u/Tema726

Hello! This is my penultimate video in the series, it's time for my favourite swarm =)
The biggest problem with the Necrophages, is that as the game progresses the turns become longer and longer and longer, but the early game is so engaging and entertaining for me, that it is all worth it =) Necrophages and Aspects are my most favourite factions, they are extremely strong and very entertaining to play with. The series will conclude on Saturday with the Aspects video. Thank you for your time and attention!

https://preview.redd.it/013e50hdy5oh1.png?width=2067&format=png&auto=webp&s=6e98bba91d277adb6aaf911970e88db22789e405

The one where you had a particularly bloody battle, and then your hero becomes over the top melodramatic?

This one was different though. Uwe Rach IS NOT MY HERO! I play Last Lords, and I fought the Kin, and this dude is the Kin's hero, who wasn't even in this battle, he was quite a bit away. Me deciding for my AI opponent is definitely not something that was intended.

I might be blind, but I don't see it in the change log, and now the tech that used to give +1 territory attachment limit to a city does not state it anymore. So what's up with that?

Basically, we can have roads through the neutral territories if there is just one territory between 2 Trading Posts. If I have a neutral territory between 2 territories of mine with the Trading posts, I think the road should be of the highest quality that I have researched. Maybe if the roads are between different empires (do such things exist, actually?), the quality of these roads can be the lower between the two empires, but if my empire decided to connect 2 territories of mine with a road, I want that road to be fast! The mobility is already very sad whenever you play anyone but necrophages, especially when you have faction quest objectives 6-10 turns away from you, making neutral roads useless is just too much punishment for no clear reason

So, at this point I had lots of wars with various AI, and there is a pattern that is very pronounced.

1. AI starts a war with you for whatever reason. It is usually unjustified.

2. You kill their armies that attack you

3. You are dominating on the war score

4. They ask YOU to surrender and pay THEM (but if I go to the diplomacy screen, since I am dominating, I have the option to demand pay from them)

5. You refuse and fight them some more, killing more of their armies

6. If they are super weak or lost all their armies, they suggest white peace.

7. If you refuse and proceed, once they build up a new army, they again demand a surrender form you

Basically, something must be wrong, the AI is not capable of proposing a surrender, no matter how much you dominate. The best they are capable of is the white peace when they are completely on their knees.

I am dominating in a war with Tahuks, and I don't want to continue it, I want to stop it. First they asked me to surrender and pay them 1.5 k. I refused and took a city from them. Now they want me to surrender and pay 5 k to them! The more I dominate, the more they want ME to pay THEM. And as long as they have some armies somewhere (which in the late game they always do), they won't ever suggest me white peace. So my only way to end this war now is to pay them lots of money.

My body is a machine that turns

https://preview.redd.it/1hqa74rby5mh1.png?width=1212&format=png&auto=webp&s=daa8ea17a74c7a1ba3c5c715d622df83b3e20f72

into

https://preview.redd.it/g1jjwgfey5mh1.png?width=1212&format=png&auto=webp&s=24e2e01c65f02570f7c5aa4ccf679e568d8043c8

Last Lords' Defender heroes have a skill "Lost in the Fray" -- when recovering health in battle, deals damage to the adjacent enemies. I wanted to see a loop of heal -> Lost in Fray -> kill -> heal through "Gifts of the Fallen" -> Lost in Fray -> and so on

Here I set up such a situation. Bishop shoots an ochling further away and heals the defender, the defender explodes and kills the ochling, heals form it and explodes again. Instead of a satisfying loop I got an unexpected error though :/

In my Last Lords' city I have 2 territories with a lvl 2 Soul Repositories. One of them is adjacent to a pacified village with the Lord's Estate on it, and surrounded by 4 other districts:

https://preview.redd.it/q5n1ud3x6zlh1.png?width=871&format=png&auto=webp&s=1d398ea0f02bfaba6a2dea05bb83ff70a7950d86

So, I have 4 Primordial Lords in the city. If I round up the population and the village rebels, then the Lord's Estate disappear (understandably), but also 2 Primordial Lords disappear from the city! Wut? I don't think it is intended?

Some people might be tired of seeing my name, but hear me out please =)

There were many discussions and problems about simultaneous turns, but one thing I noticed recently is a strong asymmetry:

- If I am attacking somebody and it takes 2 turns to besiege, for example, the AI has 2 turns to react to it, since it goes after me

- If an AI declares a war, it happens after I have done everything in my turn. If they besiege a city and it takes 2 turns, they get their first turn "for free" and I have only one turn to react.

