Zealots. Unless they were changed lately one crit of theirs crits on every surrounding unit, making their AOE bonkers.

All AoE in the game works like that. Circle Strike, Sweep Strike Back, etc. It doesn't reroll attack vs defense for every single unit it hits, it just takes the first roll and uses that for every unit it hits.

Just like stun spells

This means that if you have a unit with a Slayer weapon and AoE attack a unit that it gets bonus damage against, the AoE damage will include the slaying bonus even if it's hitting a different type of unit; e.g. a Daemon with Ranged Slayer 4 (+50% damage vs ranged units) and 100 base damage attacks a ranged unit and catches 2 infantry with Chain Lightning (20% to all adjacent units). Since AoE does a percentage of the damage dealt to the original unit, the infantry will take 20% of the 150 damage it dealt to the ranged unit, not 20% of the damage it would have dealt had it attacked the infantry unit.

That victory screen looks badass. Does somebody have it or any of the other Allayi victory screens as a wallpaper?

I want to get into this game and am downloading Tempest.
Does it include every faction or should I download every expansion then merge them or something in a Sims-like fashion?

Tempest is just and expansion pack. To use your Sims metaphor, you're just downloading Late Night. Make sure to acquire the game too.

(nice)
The best expacs are debateable, it depends on what you want. Tempest is naval-focused, Guardians is focused on Wonders and giant fucking Guardians. Shadows is focused on espionage and stealth. Shifters is focused on winter.

Tempest is the best, fills in a feature that really felt like it was missing from the core game. Guardians is similar but the only xpack that doesn't add a faction. Shadows and Shifters both add a faction and somewhat extraneous feeling features but neither is bad and both allow several fun things.

Tempest is a must have because of naval features.
I'd recommend Shifters a lot because of unique mechanics and a great faction. Guardians too because wonders and super strong unites really add a new element of fun to the game.
Shadows only if you like espionage. It's not bad, but I don't play its faction much.

There are also two small, cheap dlcs. One is a quest dlc, which makes quests feel less repetitive, so it's good. The other is more music, which may be jew-y, but it's good music and both of these are very cheap. I'd get them for basically nothing when a sale comes.
And beyond being impatient, I'd recommend getting all expansions on a sale.

bunp

Favorite faction to play as?

Is the tempest dlc worth the money on steam? I could wait for a sale, but am I missing out if I am playing the game without it meanwhile?

Vaulters or the Roving Clans

Is there a way to plan what exact path a unit will take?
Checking in on these skyfins is a chore.

Keep right-click down

Oh, you meant like drawing the path through multiple turns. No, I don't think that's possible.

Top banter from the eldritch monster.

Obvious choice

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I have no idea why the AI hates the Skyfin so much. It doesn't harm them in any way to have a Skyfin aspirating resource nodes they haven't built an extractor on; it even gives their city happiness, so it's helping them. If they do build an extractor, the Skyfin can't aspirate that node anymore, so it can't steal resources. There's really no reason for them to dislike it.

Is there anywhere to read summaries of all the faction quests?

It reminds them that they are not TRUE CHILDREN OF AURIGA, and that triggers them.

AIs are beings fixed, inflexible and slow.

Just.

That's a big map.

For you.

So what's the exact difference between Vaulters and Mezari?

Skins. That's it, they play the same.

Any lore behind different skins?

The Mezari are the Vaulters when they first crash on Auriga, meaning they have an explicit (in the lore at least) of getting off the planet and/or settling it permanently.

Absolutely nothing, the Mezari are a pre-order reskin

thank you 8ch for not updating and now telling me I have the wrong password to delete this

This felt kinda passive aggressive from the AI.

They're a reskin in the hands of the player. The Mezari AI is more aggressive than the Vaulters AI. Lore-wise, the Mezari and the Vaulters are the same race at different periods; the Mezari are the Vaulters just after their spaceship crashed and before they stuck themselves in underground vaults for however long.

A general question, should I aim to iron out the weakness of my faction trait or maxing the thing they're really good at.

Say investing in agriculture techs as the bugs

Bugs have Cellulose mutation for a reason; you get good sized cities even at low population numbers, so agriculture doesn't matter as much. Agriculture tech is generally bad anyway outside of Seed Storage and Public Granary. Lategame food techs cost way too much glassteel and palladium that could be going towards dust techs and strategic weaponry. Just build Seed Storage/Public Granary in all your cities and Husbandry Center in your 3-village Slavery governor industry powerhouse, then ignore all the other food techs. This works as a general strategy for all races, not just bugs.

Thanks for the tip

When I started playing Endless Legend I was mostly Drakken or Vaulters. But nowaxdays I enjoy playing as the Forgotten.

However, I suck as the Forgotten. Got any tips on how to play as them?

Dust Sense makes my dick hard, them cellos and drums

Forgotten can be hard to play vs AI because the Forgotten are a parasitic faction and the AI is retarded. You start with pillage and all your units have stealth, so obviously you want to pillage everything you possibly can. However, the AI takes forever to pacify/rebuild their villages since they don't do minor faction quests, so even if you start near a bunch of other factions you may not have very many pillage targets. Stealing tech is okay earlygame, but the AI tends to research dumb shit so you might not get anything good to steal.

Pillage damage is based on the total number of unit levels in the army. It doesn't matter what they're equipped with (outside of the pillage trinket) and it doesn't matter what kind of unit they are; 6 level 2 assassins equipped with nothing but tier 1 iron swords pillage just as effectively as 6 level 2 mysts with full titanium gear. Earlygame, you're going to want to build a bunch of armies equipped with garbage and pillage everything you can get your grubby hands on, then upgrade their gear with the pillage monies. Meritocratic Promotion is a high priority for the Forgotton because 6 level 2 units do 24 fortification damage +6 from Practiced Pillage = 30 fortification damage, so you can pillage unupgraded buildings in a single turn.

If the Roving Clans are in your game, either cuddle up to them or kill them off. Market Ban hurts the Forgotten really bad, because you want to be buying a ton of heroes and infiltrating as much as you can to get that sweet Learn From Others boost. Learn From Others is insanely good and you'll want to infiltrate as many heroes as you reasonably can even if you're not going to be building them for infiltration just for the exp boost. For example, you can infiltrate a BL hero somewhere, get him massive +exp per turn from your other infiltrated heroes, and once he's got a bunch of good governor skills you stick him in a dust generation city. He doesn't even have to do anything other than sit in an enemy city and suck down exp.

The forgotten quest is decent and gets you some good stuff, notably one of the best general heroes in the game and a city improvement that increases the amount of strategics/luxuries you generate. Your units are weak earlygame but you get 2 infantry generals that are pretty good at buffing their units. Assassins can get two slaying bonuses at the same time, so they become murder machines in later eras.

I cant make drakken work because of some bullshit wonder that rapes influence production, what do?

The Center of Influence Facility, I presume? It's a unique naval facility that you can capture, that reduces everyone else's influence production by 1% per naval fortress you control, and increases your influence production by the same percentage. Note that the Formorians also count as a faction for this calculation, so if nobody's taken any fortresses and the CoI isn't controlled by anyone, which is a very common scenario at the start of Era 2, everyone will be taking massive influence reductions until someone captures the damn thing. Just build a navy and take it.

If you don't have the latest patch it'll also reduce your influence production by a flat -10 if you don't control it, so you should probably let Steam update your game, goy.

I don't think I could have won any harder.

bump

No, I too think those crossbows are retarded.