I'm a little bit disappointed they are going the route of "one city per region" again, it just doesn't seem right for the setting. It basically means the world will start out full of arbitrary borders, with arbitrary gameplay consequences. For instance, say you settle your first city near a region border, 3 tiles to the west of the city center. Then you make a settler to make a new city. Now, if you move west, you can found that city right next to the first one. Move east, and you will have to travel across the entire "region", until you find another border to cross, and the game rules will permit you to settle. How does this make sense?
Games like Civilization VI and Fallen Enchantress also have settling rules, but they can be rationalized:
- Civilization: Cities must be placed no less than 3 tiles apart. This is easily rationalized, as settling closer would place you inside the workable area of the first city, effectively meaning there are not really two distinct cities.
- Fallen Enchantress: Cities have a minimum distance (which I don't remember off the top of my head), and they need to be placed on fertile land. Someone commented that this is basically the same as Endless Legend, but I strongly disagree. The fertility requirement is based on terrain features, and there are no actual borders placed down by the map generator. A little bit further into the game, a spell becomes available which will "revitalize" land, allowing you to settle in terrain which was previously unavailable. Anyway, these requirements are again easy to rationalize, as they represent the ability of the land to support a settlement.
In addition to not making sense, I feel the subdivision into regions thing just takes some of the joy away from exploring. In Civilization or Fallen Enchantress, finding a great spot to settle is a rush, which immediately inspires me to make plans for expansion. In Endless Legend, however, each entire region is just a large board game tile to try and control. The internal layout and terrain is highly secondary, and not something I really notice beyond the FIDS output.
This is actually my chief worry about this game. When it comes to the morphing cultural identities, I think I need to see it in action to know just how it will work. I actually trust Amplitude to be able to pull it off, though.