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My take of the game in its current state

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My take of the game in its current state

from Elemental Forums

Here is what I think of the game in its current version. First I must say that I really enjoy this game, and am looking forward to what is to come.

 

What FE does better than most games already (the great stuff)

1. All units gets experience, even the wildlings. Fantastic. This is something that can be used in interesting ways in the future as well. Imagine a roaming strong monster getting stronger and stronger as it chews up the wild :)

2. When you change gear on a unit its apperance actually change. A nice little touch there

3. Resources are produced per turn and require long term planning. Late game you might need 140 metal to produce your tough defender forces. Lets hope you thought of this earlier in the game when those outposts were planned :d Other resources like material and food determine production and population. Me likes!

4. We can get spells from research, level ups and through other means. This is a great start, and I hope it will be expanded upon.

5. We can hire monsters like Drakes (they are insane with their Sweep ability, is the damage calc bugged?). 

6. There are lots of weapons with interesting effects. Give us more 

7. The monsters have AI. This should be improved upon to give more personalities to the monsters. Some (spiders?) could eventually group if they are not killed early game. Thus making more interesting opponents. Some should hunt you down the moment they see you. Some should be cowards and try to flee. Some could hate Kingdom/Empire and almost exclusively attack one faction. 

 

What is still a bit thin (what I want to be improved the most)

1. City building is still a bit shallow. Has been discussed a lot. I want buildings that does special stuff. Tower of corruption, available only for Empire (+0.5 growth , all Kingdom players get -0.2 growth). Library of lore (gives access to a unique spell, only one can be built in the world). Travellers inn (at random intervals some travelling unit will offer to go into your service for a cost)+++

2. Better quests. I want a witch to tell me to focus on air shards to promote her religion. If I get 4 air shards she will give me two air elementals. I want a man seeking revenge for his lost family and rewarding me with 100 mana for each troll I kill for the rest of the game. :d

3. The AI of the monsters seem to treat AI players and human players differently. I often see AI units passing monsters without being attacked. On the other hand I see that the AI sovereigns have lots of wounds. Is that from warring or bad estimats of what monsters they should attack?

4. The AI cannot build tough enough armies to challenge the humans (yet). They need to try to make a few elite armies. Start by picking up the free stuff in the world :)

5. More variance in the tech research. We need more options. I would like techs that exculde eachother and other goodies. If I commit to the lord of fire and research fire shield tech (gives a few fire spells) then the lord of wind will not grant me access to the tech air travel. You get the picture 

6. Mercenaries. I would like to hire special mercenaries that are not otherwise available in the game. Some units with special abilities that are cooler than normal units. Units that I want to protect and use at the same time. They could be attracted by some special building, completing quests and such.

7. Monster control. I would like to bribe/control monsters in an indirect way. Umber should be able to pay a troll to go and attack a certain faction in general, without actually controlling the unit. That would be awesome. I would also like to see what this units see (so that the rampage is not in my fog of war).

8. Faction variation. Discussed to death already. 

9. More passive abilities. Take a look at Kings Bounty and all the abilities that the units have there. I would like passive abilities like Horseslayer (+5 attack against all units on horse), Aggressor (+2 attack in all battles outside your area), Souldrinker (+3 hitpoints on each successful attack the unit does), Woodsman(+2 attack and defense in wood areas) +++

10. Random events. I would like some cool random events that could really change the game (make an option to turn this off for the pureblood who dont like surprises). Events could be: Storm from the east: Due to heavy battles in a far away land, fleeing forces has landed on our shores and are looking for land to live in (lots of monsters arriving at the edge of the map). Bad Harvest: No population growth in the world for 10 rounds. Troll shaman. A regular troll has discovered the book of blood and turned into a very strong Troll Shaman. He is attracting trolls and making a huge dangerous army.

These are my main points at the moment. 

44,870 views 71 replies
Reply #51 from Elemental Forums Top

Trojasmic, why do you mess up with people's heads like that? Some people might take you for serious.

Reply #52 from Elemental Forums Top

Also, it is well-known and accepted that April Fool's jokes can only occur on April 1, AM.  If it wasn't restricted to one day the whole of the internets would be overloaded for weeks at a time.

Start11 - Customize the Start Menu and Taskbar in Windows 10/11.
Reply #53 from Elemental Forums Top


Didn't ya know, Brad's at least a week ahead of the rest of the world!

Seriously though it seems so incomprehensible to me that they would go to one tile cities.  Are we to have perfectly square (=so nerdy) zones of influence?  Are we to have heaps of RAM sucked up by pretty building tile graphix which only get used on some city layout page no-one ever looks at?  Or perhaps they are just paying the artists to produce stuff they will never use in the game?  Doesn't make any sense to me...

Reply #54 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting feelotraveller, reply 53

Didn't ya know, Brad's at least a week ahead of the rest of the world!

Seriously though it seems so incomprehensible to me that they would go to one tile cities.  Are we to have perfectly square (=so nerdy) zones of influence?  Are we to have heaps of RAM sucked up by pretty building tile graphix which only get used on some city layout page no-one ever looks at?  Or perhaps they are just paying the artists to produce stuff they will never use in the game?  Doesn't make any sense to me...

You are jumping to conclusions. Lets see how they pull it off (and then tear it apart :d )

Reply #55 from Elemental Forums Top

Also, the whole thing be for sake of saving RAM.

Reply #56 from Elemental Forums Top

Fair enough.

