The OpenDev/Preview Thread

[ost]

Just finished my first playthrough. In short, it was very fun. The terrain and music are so beautiful that one could just listen and watch the world go by (and I did!). The artwork for the technologies, infrastructure, etc is really incredible. Top to bottom the game has the characteristic Amplitude charm. I'm going to play it at least once more and I'll keep my eyes peeled for the answers to questions I've seen posted on these forums.

- I remember someone asking about road creation: when researching the WHEEL, roads between cities and outposts are automatically created. So no construction project required like Endless Legend, at least for the lowest tier of roads.
- Mountains (finally!) have yields associated with them, I only saw industry (and a pretty decent amount of it)
- Coastal regions do not necessarily only project one tile into the sea. As can be seen by the location of the dotted line the region extends several tiles into the ocean.
- Your Capital city can be relocated after researching the IMPERIAL POWER technology, I unfortunately could not find clues as to what benefit the capital city designation confers.

I didn't really identify any serious problems - it is important to keep in mind that this scenario is very limited and is designed to introduce exploration and territorial expansion - not much else. My main issues were not understanding certain terminology, as @need my speed pointed out terms like "Family" or "Repeatables" were not explained - however I fully expect that to become clear in future scenarios. I also found the clicking a little weird - specifically deselecting a unit requires a left-click on the map and deselecting a city requires a right-click. Not a big deal, but I definitely misdirected some units because of that. I presume I'd get used to it though.

Money has a very important role in the game, as others have mentioned. I think Humankind has done some nice things to try and lessen the dominance of Industry as the be-all and end-all of tile yields. I don't feel like I can comment on the importance of Stability yet, and obviously we have no idea the value of Influence.

 

[tedhebert]

Yeah, plus you are in a different timezone. Hope everything is going as well as expected! You really deserve it.



I got it as well!

Hang in there, you'll be able to play soon. Thankfully I work from home and I can manage my schedule, so off I go!

I work from home too... still got to keep discipline on, what with TEAMS meetings and all... Did start my first game during lunch hour played halfway through the 30 turns scenario...
taking very long because on the first run, I want to see everything, open every menu, click on every detail, mousehover everywhere, and mostly admire the fantastic graphics ;-)

 

[CivLuvah]

Got acceptance this morning. Just to be clear, I assume that feedback given through the designated feedback form is better than giving feedback on these forums right? (Though I know ya'll are regularly visiting the forums which I appreciate)

@Catoninetales_Amplitude also said that asking questions and giving feedback at the Games2Gether Humankind OpenDev subforum is better as well.

 

[tedhebert]

@Catoninetales_Amplitude also said that asking questions and giving feedback at the Games2Gether Humankind OpenDev subforum is better as well.

Of course we should prioritize G2G forums for our comments and feedback.

At the same time, that doesn't stop us from being generous with our screenshots/comments/experiences in here with our CF friends... i think it's important to do so.

I will do both ;-)

 

[tedhebert]

It's an anti-kiting mechanic we introduced. In Endless Legend, we had problems with battles that were indecisive but tedious because a weak, fast unit would just run around the battlefield away from the attackers for 6 battle rounds. With the Capture the Flag option, you don't have to find the enemy if they are trying to run or hide. (Of course, we're open to suggestions for names, because "Capture the Flag" does not feel quite right when fighting animals.)
.

Ah... That's what it was... felt really weird to me too. And I understand very well what you're alluding to. If you wanna kite, I'll take the flag and win the battle.

now, let's rack our brains and find a more appropriate name for that ;-) i've got nothing at the moment, but will think on this !

 

[FinalDoomsday]

Had a little go ruling those poor babylonians as they had to obey my every whimsy such as building a completley unnecessary district just to make the city look a bit nicer before my premiership ran out.

I was going to give feedback through the end game questionairre then changed my mind as I want to run through it one or two more times first I assume it comes up again?

 

[tedhebert]

Here's my first impression, as I posted on the G2G forum. Fast summary after a single run.

Hi all,

First of all, I love the little and (sometimes great) touches Amplitude is putting into this. The introduction and epilogue videos from Jeff Spock, the recap screen thanking us for participating. This all feels very professional to me.

My first impressions, and sorry because there's not going to be very much that is different from what I read from the other reviews, but still:

+ I'm amazed at the quality of the graphics engine, of the map textures and of the overall quickness/sharpness the animations offers. Spent an awful lot of time just enjoying the scenery ;-)

+ The overall UI feels, for a first run, is 'a little clunky'. I won't go too much into details here because I intend to play around with the UI size options, but I felt that the windows for City/outpost management and for unit management are way too big, and somehow nothing seems quite natural in the opening/closing of the windows themselves. In that first playthrough, I never got to actually feel comfortable knowing whether I should right/left click to close them. I wound up pressing the ESC key way too many times. I feel that if a left-click is the option to open a window (let's say on a city icon), then another left click on the icon should be what I do to close it. But most of the times, that's not what is happening, and I had to ESC. Will play more with this in my next runs

+ As many have said, I really like the dynamic Curiosities on the map. I'm a big fan of exploring the map. But the yields/bounty from stepping on those tiles disappears way too fast, and I had many occasions where a popup screen (like a research completed window) came up and block 50% of the play screen, and I never got a chance to see the results of the curiosity grabbing. I think the yield info should simpy stay on screen for the whole turn or until dismissed. Or, there should be a menu option to review/replay curiosities happenings.

