Hello!

I like playing historical strategy games and would like to give some constructive feedback for Victor OpenDev. I like a challenge, complexity and meaningful choices, I don't care about avatars and such at all. What makes a strategy game great for me is more than one viable gameplay and many nuances to learn and test in the game, that makes it interesting longer.

I played 2 times on humankind difficulty, won both times, no real competition. The second time I had to reload a bit because of bugs and because still learning war mechanics made me lose a war. Even if I didn't reload and lose the war, I would still have won the game no problem. I'm glad to see that AI improved in tech progression, making armies and using them aggressively. But AI still sucks at empire development. In the graphs at the end of the game my curves increased in slope at about middle of the game, but theirs remained almost flat till the end. It also doesn't colonize far away continents and has no navy. But where AI sucks the most is fame gathering. It really sucks at that.

I lost the war (I occupied some of their territory, but was still low on war support for being close attacker) because I was scouting with a small army and got surprised by a larger AI army. I retreated several times and lost war support. I fixed that by running away at the start of the turn for several turns. It would be useful if there was an option to give a unit an order to execute the movement at the start of next turn. There are many things to do and it's easy to forget to be there at the start of next turn.

Fog of war is a problem with no solutions. I'm not sure yet how I feel about it during battles, but on campaign map it sucks. No real general goes on offensive blind. There should be some mechanic for scouting. There is no espionage in the game sadly, really missing that. An option would be to spend some money to get vision in a territory. I know there is a supposedly invisible unit sabotur, but in reality it's not a solution. It moves slowly, gets discovered and killed. So if I don't want my first army I move to get ganged up by several armies, I need to move all my armies a hex or two at a time in rotation, not fun.

If fog of war gets a solution, here is also a suggestion for ambush mechanic: armies could stay hidden and ambush even if fog of war is revealed in certain terrain types. Only ambushing and ambushed army participate in first turn, if battle is not over, reinforcements are possible next turn for both sides.

Combat:

a) Players taking turns in battle is too much advantage for attacker, who already has advantage for picking the terrain when choosing where to attack from. It gets worse as number of units increases. Who attacks literally decides the outcome of most battles. Only very lopsided battles are not affected. I tested it with some reloading, AI crushed me when on offensive. Glad to see AI can fight. But if I attacked I won no problem. Just this made crazy difference. A simple solution would be to take turns in using 1 unit of choice, each unit once per round. I'm all for a more complicated solution, combat feels to simplistic atm.

b) Units should be able to swap places, like they can during deployment.

c) Too few unit types. There should be several types of cav (heavy, light, camel, archer, javelin), infantry with and without shield(spear, ji, sword, mace, axe, ...) ranged (archer, sling, crossbow, javelin) etc. For navy there is practically no choice. I would also like an option to specialize units, through promotions or somehow else. Having ability to create new units would be nice, like get javelins or throwing axes for sword infantry, bows to spear infantry, crossbow to light cav ...

d) There are some nice mechanics like high ground, line of sight, zone of control, extra combat strength for adjacent friendly unit, but I'd like to see stances and support units.

e) Love the siege machines and cav not being able to climb walls mechanic. Also the walls bonus, but it shouldn't give bonus to attacking unit that gets in vs. defending units inside the walls.

f) Battlefield gets crowded when there are more armies participating.

g) Mortar was nice. Maybe it should do less damage to damaged units, cause there are less targets to hit.

Overall, current combat system is too simple, it will be boring very quickly.

Bugs:

2 tiles in territory Mizar(which means carpenter btw) I believe act like water tiles during combat. One of them looks like a hill, but units have to embark to get on top.

I made peace with AI who had no territory left, but had an army which was attacking one of my cities. I thought I would end the battle (I haven't lost in the first turn), but it didn't.

Previews of battles stay on the map.

Not sure if it's a bug, looked like it, but my land units had +1 combat strength from Lighthouse of Alexandria.

Embarked units didn't want to embark when there was some unscouted coast nearby, wanted to go there first and then embark and walk on land to a tile next to them.

I love the new retreating status, prevents the endless chases. It would be great if we could see where army would retreat before making the choice or having some say in the matter. Often the retreat puts the army in even more trouble. Like getting on a tile surrounded by water and then get attacked. Units come into battle 1 by 1, sucks. Same with cliffs all around an army.

