Ara: History Untold

[Bonyduck Campersang]

how is this game when it comes to warfare?

 

[UncivilizedGuy]

It's primarily stacks of doom. Units need to be organized into formations which does add a layer of strategy. Siege weapons are a requirement to capture cities with walls. Units are to scale with the map so you have to zoom in to see them although they are represented with icons if you zoom out.

 

[Bonyduck Campersang]

How fun would a domination campaign be? I usually play for conquest, both in Civ and Humankind, the other parts are just boring to me, and I don't expect Ara will be much better in that regard

 

[Josu]

My computer is not powerfull enough to run the game, and I am interested in testing it, has anyone played in any cloud gaming platform? How was the experience?

 

[Lonecat Nekophrodite]

It's primarily stacks of doom. Units need to be organized into formations which does add a layer of strategy. Siege weapons are a requirement to capture cities with walls. Units are to scale with the map so you have to zoom in to see them although they are represented with icons if you zoom out.

I've yet to play the game but this sounds more interesting. a direction Civ franchise should instead move to. rather than 1UPT.
But unit lists is very much bugged me alot. why divide Fusilier and Line Infantry and have Rifleman being 'Enlightenment Era' unit.
And Era system puzzles me alot.

List of Units - Ara: History Untold Wiki

ara.wiki

There gotta be unit classes of sort but i'm not sure if it is very much redundant. like 'Archers' became 'Fusiliers' and Pikemen became Line Infantry. which means 'Fusiliers' were light infantry and Line Inf. is heavy infantry while historically the two units are one and same. except uniforms. which doesn't really affect gameplay much except that infantrymen coats were cheaper in Early 19th Century than ones in 18th Century. (and thus lower upkeeps)/

 

[Tanel]

The warfare is pretty basic and mostly doom stacking. Ranged units have indirect fire which is better in some situations than just charging in.

Walls are broken OP right now because if the city has enough production to repair them in 1 turn or you use gold to hurry it's impossible to take that city as due to simultaneous turns wall repairing always happens before unit movement which is therefore cancelled.

 

[Revolutionist_8]

How fun would a domination campaign be? I usually play for conquest, both in Civ and Humankind, the other parts are just boring to me, and I don't expect Ara will be much better in that regard

Indirect fire and bombardment (next to adjacent region) bring some options, they seem to damage the entire stack, but otherwise it's mostly stack of doom. There are different types of units, each which counters a specific other type of unit, and you can form these into smaller stacks (called forces), for potential more bonus (e.g. 2 melee infantry + 2 archer = 10% strength). You can also mix-and-match different paragons for more bonuses (either assign one directly to a force, for let's say +10% strength, or have a strategist paragon as a chief advisor giving every force a bonus, and so on). Air units and naval bombardment later also give you some varieties.

The number of forces you can put into one region (tile) is unlimited at the moment, and simultaneous turns bring some unpredictability into combat - while also some nuances, like you have to "pre-fire" into a region (which can miss if the enemy moves away), and I just can't catch enemy scouts, who happily run through my lands...

As others have mentioned, it's a bit rudimentary at the moment, serves its most important and basic purpose, but could use some love (which fortunately the devs signaled multiple times to give).

And to finally answer your question: I think it's pretty fun, but have limitations. In my current game, I started being boxed into a corner with 3-4 hostile nations (having 36 nations is fun) and had to pick them out one by one - often exploiting their fightings between each other and the different casus belli options - until I managed to become a chonky boi dominating the area. Then I could finally focus on the most important aspect of Ara in peace - the economy. This affects your combat capabilities quite a lot: through "Security" (which directly affects your units' strength, and you can increase in multiple ways, by crafting various items and creating improvements) and the resources needed to create and maintain your different types of units.

It's been mentioned many times by the devs, that Ara is less war-focused intentionally, and it feels. It's something you can't avoid (especially on higher difficulties, where the AI is quite aggro) and more grand-strategy in nature. The game's backbone is the supply-chain and crafting dimension, with a plethora of various options to build and optimize, that is its main strength, while at the same time combat and other features make it more than "just" a city builder.

 

[KayAU]

There's another dev diary.

EDIT: And now I have watched it, it was very good. There are some nice sneak peaks of the first major update in the background footage, where you can see things like the national economy screen, the Earth map, and the improved unit/formation management features.

 

[UncivilizedGuy]

At least 4 more patches coming

 

[Civinator]

Two questions:

1. Is the day of the release of that November Patch/Expansion known yet. When is it ?
2. Is that patch/expansion included when I buy that game after the release of that patch/expansion ?

 

[Filo90]

Two questions:

1. Is the day of the release of that November Patch/Expansion known yet. When is it ?
2. Is that patch/expansion included when I buy that game after the release of that patch/expansion ?

1. this Thursday, unless last minute issues

2. patches are part of the game, doesn't count when you buy it...

 

[123joanna321]

A dev on the discord posted screenshots of the new economy screen. Looks exactly like what is badly needed. Can see all the buildings grouped by type and what they are building, experts, supplies. No more clicking and searching your empire for each one! So exicted for the new patch!

Spoiler screenshots of economy screen :

 

[Filo90]

and they didn't show the policy tab where you can supposedly choose the automation of supplies into improvements