Ara: History Untold

[UncivilizedGuy]

I have a GTX 1080 and haven't had any issues yet other than some frame rate stuttering. My FPS is set at 45. I had it at 30 FPS and didn't see any difference in performance. But I'm still in Act 1 so I'm hoping for the best

 

[CivLuvah]

I have a GTX 1080 and haven't had any issues yet other than some frame rate stuttering. My FPS is set at 45. I had it at 30 FPS and didn't see any difference in performance. But I'm still in Act 1 so I'm hoping for the best

What settings do you have? Because my gaming laptop has an RTX 2070 Super Max-Q. I read the desktop equivalent of that is a GTX 1660 Ti but I'm not sure.

 

[UncivilizedGuy]

What settings do you have? Because my gaming laptop has an RTX 2070 Super Max-Q. I read the desktop equivalent of that is a GTX 1660 Ti but I'm not sure.

In-game settings or the actual gpu settings?

 

[wilting_aspen]

I am roughly halfway through my first playthrough as Sejong on the default difficulty. There was definitely a learning curve throughout the first act and it took some time to get familiar with the UI and menus. By the end of the first act, I was on the top of the standings after defending myself from an expansion war from Jeanne d'Arc. Despite losing a city in the war (partially because I was not paying attention to my outlying cities), I won nearly all the skirmishes against her, which boosted my prestige/standing. I also constructed a triumph that had an extra prestige boost from an event (I forget how Ara labels those).

As the second act started chugging along, I got into the flow of things: I started checking my production level for resources, supplying/upgrading my resource and crafting buildings, and it clicked how regional resource production could be better optimized in future runs. I love city-building games and resource management, so managing my nation was very satisfying. I do wish buildings had the option to be sorted by type or could be searched for by their products rather than solely the building name. It is indeed micro-manage-y but I have been enjoying the gameplay so far. However, this second act has been relatively peaceful, so I have had the attention span to just focus on my production lines and my cities. If things were really hectic, I do think it'd be hard to keep up with the resource management element of the game.

I have around five or so paragons in buildings to create masterpieces, and I am producing a lot of masterpieces. It has gotten to the point where I sometimes skip unveiling the masterpiece so I can get to other things. I am still on top of the standings with ~1,000 point lead. My capital isn't super optimized, it is vaguely research focused, but not as focused as it could be, as I had to ramp up paper-related and raw building resources for those buildings and I'm only now in an okay place.

I do think I have a pretty smooth (maybe easy) path to the end of the game, especially since my neighbor Jeanne d'Arc, who has disliked me since we first met, is probably on the way out upon the conclusion of the second act. I'm already looking forward to a new game with a higher difficulty and different leader, perhaps to try a more military focused game rather Sejong's masterpiece/research focused gameplan.

 

[Sephi]

Has anyone seen Confucius as a selectable leader?

 

[fjaoaoaoao]

Has anyone seen Confucius as a selectable leader?

Unless something has changed, Confucious, Harriet Tubman, and John MacDonald are not available yet. They will be released eventually (for free). They were not ready for release for whatever reason.

 

[UncivilizedGuy]

I'm currently playing as Joan of Arc and everyone hates me. The only way to improve relations is to give gifts or make sacrifices during the occasional narrative event. I've had a couple of wars declared on me but no one attacks. I'm beginning to wonder what the benefit of diplomacy is. I'm assuming there must be a Prestige benefit.

 

[ggmoyang]

I'm currently playing as Joan of Arc and everyone hates me. The only way to improve relations is to give gifts or make sacrifices during the occasional narrative event. I've had a couple of wars declared on me but no one attacks. I'm beginning to wonder what the benefit of diplomacy is. I'm assuming there must be a Prestige benefit.

Trade agreement is great, you can get copy of the partner's goods.

 

[CivLuvah]

In-game settings or the actual gpu settings?

In game settings. It's so I would get prepared when I play the game for the first time. I'm currently swamped for the next week or so.

 

[bitula]

Negative steam rewiews like this:
"This game is basically Micro managing Civ. It feels more like a city builder with a 4x game thrown on top. Ever aspect of your Civ can and will need to upgrade and buff. You will make sure that your Civ is not producing to little or wasting items. Everything has a menu for it so you will need to take you time learning every one of them and how to use them. That is the biggest issue with the game, that I have to spend so much time micro managing my civ in menus that I don't feel like I am managing a Civ in a fun way."
Makes me feel this could be the perfect game for me, since I like micromanagement, and complexity. Finally a civ game with high level of micromanagement! Anyway, I don't understand how can someone give a negative review just because of high micromanagement and learning curve and many menus, lol. These all sound positive to me.

 

[ggalindo001]

I think this game is aimed at specific people.