It's not impossible, it's manageable, the more I play, the better I understand what to expect from the AI and so on, but still, the asymmetry is strong and can be very punishable

I was passing by when I saw the Necrophages' capital at the side. Hell, why not, I thought, declared the war, attacked the capital, and razed it in 4 or 5 turns. The Necrophage is now gone. They had 3.5 times more military score than I, I had a single stack destroying their capital, while their stacks were elsewhere. They have increadible mobility, they could have teleported 2 stacks in a turn or two and punish me for my insolense, but they did not. They didn't react when I started a siege, they didn't react when I started the raze. I saw a stack of 5 Spitters around a different nest, it never came to help the capital.

I understand the other factions, they generally can afford losing a capital, they can rebuild or reconquer (still, probably they should intervene if they have a chance). But Necrophages, they must protect their Queen with all their might! It is existential for them!

So, Death Touch is broken -- and has been broken for months, there are bug reports on the Amplifiers forum dated 6 and 6 months back, and I have seen other reports on the steam forums many times. And for me, Death Touch is the main reason to play Last Lords. Here why:

1. Death Touch deals damage equal to 50% of the hero's max health to the hero and 6 surrounding tiles.

2. Essense Syphoning heals by 25% of max HP when eliminating a unit

3. Lord's Toughness adds 3 max HP forever per eliminated unit.

So imagine a thick hero, approaching an enemy group of 6 units, they surround him, he explodes dor 200 damage, killing them all, healing back to max HP and getting even thicker in the process, so in the next fight he would explode even harder? Isn't it fun?

But it doesn't work!

1. If Death Touch actually kills a unit, the game gets confused. It keeps the unit model in place with full HP, but in fact the tile is empty, anybody can go stand there. The unit actually dies, and if everyone else is dead, the fight ends. BUT THIS DEATH IS NOT NOTICED NEITHER BY ESSENSE SYPHONING, NOR BY LORD'S TOUGHNESS! So you don't get healed up, and you max HP does not increase. Now you are standing there at half HP and wait for somebody to accidentally kill you

2. It doesn't do damage of 50% max hp, it does 50% of current hp -- which is not what it is said to be doing!

In addition, add every other complain about LL my fellow Endless difficulty players raised in a post a few days ago, and you get yourself quite a frustrating game. The units got super nerfed and they are expensive (so forget about strong armies of units), all the districts are very expensive. Last Lords (according to their stats and description of their skills) are expected to be god-level single hero doomstacks with mediocre armies for the entourage. But they are not

When we mouse over an equipment to be built, there is a description of that improvement ("Details") and the summary of the outcome ("Placement Details", highlighted in gold)

https://preview.redd.it/kczat85w7jkh1.png?width=510&format=png&auto=webp&s=7fb59d5781a949a6590042f97968729265844d00

This golden highlight used to be a perfect indicator whether the improvement works or not. For a long time, Caravansarai was bugged and was not providing any outcome, and this golden highlight was not present either. As I recall, this golden highlight was correct 100%, no matter if the improvement is bugged and doesn't work at all, or if there are no tiles to which the improvement can be applied.

Now, unfortunately, it is not the case. For example, Quarry Oversight (+25 dust on Extractor) does work, but has no Placement Details:

https://preview.redd.it/bna7b2tp8jkh1.png?width=510&format=png&auto=webp&s=0ff16b63f1c88ba1bc963259e3a8e86d211e6d55

Or another example, Hydrocorn's Moonhollow. Placement details says +10 Science, but +2 Science does appear on the 2nd level districts, so the improvement works, but the Placement Details are not calculated correctly

https://preview.redd.it/bs4fn6129jkh1.png?width=510&format=png&auto=webp&s=8386cd6e2dbc939fa47c399e6baf54dd2b829902

So now, Placement Details cannot be used anymore to accurately predict what is going to happen and to know, which improvements are working, which are partially broken, and which are broken completely. I was hesitant to build +25 Dust on Extractor, because Placement Details were not showing anything, yet it worked. I was hesitant to build Crystallograpy School (+2 Science on Glass tiles), because Placement Details were not showing anything, and it didn't work.

We cannot always know which improvements work and which are not on every new patch. Placement Details used to be our trusty companion and guide, but not anymore. RIP Placement Details O7

It is either broken, or just plain bad. SPOILERS AHEAD, obviously.

If you go Bold all the way, at every choice, then the very final part of the quest does not make any sense. Curator Meng decides to share the truth with the people and abolish their traditional religion -- ok, I am with you so far. But also become a dictator? Why though, where does it come from?

The problem is, that then the game spawns an army "Meng's private army", that we need to defeat, and the conversation afterwards talks about a coup, where Qan Perisai defeats Meng and gives the power to Piro Ksana -- the leader of the religious wing! What the hell! Why in the very last part of the quest I suddenly change the agency and play not for the side I was playing so far, but for the opposite, and this side wins?

Moreover, the very final reward of the quest is "-50% industre cost on Devotee" -- 50% discount on a single unit that I haven't even built once! Are you for real? While Necrophages are getting a legendary bow with the range 7 (!), Tahuks are getiing their first tier infantry discounted?

