# 502 Choosing Beta 1

[Jumpingfist]

SA. At first look I give them a 3 out of 10

Looking at just the setup they have a good feel. The devout crusarers with great leader, siege ability and special tactic that can move though the plains like the wind. Then you get to Turn 0 and see you only have a total of 3 kingdom brigades, 2 west men and a zealot. Your brigades are not as close as it would seem because your 2SA starts in the forest of oakendale where you will need to bring your horses through the wood to meet up with you other 2 kingdom brigades in the hopes that you can recruit some siege weapons on Turn 4. they do start with an extra baron and ambassador
With a total combat strength of about 17k vs PC that is with a couple marshals adding there 15% bonus. Not much you can do but knock over a village if you recruit because main group starts just under 8k vs PC.
Besides being a weakened kingdom in the center of the board you also share a region with either the PI or UN. Both of which have incredible navies to you 10 strength ships. You can lead the horses to water but do not try and cross it. Basically the cities will be split and even if the SA is allowed to control the region it will be a fragile one with low income to support an expensive military.
The rub you have these great leaders but they are not needed to promote special troops only for a couple tactical moves.
But there is hope or not. Because the kingdom has no long term advantage other than popping out and promoting leader. They have no cunning or orator, they have only siege weapons and some low end zealots to recruit beside the basic humans which the are likely to loose control of there own region by needing to recruit so many of these to protect the kingdom brigades. No magics max level of 4 with a cost of 13k per level, no agents at a max level of 9 with a base cost of 6 per level. The one thing they have is devout if they can get enough angles to bless there PCs maybe they can at least keep themselves from extingtion.

I think a special ability that recruiting humans has no effect or census would go a long way for these guys.

[Jumpingfist]

Cannot access the new order entry from work. Different browser not supported. Will have to hope for this turn.

Someone posted they actually did it on there iphone during the alpha.  Though I do not think that is much a solution.

[Acererak]

Got my first turn, everything as expected except I had a sinking feeling in my gut on realization that I didn't do the customization order so lost out on a very important piece of this scenario. I suppose I just forgot since there was no reminder in the verification (which there usually is for svc, eso etc...) Man, what a drag.

Sigh.

[HeadHoncho]

The default is still gold, yes?

[VballMichael]

SA.  At first look I give them a 3 out of 10

Looking at just the setup they have a good feel.  The devout crusarers with great leader, siege ability and special tactic that can move though the plains like the wind.   Then you get to Turn 0 and see you only have a total of 3 kingdom brigades, 2 west men and a zealot.  Your brigades are not as close as it would seem because your 2SA starts in the forest of oakendale where you will need to bring your horses through the wood to meet up with you other 2 kingdom brigades in the hopes that you can recruit some siege weapons on Turn 4.   they do start with an extra baron and ambassador
With a total combat strength of about 17k vs PC that is with a couple marshals adding there 15% bonus.  Not much you can do but knock over a village if you recruit because main group starts just under 8k vs PC.  
Besides being a weakened kingdom in the center of the board you also share a region with either the PI or UN.  Both of which have incredible navies to you 10 strength ships.  You can lead the horses to water but do not try and cross it.   Basically the cities will be split and even if the SA is allowed to control the region it will be a fragile one with low income to support an expensive military.
The rub you have these great leaders but they are not needed to promote special troops only for a couple tactical moves.
But there is hope or not.  Because the kingdom has no long term advantage other than popping out and promoting leader.  They have no cunning or orator, they have only siege weapons and some low end zealots to recruit beside the basic humans which the are likely to loose control of there own region by needing to recruit so many of these to protect the kingdom brigades.  No magics max level of 4 with a cost of 13k per level, no agents at a max level of 9 with a base cost of 6 per level.  The one thing they have is devout if they can get enough angles to bless there PCs maybe they can at least keep themselves from extingtion.

I think a special ability that recruiting humans has no effect or census would go a long way for these guys.

From the first game, I had similar comments about the SA. I think they will be challenged given the strengths of the kingdoms around them. Even their specialty of advancing with investigating Unusuals comes at a pretty high price with the increased leader deaths.

[Acererak]

Nope. The default is you get zippo. Clearly there should be a default.

[Lord Alz]

Name: Eagle Familiar Spell #: 887

Calling upon his knowledge of Eagles, the nature-centric caster summons an Eagle that
performs Advanced Recon (4 contiguous areas) as L7 at up to range 10.

First turn went smoothly as the Elf, I cast 887 just to see how it works and it performed as expected. I have a small item with one of my patrols using the Riders ability to burn 32 movement points.

3rd Elven Successfully flew as ordered to area HE.
During movement we passed no population centers.

I don't think the Elves have learned to fly yet! I like the feature of listing all my artifacts in the towns they are located, so far smooth and fair sailing from the Elf.

