First Impressions from the demo!

[lyravega]

I will try to keep it honest, while referring/comparing to other games of the same genre (*cough* Civilization).

I like the game. However, some sides of it requires polishing. Please keep in mind, this is only the demo impressions, maybe they're in the full game. There is also a possibility that I didn't manage to find them, even if they were in the demo.

Some of the negative points:
-There is no "spell-tree", spell research choices are random as far as I can tell.
-Lack of unit overview screen.
-Lack of city overview screen.
-There is no encyclopedia of some sorts, like we have in any Civilization game.
-Tracking unit status (by this I mean upgrades, and enhancement spells) gets very hard later on.
-Tracking city status (buildings that a city already has) gets harder as your cities develop.
-There is no "sleep till woken up" option for units. Defense / Sentry seems to last for a turn, as far as I can tell.
-No multiplayer (at launch, at least)
-Easy resource system
-Lack of diplomatic stuff

Some of the positive points:
-Expanding cities
-Many upgrades & spells
-Focus on units, and keeping them alive
-Upcoming multiplayer
-Random quests (hopefully, there will be a lot more with follow-up quests maybe?)
-...

Due to some of the negative stuff above, even a small map (like we have in the demo, with 2 "otherworlds") can become a micro nightmare.

Applying enhancements, getting upgrades for your units is hard. Upgrade part, that is easier, since you can juggle between your units and see if it has the option available. Enhancements however, you need to keep track of your units, and check each of them to see if they are lacking any necessary. If there was a fast way to (auto) apply chosen enhancements & upgrades, maybe via an army overview screen, it'd be much, MUCH more better.

As much as I'd like to whine more, this nightmare of mine is also something that I love. I like upgrading my units, keeping them alive, and all that. This game offers enough from that aspect as far as I can tell you.

Resource system is also weird, at least for me. If you can get access to an undead city, as a monster/human player, you are in for a treat. I guess, as you'll be focusing on enhancements mostly, to get your units beefier, access to undead cities since they have special +mana% buildings will ensure that you'll get a steady income of mana. Aside from mana, I had near no problems with food or gold...

I just wish, there was also a "basic" tech tree, apart from spells though. You just research spells, all other stuff are actually available from the start. This will kill the diversity between each game in my opinion. I wish some of the buildings, units and other stuff were locked, and unlocked via this "basic research".

[overread]

From what I gather the intent is that the games armies are smaller rather than large scale, so keeping units alive, upgrading and preserving them (ie microing them) is a larger part of the game itself. So I can see, on a developer side, why there isn't an overall army management menu. Also remember the game makes you cycle through all your units easily using the waiting unit command each turn. In fact the game does pretty well at making sure you don't miss out any units you control. So you can check them as you go per turn.

That said I wouldn't mind the ability to be able to view all my units in a list - esp after a structure is built the ability to view and upgrade all/large numbers would be neat.


On the sleep function, in the lower left corner click on the >> button and you should get a sentry status which should remain active turn after turn (defence lasts only a single turn). Also note sentry appears to have conditions for use (I think units have to spend a turn in defence first but I'm unsure).


I'd fully second the motion for a building and spell tree as well as a spell combo tree (watching the WTF video spells will combo if used in certain orders). Whilst self discovery is a neat option in many games, I feel that this is info that we should be allowed to choose to view if we want; since anyway as soon as the community learns of it it will appear in a wiki.
That said right clicking units does give a unit description and details, akin to an encyclopaedia.


Only final thoughts are:
1) I hope the number of races and perks expands in the future. 3 core races is a good number for the game, but I'd happily welcome more variety

2) Multiplayer - for me its not a big feature, but I fully understand its importance and hope that when its released its a patch/free upgrade not a charged option (that just sends the wrong vibe to the fans).

3) Scenarios/scripted story missions would be neat. Game is very much a "Tell your own story", but a little world building could be done with some pre-scripted stuff

4) Map editor

[lyravega]

Thanks for the reply bro. What I mean by unit overview is, not just seeing where they are, or how many you have. The enhancements gets tiresome after a while. You cannot get 3 units and stick to them if you are planning to play on big maps, you know.

My game got glitched at turn 36, and timer stuck there, don't know why/how. But this allowed me to see more of the game - by the time I win the game, I had 7 units. Yes, this sounds very few; but the problem is, each time you research a new enhancement/blessing or a new upgrade, keeping track of who needs / can use those new stuff.

If there was an unit overview panel, where I could see a list of my units, blessings/enhancements, upgrades on them, this would be nice. That way, I could track all of my units from there, apply an enhancement/blessing or an upgrade by just clicking from there, that'd be really good. You can't imagine how hard it is.

