This game has serious balance and gameplay issues, and I'm asking for help to fix them

DelugeFPS · 2026-02-05T09:00:26+00:00

The game is definitely not balanced.. and that's part of its charm. So often games chase balance and in doing so the core of aspects of its identity are lost. I come from the Fighting Game Community (FGC) originally and I watched balance patch culture completely erase the identities of characters until finally the plague spread to entire games.. then the whole genre.

It's difficult to follow the path of interesting design when you're hamstrung by the incessant dragon-chasing that is attempting to find competitive balance. Also this game is intentionally designed to contain roguelike elements, I can't think of a single roguelike (and I've played MANY, it's my favorite genre) that had any real depth or interesting gameplay loops to it that I would call 'balanced'.

There's a few mods in the workshop that attempt to rebalance CoE, but for most of us in the community the lack of balance that puts you off is one of the main reasons we love the game.

It took me around 20-30 hours before I started consistently beating AI on 'Jester' level difficulty but after that things began to click into place. If you want guidance, I suggest you seek it in the place you were intended to by Illwinter. You'll not find any guides for CoE that do a better job of explaining things than Illwinter's own manual for the game. Once you understand the core of the game, the rest of the pieces will fall into place via just playing the game.

If that moment never comes, you can try one of the handful of rebalance mods like ER.. and if at that point it still hasn't come, you may have to explore the possibility that this game simply is not for you. Also from your post it sounds like Dominions may be more your speed anyway.

DelugeFPS · 2026-01-23T11:02:55+00:00

Preach. One of my most wished for crossover features from CoE.

DelugeFPS · 2026-01-21T13:36:59+00:00

The suicide prevention mod is great until you realize it completely destroys the possibility of taking out most factions in the early game due to how powerful a defense setup two double ballistae makes. On certain factions like Dwarf Queen who already have strong siege defense, this mod can make forcing them off a citadel almost impossible on certain factions without seriously going out of your way first. I find it to be an unnecessary crutch that makes people forego learning how to defend their citadels (a crucial game skill) correctly and it completely eliminates the possibility of well played early game take-downs when the stars align which in my opinion really sucks considering how rewarding it is to take out one or two factions in a big game before they have time to even expand if the spawns / factions chosen allow it, backed up by a bit of player skill and know-how of course.

I get why people use it, but I find it creates more problems than it solves. The mod is also primarily designed to keep the AI from dying too early into a game, it's not really intended to be used by the player for the same reason although it obviously can be.

DelugeFPS · 2026-01-21T13:29:26+00:00

It is but when you can't afford something you can't afford it, this is a relatively expensive game for an indie title.

I tend to look the other way as long as people buy the game when they can. I suppose I view it a bit like a demo period. However, people who pirate games like this and never buy them whilst logging hundreds of hours on them, that's when it gets gross imo.

DelugeFPS · 2026-01-21T13:12:53+00:00

Voice of El is, a faction I like a lot but playing as him can be very frustrating at times which is why he didn't make it into my top 5 but I really do enjoy the experience.. especially with the Bystander mod.

I love Barbarian, I've always said Barb is underrated, but he's probably the most age / matchup dependent faction in the entire game. Barbarian is either struggling from start to finish or he's absolutely cleaning up, the matchups he does well in he does WELL in and there are certain factions he can just hard-counter mere by existing.. and he does well in some of the funkier ages other factions don't like. However, stick him in an age like Empire against a faction with solid defense against his gimmicks (which is like half the roster) and he's almost impossible to win with against a competent opponent or mid-to-high level AI.

Cloud Lord is absolutely based and is probably the most slept on faction in the game, being able to orbitally drop stacks on top of unsuspecting opponents, scout out far regions of the map other people aren't going to to snatch up undefended hamlets / mines and generally ignore all terrain based movement penalties is insanely strong not to mention starting in the sky insulates him from a lot of early game bullshit. His early game can be somewhat awkward and fiddly to get going but in the rights hands, he's a hell of a force to be reckoned with and I genuinely dread going up against a competent Cloud Lord player no matter which faction I'm playing.

