A review After 7 Playthroughs

[Damnatio Memoriae]

Big thank you for the demo, very enjoyable and came right in the middle of a holiday for me to have a nice go at it. I've provided feedback in the game and I'm including it here because of my enthusiasm for its potential.

An excellent game and very enjoyable. I feel it builds up on what Rimworld did and much more. My points below are a result of 7 playthroughs with the final one being able to vassalize 3 villages, including my previous lord, defeated a fanatic rebellion and managed a family crises love triangle in which the Bishop lost his head for it.

DIPLOMACY is very well thought of and I enjoyed trying to balance healthy relations while committing acts of mischief, and the fact that I should have a good reputation prior to being aggressive and the concept of soft power is well done.

SIMS INTERACTION - I have mixed feelings about this. It is enjoyable when I have to deal with my family and other kings but with many visitors and the damn Bishop it becomes tedious micromanagement to see it through. In late game, it becomes even more tedious as your family suddenly start cheating on each other and it all goes down hill from there. I think it needs to be toned down a bit. For example, more probability for family cheating to be with peasants instead of noble ladies while toning it down with nobles. I know the initial concept of constant cheating sounds fun, especially for a demo, but it becomes tedious to manage as all your family starts hating each other. I suggest allowing the player to accept visits and if they don't they suffer a minor relation penalty rather than just exile.

I also suggest to either make the temple available without research or tone down the sins penalty as it kicks in very early with sims and it could render them angry all the time and not willing to research and the player gets stuck early game especially since the alter bonuses are very minor.

CHURCH/INQUISITION - I do think that the mechanics of the church are sound and keeps the player on their tows. The inquisition did burn part of my village down and I didn't mind. But at the same time, it does much more than that and becomes very invasive when the Bishop arrives. Almost in all my playthroughs, the Bishop is the incarnation of lust and targets your family members who fall in love with him very quickly for no obvious reasons. This becomes stale in repeated playthroughs. I'd like to see different Bishop characters, those who value being drunk and will hate you if there isn't enough ale in town, greedy Bishops, fanatical bishops etc.. I also would like to be able to befriend the Bishop either by entertaining their greed or otherwise. I should be able to also set him up and put him to trail if I'm skilled enough and a new one will come in. Give the players a chance to defeat the Bishop rather than making it a zero sum game. Even after I defeated the fanatic rebellion lead by the Bishop he suddenly became a lord in my Kingdom and still maintained all the negative feelings to my family which makes him useless and after I chopped his head for treason, the inquisition came.

ARMY MOVEMENT OVERALL MAP - I understand the intended limitation concept of one action per army but I think it could do with a bit more flexibility. If the King is leading the army he should be able to change target in the strategic map or if a lord is leading, I can send a messenger paying 1 paper to ask him to change the target.


BUGS

- The gains from raids and robberies aren't accurate in some instances.
- When the inquisition starts burning more than 2 buildings the game crashes.
- The game will not accept any file name I chose for the saved game.

TLDR

The rationale behind the below suggestions is detailed in the review above. In case you have read it then you don't need to read the below :)

- Tone down the lust / cheating between family members, envy, greed and personality clashes are far more enjoyable.
- Cheating probability with peasants should be higher than with ladies or lords.
- Visitors should be accepted into the town by the king rather than just showing up. If not accepted, the king will suffer a relation penalty.
- Make temple available without research or tone down early game sins penalties.
- Bishops should have multiple personalities rather than being only lustful. Example, greedy, drunkard etc..
- Give me a slim chance to win against the bishop even if he will be replaced by another. It is satisfying. Or a way to win him over.
- Bishop shouldn't turn into a lord after I defeat him in a rebellion.
- King should be able to send messengers to en-route armies to change action or change action himself if he is leading.

Thank you for the demo and good luck in making the game, I wish you success !!

[Chilled Sloth]

The description claims that both praying at the altar or inside the temple give the same 30 points of piety.

[NorlandCM]

Thanks for your review! We're very glad that you liked this game.
Most of the current bugs will be fixed in the next updates.

[Meowish]

I very much like, and agree with, the idea of accepting visitors and if you don't suffer a minor penalty, the amount of times my town ended up suffering because I had 3 visitors at once that ate and drank all my stuff (without paying for it, which at least would have made it acceptable I guess) I can't even count anymore. With over 30hrs in the demo and no idea how many playthroughs at this point, it becomes a bit of a pain... Guess I got lucky with my bishops though as I haven't faced *any* of the problems a lot of people talk about with him (yet). Also never even had a temple yet, not really felt any problems regarding piety yet myself, but I can see if you are having trouble at least the learning time for temple should be *slightly* shorter.
Man, I love this game..

[Chilled Sloth]

were you purposefully avoiding the temple? :D

[SJkr8]

All good points and hopefully will be implemented in the game during Early Access. I'd personally like to add:
1: An event viewer, both in the kingdom and the world, maybe even at individual relationship level, meaning who seduced/rejected whom (these can only be known from fleeting notifications or if there is a mood modifier)
2. A better teaching system. Currently you place teaching order via individual menu of the character, so you can only assign one teacher at the time. If you want someone else to also teach that person something, you have to cancel and reassign. Given how fast the years go by, an option to set up various teachers for children after their birth would negate a lot of micromanagement.

Originally posted by Meowish:

the amount of times my town ended up suffering because I had 3 visitors at once that ate and drank all my stuff

I once had six guests in one of my playthroughs and could not even house them properly with my own six lords including two children.

[Chilled Sloth]

I wish there was a central (wooden or half-timbered) keep that starts out with the hall and two connected bedrooms (which should get double beds and house two lords if they're married or related kids). Then you add extra rooms to house more lords, maybe a designated study for teaching, etc. All connected with doors and sharing walls. If there's no more space to expand, you can always move buildings out of the way.

Imagine putting down 12 lord's houses for your royal family and visitors, all over town... or were the upgrades supposed to give an extra bed somehow? +1 worker probably just meant +1 servant, right?

You can keep the models for the library, guard house etc as they are, but I'd love to see a better solution for housing the lords.

[SJkr8]

Originally posted by μ 'n' I:

Imagine putting down 12 lord's houses for your royal family and visitors, all over town... or were the upgrades supposed to give an extra bed somehow? +1 worker probably just meant +1 servant, right?

Yeah, I had hoped the upgrade would add more beds to existing houses perhaps, but that would require a different/bigger visual model. Anyways, I did buy the Lord House Upgrade book, but it just mentioned a more comfy bed, so I did not prioritize getting it.
As for the modular buildings, I guess you have to wait for mods for that.

[Chilled Sloth]

Yeah, the upgrade also doesn't do anything at all at the moment, it's bugged.

[Meowish]

Originally posted by μ 'n' I:

were you purposefully avoiding the temple? :D

Not really, I just put priority on other books that I thought were worth more to the self sustaining abilities of my settlement