Some thoughts and feedback following my first proper game

[Ita Bear]

Hello folks,

Thought I'd unload a few thoughts and a bit of feedback following my first "real" game as Babylonia, on the third difficulty setting. I got around 80 turns in before I called it; firstly because I was surprise attacked by an enemy and was ill-equipped to fight it off, and secondly because the slowdown was getting pretty bad. That said, I'd like to share a few more opinions.

The game is daunting at first and probably off-putting to people unaccustomed to strategy games (I was close to shelving it, too, as it is quite complex and I couldn't work anything out!) I gave it time though, and a true gem is waiting to be revealed to those who dig to find it. Here are some things I enjoy:

• Naturally, the characters bring something fresh to a 4X game like this. Having your character influence virtually all aspects of the game through their traits and abilities makes for great replayability and strategic choices and planning. It's great that character types have different abilities; so builders have different playstyles from zealots, for example.
  
• Taking leaves from the Endless Legend/Civ VI games, I enjoy the city-building aspects of the game, hunting for good adjacency bonuses and specialising my cities.
  
• There is always something to do. At no point in the game do I feel like everything is quite under control; there's always a tech I need to research, a worker I should build, a site I should settle, someone I should marry off or a war to worry about. Every turn is engaging.
• Character based diplomacy is interesting. I was able to befriend foreign leaders and secure flanks of my empire and other leaders would hate me due to our conflicting traits and beliefs.

However, I have come across numerous issues that I would like to discuss. Let's start with the elephant in the room that I don't see mentioned too often:

• One unit per tile. It's a pain in Civ V, Civ VI and it's a pain here as well, especially in the mid-game onwards. Moving every unit one at a time is just tedious and time-consuming. The AI seem reasonably competent, flanking my units, attacking weakened sections of my line and withdrawing wounded units, but I also see massive log-jams in enemy empires. A simpler, more efficient way to control so many units really should be implemented.
  
• For me at least, the map is hard to read. I would REALLY appreciate some toggleable Civ-style resource bubbles that show which resources are where. Some upgraded resource graphics are almost invisible, like the camp for camels and elephants. I have to hover over or really zoom in to see if I have already upgraded them or not.
• Though interesting, I do find the diplomacy at times almost random and arbitrary. Seemingly good relations will sour all at once and I'll receive an unjust ultimatum from a neighbouring empire. Is there any logic to this or should we pray to the RNG gods?
  
• I'm not sold on pre-set city sites at all. If the game goes to the trouble of peppering the map with resources for me to exploit, I would really much prefer being given the freedom and trust to plant cities where I think best. I think this would better suit the "interesting decisions" philosophy. I'm not sure what the point of pre-set sites is apart from rail-roading the player.

There are some other minor annoyances - it's a cool idea that music is tied to the technology drama for example, but it also means the player can spend hours sitting in relative boring silence until the tech is researched. And please, please for the love of God STOP making cultural borders on the mini-map go over water. It looks dreadful and doesn't really inform me of the situation at a glance like a map should. Please make it look like a map should; country borders at a glance with land/ocean clearly delineated.

Overall, though, I think Soren and the team have developed a great game. I wouldn't say it's a spiritual successor to Civ IV, but it is clearly heavily influenced by it and it's very refreshing to see a complex nation-building game being released. I look forward to see how the game develops in the coming months and years.

Kind regards,
Ita Bear

 

[steveg700]

I had to adjust to a lot of the issues you did, plus the text being way too small and unadjustable. Learning how read and influence opinions is a pleasure...once you figure out where to hover your mouse.

The big issue with the pre-set city-sites is the notion that they're first-come-first-serve, and a civ can just plant a unit on that spot indefinitely. You have to go to war to displace a scout. Would rather that it actually cost some civics or training to camp the spot for more than, say, five years. And the cost scales, so at some point the civ may give up. Otherwise, any settler gets to move there regardless of what's in the way.

 

[Dayvit78]

Would rather that it actually cost some civics or training to camp the spot for more than, say, five years. And the cost scales, so at some point the civ may give up. Otherwise, any settler gets to move there regardless of what's in the way.

It does cost - orders.

Also the AI typically doesn't camp forever. They build a settler and move there as soon as they can. It's humans who would camp the entire game.

 

[steveg700]

It does cost - orders.

WelOrder. Well, order. Singular. as in -1 per. Not really the time-limiting factor I was speaking to.

Also the AI typically doesn't camp forever..

Fells like kind of a hair-splitting response, but even so, if the AI seizes six city-sites, the units sit there until they have six settlers, and that could take decades, I have seen the AI do it. Surprised if you haven't.

 

[soxoff]

Yea I would like a explanation of preset city sites not the biggest fan but it doesnt ruin the game. The game is fantastic and really excited with the improvements from the devs and the what the mod community will bring to this game.

 

[Agent_TBC]

For me at least, the map is hard to read. I would REALLY appreciate some toggleable Civ-style resource bubbles that show which resources are where. Some upgraded resource graphics are almost invisible, like the camp for camels and elephants. I have to hover over or really zoom in to see if I have already upgraded them or not.

You can get most of what you're looking for with the Tile Yields overlay. It's hotkey M or you can shift-click the button in the bottom right under the minimap to keep it toggled on. It will show you the resources and which are upgraded. For instance, it will show either ELEPHANTS for unupgraded or ELEPHANT CAMP for upgraded. Or, say, MARBLE for unupgraded but MARBLE QUARRY for upgraded. I tend to hit the M key occasionally to check for unupgraded resources like the elephants and camels which I agree are hard to tell when improved.