Also, by some sort of encyclopedia, I don't just mean unit lores and stuff. I mean, what can I build on donkey resource for example. Or, what city can build what. Goblins can build a trading post giving +10 money or a butchery giving +8 food on donkey resource for example. Since you are not locked to one race, but can gain access to all by conquering cities, if you miss something out, you might go through a rebuilding process if you are very micro-addicted.

Also, resource system is not very hard to master. I mean, I had +150 food/turn, +20mana/turn (60 was going to upkeep, I might add), and +120gold/turn. It gets crazy later on, without having you need to worry about them. That should be balanced somehow. You gain access to some city-blessings later on, and I had none of those on any of my cities. If I had applied those aswell, my income would be much, much more higher. And this is due to no penalty/restriction on city spamming.

Aside from that, undead race is not a good one on its own. Since all blessings/enhancements, aswell as summoned troops costs mana upkeep, and since you would want to apply whatever you can to your best troops, having undead cities while playing as another race is a very good idea. And you wouldn't want any undead troops, since they also cost mana upkeep.

In short, what I'm saying is, living troops has food&gold upkeep, and you can cast blessings on them to get them better at the cost of a mana upkeep. But undead troops already has a mana upkeep, food is basically useless, and you won't get huge amounts like others can do. You can bask in mana, but your mana upkeep will be crippled already due to your units, and you won't be able to cast as many blessings as other races can do. Not to mention that, half of your excess food gets converted to gold, while you stockpile extra mana - only use it as gold if you are going bankrupt.

Again, after all that whining, I still want the game. I am sure it will get a lot better with patches and stuff, and if they get a steady income (I think they will), expansions/DLC's will add a ton of extras in the future.

[overread]

I think a few of the balance problems might be ironed out with a smarter AI (I've heard that AI improvements are in place for the main release and I suspect the demo ai is on easy mode anyway). The more pressure the AI can put on you the harder it will be to simply expand without cost.

As for the resources, remember whilst Undead cost more in mana they also build manatraps instead of farms and many of their structures also promote mana harvesting. I suspect if one were going more pure undead the increased mana production capabilities of their own cities will balance their increased demand upon mana itself. There might also be changes to how they operate as a faction when one runs as them instead of running as humans (eg building or upgrade costs might be differently presented).

I do agree that I'd like to see an ingame or at least manual based tech and research tree for the game - they might be holding back on that just to preserve some of the anticipation as to what is in the game.

[Zechnophobe]

My impression?

This game is amazing.

Upside:
* Compared to a lot of TBS titles, there isn't really any filler in this game at all. Each turn has meaningful decisions, each choice you make in each city seems fairly important, and pays off in reasonable amounts of time.
* Even though the granularity is nice as I mention above, you still have the feeling of following an overall strategem. Focus more on Mana production and research to fling big spells? Focus on resource acquisition for high upgraded, but simple, units? Or focus on getting high level buildings to pump out the real strong units.
* Lots of fun mechanics that look like they'll add a lot to replay value. I really want to find out all the different building options of the different races, and what the various resources do, and how to combine spell-unit combo's.
* Other worlds. The idea of multiple maps connected via gates reminds me of Test of Time (civ 2 expansion) which was awesome, and allowed for interesting strategies. The fact this follows that path makes me giddy! Loved getting toasted by dragons when I finally went through a gate!

Downside:
* AI looks to be pretty bad. Hopefully it gets better. Just assume we'll have difficulty levels being various different amounts of cheating (as is normal for TBS games).
* The voice acting is a bit weak.
* Lack of ingame explanation of the games more complex systems, like unit strength vs health, city growth, etc. You have no idea what a unit will do until you unlock it, making it difficult to 'focus' on various areas of expansion.

Overall, I'm jazzed for it, and prepurchased the HELL out of it the day I played the demo.

[targetbsp]

During the live stream they were talking about a major upgrade to the AI due the day after the stream (and hence also after the demo).

It seems Steam has yet to push it to the beta testers though: http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?604214-New-Patch



I was fighting on two fronts and I have to say one of the AI's kept up an impressive amount of pressure on one of my cities. The only thing is that it *should* have taken it. A human would have done. The only thing preventing it was every few turns it would pull all its units back into its territory.
I'm not sure whether:
a) the demo was on easy mode and cutting me some slack
b) it was prioritising keeping its units alive and was unwilling to sacrifice any to take a city.
c) it didn't really have a clue and was selecting offense/defense at random on a turn by turn basis.

I hope it's not c! Or if it is, that it's sorted by the patch.