Monsters will Attack! (from Creature Habitats)

One of our members is supposed to be in vacation mode, they have a brown dot, but yesterday there was an attack, by creatures.  I won't post the player tag, as it might cause other kinds of problems.

The attack report #25586538  UTC yesterday 17.25.

Is it possible, for a different colour dot, for those in vacation mode?

Originally I thought the idea of the monster attacks would be a fun new twist but I have changed my opinion.  It is a really distracting pain most of the time.  I am an "old" player and know about defenses and have had victories with the heroes.  But logging onto the game to try to enjoy the few hours a day I can play and finding hero dead, army gone then ruins the whole night while hero recovers and army retrains.  I have built walls/towers appropriate for the age of the hero but the monsters are far more powerful than is appropriate.  For a victory like culture where you can't have much of an army and no towers it is a disaster.  If this doesn't get further tweaked, I'll be seriously considering leaving the game.  Not much fun if you log on and can't do anything.

Bers, I am in the final ~20 days of attempting this victory before the 150 day poof.  To get the rainbows all towns now cannot have army buildings or towers.  Attacks by dragon armies have taken out what little army I had to attempt to entertain myself by going to other POIs while waiting days for the travelers to show up and building rainbows.  Retraining hero means missing the dialog with the traveler for a day if it occurs after mobs kill hero.  Now I just put hero into shelter and have no army so this hero is very boring.  It just doesn't work well.  

But because I have little time to play per day, eg If I only have an hour free to  play I don't want to spend an awful lot of that spying on 6+ dens, sending my troops and hero or without hero to plunder and yet be attacked regularly in return.  It's is severely halting progress in the game for new players in my view.   

You can use phone version to enter the game for couple of minutes throughout the day and spend the resources so their attacks won't hurt you much. I think it is possible to find several couple-of-minutes-break to do that if you are so stressed about resources lost. Alternatively you can use Truce or Lada's Ward to protect yourself from monsters the same way you protect from other players.

I would have preferred to send you this privately but since I can't, I'll put it here

Honestly sometimes you make it feel like you don't care about anything the players say to you. While a person is at work, they cannot always use the cell phone, much less to play games. this can lead to dismissal. also at least in my case the game does not work on my cell phone, it constantly closes to the point that when I went on vacation I preferred to put the game on pause and not try again on my cell phone. I can understand that you want to make the game your way but for that then make it closed. if you want people to join you would have to leave that aside and also give the players something more according to their tastes. and if not, instead, it warns from the beginning that it is not a game for casual players. since the truth is that the game has nothing to do with what you promote. If you are not connected for at least 16 hours a day, it is almost impossible to be a collectivist, which then leads to the fact that i cannot play in the way i want, but rather the way you want...

Having 4 spawn within an hour of the hero, is too much, too soon.  At least for collects and those without victories.

I would recommend they are found, like other locations, by maps, when hero gets to levels 5, 10, 15, ect.

People could chose not to pick up the maps, but then they would also miss out on the other maps, for extra locations.  Using the map method would also mean that Creature Habitats are not hiding under fog.

It might also be a good time, when the first one shows up, to have Bulat give out a few new quests or advice, on spying, plundering and onslaught, for collects.  Collects tend to be the most peaceful of players/testers and could use a little more guidence, in using Pvp.  Despots already have that, with "First Blood".  Bulat should definately mention, that attacking Habits is a bad idea for collects, as their attack is weak and their strength is in defence.

TOWERS  do not fight aerial, until Renaissance tower, which is a long way down, Renaissance research.  Might Medieval also fight aerial?  Some of the slower developing players might still be in Medieval, at 90 - 110 days, when Hell pits arrive, or have low level heroes.

Also, I think some people are choosing Collect, rather than Despot now, for the extra defence, or even Republic.  

I like Republic, with 2 strong towns, less time spent building, still decent research speed and a stronger defence.  I can spend more time doing the "fun stuff", like visiting locations and less time worrying about Creature Habitats, which have a much smaller ratio, of fun:work:rewards.

As Republic needs 25% more culture, to expand, I would recommend doing a few hops, before settling a permanent 2nd town and switching from Collect or despot.

Currently Republic hero test:  Attacking level 1 and 2 CH's, with some creatures spawned.  If I sacrifice some units, plundering, can I gradually reduce the number of creatures in residence, by 1. reducing resources for spawning and 2. killing existing creatures.  50% of units in residence, go on attacks, leaving 50% home, a good time to attack, is when an attack incoming.

Current Republic research plans, Alchemy (greek fire and obelisk) and Magic (enchanted towers and sages).  For stronger defences, units with bigger bite (attack points) and extra culture.

