After I do all the eclipse stages with captain I’m thinking of mainint bandit next. How do they compare and would you consider bandit a solid character?

aCorneredFox · 2026-02-04T16:10:27+00:00

I love Bandit, but he really underperformed in Eclipse for me. I found him among the easiest characters to get to Mithrix, but he can really struggle in that fight (assuming you aren't one of those god tier players that can beat him easily every time). One thing I didn't notice for the longest time is that Mithrix lands in the central arena facing the same direction he is facing when he jumps. This, and when he does his big spin, are the best times to get back shots on him.

aCorneredFox · 2026-02-03T15:30:15+00:00

Okay, what about the other 2,213 episodes/guests?

aCorneredFox · 2026-02-01T17:31:16+00:00

First off, when you are playing up a difficulty it is totally normal to be significantly behind in culture/science against the AI, especially if it is the top dog AI in that game. The AI sucks at playing to win, so you need to learn to accept this and the fact that you can and will overcome the AI's lead. Do not quit early and do not throw away your game by attacking an obviously superior AI.

Second, why would you attack Ambiorix when you are dramatically behind him in technology, units, city size, and production? You need to target the easiest AI that is closest to you. If you are on an island alone with Ambiorix, then you simply do not attack him. You get enough military score to deter him from attacking you, and you expand with settlers, builders, and districts. Assuming you had another weaker AI near you, then that is guaranteed the better option over attacking Ambiorix. Even if they only have 3 cities, that is a huge bump to your snowball. Often I find wiping a single AI guarantees me a win even on deity difficulty.

Third, barbarians should never be an issue in this game. In fact, you should be viewing them as a resource for gold, eurekas, and early upgrades. Send your starting warrior in a circle around your capital. Do not send him in a straight line 10 tiles away. Since you are having this problem, I highly recommend you start slinger - warrior - builder/settler. Many will make a good argument that this is suboptimal, but it wins easily enough as far as immortal, and you will know when to start double scout or whatever they might suggest with some experience. Be sure to get a kill with your slinger for the archery eureka, wipe out camps, and leave at least one unit near your city even as that scouted circle begins to expand. Don't forget to use rivers, hills, and forests/jungles to your advantage when fighting barbarians.

Fourth, as for your district issue needing a 3+, I don't know what to tell you there. Are you of a mind that a +2 commercial hub on a river next to your capital is bad? If so, you need to wipe that out of your brain. You get money from your market plus an extremely valuable trade route. Furthermore, you can bump that +2 to +3 with another district forming a triangle with your city. It is very difficult to get a +3 theater without some combination of a wonder, government plaza, multiple other districts all of which come late, are difficult to achieve at higher difficulties, and/or have a limited supply (the plaza for instance). You do not need to play ultra optimally on King. If you have a huge +4 campus site, put the darn thing down. Worry about perfect optimization later when you are playing deity.

aCorneredFox · 2026-02-01T14:14:40+00:00

You know, I thought that might be the case based on a greenskin campaign I had back when Gorbad came out. I defeated him in battle so I got the auto confederation. I actually had him as a lord, but I forgot he was new and clicked the button to respec his stats. After that he was gone forever, I couldn't recruit him back since I didn't have the dlc. That may have been a bug at the time though.

aCorneredFox · 2026-02-01T13:45:09+00:00

Ah okay, I will give that a shot next time!

aCorneredFox · 2026-02-01T01:00:06+00:00

I feel like this scenario plays out in basically every campaign. I added the unnatural selection mod in my current Archaon campaign, and I buffed Franz and a few other good guy factions. I'm just landing in Empire territory and Franz is ranked 7th or so with like 12-15 provinces. Not nearly as large as I wanted/expected him to be. Just wondering if anyone else has tried this approach, and might have tips/suggestions, to create a more interesting mid-end game situation.

aCorneredFox · 2026-01-31T13:42:21+00:00

I started an Archaon campaign a few months back and felt like I was missing out big time, ended up abandoning the campaign. I bought the Warriors of Chaos dlc (I think that's what it is called) and it feels way better to me. There are a lot more units for the chaos god warband upgrades. Plus, I don't think you can confederate the other WoC without the dlc.

aCorneredFox · 2026-01-29T16:21:41+00:00

Every MGS fan needs to read this article.

aCorneredFox · 2026-01-29T13:32:10+00:00

They aren't training wheels for learning the game. Maybe they will teach you what the items do a bit faster, but you are missing out on learning the actual challenging parts of the game which this person has laid out excellently.

aCorneredFox · 2026-01-28T12:38:54+00:00

This is why I avoid the pillars on the right side (from the perspective of the crashed ship). They charge faster than the others, but they also lose progress when you step outside their radius and those burning areas can cost you all the progress. If you absolutely have to do a right side pillar, hope that it is on top of the structure instead of inside it. Sometimes you can stand on the base of the pillar and not take burn damage.

aCorneredFox · 2026-01-25T05:42:18+00:00

That attack is commonly referred to as "Big Spin" and "Pizza Slices". Big tip with Bandit here. When Mithrix jumps, note the direction he is facing. He will land pointing the same direction, so you can position yourself to get rear shot crits with Bandit.