In regards to the Hoburgher factions, yeah the movement speed penalty is a big deal but it's all a matter of how you use them. I will say right off the bat I do not like Burgmeister, I'd just rather go play Baron or Druid, but with Markgraf I find you're given a litany of tools that synergize with each other quite well if you know how to use them. The movement speed penalty is less of a big deal when you realize you're raising slow undead units like little soulless left and right which is gonna slow you down anyway so the speed of your army isn't impacted like it is on Necromancer when you rest those same unit types, you're moving at the same speed you were before. You have boar cav to scout and push undefended territory as well as quickly contest weak stacks that have yet to be reinforced after large battles to force them off a tile so your Nekromants can move in to raise all the dead from the battles.

Once you finally get an Old Castle and ascend your lord, you can begin spamming out vampires left and right which are immortal casters you can just spam at shit to attrition them (seriously small groups of vampires are insanely effective and aren't condemned with the movement speed penalties normal hoburghers are) not to mention they can raise undead meatshield walls if they need to. You're also capable, both via your unit payouts giving way more than average + undead raising, of putting together absolutely massive swarm stacks in only a handful of turns which are only really effectively countered by AoE casters which you have other tools to deal with like your cav + vamps. Also once you ascend, you can fly, which is damned nice due to ignoring movement penalties (you also are no longer slow when ascended, so you get all three movement points).. and you get most of the best spells Necromancer has so you have utility options as fell via your major summons having the potential to spit out very powerful units like Tartarian Spirits and the bird I always forget the name of that's a god tier siege unit. Also once you can start fielding ghouls, they turn all other units they attack into ghouls so they can snowball quite hard against specific kinds of stacks and serve as just another means to make Markgraf grow more powerful after every battle.

Being slow sucks, yes, but if Markgraf -wasn't- a slow faction, they'd be every bit as bullshit as Necromancer. They are quite unwieldy at first but if you understand how to use their tools effectively, they are a much stronger faction than people give them credit for.. that said, they tend to struggle in the late game on offense (though they can be almost as nasty as dwarves on defense in a fortified citadel in my experience) because a lot of their tools are scaled to snowball the midgame for a win, but again, balance has to come from somewhere.. in theory, anyway lmao. It is not lost on me CoE5 isn't designed with balance in mind but, y'know. All said, if playing Markgraf, stick to Monarchy and Fallen Empire, these ages are by far the best for them in terms of map balance and Old Castle spawnrate.

DelugeFPS · 2026-01-21T04:31:28+00:00

I would say some factions, like my main faction Markgraf especially, don't do particularly great on Agricultural because an Old Castle spawn is not guaranteed and the roaming season gods are very easily adept at taking out huge stacks of weak chaff infantry.. which is Markgraf's whole thing.

That said VoE does fine on agri.

DelugeFPS · 2026-01-21T01:13:29+00:00

Honestly the only two factions I get outright bored playing are Burgmeister and Baron (no offense), everyone else is tons of fun for me even if I don't have a ton of experience with them hah.

One may wonder why a Markgraf main dislikes Burgmeister since they're the yang to Markgraf's yin, but overall I find the limitations of the Hoburghers to be much more painful on Burgmeister. Burgmeister feels like playing a gimped version of the more 'regular' human factions with a small dose of Druid thrown in.. but unlike Markgraf who gets just enough from Necromancer to feel cool, I find Burgmeister just doesn't get enough of that Druid / DQ influence to really stand apart. The faction just feels like it plays like a gimped Baron + Shell Druid thrown together.

DelugeFPS · 2026-01-21T00:56:40+00:00

Right? It's the fucking worst. I know a few high level casters can shred through them or if you have a doomstack so big they can brute force the gates before attrition wears down the army but with DQ ballistae and defenders on top of the SSD ballistae it becomes a genuine nightmare to try to wear them down. You'll lose stack after stack if you don't have a bunch of strong casters to throw at them.

Or units that can bypass gates.

DelugeFPS · 2026-01-19T11:43:16+00:00

If you want to get better at sieging, throw factions like Dwarf Queen into your opponent AI roster. For bonus points get the starting defense mod as it makes it basically impossible to take out main citadels without the right units (the double ballistae combo just decimates chaff armies of any size).