After a victorious deffensive battle the attacked army still has movement, but reinforcement armies don't. That feels strange.

I'm fine with not being completely eliminating players, keeps game complex, but at least early it should be possible to get all (especially if it is only 1 territiry right next to me) their land and make them nomadic again.

At start it feels hard to get science going when not playing a civ with science bonus. Maybe I missed something, only tried Babylon and Zhou this time.

After 3 rounds of unfinished battle there should be a choice to retreat. Nobody (Ok some fanatics like Spartans...) stays on the battlefield when defeat is obvious. Historically battles usually ended with routs, not complete annihilation.

Historical comments:

- Horse scout appears too early in tech tree. Horseback riding was mastered long after chariot.

- Please rename the Roman emblematic unit to legion, legionnaire, hastati or principes. Praetorians were just a few bodyguards, and they sucked at that, greedy bitches.

Curiosities later in the game are weak, except the free ship.

Osmosis event is a great idea, maybe needs some tweaking. Not sure how it gets triggered and if I'm supposed to get a lot of science from a neighbour that is behind me in science several turns in a row.

Stability only mattered at the start, later was non-issue, only had to make some commons quarters in one of the cities at one point, It was above 100% practically all the time.

Independent peoples are great. Spending money and or influence should be limited or completely removed, getting on good terms with them should be harder. Giving them territory is interesting. It's saving influence for creating a city. Not sure, if that was the intention.

At first I got frustrated with not being able to move after landing on new AIs land and they didn't sign open borders, or they canceled it. My units couldn't move, just died slowly. Later I figured out I need to give move order ouside borders and they can move then, nice mechanic, gives me some choice where to go. Didn't try, but could be abused a bit when giving them order on other side of their land.

Similarly I only discovered at the end how to switch spawn point. Without this it takes too long for armies to move. 

I think war support points for victories and losses shouldn't be fixed, but a bit dependent on scale of the battle and losses.

Some luxuries only give stability, makes them very inferior.

Missing the names of territories. It would be very helpful if in diplomacy war resolution screen there was a map or zoom to territory option to see what is on the table.

City pop growth is much better. Constant micro for food tiers in Lucy was annoying.

Battle freezes armies that do not participate. Also should have option to choose if an army will participate.

Maybe paying for upgrades or healing units should cost movement.

7 turns for ransack is a bit much.

Feels eras should last a bit longer to enjoy all of them fully.

Joseon science ability looks overpowered.

Ships should be able to search curiosities on coast. 

Love lots of choices for city development.

Seems that when sharing maps the fame for discovering stuff also gets shared. Shouldn't only the discoverer get the glory?

Having same dilemmas every game will get old. Maybe have more to randomly get or somehow randomize them.

When a city center si besieged, it shouldn't stop production in attached territories.

Outposts could build ports, but the tooltip said they won't produce food. Why bother building it then?

Automatic roads are great, but having the ability to manually put down some extra for strategic reasons would be even better.

Affinity abilities:

- Expansionist: no idea how to use it. Tried in territory of vassal and a civ I was at peace with and got open borders. Told me not valid tile or something, moved unit to their administrative center, red text then told me can't do it in allied territory. Also just paying money (and even not much) to steal territory doesn't fell right.

- Tried the agrarian ones at Lucy, liked both.

- Military ability sucks. Especially early. If I'm investing 4 pop, I want some units that can actually win a battle.

Some suggestions for better ability: more war support points for victories and less losing of points when defeated in battle., +x combat strength, x being a number of era maybe, cheaper units to produce or buy, extra militia units in city centers, faster ransacking.

- Science and industry - not really bonuses, they are trade-offs, useful in some situations, kinda weak.

- Cultural: I don't like instant culture bombing, prefer increased pressure. Don't undertand this mechanic enough yet to evaluate. Tourism option I suspect will be available in later eras.

- Merchant: cool.

Some mechanics I really like: civ mixing, grievances, war support, trade, neolithic nomadic start, army statuses, independent peoples, new curiosities in already searched lands, ...

This game has great potential, please improve AI and war mechanics (battle and world map). I'm sure its gonna be a great game.

Ave!