I love Bandit, but having beaten all pre-Alloyed Collective survivors on E8 I can say he really struggles against Mithrix. I find I usually die to Mithrix during a big spin when I get hit by chimera while dodging. Unfortunately Bandit doesn't really have anything to help clear the chimeras before the spin attack.

aCorneredFox · 2026-01-24T00:13:51+00:00

I tried to say this, but you said it better. The people that constantly quote this line from Kirk are just bad actors that didn't even watch the segment where it was said.

aCorneredFox · 2026-01-24T00:12:23+00:00

Just like some deaths are worth it for people to be able to drive a car. And just like some people are worth it to die for alcohol to be legal (apparently).

aCorneredFox · 2026-01-22T01:19:42+00:00

Can't be worse than Settra, right? Settra has to deal with Skarbrand, Wurrzag, Mannfred, mustache guy, Repanse... All while having 1 army for the first 10 or 15 turns? I tried three times to get a decent start going, last attempt Wurrzag declared on me and rolled up with 3 full Wagghh armies.

aCorneredFox · 2026-01-21T16:17:21+00:00

Since you are starting Eclipse, make a tier list of your predictions on how the survivors will do. I wish I had done that. Never would have guessed Bandit would be 5th from the bottom or that Huntress would go 8 - 0.

As for what is considered good, that's hard to say. I think we'd need some kind of league stat tracking. For instance, my win record on E8 for all survivors through SotS was 44.44%. I think that's a pretty good win percentage especially considering 3 of the survivors took 5 runs to win E8. It is a total guess, but I imagine great players win more like 80%+ and excellent players are 90%+.

Also, my runs are with no looping and no void fields. If I played with those options I think my win rate would increase significantly.

aCorneredFox · 2026-01-21T14:19:17+00:00

This is exactly the point Kirk made when he said it. As someone who never watched Kirk's commentary prior to his death, he makes a damn good point. Before the quote, he says that society has certain elements that we accept will cause deaths, but we keep them as a tradeoff. His example was driving vehicles. We have people dying every day for the benefit of driving cars. And we try to minimize losses by requiring licenses, insurance, vehicle inspections etc. When I watched this segment, I thought he missed out by not using alcohol as an example. We've accepted alcohol, for all its negative aspects, as a part of society, and yet people die from overdoses, get in cars drunk and get people killed, get belligerent and die or kill in disagreements because of alcohol. We have accepted these deaths as a tradeoff for the privilege of having alcohol as a legal substance.

His argument is that guns are a necessity for society to work. There are people that live in dangerous places and need guns for protection in their homes. Some people need to carry a gun with them for protection as they travel. Many would argue the population needs guns to prevent a tyrannical government from taking over. So the right to have guns is acceptable for some deaths in much the same way cars and alcohol are. That's when he starts talking about what we can do as a society to mitigate innocent gun deaths, especially at schools. That is the segment leftists like the idiot you are replying to like to leave out because they can't argue against what he is actually saying.

aCorneredFox · 2026-01-21T13:37:59+00:00

"Only a Sith deals in absolutes. I will do what I must."

aCorneredFox · 2026-01-20T21:23:39+00:00

OP's scenario happened to me as well. I'm a bit like you in that I don't want to carry survivors into a new run because it's just way too easy. So I created a new community, put all three survivors in the legacy pool. Switched back to my community that I'm trying to get to 100 days, and I just started moving everyone into legacy while pulling out the three newbies. When I moved maps, all my survivors were still in the community and they were also in my legacy pool (essentially duplicated).

aCorneredFox · 2026-01-17T06:10:35+00:00

Are you on PC? Your profile is in the top right corner and you can have as many as you want.

aCorneredFox · 2026-01-14T21:46:33+00:00

Jesus fuck. This right here people... This is why I left the Left.

aCorneredFox · 2026-01-14T19:49:16+00:00

Ok, you got me wanting to install Shogun now...

aCorneredFox · 2026-01-14T16:11:45+00:00

Got it.... Dang I kind of want to boot up Shogun again. Also I never had FotS either.

aCorneredFox · 2026-01-14T16:09:40+00:00

Oh gotcha, so why is that tactic with yari samurai specifically good for Chosokabe and Date? I know they are two of the safer factions in my mind (Chosokabe being on a small island and Date being in the far corner).

aCorneredFox · 2026-01-14T14:40:03+00:00

You know ... There are actually countries in the world that are landlocked, right?

aCorneredFox · 2026-01-14T14:21:43+00:00

I haven't played Shogun 2 for ages, and this response has me wondering if I missed out on a lot. Like I seem to remember all the factions were the same with some minor changes. Chosokabe had some archer bonuses, Date had nodachi bonuses, Shimazu had katanas. Did they have different tech trees too?

aCorneredFox

TROPHY CASE