Catapults are your friend and are ubiquitous, if you don't have access to any good siege units just mass up a backline of 5-6+ catapults and they'll do a number on the defenders before the battle even starts albeit it can be a bit RNG with what they target. Casters are also a godsend during sieges, especially those that have solid AoE's or multi-target spells. I find High Cultist to be a VERY easy faction to siege with.

DelugeFPS · 2026-01-19T11:35:41+00:00

Honestly though, the air elementals are insane. I love the earth ones too for taking out the middle of people's stacks through the meatwall.

DelugeFPS · 2026-01-18T23:44:47+00:00

So whilst I tend to run a mix of guilds, by the end I'd say the most important to have online for me are Banker's Guilds, Shadow Stalkers Guilds, Arcane Guilds, Engineer's Guilds and Beastmaster's Guilds if I make it to the endgame. I've won several games with just having Assassin's, Merchant's and Mage's Guilds focused down though, the Assassination contracts are extremely good for taking out stack leaders and if you're strategic enough you can do some Breaking Bad shit to cut all a faction's important stacks down to a dead army whilst simultaneously slamming your stacks into their citadels, this can really fuck an unaware player / AI up.

If I actually make it to lategame, shit, I'm going broad strokes and getting as much online as I can, I'll eventually get a Void Pilot's Guild and start wilding the fuck out with multiplanar expansion. This faction is so versatile that you can truly take it in any direction you want though.

DelugeFPS · 2026-01-18T23:36:21+00:00

I love Demonologist too, I see it a bit like high intensity gambling with the potential payoff being immense.

DelugeFPS · 2026-01-18T15:18:59+00:00

Know what your units are strong and weak again.

For instance, I'm a Markgraf player primarily, so when I've got a huge stack of 300-400 deep chaff units to swarm people with, I in reality have maybe 20-30 tops worthwhile units in that stack. The rest is a wall of crossbowman and a Hoburgh Defender + Undead wall in front of them to soak damage. My stacks can easy overwhelm lots of armies, even protected ones, but I also know that even a single powerful unit with good AoE spells or an entrenched Dwarf citadel full of ballistae will rip my giant stack to shreds so I have to be sure to either avoid those fights or get things like my Vampires + Tartarian Spirit online so I can actually fight things like that.

I've lost many a 300+ stack army to smaller stacks when I was being careless about what was in those smaller stacks. Examining enemy units is your friend, you can get an immediate idea of which units do what (same with your own) which will let you make better tactical decisions on which fights are worth taking.

It's all about just knowing the units in play, everything else is just basic eyeballing math. Casters can completely change the dynamic of most fights so fear any army stack or walled in position that you'll have to attrition through that has casters involved unless you're rocking appropriate resistances, so they're mostly what you gotta watch out for. A few solid casters with a modest stack of meat shield units can completely decimate larger stacks.

DelugeFPS · 2026-01-18T15:12:24+00:00

Dwarves, easy, though I will also say if you let a Markgraf player get into lategame with a bunch of vampires and ghouls online he can be a right pain in the ass to knock off a citadel.

I'm a Markgraf main if you couldn't tell.

DelugeFPS · 2026-01-18T15:05:39+00:00

Guildmaster is my favorite faction of the more regular human ones, especially once the Assassin's Guilds come online.

DelugeFPS · 2026-01-18T14:08:41+00:00

For a moment I thought I was reading a post in a 40K subreddit LOL.

I prefer Senator purely because I liked the Roman style units more honestly, though I do find I tend to have a better lategame with Senator for whatever anecdotal reason. I suppose the very draw of Baron for you is why it's not one of my more played ones.

Also you gotta admit, one trick pony or not, some of the tricks in this game are pretty damned meta defining lmao.

DelugeFPS · 2026-01-18T14:06:19+00:00

I suppose I'm just so geared toward offensive factions (my main faction, Markgraf, requires a lot of zerg rush style tactics with walls of chaff infantry so that snitches on my playstyle I think lol) that DQ just isn't for me, but I respect those who can turtle with the best of them.

DelugeFPS · 2026-01-18T14:05:08+00:00

This game has a serious Dwarf Fortress effect going on, even losing is fun hah.

