Demo review!

[Extal]

First of. FINALLY!!! I've been waiting for *ages* (it feels like that at least) and having the demo hands on is amazing. Now to the review:

First off, some minor things.

The art style among images isnt really consistent. Some look AI generated and "realistic" while some look cartoony/painted.

Secondly, the text on the tablets should have some sort of 3d effect to blend in better.

Some audio queues can be spammed which can be quite silly, putting a limit on how many times a sound can be played could be a good thing. (Example spamming "V".)

I will be updating this as I keep playing :) Overall I'm enjoying it so far!

[OhhJim]

I found the demo to be overly complicated. There are so very many things to learn that my eyes glazed over (MEGO). Some things didn't need to clutter the learning process:

1. Why force building a pyre and graveyard first things? These are not necessary in a demo.

2. Scriptoriums? Why, this early? I still couldn't tell you what they are.

3. Apparently I need a bridge, but can't build one. OK, it's realistic for an engineer to scout around, but in a demo?

4. Why give several cities as options for trade? Just put one, that will teach trade.

The maps take very long to load. I wonder how long a really big map will take?

The game stuttered a lot. No, it's not my rig.

It would be nice if I could move the screen around by, oh, moving the mouse to the edge of the screen, like every other game.

I tried to put the altar in literally 100 places before I found one that worked, and it didn't tell me why it didn't work, there.

"Tear Off" is not a recognizable English command. Perhaps "Tear Down" is better?

I was excited about the game, and maybe I will get into it, eventually. I love Caesar IV, and hoped this would be similar/better.

[OhhJim]

Also, the demo could guide you better where to find the building you are supposed to build. It tells you to build a Rostrum, Calendar, Custom House, etc., but leaves you to guess and search where to find these buildings.

[Roger]

Originally posted by Extal:

First of. FINALLY!!! I've been waiting for *ages* (it feels like that at least) and having the demo hands on is amazing. Now to the review:

First off, some minor things.

The art style among images isnt really consistent. Some look AI generated and "realistic" while some look cartoony/painted.

Secondly, the text on the tablets should have some sort of 3d effect to blend in better.

Some audio queues can be spammed which can be quite silly, putting a limit on how many times a sound can be played could be a good thing. (Example spamming "V".)

I will be updating this as I keep playing :) Overall I'm enjoying it so far!

thank you very much. I'm going to work on that. I'm just not 100% sure what you mean with the audio part. What do you mean with "Example spamming "V""? I try to understand the issue and will work on that.

[Roger]

Originally posted by OhhJim:

I found the demo to be overly complicated. There are so very many things to learn that my eyes glazed over (MEGO). Some things didn't need to clutter the learning process:

1. Why force building a pyre and graveyard first things? These are not necessary in a demo.

2. Scriptoriums? Why, this early? I still couldn't tell you what they are.

3. Apparently I need a bridge, but can't build one. OK, it's realistic for an engineer to scout around, but in a demo?

4. Why give several cities as options for trade? Just put one, that will teach trade.

The maps take very long to load. I wonder how long a really big map will take?

The game stuttered a lot. No, it's not my rig.

It would be nice if I could move the screen around by, oh, moving the mouse to the edge of the screen, like every other game.

I tried to put the altar in literally 100 places before I found one that worked, and it didn't tell me why it didn't work, there.

"Tear Off" is not a recognizable English command. Perhaps "Tear Down" is better?

I was excited about the game, and maybe I will get into it, eventually. I love Caesar IV, and hoped this would be similar/better.

Thank you very much for your feedback. This helps me a lot. Scrolling along the edge of the screen is possible. You can find it in the settings:
Gear icon in the top right corner of the screen/Controls/
There's an option there.
Some testers requested this feature. However, almost all testers turned it off later because it was a bit annoying while playing. You can easily turn it back on.
thank you :)

[Winter's Embers]

Originally posted by Roger:

Originally posted by Extal:

First of. FINALLY!!! I've been waiting for *ages* (it feels like that at least) and having the demo hands on is amazing. Now to the review:

First off, some minor things.

The art style among images isnt really consistent. Some look AI generated and "realistic" while some look cartoony/painted.

Secondly, the text on the tablets should have some sort of 3d effect to blend in better.

Some audio queues can be spammed which can be quite silly, putting a limit on how many times a sound can be played could be a good thing. (Example spamming "V".)

I will be updating this as I keep playing :) Overall I'm enjoying it so far!

thank you very much. I'm going to work on that. I'm just not 100% sure what you mean with the audio part. What do you mean with "Example spamming "V""? I try to understand the issue and will work on that.

