I just posted this over at games2gether too, but since discussions are ongoing here as well.
Careful, monster post ahead:
Diplomacy - general
+ Overall, I liked the system a lot, as far as I could understand it. In more detail
+ The structured view of treaties was great to see things quickly
+ The system allows for quite nuanced relationships, rather than “just” global diplomatic states.
+ There seems to be a good variety of treaties available to make peaceful relations worthwhile
+ I liked the avatars talking to each other, it added flavour. It could get a bit old, so a variety of phrases would help. Better yet if they change over time to reflect differences in language. Overall, it’s more of a gimmick for me, so I wouldn’t want it to divert resources from other important areas.
- I’d like an option to specify what or how much I want to ask on top as part of a counter-proposal. Right now, it seems fixed at certain money levels for each kind of treaty.
Relations with the AI
- The role of the AI archetypes (casual, violent, …) wasn’t totally clear to me. Are these fixed traits that will stay in place over time? If so, what exactly are the effects – the descriptions are quite vague. Should we have all this information from the outset or should some of it be revealed over time/by diplomatic contact? Civ VI and AoW: P did handled this quite nicely in my view (though the way Civ VI AI agendas worked is a different matter).
- I was slightly confused by the cultural proximity meter and the stance/opinion? Which of those two primarily determines AI actions? I assume the later? What exactly does the culture do? Merely influence the morale meter? If so, that would seem a huge wasted opportunity. I think it should definitely feed into AI stance/opinion and form a major component of it.
- I’d like more transparency on the factors that influenced AI stance/opinion. Ideally, I’d want the numerical values sitting underneath these items, e.g. -4 from grievances, -2 from cultural difference, etc. If the design philosophy is that too many numbers would break immersion of become too game, we could have qualitative increments. For instance, Civ V differentiated serious and less serious impacts with bold and unbold/normal text. Something similar, or weak/medium/strong would go a long way to structure information. Also, consider colour coding to differentiate positive and negative effects. Most games deploy red/green. That can be problematic from colour blindness perspective some colour coding would be great.
- As indicated, I like the tolerance meter, but I wasn’t sure whether it was purely heading in a direction or to a point.
- Also, does this tolerance meter consider only ideology or also civics chosen? Two empires can have the exact same ideology alignment, but with different civic choices. Arguably, civics seem more important in defining what a culture is like, so it should ideally be both. Which will be tricky with my next point.
- Continuing that train of thought, is there a way to see the opponents’ ideology positions? All nice and fine to incorporate the tolerance meter. But without knowing where we’d need to go to improve relations - if the player regards this as important – it’s hard to make informed decisions.
- I’d like a way to see the opponents’ opinions of each other, in addition to peace/war/alliance status? It would be very useful to anticipate future diplomatic developments. Such information could also be linked to espionage or other requirements, but it should be accessible somehow.
- I’d also like an overall diplomacy screen with all empires’ relations with each other. The classic diplomacy spiderweb/network chart. It’s just handy to have at a glance.
Grievances and demands
+ I think I love the system of grievances, demands, and morale. I say “I think”, because …
- I’m not yet sure I understood it 100% it. The tool tip text was actually decent, but the system is so complex that I need to play one version through at least one to the end to confirm my understanding.
- Equally, it took me a while to discover what the actual demand was. I saw the icon representing the grievance, but it wasn’t immediately clear what would happen if the demand were accepted.
- The other aspect I initially struggled with was: I moved my demand over and insisted on it, but it was rejected. I thought, based on the tool tip, that if I now wait for my morale meter to fill up to 100, I can ask again and the demand must be met. Only what I had 100 and couldn’t do anything further, did I get that you can only really demand once.
* I initially misunderstood that you get a flat morale bonus when earning the grievance, but that you need to make it into a demand for it to earn further morale points.
* Is there a way to make a demand or request outside of grievances? Maybe I am vastly more powerful than my neighbour and want to squeeze them a little. Is there a way to do so? Or ask an ally for some help.
Trade
+ I tentatively like the idea behind the trade system. It seems less micro-heavy than in other games.
- But I’m not sure I understand all aspects of it. For instance, I see some trade routes on the strategic map, but not all, in particular the first trade route I established.
- It’s also not clear to me why resources have such different base prices. Is it distance? Wouldn’t that be affected by the second component? Is it supply and demand? Diplomatic relations?
- I also found the “Free trade” agreement a bit confusing. It said trade is free (i.e. doesn’t cost anything). But after I had agreed one, I found that all resources still had both cost parameters, base and transport cost. Does the treaty just offer a cost reduction? If so, the description should be improved.
Quarters and economy
+ Even though I had been following the game closely, only upon playing did it really dawn on me how cool but also complex the system is. It will take a bit of practice to make full use of it.
* Man, there a ton of things to build in a city. Way more than will likely be built. Maybe that’s the intent. Don’t build everything everywhere, but specialise. Will still take time to get used to.
+ I like how unadministered currently moves a city a whole food growth tier down. As mentioned below, it looks like other effects of unadministered don’t currently work as intended.
- Still not sure I am that on board with the way growth works.