I have a level 3 CH, which I intend to keep under control, with daily plunder attacks.

Nice, I remember suggesting this many years ago, like barbarians coming to crash the party lol

Berserker, how did you notice people replying recently here ? Posting messages in older news like this one doesn't show it on the right of the main page.

I use New Posts button on forum page - it shows all updated threads since my last visit. If always opening that page first when visiting the website, you will never miss any new posts.

I noticed that some posts with new messages didn't appear there sometime, I think I know why and would like you to confirm: First, I keep some pages open in tabs. I noticed that when I open one youtube page for example, my other youtube tabs seems to be a bit refreshed or something without completely opening the page, so, maybe when I open chrome, check some totemtribe pages, then check that link, it won't show the pages that were already in tabs ? In which case it's fine because I can refresh them myself, I just want to be sure I'm not also missing pages that are not even my tabs.

149 day old collect hero.  (not mine).  Not only do they generate their own resources, they will use what they plunder also, to train monsters.  98 dendrogs, 445 hands.

Maybe some sort of upper limit is needed?

"Inserting image directly into message is not allowed. Use "Image" button to insert link to externally hosted image."

Some of the older images in forum are long gone, maybe we should be able to insert directly.

I know each continent is different, but still: tundra with snowmen/yetis can be quite challenging, while dendrogs in grassland are a joke even after many victories. How about some tweaking ?

Please can elephants move faster :)

149 day old collect hero.  (not mine).  Not only do they generate their own resources, they will use what they plunder also, to train monsters.  98 dendrogs, 445 hands.

Maybe some sort of upper limit is needed?

"Inserting image directly into message is not allowed. Use "Image" button to insert link to externally hosted image."

Some of the older images in forum are long gone, maybe we should be able to insert directly.

I agree, I think the CH need to be tweaked, the basic premise is fine, but I think the attacks should start later and the numbers of the attacks reduced as for the number of attackers as above, that definitely needs to be nerfed!

Each Creature Habitat spawns further out, than the previous ones.  At 90 days, Hell pits will spawn.  Some players have not explored enough, to see them when they arrive.

The first they know of these "hidden" CH's, is when an attack happens.

Please can you make CH's "fog exempt", in some way, so players/testers have a chance, to deal with them, before they start training dragons.  Maybe drop a map, in a town.

How many cells from dwelling, is the maximum distance, if there a maximum?  Might be 50 cells, I think I remember having some 40+ cells out.  That is a lot of fog to clear.

Seems to me, the best defense is a good offense.  It has been mentioned many times already, plunder and dont let them build monsters.  I have found for a player that does not get to bombers or a large army, that destroying these towns is near impossble once they have created lots of monsters, and suffering the attacks for the rest of your game is then the only option.  This itself is weatherable using the suggestions from Bers and others, but extremely frustrating for the following 4 months when perhaps you lose your whole army or later buildings on a regular basis.

For culture, If what bers says is true, then perhaps you can make a small 6th town with poor culture as a target.  leaving 5 with rainbows.  destroy town 6 the day you need to do victory.  I have never tried making a target town, so cannot comment on the effectiveness of this tactic. If you are monarchy, the corruption should be negligable and make this option viable.

I also find it difficult to locate new towns sometimes, for example when a fellow alliance member does victoy and a lot of fog appears around my hero.  It would definately help if the towns were not so far out further on.

I also agree that the CH add nothing to my game.  Just a nuisance.  I just plunder to week 3 or so then build 10 catapults and go destroy them all.  10 cats is cheap, and usually see's me through to bombers which are much more effective.  This way, I have no need to build towers or wall, or defend in any manner.  But i beleive the introduction was not aimed at players like me. I still am not sure if the devs have acheived the objective they were after.  would be good to know some possitive results to help us all futher understand!

Might I suggest, that Creature Habitat activity, does not belong in alliance reports? I would think these would only be of interest, to the individual hero. 

 Would much rather it be reserved for PvP reports and one day, split into plunder/spy/onslaught. Each of these types of aggression, requires a different approach and triggers different levels, of outrage :)

actually I agree.  These reports for the creature habitats should be for the individual player as the alliance cannot see the locations anyway.

I read this thread earlier today and thought it was a good point.  Then I went to read alliance reports.  It took me 3 pages to see what everyone had been up to, and ALL of it was mostly the habitats.

I know these count towards aggression stuff in standings, but the alliance does not need to see them and can't do a thing about them anyway.

Will vacation mode stop creature habitats training monsters and attacking towns?  There would be no activity in the hero, would that equal zero activity in CH's.

Did you consider an upper limit, for creatures in each habitat?   Hundreds seems a bit much.