The "spamming V" references calling up Vitruvus. If you do this rapidly enough, Vitruvus' audio file plays each time and gives an echoing repeat of his dialog.

[Winter's Embers]

Originally posted by OhhJim:

I found the demo to be overly complicated. There are so very many things to learn that my eyes glazed over (MEGO). Some things didn't need to clutter the learning process:

1. Why force building a pyre and graveyard first things? These are not necessary in a demo.

2. Scriptoriums? Why, this early? I still couldn't tell you what they are.

3. Apparently I need a bridge, but can't build one. OK, it's realistic for an engineer to scout around, but in a demo?

4. Why give several cities as options for trade? Just put one, that will teach trade.

The maps take very long to load. I wonder how long a really big map will take?

The game stuttered a lot. No, it's not my rig.

It would be nice if I could move the screen around by, oh, moving the mouse to the edge of the screen, like every other game.

I tried to put the altar in literally 100 places before I found one that worked, and it didn't tell me why it didn't work, there.

"Tear Off" is not a recognizable English command. Perhaps "Tear Down" is better?

I was excited about the game, and maybe I will get into it, eventually. I love Caesar IV, and hoped this would be similar/better.

First off, as a long-time tester for the game, I've had quite a lot of experience so I hope you'll accept these observations.

1) The pyre and graveyard are necessary because they are a requirement for all housing. The people do not feel secure with their settlement if they do not have a proper place for the dead. When you open the information data on a house, it will show in the upper right corner whether there are enough graves to satisfy the fears of the people that they won't have dead bodies just lying around. If you run out of graves, satisfaction of all population groups drops to zero and people leave very quickly. So, it is an essential part of the tutorial to learn this.

2)Scriptoria make things work better. As far as in-game mechanics, scriptoria work as officers who ensure the production and storage of materials in the city is honest. They reduce corruption. Corruption can really take a bite out of your city's finances and production so the scriptoria are necessary to combat this.

3)A demo should demonstrate the game mechanics as much as possible. If a player finds that they can just build a bridge without the engineer in the demo, they would expect the same in the full release of the game, yes? Vitruvus isn't exactly a long-term use mechanic but, without him, the player won't be able to find resources or bridge points. Best to demonstrate his use now.

4) Most regional trade partners send food. In a big enough city, the player will use all of them. Other cities specialize in specific build goods (brick, marble, iron, and wood). Showing the options shows the demo player that these things are already in the game.

Loading Times: Use an SSD if you have one. Loading time is dependent upon RAM as well so the more you have, the faster it loads. I run the game on SSD with 64GB of ram and my usual load time for a city map is about 12 to 15 seconds. Depending on your hardware, YMMV.

Roger already answered concerning scrolling. Believe me, after a while, it became very annoying to have the screen move when you're building roads or other large items because it's very rare that you have the camera facing perfectly to prevent movement along another axis. Making it optional to turn on and off was the best solution we found.

Altar: Do you mean the Altar you place at the beginning of the scenario or the Shrine you place for religious satisfaction. The altar can be placed anywhere. The shrine requires physical contact with the Forum so it's placement is very limited.

Tear Off: Here, we agree. I think the best term, in English, is "Demolish." Tear off just doesn't say the same thing.

[(v)1GHTY )v(4V$]

Originally posted by OhhJim:

Also, the demo could guide you better where to find the building you are supposed to build. It tells you to build a Rostrum, Calendar, Custom House, etc., but leaves you to guess and search where to find these buildings.

The Layout of the Places around the Forum could be suggested on the Tutorial with the ghost silhoutte about where it is recommended. The Layout in the Tutorial got quite cramped for me since it has the graves on one side, the foreign settlement on the other which it tells you to ignore so the space is quite precious.




On the technical Side it seemed to work for me with just some minor things:
HDR seems to flicker on occasion, resulting in color imbalance but that's just minor.
Sharpness is quite high but on the other hand it goes around the super blurry trend on the more modern GPU Stuff, so it feels like a PS3 Era Title of a Strategy Game - except no blurryness or bloom. Could be adjusted to tone done the sharpness a bit but works otherwise. Loading Times are a bit much on a HDD, it requests building blueprints from Rome which in itself takes a bit of time from the 60 mins and the first level bootup took a little longer and it requested some assistance from Rome.

The Demo shows Achievements but I could get any on the recent Tutorial Game today, and the limited time Career I lost early due to low renown after placing a few houses and creating the roads - so that definetely needs a working strategy to get through.