So, there were many changes to the game, but the Tahuk quest line is still upsetting, breaking immersion, doesn't make any sense, and the characters talk like stupid adolescents.

And the Tahuk's improvement +2 Science on Glass doesn't work.

I want to comment on the AI based on my recent experiences: playing as Tahuk on a large Pangea map on Endless difficulty, fast speed.

1. I spawned next to Necrophage, and they chose me as the target. The first monsoon started with a war declaration, the first tidefall brought a siege on my capital's second territory. It was a good challenge and a lot of fun to survive. The thing is, the AI has no idea how to proceed if the first push has failed. If they have some forces left, they suggest me to surrender (they always want me to surrender, as far as I understood, not me to accept their surrender), if all their armies are wiped out, they propose a white peace. If I don't accept either, they keep sending armies my way as soon as they are built, only to lose them, while I am getting stronger and stronger. They completely stop economic development and just build the same armies that they send to die. From a fun challenge the war becomes a bit of an annoyance, when you need to be at two or free places at once

Ah, also, for some reason they value too much destroying the observatories. So much, that they overextend and send singular stacks to do so, obviously loosing these stacks. Building a new observatory costs 200 dust, while they lose a whole army!

2. The rest of the AI (Aspects, Kin and Last Lords) meanwhile were busy with their own business. The third Monsoon is about to happen, and they cleared only one citadel each (someone of them cleared 2, but I am at 4 at the moment)! They did not expand into any territories with the 2nd tier of strategic resources! What were they doing all this time I was busy with the Necrophage? Aspects have traveled the whole world (I had a map exchange with them, it revealed everything), and yet had very little camps and cities. I managed to get the 4 cities deed before any of them, despite having my hands tied with the Necrophage! It seems they only build camps if they can be attached to a city, and never just to claim a territory and build some resource extractors

To conclude: the AI values destroying observatories too much, the AI does not know how to behave in a war if it lost the army and falls into a death spiral, the AI does not expand nearly as much as it could (even if the expansions are just camps), the AI does not recognise the value of fighting citadels.

They do hunt down all the Doomwraiths though, them they cannot leave in peace. And they annoyingly close all the rifts, even if I want to keep some around me for the future Doomwraiths to spawn there

Hello! I have a few things to report:

1. On Tahuks, sending Esoteric Delegations is supposed to give a Called Fury status on cities in Empire, but I have 2 of these statuses of different strength

https://preview.redd.it/8anyl7oytbkh1.png?width=582&format=png&auto=webp&s=2fc2a72eed41e32ef078a953b67cea1b1cd09221

2. Era 6 technologies are weird. They give +15% Science, Dust or Influence on City Hall -- but a City Hall barely produces any! Isn't it supposed to be "on city"?

https://preview.redd.it/zr24rr54ubkh1.png?width=692&format=png&auto=webp&s=73136eb93b09cebc6f4cc2ee0cd8b14e9609fcd5

https://preview.redd.it/10pod34cubkh1.png?width=692&format=png&auto=webp&s=9ff7d5533e65fba59434687ee10ea4f50d73edf2

https://preview.redd.it/y09k2xnfubkh1.png?width=634&format=png&auto=webp&s=98281b8f51df585ebc9c453eb18a5da0d5fff6d4

3. Finally, there are currently 2 parallel Awakening quests happening: the old ones, when you meet the trio of Jarocite, Cerberus and the Nakhalim Lady on random tiles of unearthed terrain, and then a faction-specific quest. Narratively they are not compatible, I meet Cerberus two times. Shouldn't there be only one?

Earlier on this very subreddit Ok-Investigator3257 have shared their experience of meeting the Necrophages early into the game (https://www.reddit.com/r/EndlessLegend/comments/1vj6phk/fighting\_an\_early\_necrophade\_on\_endless\_is/). That sounded like a tough and fun challenge, so I tried to do the same. I must say, it was very exciting!

Hello!

1. Eternal Sunshine (at least on Bold) does not create Called population

2. I started with 2 Tahuk notables and one Necrophage notable. Seems strange

https://preview.redd.it/naf056kvccih1.png?width=1095&format=png&auto=webp&s=e41e026a5270e282e9090356c34e0ae82abafd1f

Mysterious Shack spawned in the second ring of the capital (in a prime spot for an early Works, mind you!) is kind of ridiculous, no?

I do appreciate that the devs are quite active here, but something needs to be done with the whole bug reporting system =(

There is a two-handed weapon "Dust-infused Shard" with an active skill "Dust Burst", which "Gains shield equal to 100% of the damage dealt". But it doesn't gain any shield.

The bug was reported 2 times 10 months ago on the amplitude-studios forum, didn't get any upvotes and didn't reach the stage of investigation.

There are lots of little bugs like that, and not all of them get reported on the amplitude forum. It's a pity that they get lost