It gets a little busy midgame because it shows all improvements including buildings and non-resource mines and quarries and lumbermills so you probably aren't gonna want to keep it on all the time but it is definitely easier and faster than having to zoom way in to check if there is a camp on the elephants or camels. A quick little tap of the M key and there you go.

 

[Dale]

Yea I would like a explanation of preset city sites not the biggest fan but it doesnt ruin the game.

So the premise is that the world is already covered with people, in basic settlements, barbarians, tribes, already established nations from pre classical antiquity. When you enter the world you are really just raising your flag and taking already established settlements into your fold. Your settler represents the settling of your culture in that new settlement.

The design reasoning is that by using pre-existing city sites it firstly eliminates ICS (and any other mechanism good or bad that has been used in the past to counter ICS) plus it also promotes the player over the course of the game to expand the urban area around the city site, at the same time as expanding the rural usage between the cities. It gives plenty of room for a city to spread out, and during the years pre-release most of the feedback was that this was a really fun thing to allow the player to do. From than squashing city sites and not allowing for any sort of guided city growth and spread, this method allowed all of that and more.


For those so inclined, I've already published a Settle Anywhere mod that allows you to do just that..... settle anywhere.

 

[Taefin]

I noticed there are opinion modifiers for attacking and killing another empires units. How feasible would a mod be to allow small skirmishes during a truce, or introducing a non-war, non-truce state. Since these would risk escalating to war, the player at least would be able to handle the calculus involved, scaring off units without trying to kill them. Is there any chance the AI would be able to weigh wanting a city vs wanting to maintain good relations? I’m guessing they’d handle the pulling a damaged unit to safety, but might have to add some code to prioritize attacking units blocking a cite, but not then chasing down and killing those units.

 

[Dale]

I noticed there are opinion modifiers for attacking and killing another empires units. How feasible would a mod be to allow small skirmishes during a truce, or introducing a non-war, non-truce state. Since these would risk escalating to war, the player at least would be able to handle the calculus involved, scaring off units without trying to kill them. Is there any chance the AI would be able to weigh wanting a city vs wanting to maintain good relations? I’m guessing they’d handle the pulling a damaged unit to safety, but might have to add some code to prioritize attacking units blocking a cite, but not then chasing down and killing those units.

There's changes coming through this week's update that modify how the AI sees city sites. It shouldn't steal city sites in your sphere as much now.

 

[steveg700]

The design reasoning is that by using pre-existing city sites it firstly eliminates ICS (and any other mechanism good or bad that has been used in the past to counter ICS) plus it also promotes the player over the course of the game to expand the urban area around the city site, at the same time as expanding the rural usage between the cities. It gives plenty of room for a city to spread out, and during the years pre-release most of the feedback was that this was a really fun thing to allow the player to do. From than squashing city sites and not allowing for any sort of guided city growth and spread, this method allowed all of that and more.

So is there anything in the program that determines if city-sties have exploitable features? Sometimes city-sites have lots of different features around them, sometimes they are just blank flatlands. Conversely, sometimes a coveted resource is remote from any city-site. Is there any corollary between the city-site and the surrounding environment?

I noticed there are opinion modifiers for attacking and killing another empires units. How feasible would a mod be to allow small skirmishes during a truce, or introducing a non-war, non-truce state. Since these would risk escalating to war, the player at least would be able to handle the calculus involved, scaring off units without trying to kill them. Is there any chance the AI would be able to weigh wanting a city vs wanting to maintain good relations? I’m guessing they’d handle the pulling a damaged unit to safety, but might have to add some code to prioritize attacking units blocking a cite, but not then chasing down and killing those units.

So this is one of those things about AI's in strategy games where you play on higher difficulty so that the AI can have gorilla-like bonuses to compensate for its lack of finesse.

There's often nothing in a strategy game's AI programming that reflects an avoidance of negative diplomatic factors. They're honey badgers that do whatever they want, and if that causes others to declare war on them and wipe them out, then let those chips fall where they might. Not sure if that's the case in TOW. I don't usually see the AI doing much to curry my favor. They just do what they want to do, including poaching city-sites. Then again, a human player doesn't have a diplo modifier to jockey for. My hero leader doesn't have an innate disdain for builder leaders.

There's changes coming through this week's update that modify how the AI sees city sites. It shouldn't steal city sites in your sphere as much now.

Maybe some factors can increase the number of orders required to camp a site. For instance, camping a site closer to someone else's capital should cost additional orders for the camper? Or for camping a city that would be naturally connected to another civ's network?

 

[Dale]

So is there anything in the program that determines if city-sties have exploitable features? Sometimes city-sites have lots of different features around them, sometimes they are just blank flatlands. Conversely, sometimes a coveted resource is remote from any city-site. Is there any corollary between the city-site and the surrounding environment?

I'm not completely up on how the map builder works, but I believe it creates a terrain map, then breaks it into regions taking mountain chains etc into consideration. Then it'll assign a city site per region. I've no idea if there's consideration of resources etc. In Old World it's not as important as say Civ6 the resource proximity to city sites, since you can easily expand borders in Old World. You aren't relying on some abstracted concept like culture to randomly pick a tick to expand to. In Old World just build urban improvements or rural specialists in the directions you want to expand to pop your border out. Or if you're a Builder then just straight up urban tile out wherever.

If you want to check things out yourself, take a look at DefaultMapScript.cs, MapBuilder.cs, MapData.cs and the actual map scripts to see how it's all done. Those files are in the reference folder.