I'm not sure I am going to be one of them. What I am really waiting to see is if the snowballing can be fixed/balanced. I'm coming around to this being "SimCivilization" vs. Civilization, and I am OK with that as I loved SimCity back in the day. However, I am quite concerned about people not even really focusing on optimal play being 2x or 3x ahead of their nearest rival in single player.

I am enthused by all of the reviewers that say it is fun, but......(as I am hoping those items can get fixed)

 

[KayAU]

I think people go into Ara expecting it to be much closer to Civ, because it covers many of the same concepts and has the same scope. But Ara's it's own thing. Don't get me wrong, for me, it satisfies many of the same urges: exploring the world, exploiting resources, building grand cities with great wonders, defending myself with the might of my armies and fortifications, playing just one more turn to accomplish one more goal. But since I was playing it in alpha, I had this odd feeling of "similar yet not really similar". Ara is not a civ clone, and it might take some time for everything to sink in. Even for me, who has had more time to play than most people, there are concepts just now becoming clearer, like how turns work. Perhaps it's just me being slow, but it just occured to me that almost everything I do during my turn is conceptualized as issuing an order, which will not take effect until I end the turn. It's not just troop movement, even things like choosing an amenity for a city isn't done when I choose it in the UI. Instead, it goes to the order list, and is resolved when the turn ends. You can also change or delete orders, meaning there is no need for an undo button.

 

[UncivilizedGuy]

What would streamline the micro a bit would be an overview of every supply slot that can be upgraded. I spend most of my turns clicking through supply slots. Even if I could just mouse over them it would speed things up. Alerts for empty amenity slots and unused Paragons would also be helpful. I'm confident the developers will improve the experience

 

[Bosque]

In my first game, my biggest problem was building military units and not figuring out how to deploy them. I discovered that is impossible when a city is under siege. I had 3 or 4 units listed as reserves, but couldn't get them to fight as my city was gradually reduced to rubble.

Other than that, my first 10 hours have been enjoyable, but it is a pretty steep learning curve.

 

[Xefjord]

What would streamline the micro a bit would be an overview of every supply slot that can be upgraded. I spend most of my turns clicking through supply slots. Even if I could just mouse over them it would speed things up. Alerts for empty amenity slots and unused Paragons would also be helpful. I'm confident the developers will improve the experience

I have a detailed list of suggestions on the discord covering almost all of these. Especially when it came to highlighting supply slots that you have goods that will fit them in a different color. I got a response from one of the designers directly saying they were good ideas and will be added to the list for near term implementation.

 

[Xefjord]

I think people go into Ara expecting it to be much closer to Civ, because it covers many of the same concepts and has the same scope. But Ara's it's own thing.

I used to love Civ, but I got burned out of Civ 5 and Civ 6 started adding a ton of issues that turned me off the game entirely. Civ 7 looks to be going in an even worse direction to me. So I mostly started playing paradox games.

But I have wanted to return to a game like civ that wasn't civ. This scratches that itch perfectly. Because it takes a lot of what I like about civ and combined many paradox elements with it. All it needs is a baked in TSL map, which is already confirmed to be in the works. Then we will be good to go.

 

[Tanel]

Negative steam rewiews like this:
"This game is basically Micro managing Civ. It feels more like a city builder with a 4x game thrown on top. Ever aspect of your Civ can and will need to upgrade and buff. You will make sure that your Civ is not producing to little or wasting items. Everything has a menu for it so you will need to take you time learning every one of them and how to use them. That is the biggest issue with the game, that I have to spend so much time micro managing my civ in menus that I don't feel like I am managing a Civ in a fun way."
Makes me feel this could be the perfect game for me, since I like micromanagement, and complexity. Finally a civ game with high level of micromanagement! Anyway, I don't understand how can someone give a negative review just because of high micromanagement and learning curve and many menus, lol. These all sound positive to me.

That is exactly why just looking at the review score alone is irrelevant and you need to actually read some reviews because people have different preferences.

 

[DWilson]

Can anyone comment on trying to play it on a handheld with a built in controller? My suspicion is the UI would not be favorable

 

[UncivilizedGuy]

In game settings. It's so I would get prepared when I play the game for the first time. I'm currently swamped for the next week or so.

Spoiler graphics settings :

I lowered the Shading Quality to Shading Low based on someone else's recommendation. FPS is set at 45.

So I decided to start a fresh game today. Playing Large map with 36 civs as Leopold I for the diplomacy bonus. Big difference from my first game as Joan of Arc where everyone was hating on me. Leaders actually want to be my friend now and establish trade. Game is also moving twice as fast for me since I have a better handle on the crafting.

 

[Killer Rabbit]

Played a few hours this morning and this is an interesting game. I'm not totally sure it's for me, because it's so micro-heavy, but it's a cool difference from Civ. Will definitely play more.

One thing that did bother me a bit was that the movement felt slow—perhaps in part because of the simultaneous turns thing. Felt like it took a long time to explore.