I guess I am just worried that it will come so late in the process and be so entrenched that we will not have the possibllity to change their minds.

What we stand to lose is a large amount of strategic potential based on the placement of cities. 

Reply #57 from Elemental Forums Top

I suspect that the city will grow, but in a different way than before (more like CIV IV). I will not miss the possibility of snaking since I dont really use it and consider it a bit "gamey".

Reply #58 from Elemental Forums Top

Not a lot of strategic potential in the current system unless the placement of buildings was made to matter a whole lot more. That would've been just as big of a change (even bigger, actually, and a lot riskier) than what Frogboy talked about.

The tile placement system will surely be possible to be unlocked by modders.

Reply #59 from Elemental Forums Top

Strategic potential is there in the blockage of chokepoints (including those of greater than one tile wide), incorporating improvements within city walls (including buildings which require this) and modifying the expansion of the zone of influence.  I agree it would be good if there was more strategy involved.   :lol:

I don't see reducing cities to one tile aiding an increase in strategy.

Do you mean civ 5 joasoze?  The big difference with FE is that most tiles do not produce anything, whereas in Civ they generally all yield something.  But this is just idle speculation on our part...

Reply #60 from Elemental Forums Top

I mean CIV IV, and I will never use examples from CIV V. That is because I havent played CIV V at all. I read about CIV V for countless hours on Civfanatics and deceided that it was not for me.

Reply #61 from Elemental Forums Top

My misunderstanding here. One of the features Civ 5 introduced which IMO worked well was the expansion of the zone of influence.  Unfortunately it is not a mechanism which will migrate with any facility to FE. 

Reply #62 from Stardock Forums Top

Manuals should never be written until the game hass been finished just before release. Because many things can change between now and then.

Reply #63 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting feelotraveller, reply 53

Didn't ya know, Brad's at least a week ahead of the rest of the world!

Seriously though it seems so incomprehensible to me that they would go to one tile cities.  Are we to have perfectly square (=so nerdy) zones of influence?  Are we to have heaps of RAM sucked up by pretty building tile graphix which only get used on some city layout page no-one ever looks at?  Or perhaps they are just paying the artists to produce stuff they will never use in the game?  Doesn't make any sense to me...

Personally I would perfer 1 tile cites. Gives more map room and you don't have the snake effect. Also if you want to see what the sity looks like with all the builings you can still see it in the city view (or at least this is what I think Frog said)

 

 

Reply #64 from Elemental Forums Top

What a strange post to find FE information.

I'm all for 1 tile cities, as long as we stil get adjacency bonus buildings like lumbermills and docks. Too much of the map is taken up by useless filler tiles like fissures and lakes as is.

The only problem I see coming from this is that it will be even harder to defend your land now from AI controlled roving army stacks.

Reply #65 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting feelotraveller, reply 59
The big difference with FE is that most tiles do not produce anything

 

Point of fact:

Each tile in FE produces materials or grain. There is third element to be added in the upcoming betas. My guess is it's beer, given how heavy the beer theme is in the current beta. 

Reply #66 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting joasoze, reply 49
6) Not sure what you refer to here. Are you talking about the Empire heroes? Some of them looks like they live in an outpost. Kill them befor the enemy recruit them.

 

Ah. That makes perfect sense. Now I feel a bit dumb. Except that I have been killing them off, so at least I've been doing the right thing.  ..fritz..

Reply #67 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Trojasmic, reply 50
Dudes, he's joking about the 1 tile cities.  They are not changing to 1 tile cities.  April Fool's Day is still a week a way and you're already falling for it.

Aprils fool's day does not exist *wave of the arm*...

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

Reply #68 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting seanw3, reply 65
 

Point of fact:

Each tile in FE produces materials or grain. There is third element to be added in the upcoming betas. My guess is it's beer, given how heavy the beer theme is in the current beta. 

 

The first is incorrect.  Many tiles do not have the capacity to produce anything.  Desert, for example.

Further, most tiles which can potentially produce grain/materials don't because they are not within 1 tile radius of a city hub.  (The exceptions are those tiles which contain a special resource - clay pits, wild grain, etc.)

In terms of expanding a zone of influence only special resource tiles (+ rivers, forests sometimes) are going to produce anything.  A tile which (before city founding) could have potentially contributed materials/grain to the city will not add anything to a city if included in the zone of influence.

As to the beer - you've unlocked it already, haven't you.  And you're not sharing...  XO

 

Reply #69 from Elemental Forums Top

Isn't Desert the only one that doesn't? Maybe Tundra too. You are right about the ones not within the one tile of a city, but really they had the potential, but were not chosen to be worked. Thus no production. Given the distances, it is fine in my book.

In the distant future I want to work towards a highly complex system where each tile produces three things, but there are about 50 things produced. Instead of Materials and Grain, a desert tile will produce Glass/Poison/Salt. Forest may give Wood/Meat/Sap and so on. Then the things that can be produced will depend on city improvements and technology. But that is something for when the expansion has become old have in many years. The modding potential of this game will make it the game I play for decades to come.

Reply #70 from Elemental Forums Top

I think Swamp as well.

Maybe your mods will make this the game I play for decades.  :thumbsup:

Certainly the idea you express above appeals to me a lot.

Reply #71 from Elemental Forums Top

I also would be open to a mod entitled, "Cities and Knights of Cataan," where there are essentially many more resources gathered from higher city levels. The possibilities are really open. It just depends on what we get in the release of FE and the expansion.