[Dietre]

I find it annoying that i have to lay the city out with roads 1st before i can build anything. let me place the building, leave it as a plot even then i can build roads and it will start construction?
The icons for what I am missing is confusing. I try to build a shrine and i get an icon with a line through it. so what am i missing. it LOOKS like the management building icon but then i try to build the basic forum or whatever is the 1st thing there and I get the same icon.

Seems to be next to no descriptions on what a production building does. I mean most can guess but like the lumberjack is getting logs, but the warehouse will bring the logs to the bathhouse, so is logs the same as firewood? then what is the wood processing plant doing?
I can see this getting very confusing for larger industries like Iron as there are buildings called ore washer etc.

I look forward to the game though, I seems like it will be very in-depth and a heck of a lot better then most the more simple city builders.

[OhhJim]

Originally posted by Winter's Embers:

First off, as a long-time tester for the game, I've had quite a lot of experience so I hope you'll accept these observations.

1) The pyre and graveyard are necessary because they are a requirement for all housing.

I'm not saying they are not necessary. I'm saying that, in a demo, they just add to the information I'm supposed to learn. IMHO, a demo should show the user what to expect. There's no need to show every little detail.

2)Scriptoria make things work better. As far as in-game mechanics, scriptoria work as officers who ensure the production and storage of materials in the city is honest. They reduce corruption. Corruption can really take a bite out of your city's finances and production so the scriptoria are necessary to combat this.

Again, too much information. I don't want to learn the whole game in half an hour; I want to learn what it will be like to play the game.

3)A demo should demonstrate the game mechanics as much as possible. If a player finds that they can just build a bridge without the engineer in the demo, they would expect the same in the full release of the game, yes? Vitruvus isn't exactly a long-term use mechanic but, without him, the player won't be able to find resources or bridge points. Best to demonstrate his use now.

Again, it's a lot of information to take in. You could wait to introduce him later on when he has a purpose.

4) Most regional trade partners send food. In a big enough city, the player will use all of them. Other cities specialize in specific build goods (brick, marble, iron, and wood). Showing the options shows the demo player that these things are already in the game.

Other games introduce these options one or two at a time.

Loading Times: Use an SSD if you have one. Loading time is dependent upon RAM as well so the more you have, the faster it loads. I run the game on SSD with 64GB of ram and my usual load time for a city map is about 12 to 15 seconds. Depending on your hardware, YMMV.

I'm not asking you to solve MY problem. I'm warning you of problems that will be encountered. I can load large maps in other games much more quickly. I have 32GB of ram, and it took at least 1.5 minutes to load the map.

Roger already answered concerning scrolling. Believe me, after a while, it became very annoying to have the screen move when you're building roads or other large items because it's very rare that you have the camera facing perfectly to prevent movement along another axis. Making it optional to turn on and off was the best solution we found.

Might be a good idea to mention that in the tutorial.

Altar: Do you mean the Altar you place at the beginning of the scenario or the Shrine you place for religious satisfaction. The altar can be placed anywhere. The shrine requires physical contact with the Forum so it's placement is very limited.

The altar at the beginning. I know what I tried, and I know it didn't work. I finally got it to work in the top left area of the map. South of the river didn't work at all.

Tear Off: Here, we agree. I think the best term, in English, is "Demolish." Tear off just doesn't say the same thing.

I think you're first sentence explains what I'm saying. I DON'T have a lot of experience with this game, so don't expect me to understand what's going on as easily as you. I just want to learn the basics of how the game will work. I'm fine with learning more details as I go along.

[OhhJim]

I timed the map loading. First map of the tutorial took 1.25 minutes. The map that loaded while the birds flew took over 2 minutes.

I changed the setting to move the map when the mouse went to the edge. Then, after the birdies flew, I had to change it again.

That big red icon that covers the building I'm trying to place is annoying. Can't you show the building can't be placed there without covering it up?

[ChefJC]

Just played this demo, and I love it. Yes, like everyone has said the close up graphics are not great. However, this is so much fun. I have always wanted to build in Italy. The mechanics are great. I played the demo multiple times and got better and better each time I played, I also found new things each time I played. I have had no issues with load times, or game crashing. I think you did an amazing job with this. I was hoping to dive deeper into government and defending my city, but as a city builder, its rather good! Wish the demo was longer! It would be great to rename "tear off" as demolish. I had no idea what that was, but I like to try things out, and when I discovered it demolished things, it made sense. Terrible name for it though.