Thank you for the your first impressions! Feedback like yours is super helpful. Hearing what players feel is working well already and what they feel is still missing helps me focus on the next features and pieces of content.
The demo is still pre-alpha and is missing a lot of content - the game definitely needs more meat on the bone! Elaborate Lands will have different civilizations to play, with each having some unique mechanics. I've already got 10 civilizations playable internally, but they don't have any art yet. There will also be more things on the map to discover and interact with - neutral settlements for trade & quests or optional conquest is on my list of things to do.
As a mix of city builders and civ-like games, it is definitely leaning a lot more towards the building and economic aspects than politics and diplomacy. I wanted to build a game that feels like the expansion and construction phase in the early and mid game of Civ VI, and avoid the late and endgame slog. That's also why the 'turn' mechanic (for a lack of a better word) is different - you can just keep building without queuing stuff and waiting longer and longer turns for things to finish.
Good to hear!
Emphasizing Building and Economic Aspects makes it even more important, IMHO, to have as much 'Uniqueness' on the map and in play as possible, since you aren't going to get it from Leaders and Military Units, or at least not as much.
So, a few random thoughts and suggestions:
Right now, construction materials are the old 4X standbys of Wood and Stone. May I suggest that in drier and warmer biomes ('desert', Mediterranean, etc) that Mud Brick from Clay Pits and Brick Works by the rivers would be an alternative to both of them.
Sawmills and Logging Camps, in a jungle biome, could have Elephants towing or lugging the logs around: they were used as work animals as far back as the Indus Valley Civ in 2500 BCE and have been ubiquitous as such across a wide swath from modern Pakistan to southern China for most of the historical eras.
The Settlement Center tile really should have some kind of Administrative Center graphics, perhaps relatively insignificant at first, but Upgradable to very elaborate Governor's, Satrap's, Mayor's, Archon's palaces and workplaces and maybe eventually some kind of Parliament/Rathouse/City Hall structure.
- And that could tie in (along with selected specific Civilizations/Groups to play) with the details of the actual type of administration/government running things. This could be as simple as a Big Man/Chieftain in his larger-than-the-others personal house to anointed kings, councils, tribunals, etc. - each with different attributes applicable towards Influence and Expansion or even specialized Constructions to reresent them on the map.
Ringing in Government and its administration also gives the player the chance to play as an Individual, name the leader and identify with him/her. Elaborate portraits of the Leaders are not, I think, as important as giving the gamer some real aspects of identification with the leader in the game: things that can be done, or done more easily, or not done at all because you are playing as Ivan the Tolerable instead of Aethelred the Reckless. Make the government/administration Mean something if it is included at all, and let the gamer identify with some aspect of it. - and personalize it all by naming who they are identifying with as Leader, Group/Civ, and name their towns on the map.
Right
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