Skyward Collapse Alpha 0.990

[Pepisolo]

Seems like the more random chaos or even non-chaos the better. As long as stuff is happening that you don't expect the game remains fun. Hey, maybe in the future there will be 100+ Woes.... Just hope this game gets off to a good start. I definitely have a good feeling about this one.. fingers crossed.

[chemical_art]

Yes, despite me getting one of what I imagine more one sided god setups every, I still feel I have the tools to manage in the tutorial.

The only thing I think should be mentioned, sometime mid to late age of man, is reminding of about the terrian. I was on the verge of having the balance of power shifting (norse siege being too effective against military town) , but then as I glanced for options I found mountains and then created chokepoints, saving my game.

[x4000]

Two more errors now that I am in the age of man:

1.) The instructions are simple, but I'd still like the option to read them later if I wanted.
2.) I had to look really hard to find one lesser god, and still cannot find another. Not fun.

In terms of #1, up at the top of the screen those should still be there.  But... oh!  Yeah, the age of monsters would not have those because of the woes up there.  Sigh.  That one is too risky and time consuming, I'll have to change that post-1.0.

For #2, you can filter to see the gods on the sidebar using the filters thingy.  But I also do plan to make it more of an event to see the gods when they spawn.  Actually, that should be easy enough to do come to think of it.

[chemical_art]

In terms of #1, up at the top of the screen those should still be there.  But... oh!  Yeah, the age of monsters would not have those because of the woes up there.  Sigh.  That one is too risky and time consuming, I'll have to change that post-1.0.

For #2, you can filter to see the gods on the sidebar using the filters thingy.  But I also do plan to make it more of an event to see the gods when they spawn.  Actually, that should be easy enough to do come to think of it.

#2 is certainly more important, since that is globally for games in generallu, and #1 isn't that big a deal really (woes are self explanatory...I think. That one I'm biased on due to forum creep.)

[Mick]

I think the game has really fallen into place very quickly with the balance of combat, myth tokens, woes, score gating.. It's all working great!

I just have one hangup. The late game.

I often reach a point in the game where I feel like: "OK, I've pretty much won.. I just gotta play out the turns now." I mean, I suppose I could work on inflating my score by placing feeder villages behind each faction, but that's not exactly compelling endgame.

It's a problem in most strategy games I find. Civilization has it, where you have to slog through your final turns even though it feels pointless and a waste of time to do so.

I don't know what I would specifically suggest, but I wish that the Age of Gods had a lot more "UMPH" to it. Something epic that the whole game builds up to, and really tests if you have been doing your job well up to that point.

A very simple solution, as in something that can be done the day of release , might be just to pump up that 3rd level score gate drastically across the difficulties. At that point in the game, your score should be climbing very fast anyway. It should not be easy to hit that score in the Age of Monsters. It should really be set to levels that you NEED major god powers in order to accomplish.

[chemical_art]

I agree, Mick, that in my current game even in a tutorial things are...stale now. Static would be a better word, actually.

Increasing the gating I don't think will work.

Having bandit keeps spawn mythological creatures would help though. Especially in my current game where through chains of events keeps are isoloated, having them spawn Chimeras would certainly spice things up.

[PokerChen]

I likewise disagree with the score-gating pump per se - not finishing a game at that stage is probably even more devastating to the player. Or let me put it this way, having Loki steal your game away is probably a better way to lose than "oh I didn't kill enough critters..."

[Pepisolo]

Yeah, definitely something more event-based would be better. Hey, I usually just switch score-gating off, so points wouldn't make a difference to me, although presumably I'm not quite playing the game as it's meant to be played.

[x4000]

This should spice things up a bit for now, and we can mull on more interesting events sometime post-1.0 when there is time:

* When mythological creatures are extinct, bandits can now still use them.

* During the age of gods, bandit keeps will now only spawn mythological creatures and siege units.  This... hurts.

[Mick]

Well I know my last game I pretty much played out the last 50 turns by alternating Athena's "No unit attacks for 5 turns" and Heimdallr's "Kill all military units everywhere". There was no thought to it, I didn't even bother to watch the playbacks, I just clicked the END button really fast on all of them.

I know some of you say "I play with score gating off", but unfortunately I think that score is really only thing that balances the game very well. It's sandbox without score, pure and simple.

[x4000]

All right:

* Athena's olive branch now gives massive negative points and has a huge cooldown.

[Mick]

All right:

* Athena's olive branch now gives massive negative points and has a huge cooldown.

Probably should do the same to the horn as well I think.

[x4000]

All right:

* Athena's olive branch now gives massive negative points and has a huge cooldown.

Probably should do the same to the horn as well I think.

It already has a cooldown of 30 and 60 turns on hard and expert, but on easy and medium it's 10...

Ah well.  I made it 30/50/80 now.

[PokerChen]

* During the age of gods, bandit keeps will now only spawn mythological creatures and siege units.  This... hurts.

lol, is this because the alpha testers can easily finish games on Expert/Insane?

[x4000]

* During the age of gods, bandit keeps will now only spawn mythological creatures and siege units.  This... hurts.

lol, is this because the alpha testers can easily finish games on Expert/Insane?

Kind of.  See the above commentary, even from chemical_art who is newer and playing on a lower difficulty (tutorial).  Some needed escalation was missing.