Toll of seasons solo-killed two of my four opponents by turn 58, isn't that a bit extreme ?

[clear fern]

Hi everybody !

I love toll of seasons, on this realm I survived its first attack, and I was so proud, because it was HARD.

But then, well, the crisis armies started attacking my opponent and... killed half of them by turn 58. And, If I don't kill one myself or get killed by the toll, I believe it will kill them all.

I'm playing on settings that I believe are balanced (see screenshot).

I'm wondering if such a realm-breaker event should be able to happen in any game, It really does not feel like a normal AoW game to me, or a very changed AoW game.

Tell me what you think ! 🙂

PS : a third enemy got killed 😂

[glad niche]

the bell tolls for thee.

[fathom mauve]

It shouldn’t. The AI doesn’t know how to handle Toll so it messes up the whole game. It’s one of the big reasons Toll needs to be redone.

This exact thing happened to me in my last game.

[wispy garden]

Anecdotal, but I'm currently playing a vanilla game with normal AI and the first toll came for an AI and it was successfully fended off. My friend and I (not on a team) each were hit next and we fought it back as well.

That being said, I'd really like to be able to customize happenings more. There's very little you can do right now except turn them off. The ability to enable/disable individual happenings and choose a difficulty for them would be great and free up world trait slots.

[placid cliff]

You put your World Threat on High, I'd say this is to be expected.

[clear fern]

I can understand that it was intended.
But still, it is a big change for me. I'm used to play with high world threat, because otherwise I find the early game boring. Before no AI ever died because of it. Now, in ANY game, I can have nearly all my enemies dying without me doing anything. I posted this just because I find that linking high world threat and the fact that more than half my enemies die without my intervention is a bit depressing. And high world threat should make my game harder, not easier because it kills all my opposition.
It just kills the fun of high world threat for me in games that I want more classic, that is, in games where I just want to kill my opponents myself.
I love the concept of the Toll, even when it kills everybody, but it just doesn't fit a classic game as is, imo, because it changes so many factors !
But still, the game remains awesome, it's just something that I believe could be improved 🙂
And good ideas have been expressed here : make Toll toggleable, make it possible to choose Toll difficulty individually, help the AI survive Toll...
Anyway, I'd love to have my high world threat back 🙂
Thanks for reading me ! 🙂

[fathom mauve]

But it actually often makes the game too easy because Toll takes out your competition. It often makes the game too easy or too hard depending where it lands, both of which are un-fun, frustrating game experiences after a considerable time investment.

Like L’ami, I find the concept of Toll very interesting. It just doesn’t work as intended and ends up degrading the game experience rather than adding to it often times.

[remote raptor]

High world threat cripples AI empires in general, even without Toll

[clear fern]

Maybe. But it doesn't kill them, and they generaly end up hard enough for my game to be fun 🙂

[shrewd swan]

World Setting:
Easy —> The AI is your primary foe
Normal —> Everyone is a threat
Hard —> The World is the big bad guy

The point being, rejuvenating infestations will effective defeat AI on High too. Toll is able to deliver the finishing blow is all.

[wispy garden]

I've seen brutal AI just fold to regenerating infestations before

[remote raptor]

Yeah I've seen this too

can't blame them, high world threat + regenerating infestations killed me a few times too

[daring fiber]

Obviously the 'ideal' solution is to improve the AI to the point where it can handle Toll of Seasons, but that's difficult.

I would be perfectly happy if this were solved by allowing high difficulty AI to literally just cheat against Toll of Seasons, regenerating infestations, and other world threats.

If the AI cheats against the player, that feels bad. But I don't think anyone would really mind the AI getting to cheat against what is basically another, dumber AI threat.

[fathom mauve]

Toll is able to finish off AIs that aren't weakened as well, quite easily.

[shrewd swan]

Yeah, it's another AI army effectively. It's also entire optional, so I dont really agree with any attempt to diminish the threat of them. I wouldnt mind if they were twice as strong tbh.

[wispy garden]

I think the core issue here is that if you want any happenings at all you must accept the risk of your AI opponents randomly getting swept by an event you can't completely disable.

Accepting the chaos is fine and all, but it feels weird to me you can't separate them.

[remote raptor]

yeah Toll is by far the heaviest happening, to the point it feels like its own unique thing

I wish we had more happenings like this

[smoky hill]

same even AI have bigger army they are dying

[fathom mauve]

I think it’s because Toll armies use a lot of insanity and domination.

[smoky hill]

Not for that they aint even defending their city nor attacing to fey

[errant path]

I think they should have it where Toll cannot be the first or second happening to occur so that way it doesn’t close line the ai early game