Fame
+ I still think I like fame as a singular victory condition, because it gives a lot of strategic flexibility even late in the game and is nice thematically. It didn’t feel as impactful in this scenario, mainly because of the lack of challenge. The AI empires were far too weak to present a threat militarily or in terms of overall development, as far as we can tell from observation (see later).
- That’s essentially, because I would not see myself as a high score player. The objective would be to get more fame than other empires in a given session, not the most fame across sessions.
- If fame is the singular victory condition, it seems essential that we have some information on how other empires are doing. Ideally, a fairly accurate fame rating. Otherwise something a little vague, like a range, relative, qualitative statements (much higher/lower than you), or a ranking. It also makes sense thematically – if your empire has a lot of fame, it will be widely known what it is famous for? Those are deeds for the history books, so they better be public and the word on them spread.
- Era stars were pretty easy to get, many without really trying. That’s especially true for science. Maybe that’s ok for the first level ones, but I feel like later ones should be a bit more challenging.
- On the flipside, other era stars seemed quite (adequately?) hard, like the merchant/money ones and the agrarian/population ones. Interestingly, the most successful strategy for agrarian ones seem to me conquest. Far quicker than homegrown talent.
+ However, I like that higher-tier stars are worth more fame. In that way, the game rewards specialisation and planning.
- I would like to see a fame breakdown – where did I get my fame from? The fancy version would emulate Civ VI’s era timeline, but even a basic list would be neat.
Combat
+/- The battles were too small-scale and unit variety used by the AI too limited (practically only scouts) to say much about the tactical AI.
+ Overall, I think the battle system is excellent. It is clear and provides meaningful depth without going overboard for a game with this level of macro layer. I still think it might get a bit out of hand in late game, but it also depends how many wars there are and long extensive these are.
+ I quite like the way retreating is handled. No immediate loss, but you can’t do it all the time and you don’t have much control where units are going.
- I think the retreat status should last one turn longer. If the opponent doesn’t immediately follow up, it’s still easy to get away.
- A small item, but I find it the pause between moving and being able to attack a bit annoying. The unit is already there. Let me attack already!
Independent peoples
A good system sits here, but it’s not quite there yet.
+ I love how you can “rent” armies from IPs, but only for a time. I imagine very attractive for merchant players and I’d see some fun interactions with civics or cultures. Does any culture have a bonus on that direction?
+ I love how they gradually appear, start settling outposts, then cities. It’s great they have real names and cities.
* In this scenario, IPs felt almost too prominent. By the time I first finished my first session around T50, the were almost everywhere. Maybe that’s just me coming from other 4Xs and in real life people actually did live everywhere.
+ The symbology of which are peaceful and which are violent is clear.
- I have now idea what patronisation does. What are the benefits? What are the benefits of more developed levels? Vision seems to be one. Patronising supposedly makes peace, so I’ll need to check that.
* Also, making a case here that benefits of patronisation or assimilation should be a little special. A unique unit would be a dream, but likely unfeasible. But something other than % more of x. Maybe a special resources not attainable otherwise?
* Relatedly, it would be nice to have a few more types of IPs, like merchants, religious, scientists, etc. Kind of like in ES2 or Civ V and VI. The benefits received could then be differentiated by type, so that the game doesn’t need insane levels of unique items.
* I agree with another poster that different shades of grey or symbols would be nice to differentiate the (many) IPs, but it may not be feasible.
- I could not yet figure out how to buy resources from IPs. It seems to work differently from main empires. Ideally, clicking on a developed resource should give me the option to be, all prerequisites being fulfilled. That would be consistent and logical.
* I’m also not sure where the assimilate option works as intended or described. When I had the majority influence and was a patron, I still didn’t have the option. Do I need to reached some patron level first? Is there a tech/civic requirement?
Civics/ideology
+ I like the system – it feels very natural how event choices shape your culture.
+ I like the civic choices most that do something special, like allowing to build outposts with money. Ideally, more of those and less of +20% of x.
- It’s implied but never made explicit whether events always move us exactly one box along ideology axes. Would be good to be explicit.
- I’d like to see my current ideology alignment both when resolving an event and when deciding on a civic. Will that event move me into another category? Do I want that? How does ideology change with civic choices? It’s hard to tell, as the window only shows the future state. I’d have to go out, go to the mid-civics section, memorize that, and go back to the civics selection. Very cumbersome.
- Legitimacy applies “celebrating”, but it’s not clear within that screen what this status does. This should be explained within the dialogue to allow informed decisions with minimal jumping between windows. Similar to other cases of effects bestowed upon civic choices.
- I’d like to see the number crunching behind the civic point attainment calculations, if there is one. If it’s something like Civ V’s culture points, that would be easy to convey. Gain x amount of stability each turn, need y threshold for next point. Display. If it’s more complicated, maybe a less good idea.
* I’m a bit iffy on the vagueness of what unlocks civic options. Should it be kept hidden as is or should there be a hint what starts the choice e.g. start a war, have x population? The unlock conditions only really stays a mystery for the first few sessions before serious players will make notes or consult external sources what unlocks civic choices and proceed to do so efficiently. Or maybe an option to view/hide?
