Currently I feel like the current era of the player is not represented to a point where it is visible for the player

It is visible as a text on the top right corner: this is obviously not a good indicator as focus is rarely around this region and is a string - the font type is kinda nice but nothing special :)

Era is also represented on the map in the form of unit and building models

Units often lack behind the current era and are grouped together into armies

Buildings also often mix due to emblematic districts of different cultures

None of them are visible in general when zooming out from the map due to the abstraction view which is needed at that level but also obscures the era of the faction and the world in general

Current era is also visible to some extent in the research screen - here I am usually lacking behind in research with an era or two due to era progres not being tied to research so as a thematic indicator its sub optimal and is rather a detraction (as I would be researching tech from previous eras most of the time)

Proposal: Era specific thematic window dressing on the top left corner (building material stone, marble, wood, or architecture such as medieval bastions or gohtic windows forms can do the job) - these are always visible even if on the periphery of the player focus thanks to being images instead of text and would clearly communicate the current era no matter the screen, if its zoomed out or not

Hey, thanks for the suggestion!
Interesting indeed, could be a way to make it more clear to the players, not sure how it will fit the Ui/UX, but I will mention it to the team ^-^

Thanks

What is atypical in this game is that era progression is not tied to technological progression so the player can very easily move in a different era with their research units and buildings then what is technically their current era

I was thinking on an artistic render of the era on the upper left corner as the designation is already there and that UI element is constantly visible in all UI windows so the representation can also be carrier over consistently without taking the layer out of immersion

Siptah wrote:

No, not each culture, but architectural style. These are often shared between several cultures but not necessarily update each era (but often update when you transcend). So, the logic is already in place (albeit some are questionable such as transcending Aztecs having the Spanish style).

Ah you mean like culture group (based on region) represented by the unit art already?

Zolobolo wrote:

Siptah wrote:

No, not each culture, but architectural style. These are often shared between several cultures but not necessarily update each era (but often update when you transcend). So, the logic is already in place (albeit some are questionable such as transcending Aztecs having the Spanish style).

Ah you mean like culture group (based on region) represented by the unit art already?

Yes, the same system is in place for units and architecture, 'just' missing the UI ;-)

Zolobolo wrote:

If we are looking at the overall design of the game I would take out stars and bind era progression to tech instead

I understand the design decision of trying to simulate a kind of culture achievement mechanic and the attempt to innovate here but I also find the pros outweight the cons in case of the star mechnic. Also sure such a core mechanic cannot be changed this late into release that is why I am only addressing the surface level issue

What exactly are the cons for you for a VP based win condition?

Currently it is a players choice when he changes era if he reached the minimum amount. There are pro and cons for changing early/late.

Zolobolo wrote:

If we are looking at the overall design of the game I would take out stars and bind era progression to tech instead

I understand the design decision of trying to simulate a kind of culture achievement mechanic and the attempt to innovate here but I also find the pros outweight the cons in case of the star mechnic. Also sure such a core mechanic cannot be changed this late into release that is why I am only addressing the surface level issue

Grab a mod that increases the number of stars needed to progress. I find at 14 it matches the tech progression a lot better. (You can play like this without a mod but the AIs will gobble up all the cultures, so it's really a mod for them).

shakee wrote:

Zolobolo wrote:

If we are looking at the overall design of the game I would take out stars and bind era progression to tech instead

I understand the design decision of trying to simulate a kind of culture achievement mechanic and the attempt to innovate here but I also find the pros outweight the cons in case of the star mechnic. Also sure such a core mechanic cannot be changed this late into release that is why I am only addressing the surface level issue

What exactly are the cons for you for a VP based win condition?

Currently it is a players choice when he changes era if he reached the minimum amount. There are pro and cons for changing early/late.

I support the idea of a VP point system (works well enough for board games works here) but I think it was a sub-optimal choice to introduce two different parameters for this purpose: Fame and Stars

Fame is the driving force to win a game - stars flow into this but they (as well as fame) are obscure quite a bit due to stars-fame transaction rates per star type, deeds (hidden away in a separate scrollable submenu), wonders and possibly other elements generating one or the other

The drawback mentioned above specifically is about tying era progression to stars earned as it inherently creates disconnect between stars/culture development and technological progress. If it wouldn't create a disconnect, it wouldnt make sense to use one over the other as might as well have been driven by tech progress :)

Offering the choice when to progress to the next era is also possible via tech. Its more limited as tech progress is the only way to progress through eras then while stars offer many other ways to progress but its intuitive as the concepts around eras are fundamentally tied to time and tech. Being a successful culture in doing legendary deeds does not intuitilively lead into the disapearance of that culture and begin replaced by another while technology does tend to have transformative effect on culture

Ideally I would see Fame points removed, Stars become the main and only VP point system and assign era progression either to tech directly or both tech and star progression at the same time see here

Realistically the system is here to stay both stars and fame and era progression assigned to star progress only

In that environment I thought it would be good to better communicate the current era to the player at all time for immersion sake (dampen the disconnect)

The fame points allow for different stuff contributing to the score more easily. If you only have stars, how are you going to balance them? Wonders are worth 1 star then? None?

I like that there are different ways to gain fame, even though some could use some buff. I currently modded the deed fames to 75/150/250 and wonders do 200 fame when build and you also get fame for each wonder you own when changing era (100 each).

In the end it would probably in a similar value in what fame currently is, just named different. Personally I like the disconnect between Era and Tech. Mostly for the thing that it makes teching not super important because you want to choose a new culture, that can be reached by different means... if you are still competitive by neglecting techs is another question. But it is a players decision to make. If era is tied to tech level, there is no question and limited/reduced freedom of decision.

I once published a mod, which changes the fame generation by tying it to empire comparison ranking in different categories. It is interesting to play (would have like to include affinity choices a bit more, but mod tools gave me limited options for this idea).

shakee wrote:

The fame points allow for different stuff contributing to the score more easily. If you only have stars, how are you going to balance them? Wonders are worth 1 star then? None?

Yes wonders would have in that scenario yielded 1 star. They currently provide 100 Fame and 1 Star is usually worth 100 Fame

The conversion is not that important as the value of the achievements in stars - that is the only thing that would needed to have been balanced

The current system is bit more complicated then it needed to be in this regard. e.g: Deeds are worth between 50-150 fame a piece - which is below the average yield of a conventional star. But Deeds have required a dedicated UI window that does not fit on a screen and thus the player needs scrolling and reading and memorizing them to engage with the system - I never look at it myself but I can imagine they might have some role playing value

DNLH wrote:

introducing competitive quests that would be a minor source of Fame but a constant trickle of it and force more interaction with other Personas.

Deeds are serving as such competitive goals with the exception that they are one stage only and dont require interaction with other factions

Both EL and ES2 had competitive quests if I recall correctly and while they did sometimes have chain of events dont recall interaction with other factions there

I meant interaction as in "ah, it's that Poe again, he's got a lot of science, he's gonna beat me to the 1st place for 'in next X turns research the most techs', how I hate that guy", kinda like how one wants to punch their screen every time Riftborn appear in competitive quests in ES2. A reason to remember who are your competitors, if you prefer.