The good: This game has a GREAT foundation to build on.

The bad: It seems that there are a lot of things in the game that would bother me if they were still there at release (and hard to tell what is "lacking" and what is "excluded", or similar concepts).



Starting:

Starting location is (currently) of game-breaking importance. This isn't a huge deal in single player where you can spam restart a game til you get something decent, but in multiplayer would be devastating.

• You NEED to have a decent mix of production, food, and science (minimum 5 each IMHO), or you'll be seriously held back in development.
• Anomalies and rivers make a significant impact on total value of a city location, but are very hit-or-miss with regards to your starting location (contrast to Civ 5 that places your start near a quality location).
• You are hemorrhaging gold on turn 1 (until you build a city), which makes a delayed city even harsher (as if missing out on an early turn or two of production and research wasn't bad enough).
• Cliffs, and ridges can pin your start in ridiculously well (I had one start where there was only 1 direction I could move in).
  
  

With all this, a pre-game algorithm that places players would be immensely useful.



Balance:

Honestly, I don't think that the factions are currently well balanced. Vaulters' research bonus is nearly meaningless (because you're still constrained by building/buying what you research). Beyond that, its more minor, but that one jumped out at me after a few games.

Terrain types have some balance issues, as well. I haven't gone through and figured out what each terrain's base numbers are, but there's a fairly wide variety (and you can often get stuck starting in the middle of a large block of the same terrain). Throw in an abundance/lack of anomalies for some players (but not all), and those terrain imbalances can skew the game very quickly.

One of the biggest issues with the terrain is that this is a 3-primary-resource game. Food, Industry, and Science. Dust is there too, but you can overcome a starting city that has no natural dust generation. But most terrain types only offer 1 or 2 of the three primary resources. Contrast with Civ 5, where you're only expected to have a starting city that generates 2 resources (food and production). This means that the varied terrains aren't nearly as likely to completely screw you out of a needed resource. The issue here is that "1/1/1" resource tiles are not common at all. And large swaths of identical terrain *are* common (so having a city location with zero to 2 of a given resource is perfectly possible).



Minor issues/Bugs:

Lack of mouse-over tooltips on SO much in the game, that could really use it. Forces you to alt+tab to find out sometimes-crucial information.

Lack of any unit info during the deployment stage of battle (you can't even see your own units' stats).

Map cannot be spun, making elevation changes (going downward to the north) difficult (and sometimes impossible) to see.

Can't see what skills a hero (level 3+) starts with. Only raw stats are listed, instead of modifiers. Can't see gear either to determine any variances there.

Frequent-use buttons located by the End Turn button = poor planning. On top of that, only a couple things prompt the End Turn to *not* end your turn (such as lack of research), making it very easy to end a turn prematurely.

Ending your turn doesn't automatically move units with pending orders. You actually have to click that button (right next to end turn - don't miss!).

City and district levels aren't explained anywhere.

Quest rewards you with "Weapon/Armor Name", instead of saying "That Tech" or "Item Blueprint". Very confusing initially.

If playerA and playerB engage in combat, and playerC has units in the battlefield area, they get in the way of clicking on units (but the battle can still progress).

If you cancel a research (on accident), you lose all progress on it, even if you re-start it before leaving the research screen. This also applies to production in the city screen.

Borough development has requirements to be constructed, but doesn't tell you what they are.



Hope some of this helps (if the devs read it at all).

Love the foundation of the game. Will probably play it some more before setting it aside for a few weeks (or til major update). Its good, but definitely still in alpha

Its good, but definitely still in alpha

I am glad you like it, and yes we don't call it alpha just to look nice

I agree with all your issues, just not sure we were tracking the loss of science on a cancel search. good one thank you!



fo boroughs lvl2 you need to surround 1 borough by 4 others. bonus atm is not really worth it, we'll work on that

SpaceTroll wrote:
I am glad you like it, and yes we don't call it alpha just to look nice

I agree with all your issues, just not sure we were tracking the loss of science on a cancel search. good one thank you!



for boroughs lvl2 you need to surround 1 borough by 4 others. bonus atm is not really worth it, we'll work on that

The game does tell you how to upgrade a borough. But you have to get the quest to get a city/district to level 2 (and the quest explains it). Of course, you might not see that quest til 50-60 turns into the game :P



For me, the #1 "un-fun" issue right now is starting a new game. I've had many times where I got a start that if I put a settlement *anywhere* my settler could reach first turn, I'd have a city that had 2 or less in science, food, or industry (only once was it food). Once I'd started a few games, I realized how terrible that was, and after that, any time I seen that, it made me just a little frustrated, because I had to exit to main menu and wait through the loading screen again.