[alpha feedback] Notes after one game.

[PokerChen]

 I think the combat is generally enjoyable, notwithstanding missing unit animations. I'm less sure about having Gods sit around being a tower of death, unless goaded into action (in the near future). The tutorial was easy enough after a few initial trip-ups with the resource chain.

 My impression with the bandit system is both good and bad. In most cases, they spawn, kill something (a building or two if they're very lucky), and then gets defeated. However, there are cases such as Dark Elf spawns who live a many turns trying to convert a resource tile (not very successful for some reason), defeating melee untis that attacks, and be a general nuisance. It's not bandit-like nor elf-like.

 Maximising the score for me required that I allow the Norse (who's been trailing for 95% fo the game) to completely overrun the Greeks just before the end. Deciding when to push for this and then preserving a Greek remnant seems to be a deep decision... Also, given that points are scored for building destruction, I'm tempted to get up games with boundary villages that flip red and blue constantly to rack up the score.

 I'm not sure what the map-styles will be like in beta, but they will need more randomising elements.

 On unit stat/requirement balancing and differentiation:
 I think this is something we'll need to talk about properly soon on Mantis. I'm getting a feeling that the units aren't quite different enough. The stats point to different roles, yes, but I don't necessary see how in an advanced economy a pure army might be better than a varied army. In a mixed army, you also get a more distributive resource chain, so when an odd chokepoint occurs another unit from the list can be produced. As it currently stands, when all your unit require lots of bacon each, you really have to narrow yourself down on the resource tiles (which isn't good for future flexibility if somebody happens to pick up immunity to X).

 People will need to play this a few times to know enough though.

 Overall, cautiously positive.

[Misery]

 I'm not sure what the map-styles will be like in beta, but they will need more randomising elements.

This.


I still havent had much time with the game yet, but I went and had a look at the maps.   Interesting stuff.... but there's so few of them.   I know that part of the game is the crazy map expansion, going off randomly all over the place with the player also adding plenty of tiles themselves depending on their actions, buuuuuuuuuuuut, my one problem is that there arent going to be enough differing STARTING setups.


There's 2 things I'd like to see:

1.  Maps that are randomly-generated from the very start.   This is exactly the sort of game that should have this.   I know this probably could lead to lopsided starts, where one side has an advantage over the other.... but that's totally fine here!   That'd be part of the challenge, and I'd love to see it happen, adding a bit more to the "balancing act" part of the game.   And of course, the player wouldnt HAVE to play that way, they could always use the pre-set maps.

2.  A basic editor that lets me create my own initial map, as well as setting the chances for types of tiles to appear each turn (like I could set Mountains to "very high" or "low" or whatever, and do this for each tile type.


I think these would be really great additions.