- There is seemingly no way to see which route a unit will take before you release the right mouse button. Similarly, I do now know how to see how many turns a movement order will take to complete (both before and after it has been issued). Also, I do not know how to see the range of my unit before moving (except in combat).
- The tutorial wanted me to lower the taxes. So I clicked on the first thing I could think of, which is the money symbol which got me to the economy screen where I was able to lower the tax rate. However, the tutorial didn't recognize this. Now I notice that there is a tax rate button on the main screen which I guess I was supposed to click. But really? You change taxes so often in this game that such a button is necessary to take up permanent space on the main screen?
- I picked up a tome which had a use, but I when I clicked there was no graphical effect or text explaining it to me. Now I know that I was supposed to hover over the image to get a tool-tip, but if that's the only place and only chance to get that information, why not just write it directly under the flavor text?
- I built a workshop. I know, because I see it in the city information screen. But if someone would look at my city on the map, they would only see a marketplace and an iron mine. I really hope this is a bug, because I don't know why some buildings would be visible while others are not.
- The "watch tutorial" text is sort of misleading. I haven't seen a movie yet, but I have seen text that was so short that it might as well have been displayed immediately without me having to click an extra time to see it.
- A hired NPC has a lot of strategic bonuses affecting cities. But is that in effect at all times or just when he is in the city? The game is unclear on this point.
- Sometimes there is a small white shield floating above units in tactical battle. I see no explanation for this anywhere.
- Someone named Ythril, with a pale blue color declared war on me. However, I don't know where he is on the map. There are two different blue faction borders and I see colored symbols with names within those borders, but no tool tip or any amount of clicking will let me know who whatever it is that is in there belongs to. When the colors are so similar, yet don't match the name, and no owner name is given on the settlements on the map, how am I supposed to know where the threat is coming from?
- Why doesn't the built-in help have a search? Essence is sporadically mentioned and I saw it in a loading screen (which went away too quickly) but I cannot find the explanation for it in the help!
- The expanded area of influence from building a monument doesn't appear immediately. For me, it first appeared only after I chose to build something else. I've seen similar delayed effects both in battle (monster health seemingly staying in place for an extended period) and during multiple pop ups (the first effect doesn't kick in until after you've closed the second and third popups... very confusing with trades, for example).
- Again, someone out of the blue says hello. How come, 20 years later, that no game still highlights where on the map the bloody guy who just spoke is
- The button for which to switch cities with will move depending on how many different types of buildings a city can produce. Having a button move from beneath your cursor is bad usability design.
- Regardless of if I right click or left click the event badge which tells me that a city has completed its task, I do not get transported to the city for selection of a new task. Why not add that convenience?
- I have a trade agreement with another ruler, which I can see in the diplomacy screen, but I cannot seem to find the economic benefits anywhere?
- When a settlement has grown, it would be nice if the options I have for improvement selection didn't cover the entire city, so that I could see more clearly which city I'm selecting an improvement for.
- On my third game, this Ythril character once again declared war on me and once again, I don't even see him on the map.
- This is an aesthetic thing, but the roads are very, very straight and the 45 degree sharp turns and roundabouts doesn't fit in with the setting of the game...
- Suddenly, I've encountered the opposite of having a ruler saying "hello" without appearing on the map... now I see a dark green border and I have no idea who it belongs to. There is no corresponding dark green name in the ruler list either.
- A lair converted to a mercenary producing camp did now show up on the strategic map. After loading an auto save it did show up.
- The fact that you cannot walk past an enemy unit in combat, though quite common in tactical games, isn't actually explicitly visually represented in any way here. Again this ties back to item 1 in which you might want to choose to take a wider route around an enemy in order to get into flanking position (something other games usually show before you click to seal the orders).
- The "auto select next unit" option does not work well. There are several instances where I've moved and no new unit was selected and yet no city was idle. It was not apparent what the game wanted me to do and the "turn" button was not green.
- Why do I care if another sovereign has declared war on me and then bothers to tell me that we have a mutual foe? So offer me peace instead and we'll take him on! I mean, if you don't, I might as well ally with that one against you.
- I managed to save a game at a point where I did a stupid thing and yes, re-loaded. This enabled me to notice that an AI offered me an economic treaty, where if I accepted he ALWAYS declares war the very next turn, but if I don't accept, another AI always declares war the next turn (and blames me for "betrayal", even though it's the same AI as in point 22 which earlier in the game told me she hated the other guy).
