First Impressions/Initial Feedback

[Kronic]

Throwing together this thread as I imagine there'll be a fair bit of "Quick comments" and questions coming in with release. I keep having couple of sentence things I want to point out, but don't want to clog other threads.

First off, soundtrack is - as ever from Pablo - very nice. The guitar plays off very well against the rest of the composition as well.

Secondly - Multiplayer: How does it work and the like? Can't see anywhere which explains how the game actually plays in it, though that may just be me being blind - a quick one time popup when you click to enable Multiplayer or on the MP button on the main menu would be great if I'm not just missing it entirely.

[PokerChen]

On multiplayer: you start a game with multiplayer turned on, and then someone else joins your game and gets another 6 APs to play with. In return the woes and bandits spawn faster, iirc.

[x4000]

The bandits spawn a bit faster in MP, but that's it.  It doesn't really try to balance it against solo's experience in MP, because that's not really possible and having a different balance is okay anyway.  AI War is different with each number of players, too.  Anyhow, yeah, multiplayer is simple:

1. Players connect.
2. Each player takes the turn for red and blue, separately.
3. When all are done with the red+blue turn, then the turn advances and they watch the playback.
4. When all players are done watching the playback, it moves on to the next turn proper and go back to #2.
5. Beyond that, bandits spawn faster and that's all.

[Kronic]

Lovely, cheers for the clarifications. I know how it is with you guys and the SP/MP splits, so no worries there either.

[x4000]

My pleasure!

[Kronic]

Further initial feedback: I've lost the tutorial twice. Remind me not to try stacking global tokens without considering the synergy consequences.

The "Must be close to an enemy town centre" thing for placing towns is...frustrating at times, but I can clearly see what you're going for with it and I think it works well. It's just a right pain in the neck.

Took me a small while to get the hang of how to manage the military semi effectively, but once I got read the tooltips thoroughly it all slotted into place and became pretty intuitive - or at least as intuitive as it can be with only semi control. Good work.

The randomly appearing tiles on the island are also something I feel could do with a small mention - again, I may have missed something, but they kind of happened without warning or explanation: an intentional "show, not tell" sort of thing, or just something you thought obvious enough not to need a quick explanation?

Apologies for most of the negative feedback being a "The game doesn't tell me everything" point of view by the way, I'm from the days where game manuals fit nicely on bookshelves and a bit set in my ways. >.<



EDIT: And from an intuitiveness point, it may be beneficial to highlight the relevant submenus/icons for buildings during the tutorial. I found them reasonably quickly, but it'd be a nice touch for ease of access.

[keith.lamothe]

The "Must be close to an enemy town centre" thing for placing towns is...frustrating at times, but I can clearly see what you're going for with it and I think it works well. It's just a right pain in the neck.

Yea, before that rule I was running a "endless chain of towns behind each other" cheese all the way to the bank, even in the Expert difficulty tier

[Kronic]

I'm glad to know we share a taste in flavours of cheese.

[Cinth]

Apologies for most of the negative feedback being a "The game doesn't tell me everything" point of view by the way, I'm from the days where game manuals fit nicely on bookshelves and a bit set in my ways. >.<

When I started gaming, manuals weren't even worth mentioning.

[Sounds]

I'm only 30 minutes into the game and had to stop due to work commitments. However what I can say is I was having a blast and can't wait to get back to it. My first impression is one of the  OMG this is one of those: "one more turn games". So long early night tonight.

[BobTheJanitor]

I have sort of tried to stay vaguely unspoiled for this game instead of trying to get into the alpha and obsessing over details. So, I'm going into it blind. And I'm already confused.

I feel a little dumb here, but I'm in the tutorial, and I follow through the hand holding in the first red building turn, then I'm fine with the less hand holding in the first blue building turn. Then I get to a turn where my directions are 'survive the first turn'. Ok... so what do I do now? Just build more stuff? The directions talk about units moving and spending action points and such. The only units are these two mythological units that I was told to place, but clicking on them doesn't give me any sort of movement options or anything like that. I'll probably figure it out if I poke around a bit more, but for a tutorial I don't think I should be running into a 'what do I do now?' moment so quickly. Like, I don't even know so far if I'm supposed to be spawning and moving units, or if that is something that happens automatically (which is kind of what I assume given what I know about the game).

Edit: Ah, OK, so I did just need to build some more stuff and end both turns. That's fine, but the tutorial text totally does not mention that at all. Maybe a little tweaking would help there?

[Cinth]

Remember the "free will" bits? You get to build stuff and place creatures and tokens.  If it is alive down there, it acts on its own

[BobTheJanitor]

Direct Actions > Build Rep <- That's an odd abbreviation. That suggests to me that I'm going to be building reputation in some way, which confused me because there's no such thing as reputation in the game, and no way to build it. Considering it's supposed to be 'repair building', something like 'Bldg Rep' or 'Bld Repair' or just 'Repair' would probably make more sense. Or at least swap it around to 'Rep Build' or something.

[Misery]

I have sort of tried to stay vaguely unspoiled for this game instead of trying to get into the alpha and obsessing over details. So, I'm going into it blind. And I'm already confused.

I feel a little dumb here, but I'm in the tutorial, and I follow through the hand holding in the first red building turn, then I'm fine with the less hand holding in the first blue building turn. Then I get to a turn where my directions are 'survive the first turn'. Ok... so what do I do now? Just build more stuff? The directions talk about units moving and spending action points and such. The only units are these two mythological units that I was told to place, but clicking on them doesn't give me any sort of movement options or anything like that. I'll probably figure it out if I poke around a bit more, but for a tutorial I don't think I should be running into a 'what do I do now?' moment so quickly. Like, I don't even know so far if I'm supposed to be spawning and moving units, or if that is something that happens automatically (which is kind of what I assume given what I know about the game).

Edit: Ah, OK, so I did just need to build some more stuff and end both turns. That's fine, but the tutorial text totally does not mention that at all. Maybe a little tweaking would help there?

I agree, the tutorial could be a little more comprehensive on some points, but.... with this game, just feel free to experiment and try things out!  It's confusing at first, but I dont think it'll take most players long to get the basics down. 

And like Cinth says, you dont have direct control over any units (though you can PLACE mythological ones directly, anywhere you want, that's important to keep in mind).  But there's tons of options for INFLUENCING them in ways that change the course of battles.  Some more obvious than others.

[BobTheJanitor]

I can kind of understand not being able to build on tiles with enemy units on them, but I don't know why I can't build on tiles with friendly units on them. I've currently got a blue soldier who seems happy to continue standing on the last tile that's in range of this city center. There's no way to get him to move, so do I just have to accept that blue is going to be a little behind in the balance of resource building simply because this guy won't freakin' move?