+ Gold seems to be extremely important, as many have stated, but... I'm wondering if it's because this is an early game, and territory grabbing is so important. You need gold for evolving outpost, and it's value seems, for this scenario, overinflated VS industry, food or science.

+ I like that you can go fast to grab a territory by planting an outpost with your scout, but if you chose a bad place in the territory, you can easily move it later on, at no cost except 2 turns wait. It fits with the importance of early rush territory grabbing, and does not cripple you if it turns out you wrongly place the outpost

+ I must admit to being a little confused with the city management window. Lots of options, not sure if it's very well presented, was never really sure why I was choosing THIS building instead of THAT one. On the other hand, I'm ready to go wait-and-see on this, because one tryout of 30 turns on a game with this many subsystems and features, I think I would also feel a deception if I instantly grasped all the nuances right away. 4X games are supposed to be deep and take a little time to tame, so I'm good with it ATM.

In the end, I immensly enjoyed that first play through. I certainly had that 'one more turn' feel, and I want to play more. A LOT more ;-)

 

[tedhebert]

Here's a few screenshots from my first playthrough. (Sorry, I put in in a thumbnail mode, because the images are too big to put as full image)



Interesting view, with middle wheel, of how far back you can view the map. First pic is beginning of the game, second one at the end



Here's what the map looks like when you chose to show the yields. There's also an option to show the grid. Funny in CIV 6 I can,t play without this turned on, but here I didn't feel I needed it at all.



this one shows both a natural wonder AND how you can find animal sanctuaries on the map end exploit them by a scout option called ransack

 

[tedhebert]

mousehovering over coastal and ocean tiles



This shows how you can build a quarter in an outpost. Cost gold, no industry. And you need a resource in order to build it, if I understand this correctly. Will have to recheck in further playthroughs



this shows wrong and right placement of extensions for a city quarter

 

[tedhebert]

Battle of my single archer VS 2 elks. Deployment phase, Battle rounds and results. It did NOT go well for me ;-) Funny thing is, everyone died in the end, but I wound up with a defeat because I had not unit left



here, we see the nice option to relocate an outpost, which costs only 2 turns. So I guess the strategy is to plop down the outpost asap (first turn in the zone), then you'll have the chance to choose the right spot

 

[danza4x]

Something I feel is worth pointing out - I've seen a number of people say that techs get researched too quickly. BEAR IN MIND that Babylon has a very powerful legacy bonus towards science, where every extension provides an additional +2 science. This is pretty impactful and other cultures won't have it, so playing the game as Mycenae for example should have a much slower tech progression. I think this is easy to miss as it isn't really communicated effectively anywhere in the scenario but it's definitely the biggest reason why science is so fast.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

Something I feel is worth pointing out - I've seen a number of people say that techs get researched too quickly. BEAR IN MIND that Babylon has a very powerful legacy bonus towards science, where every extension provides an additional +2 science. This is pretty impactful and other cultures won't have it, so playing the game as Mycenae for example should have a much slower tech progression. I think this is easy to miss as it isn't really communicated effectively anywhere in the scenario but it's definitely the biggest reason why science is so fast.

The scenario also don't use all mechanics in the game so you don't have to think about fame or other civilizations. I agree with Babylon, the point is they are very good at science but don't have the productivity or military ability to really use their technological advantage well which is the domain of other civilizations. So you can use Babylon to jump deep into the tech tree and when for example go with a military civilization and draft a huge army quickly to take advantage of your technological edge but that can't be seen in the scenario due to its limitations.

But the point with the various civilizations are their different goals and strength and by combining different civilizations you can create powerful combinations.

 

[ost]

I've played the scenario a couple more times, noticed some more things I would like changed (I'll be posting this on the G2G forum). Mostly to do with notifications and UI. For example, I'm not fully understanding the synergy between quarters/extensions as shown on the map, and I would love it if when you plop down an outpost it would show the surrounding (potential) total tile yields like Endless Legend did. But I also noticed some visual bugs related to terrain (mountains appeared as flat, passable land), as well as FIMS not visually updating on the map following the construction of a new improvement.

I find the population growth mechanic rather strange. For those who are unaware it is a threshold based system between Stagnation, Growth, and Super Growth. As far as I can tell, once you are above Super Growth there is no benefit to acquiring more food per turn. Which ends up requiring some pretty mundane micro - checking in with your city every turn to see if you can move a population to another yield (or as the case may be checking to see if you need to add another pop because it has fallen below the Super Growth threshold).