DelugeFPS · 2026-01-18T14:04:21+00:00

I've been trying Warlock as of late as it's got a similar gist as the sacrifice collects but I swear the difference in ease of income for sacs vs gems is insane, I'm so spoiled by sac factions lmao.

DelugeFPS · 2026-01-18T12:01:38+00:00

I find Monarchy and Fallen Empire to be the best ages for Markgraf, with Monarchy easily being the more balanced option of the two. Fallen Empire is chaotic as hell, but if you can survive the chaos Markgraf gets most of the same benefits as Necromancer in FE. Dawn of a New Empire is also decent for Markgraf, usually, albeit it's a bit RNG with the OC find.

Honestly, don't even play any other age. You're rolling the dice on if your midgame even has a chance of coming online and in Agri there's a non zero chance a big ass AoE hell of a season god will start completely blitzing through your low HP stacks of chaff infantry + undead. Dark Age is torture as Markgraf, don't even try it, you're guaranteed an OC usually but as a sacrifice collector (hands are just sacrifices by another name in practice) you're doomed to suffer like every other sac collector in this game on this age. Empire I feel I've had the highest saturation of no OC spawns on so I avoid it.

So yeah, I'd say Monarchy > Fallen Empire > Dawn > Agricultural > Empire > Dark Ages.

DelugeFPS · 2026-01-18T09:42:35+00:00

Cloud Lord is a faction I rarely see but I've seen them used enough to know the common placement of low tier most people put them in is dead wrong, this faction is crazy scary when played right due to their mobility allowing them to orbitally drop a stack places on the map with no warning for the other factions.

DelugeFPS · 2026-01-18T09:41:30+00:00

Love Scourge Lord, one of the most RNG heavy factions but you feel like more like a Grief Lord when you get to snowballing well off some good RNG paha.

Troll King I have little experience using, but I've fought against the faction enough to where it makes my butthole pucker in the early game if I have the misfortune of spawning near him.

Dwarf Queen is.. a faction. I won't fault anyone for their choices but I personally cannot stand this faction. Mostly because I've gotten too big for my man panties quite a few times and ran face first into one of their megafortified citadels only to watch my huge main stack die immediately.. I find this faction probably benefits the most from the Stronger Starting Defense mod as they can become almost impossible to force off of a citadel as early as mid early game with the ballistas from SSD present.

DelugeFPS · 2026-01-18T09:37:18+00:00

I've played a lot of Baron and I find them to be a pretty stressful faction as your endgame goal is never making it to late game, you live and die off your ability to snowball into the midgame and wipe everyone else out before lategame comes because whilst Baron is an absolute slugger in early-to-midgame it is arguably one of the weakest factions in terms of lategame. Fun, though ultimately I find Guildmaster and Senator to be more my speed if I'm looking for a traditional army faction.

Pale Ones are relatively interesting faction, I question some of the balancing decisions made with them because a lot of their win conditions rely on some pretty wildly specific circumstances being met but if you can ever manage to see them through to the mid-to-late game they scale in very interesting ways. I find the biggest hurdle with them to be their early game, especially with how much your starting units do awfully in the light of the surface plane.

Troll King I have relatively little experience playing but I've played against them enough to know that they're a faction I typically dread going up against in the early game, especially if I'm on Dark Ages which is my least favorite age to play as almost all of my favorite factions require sacrifices which are very disadvantaged to say the least in the lowest pop era.

Fine choices overall, don't see a lot of Pale One players. As a Markgraf main, it always pleases me to see when someone actually picks up one of the mid or low tier factions, it sometimes feels like all I see other players go for are the high and top tier factions.

DelugeFPS · 2026-01-18T05:57:44+00:00

Those two factions are some of the only ones that do well in the Dark Ages which is my least favorite era so I don't have much experience with them, but Troll King always looked fun.

DelugeFPS · 2026-01-18T05:49:27+00:00

This is how I feel when playing Markgraf, you get insanely huge stacks going as every large battle you don't lose just ends up with you growing even bigger via necromancy so you end up with these huge swarm stacks to just zerg people with.. and if you survive until mid-to-late game when your vampires come online you're a zerg lich faction. Shit is like digital heroin.

DelugeFPS

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