- Again, this probably has to do with item number 10, but when I defeated two armies that occupied the same tile, the floating "2" badge didn't disappear until (I think) the next turn. I hope this can be fixed, because I'm finding it in more and more places and it's a seriously deep flaw with the game!
- I have one city which refuses to show green text for grain increase.
- City ruins disappear after a while, but you can never settle on the same place again...
- Related to number 10 and 15 I just completed a quest battle and had a black screen saying that I need to choose an upgrade for a city... BUT WHICH CITY IS IT???
- Several times now I have no idea why my Turn indicator isn't turning green...
- Similar as to number 19, a quest location I was to return to didn't show up on the strategic map, but was visible when zoomed in. Also, a location got destroyed by a wandering creature, and disappeared from the strategic map, but still displays on the 3D zoom level.
Just a short session so I might continue later, but wow, so far it's basically nitpicking, so a huge improvement over Elemental (where the list became quite long).
My first playthrough was not fun, though. I just clicked "new game" and set the difficulty and AI to normal instead of easy, but I began cornered against a mountain, surrounded by other players with no chance of expansion. Also to the south of me was level 5 NPCs which I wasn't able to hire yet, but there was seemingly no chance of getting my sovereign up to level 5 within that small area. A much stronger AI built an outpost right outside of my city quite early on, and then I built a few outposts to the south to get some prestige objects but that was it. When an AI for some reason declared war on me from beyond a mountain range, I tried to get there but got steamrolled by a strong monster. I didn't feel like there was any point in continuing after that. If this was a random map, I'd be OK with it, but apparently these maps are actually designed? If so, piss poor design, imo. Feels like whoever did this never played Heroes of Might & Magic, Age of Wonders or Master of Magic. I know that cities are supposed to be rare in this game, but to have the first map of the game block you in? Frogboy is always talking about fun, and this was the opposite.
My second playthrough wasn't fun either in the end, but I discovered that there are indeed random maps! (Why on earth would they want to try to sell you map packs then???) This time, I didn't chose a melee sovereign but a ranged one and wow, talk about difference! No other kingdoms blocking me in at the start so I was free to kill all monsters roaming the land myself, and apparently you can move and shoot in the same turn so basically nothing could touch me. Also, I received a lot of healing items from quests and caches this time. But then I attacked an army that had a weak rating standing on a cache of some sort, and somebody named Nikonus was amongst the units. And I got steamrolled again.
My third playthrough repeated the same pattern, sadly. Lovely map in the beginning with a crazy amount of spots for cities, so I quite quickly threw out five or six of them! Had fun battling through weak armies and avoiding the strong larger ones, until there weren't anything but those left. So what am I missing, how do you level up your sovereigns to beat the stronger monsters when there are no weak or mid left? Anyway, just one other ruler on the map for a very long time and we had lots of trade pacts and economic pacts going on. Then other rulers appeared and immediately declared war, despite me not seeing them on the map. This then caused every subsequent ruler who introduced themselves to also automatically declare war on me (and then ask for trade pacts... though I think that's a bug related to number 10 above). So I begin fighting back the invading armies and it goes well. Until a lone hero walks by my city where I'm resting. He is weak so I think no problem, he is alone, so let's slay him. Aaaaand steamrolled.
My conclusion is that even though it's 100 times better than Elemental, it is still many times worse than Master of Magic, Age of Wonders, Heroes of Might & Magic or even Civilization V. The polish and balancing just isn't on the same level as those other titles. But although it may be unfair to compare this to titles with a lot bigger teams and budgets, on the other hand Fallen still wants to compete with those games, right?
Well, I've waited for a number of years, I guess I can wait a bit longer... if I had to rate the game on a scale... 3/5 (with all other titles mentioned above being 5/5, except for Civilization V which gets a 4/5 because of their utterly stupid AI).
EDIT: I just have to add, in case if it wasn't clear, if they just fix the difficulty going from 0 to 100 all of a sudden, this game can easily become 4/5 without any other adjustments. It's the insanely unbalanced units which still are labeled as "weak", yet soaks up all damage and basically one hits my sovereign which ruined my experience three times, as you saw above.