I also am not a fan of the symbol for Faith... it kind of looks like a cyclops furby to me (no offense intended to those who worship cyclops furbys)

In my last play through I focused as much as possible on money, by the end of the scenario I was making more than 150 mpt. This allowed me to buy outpost after outpost, link them to my capital, and then purchase luxury and strategic extraction quarters. I still don't know whether money is a bit imbalanced, since my expansion would've/should've been majorly curtailed by stability (the negative effects of stability are disabled for this scenario).

The best I think I'm going to do

 

[tedhebert]

In my last play through I focused as much as possible on money, by the end of the scenario I was making more than 150 mpt. This allowed me to buy outpost after outpost, link them to my capital, and then purchase luxury and strategic extraction quarters. I still don't know whether money is a bit imbalanced, since my expansion would've/should've been majorly curtailed by stability (the negative effects of stability are disabled for this scenario).

I've read about this many times in the forums. How do you about linking outposts to your capital ? I see no option to do this anywhere ? Is there a tech I need that I haven't noticed ?

Edit: OK nevermind, I finally found the little icon allowing to attach on the outpost banner. Man, that's not something that jumps in your face !

on my 2nd playthrough, I got these results: I see the count for Territories attached, I just haven't figured out how yet, or what gain it gives

edit: also, how can you control image size ? I'd like to make it a little smaller

 

[CivLuvah]

I also am not a fan of the symbol for Faith... it kind of looks like a cyclops furby to me (no offense intended to those who worship cyclops furbys)

From what I could remember from the dev diary videos, the symbol for faith is two hands doing a cup gesture (for supplication), not weird aliens.

 

[tedhebert]

Ok so...

I've been playing with the settings after my 2nd game.

First of all, I have a super Alienware rig, with a GTX 1070 and a 27 inches monitor, and I hadn't noticed the game set me up by defaut at 1920X1080 and Quality level good. I have no idea why it would do that, and I was so excited to play I never checked that. Switched to Quality FANTASTIC and to 2560X1440. What a difference, it's amazing.
I found the graphic quality awesome with the crappy settings, but it's so much better with full max settings. And my rig can take it, it's just so smooth.

Now I've made the comment that the UI feels clunky and hogs the whole place when opening city or unit management windows. I've played with some of the UI settings, and dropped down the UI size from 100% to 65%. That too produces amazing results. It really makes all the difference in the world. Here's a look:

 

[tedhebert]

Much better the 3 rd time around:

 

[Elhoim]

Here are some end screens of different runs I had (missed one I believe):

My first run was focused on exploring the whole map, got a lot of yields and units from curiosities (goody huts), and the stats show it. I didn't know how to attach territories, so I just had 2 cities and several outposts.

For my second run I went a full production city, but the rest of the stats suffered for it. I learned to attach territories, had 2 on the main city.

I this run I focused on making a big city with 4 territories total, worked quite well.

Here I went full science mode. I started with science mode right off the bat to get several techs, founded a second city, and switched again to science mode in my first one:

What I'm really enjoying about the game is that the early game is definitely different each time, due to the different possibilities of expansion and ways to change your gameplay.

 

[danza4x]

I find the population growth mechanic rather strange. For those who are unaware it is a threshold based system between Stagnation, Growth, and Super Growth. As far as I can tell, once you are above Super Growth there is no benefit to acquiring more food per turn. Which ends up requiring some pretty mundane micro - checking in with your city every turn to see if you can move a population to another yield (or as the case may be checking to see if you need to add another pop because it has fallen below the Super Growth threshold).

Yep. At the very least the numbers need tweaking, but to be honest, I'd personally much rather it was just a standard 4X pop growth system where your excess food fills up a bar and more food = faster growth. I also found the microing of pops to maintain super growth to be pretty annoying. Not sure I can really see what the motivation is behind this design.

 

[Elhoim]

I like the concept of growth tiers, as I believe they are looking to manage the growth speed of cities (capping at one pop every 4 turns), and I guess also trying to make the process of pop allocation more significant if it happens between longer intervals. I agree it's a bit micro, as when you get a pop you might fall of a tier. I think the main annoyance I'm having is the actual number being hidden, so I have to permanently rely on the tooltip to see how much extra I need or how much leeway I have.

It would be good if auto-assigment of pops take into account the tiers. Basically, just place pops in the cases it would move us up a tier, or remove otherwise. For example, if I'm producing 20 food from tiles, don't assign a +4 pop, it's a wasted one. The same goes that if I'm at 51 food, I get a citizen and the food goes under 50, assign a pop to keep super growth.

Right now, the focus system thinks it's using a traditional model, and if you select city growth, it will assign citizens that would do nothing. I have a city with 30 food, I select city growth in the dropdown menu, and it assigns 2 pops that take it to 38, which changes nothing and they are wasted.