I present another topic of random feedback gathered from 3.5 playthroughs of Victor OpenDev.


Thoughts/Opinions

  1. A rebalance on Era Stars might be needed.
    Builder Stars and Military Stars are directly at odds with each other as you can only utilise so many build queues at once. The remaining stars are entirely passive (science, food, influence, money) that you could achieve just by pressing Next Turn. I'm not sure if they should be changed but possibly rework the values to account for this.
    Edit: I forgot Expansionist Stars. These become harder and harder to get as the game progresses and territories get claimed by all Players. Dread to think how hard they will be to obtain when playing in the later eras of the game. 
  2. Forcing Surrender.
    The notification for an enemy AI forcing you to surrender is very minimal and does not clearly explain what has happened. Other than the notification bar (An enemy has forced you to surrender) all you see is a sudden chunk of territory is no longer owned by you. I think you should be presented with a similar screen to when you force an AI to surrender that says "You have been forced to surrender, these are the terms being imposed on you" to clearly show what you have lost.
  3. Luxury Resources.
    Early game can provide huge bonuses to a single yield by stacking that resource yet it feels odd that a single 4 pop city can gain these bonuses from having 6 instances of Porcelain. I'm not sure on a solution but I think gameplay that promotes purchasing every luxury possible is a little out of place. 
  4. Religions Tenents/Civic bonuses.
    The wording of certain bonuses (Money per number of access to resources), (Science per % number of co-religionist states) is very mouthy and not always clear on what it means from a gameplay perspective. I'd like to see the descriptions cleared up..
  5. Civic - Press Freedom.
    What does 20% civics net mean?
  6. Civic - Land RIghts
    What is the purpose of Influence if you opt to take Inherited Land? Wonders only is very niche considering the low number available. It also makes Gold even more necessary. Unsure how to balance this.
  7. Civic - Punishment.
    Very unclear what a "delay between Independent People spawn" is meant to mean. Is it neutral cities appearing on the map or roving land armies?
  8. Civic - Fundamental Values
    What is considered Entertainment and what is considered Health infrastructures?
  9. Colonisation
    It's currently very easy to set up cities on far continents. The district cost is incredibly low in a newly formed city so you can rapidly buyout almost everything you need to get started - including new Settler units. Maybe have a scaling cost of buyout based on the distance from your capital to indicate logistic cost of getting resources.
  10. Settler Units
    I don't think you should be able to use 'buyout' action on these units to prevent a mass of new cities being chain created (spawn a 4 pop city, buy a new settler, spawn another 4 pop city, etc).
  11. Independent Peoples.
    I would have expected IP to spawn on all areas of the map throughout the game. It was strange moving to a new continent and not finding any IP there until I had started building my own cities.
  12. Civic Reset from Revolution.
    If you have all civics reset from revolution there is not much of a warning/notification. It also feels like a bonus because you can move points from civics that help early game to civics that help end game. Maybe lose X% of your Civic points during a revolution as well as returning all Civics to unspent?
  13. Infrastructure Improvements
    A number of the Money and Influence gains from Improvements feel very weak, often providing flat bonuses to City Centre tiles. It feels difficult to justify the cost of building these improvements against the other gains available.
Possible Bugs
  1. District yields only show 2 digits on the tooltip when placing. Dutch Quarter was gaining +125g on expanded tooltip but was only showing +12 on the smaller preview.
  2. Moving an outpost would never show correct yields - it always showed minor gains to food/industry even if it was being moved to a tile surrounded by Sterile Terrain.
  3. The wonder 'Lighthouse of Alexandria' was giving combat bonuses to all units in the enemy empire (unembarked Citizen/Peasents were shown with the bonus in combat UI).
  4. It was impossible to invade single tile cities (city centre with water on all sides). Land armies can't besiege with an army at sea and naval aries can't besiege with Seafaring units.
  5. Privateer ships still give Greivance warnings when using the Ransack action. May have been UI functionality only but it seems to defeat the purpose of having them show as neutral.
  6. If you make peace during a siege you can continue the battle and claim the opponents city. On victory it becomes yours as 'occupied' and cant change state. I was able to hold the Edo-Japanese capital for 30+ turns like this with no ability to return the city or fully utilise it. As a result, Empire Stability plummeted.
  7. Huns setting up outposts/Ordu with the Hunnic Rider. The action requires 4 units and creates 0 pop Ordu. Shouldn't the newly created Ordu have 4 pop?
  8. I lost a wonder AND ability to claim any new wonders due to losing a city: I claimed one (Great Pyramids) and placed it for construction in my Capital City (Harappa) within it's own territory. After a few turns I removed it from the queue to build other things. A few turns later I lost control of Harappa due to an invading army. After the war ended and I reclaimed Harappa the wonder had been removed from the tile. I could not start building it again and the wonder list shows it as claimed by me. Because the Pyramids had not been completed I was unable to claim a new wonder for the rest of the game.
  9. The Hittites Awari outpost replacement only functions as a unit spawn point for adjacent cities while you are playing as the Hittites. After progressing to a new culture they were not valid for spawning - unsure if this is intended.
  10. Cavalry units cannot enter a city tile even after the fortifications for that tile have been destroyed. Unsure if this is intended by the message "unable to climb fortifications".