Balance
- I guess (hope) the AIs are hard-wired to go easy. They built practically no units other than scouts which made them pushovers.
* It’s of course hard to say at this stage, but Cothons seemed very powerful. Maybe it was just those particular spots near Ha Long (?) Bay.
* I feel like I got too much science in this playthrough. I went through techs pretty quickly, without having particularly invested in science output.
* That said, by the time I reached the end of an era, a lot of techs were still undiscovered which again points to era stars being too easy to earn in this build.
* It also seemed way too easy to expand. By the end of the game I had 4 cities and stability barely made a dent. That feels off, as something needs to stop ICS. I built very few outposts for those cities, though. By the time I wanted to, most territories had IP cities which I proceeded to conquer instead.
- A lot of the early infrastructure seems very underpowered, compared to quarters. +1 or +2 of a given resource per population or special quarter seems much lower than tile yields you get. To me that suggests that for a city’s first few dozen turns, it will focus on building quarters. Only when there is a reasonable base, will it make sense to add central infrastructure. That’s not a problem, but is that the design intent? Why give us so many infrastructure options so early, if we don’t really need them? Also, they can’t really be that much stronger, because otherwise the will snowball too hard later. Maybe make a few more early infrastructures flat bonuses, independent of population or tiles? Similar to era one buildings in Endless Legend?
Interface
- Notifications show give more details. You earned an era star. Great, which one? World deed achieved? Which one?
- Similarly, the rewards for curiosities disappear way too quickly to notice what we actually get. Maybe they can be a notification on the map, similar to the after-battle report? That way it doesn’t clutter up the main notification window.
- I’d like an option to expand/collapse all cities in the city list.
- While the tech tree is beautiful, especially once a tech is researched, some of the researchables’ icons blend with background and become indistinguishable. So, before researching, it’s hard to tell at a glance whether an item is a square (infrastructure) or a hexagon (quarter) or a unit. I initially thought there was no symbology at all, but once I started completing items I noticed it’s a colouring problem.
- It would be nice to have a breakdown of total empire science. This could sit in the tech tree/screen where there already is a summary. That way, we could see the impact of science agreements easily.
- I’d like to be able to shift the priority of techs around, similar to the buildings queue or how the tech queue was handled in ES2.
- Others mentioned that the close window button isn’t always at the same place for different screen. That creates some confusing inconsistency. Also consider that right click to close isn’t standard across these games, so you may want to include a general tool tip to that effect. Apologies if it’s there and I missed it.
- An indicator how long the retreat status will last would be nice.
- In the diplomacy screen, the reply from the other side to treaty proposal is quite small and near the top. I needed to search for a few moments whether there was anything. I suggest making the font bigger or making the reply more prominent in some other way.
- It would be nice to double confirm the path for units. First click gives a preview, second click confirms. If I am hasty, I sometimes see that my armies take an unexpected route and they start marching before I can change that order.
* Does “settlement” mean cities and outposts? My outposts had stability which benefited from ideology. The only applicable stability effect from ideology was on “settlements”, so I concluded that outposts are settlements. Is this intended?
* Why are unclaimed wonders in the city list? It’s not the worst place, but certainly not where I’d have looked for them.
- I think the number and/or size of structures in quarters should be increased. I find it hard to tell from a glance which tiles are exploitations, which are quarters and which are unused. The quarters lens helps, but only works when selecting the city. The information should ideally be readable from the map. Civ VI actually did this quite nicely via colour coding the structures’ roofs.
* In the final build, I’d like a large interface option as in EL. My eyes were never great and aren’t getting better. Being able to read text comfortably will make play more pleasant.
* An option in the strategic view to remove the icons for resources would be helpful to focus on cities or armies.
(Possible) Bugs
* Unadministered cities: first, unadministered cities could still build units, contrary to what the description says and what I know of the design intent. Secondly, it seems that assigning and administrator decreases output, rather than increases it. This happened in two separate cities. I can file a proper bug report in the sub-forum.
* I encountered erroneous visual clutter after starting to ransack an enemy outpost and having the “show districts” lens active.
* In several (all?) instances, my troops’ combat values were higher than suggested by the components’ sum. Do we get some kind of difficulty bonus in this scenario? If that remains, this should be separate sub-component. It can be very explicit “+5 from difficulty level” and a bit more flavoured “+5 from beginner’s luck”.
* The maximum population indicator in the cities list shows the current population. It will always show “2/2” or “6/6” instead of e.g. “2/8”.
* The first expansion era star didn’t immediately trigger when I had 2 territories i.e. my starting one plus one attached to capital. But I think it fulfilled later without me gaining any further territories. I also wasn’t sure about the description. I guess the formulation means that unattached outposts don’t count?
* The description for harbour says that it takes in territory bonuses from 2 tiles away, but it actually worked on just a one-tile radius. Still strong, so not sure whether the problem is with the description or the effect.
* I think I conquered one IP city without defeating all the militias in the process. Is that possible/intended? I think I occupied the city hex, so maybe I just need to conquer the centre or the flag to win the battle and ergo the city itself?
How can I return their land back.)
