Well, in marathons they speak of 'hitting the wall'.
I've done so, it seems.
Had a disastrous start not understanding the trading system at first. Not least as that tiny little reload button on the 'buy' list isn't as brightly advertised as maybe it ought to be... So anyway, I chucked away some start up capital at first.
But anyhow, I managed to get up the levels by hook or by crook somehow. Battling and scrimping.
Whatever gold I could get hold of I used to get whatever resources I was short of and just kept on going.
Then, at level 28, I hit the wall.
Clearly, I had developed rather patchily. Some resources i had, others I'd just relied on gold for to top them up.
The gold had kept coming, so I could manage. But then the gold stopped. It just no longer figured in the loot.
My first adventure was the 'Witch of the Swamp'. I started well, but then ran into serious trouble. Clearly the resistance was just too strong for my kind. So I quit and not long after found an easier adventure; 'Horseback'.
But again, anything I asked to 'combat preview' just resulted in appalling losses.
There was no way to preserve a rump of my forces and to replenish them would take ages - days!
Well, no general worth his salt goes into battle willing to take crippling losses. Especially if there are no gains to compensate for the losses. And there was no loot in sight. So I quit 'Horseback' too.
Thought I'd concentrate on conquering the rest of the homeland instead.
But I don't seem to stand a chance. Whatever I click at, combat preview suggests 50-95% losses. Whether I go in with heavy concentration on cavalry or with soldiers (which I once believed would be the improvement which could get me places), combat preview just always suggests near wipe out.
So militarily I'm stuck. Sure, I can go in and perhaps take a camp or two. But after that it'll take a week to get an army again. And if 'Witch of the Swamp' and 'Horseback' are any guide, then winning any decent loot from fighting is now a thing of the past.
So I'm sitting on 125 cavalry, 40 longbowmen (which seem utterly useless) and 100 soldiers. But I can't afford to use them, because any advance on the last three bandit sectors simply means near wipeout. Steel swords are a merest trickle. My horses breed more like pandas. So it would take a week to get back to this, if my forces get wiped.
Meanwhile, economically I'm trying to reach an even keel. My hardwood production was pitiful, so I improved it (painfully slowly). But I'm now pretty much out of building licences and gold is just unobtainable. I'm doing some trades scraping in the odd ten pieces here or there, but I simply can't seem to get things kickstarted again. Any buildings I might want to update, I can't, because it takes hundreds of gold to do so each time, which I can't get.
I'd send my explorer on adventure searches, but at 10 pieces of gold a pop, with him coming back with 3 scraps of map pieces... Well, it seems unaffordable, given my current dilemma.
So please, I'm not just telling you this in order to have a good whine. Has anyone any help?
I just don't see how there is a way out. Any progress I was making just pretty much came to a halt at level 28. Sure, I got lots of experience points with the Witch adventure and it bumped me up another level. But this was a purely theoretical gain.
If it weren't for the the Golden Brew Mug, the Lonely Marble Block and the Hard Plank Door in the Provision House I'd simply have nothing worth doing when I log on. Well, except for replenishing fish stocks and rebuilding wheat fields...
Have I just played myself into a corner from which there is no feasible escape? Or am I missing something here?
Is there some solution staring me in the face of which I'm unaware?
Having advanced rather patchily, my quest book is a bit of a mess, I realise. So I wonder whether it is possible that somewhere something got missed along the road, which now might be of vital importance.
Whatever the case may be, right now I can't seem to conquer any sectors, get hold of building licences or gold.
Steel and hardwood are incredibly scarce and I haven't got the gold to do anything about it.
Has this happened to others? Anyone else hit 'the wall?
Or have I just screwed up fantastically and rendered it pointless to continue with the game?
Any comments and advice would be appreciated.
LeNoirFaineant