[Jumpingfist]

Nope. The default is you get zippo. Clearly there should be a default.

Somewhere says you can do it turns 1-3 now.  To allow for ruler name change if I remember right

[Ry Vor]

Nope. The default is you get zippo. Clearly there should be a default.

Yes, the default is to be 60k gold.  Thanks for reporting this.  We also intend to have a warning for turn 1 to submit your customization order.

[Ry Vor]

SA.  At first look I give them a 3 out of 10

Looking at just the setup they have a good feel.  The devout crusarers with great leader, siege ability and special tactic that can move though the plains like the wind.   Then you get to Turn 0 and see you only have a total of 3 kingdom brigades, 2 west men and a zealot.  Your brigades are not as close as it would seem because your 2SA starts in the forest of oakendale where you will need to bring your horses through the wood to meet up with you other 2 kingdom brigades in the hopes that you can recruit some siege weapons on Turn 4.   they do start with an extra baron and ambassador
With a total combat strength of about 17k vs PC that is with a couple marshals adding there 15% bonus.  Not much you can do but knock over a village if you recruit because main group starts just under 8k vs PC.  
Besides being a weakened kingdom in the center of the board you also share a region with either the PI or UN.  Both of which have incredible navies to you 10 strength ships.  You can lead the horses to water but do not try and cross it.   Basically the cities will be split and even if the SA is allowed to control the region it will be a fragile one with low income to support an expensive military.
The rub you have these great leaders but they are not needed to promote special troops only for a couple tactical moves.
But there is hope or not.  Because the kingdom has no long term advantage other than popping out and promoting leader.  They have no cunning or orator, they have only siege weapons and some low end zealots to recruit beside the basic humans which the are likely to loose control of there own region by needing to recruit so many of these to protect the kingdom brigades.  No magics max level of 4 with a cost of 13k per level, no agents at a max level of 9 with a base cost of 6 per level.  The one thing they have is devout if they can get enough angles to bless there PCs maybe they can at least keep themselves from extingtion.

I think a special ability that recruiting humans has no effect or census would go a long way for these guys.

I appreciate the feedback we have gotten so far.  Would like to hear from all kingdoms.

I don't want to sound defensive, but to give some of the thinking behind the design I'll post a bit.

At the risk of repeating myself, 3rd Cycle is not really 2nd Cycle with a few new wrinkles.  New strategies will be required.

Military.  The average number of starting kingdom brigades is 3.4.  Most kingdoms receive 2 kingdom brigade reinforcements on T5.   The Sacred Order have the third highest number of starting brigades (including non-kingdom brigades) after the Tyrant and Nomad.  Their kingdom brigades are also 2nd highest values after the Red Dragon.  But they are largely cavalry, which means very tough in the plains, but not suited to attacking PC's. 

The Sacred Order have 8 traits, which is a lot. 

Traits:  Stalwart, Order, Military Tradition, Devout, Healing, Feudal, Heroic, Siege Engineering

Those are pretty powerful honestly.  Players will have to get used to how traits affect the game.  Again, to strategy, take an hour or two to see how your abilities may strongly influence strategy, rather than doing what you would do in 2nd Cycle.  Here's an example.  Amberland will be very difficult to control early on.  It is the most populated region, but also occupied by the most kingdoms.  Remember also the Humans control a town and village.  Just because the Sacred Order or Black Dragons capital begins in Amberland, doesn't mean in 3rd Cycle the goal should be to gain early control of that region.  From Amberland, if the 2nd SA is in Oakendell, perhaps Torvale might be a better target, or a move into Arcania, Runnimede, etc.  It might be that an objective in Amberland is to keep the cities neutral or human controlled in the early game.

The concept of having early NAPS might not be good for the Sacred Order.  I might think about doing intercepts for my 1SA to gain experience and play to my strength.  I might have to take out a foreign kingdom or two's towns in Amberland, rather than grant a NAP.   Then whoever was affected by that has to think, do I want to start a war with the Sacred Order in plains heavy Amberland over that town, where I have no shot at controlling the region anyway?

There are more ways to gain recon info in 3rd Cycle, and I believe we have shown in the Resurgence that sometimes not enough recon is done.  It should be easier now, but is also that much more important. 

As mentioned, the weapon artifacts have been improved and there are also now 3 Superior weapons.  With the Devout trait, I might have my HP finding weapon artifacts, and from my central position, I can get a patrol pretty much wherever I need.

I'd like to keep my military busy, use Healing, use my Priestess, and my main magic focus might be capable of Ward, Sleep, Destroy Undead.

Anyway, a little food for thought.  Same stuff applies all over the board.  Don't try to fit your 2nd Cycle Square peg into 3rd Cycle's round hole.