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Thank you for your feedback.
Will keep it all under consideration for the next updates.
That said, I played the demo but I found myself with the above issues trying to figure out what’s the best resource to invest in.
Are certain geographical areas better with certain resources or can all regions make everything.
I also found it difficult to figure out where to sell things unless you click on each “faction” repeatedly and memorize the profit margin. Maybe I was doing it wrong.
Are wars in depth?
Is there any randomness in the game or does it follow a linear path? I.e., Russia always invades Ukraine. What happens when the game advances past real life time? Are works events random?
Anyway this looks like it will be good. I hope we get a road map or consistent communication from the devs as to how they will support the game.
As far as I can tell, resources depend on the region's climate, but there's some randomness to it - e.g you can produce apples in one region, but not in another region with the same climate. Even though some kind of agriculture, like wheat, is possible in both regions.
In general, there's too many resource types, with minor differences between them. e.g there's coal and graphite, both t1 resources, both can be used for carbon fibers (t2), but only coal can be used for methanol or benzene, and only graphite for lubricants or pencils. I'm not sure what's the point of having pencils as a separate resource (instead of something more general, like office supplies). I feel it only adds artificial complexity, with not much logic behind it.
You will have 12 resource options at random based on climate per province. So each play though will be different but with order.
You can see the break down of the resources on a previous post called "Climate".
In the trade Tab (not demo) you can see what provinces allow the needed T1 resources by clicking on the reddish button on the said resources (left, when you hover it says "Find resource") All those provinces will be colored green.
You can also show all T1 resources to look up by clicking on the "eye" filter.
Each country will give you its own challenges with resources and it's meant to do so. You cannot have all or enough of the resources to produce everything. It's why you need trade agreement and exploit other nation's resources.
Do you invest on a finished product T2 or 3 for an increased income, or do you plan for the long term for higher returns?
For examples, Potatoes. They can produce Potato Chips, which is a finished product and also ethanol, which is not. Potato Chips will give you a higher return when sold and it's an agricultural product that when demand is kept low in your own market, it will help manage inflation, or you can go into Ethanol, that does not have as good of a return but leads into multiple other products and is key is some high tier pharmaceutical resources.
You can also tear down the constructed resources and build other industries. How you make wealth when the only agricultural resources you can produce is Aloe and Lavender will differ greatly vs Moderate Humid or Grassland Agriculture.
Graphite does differ from coal in several ways but the main would be, that it will be needed to create Nuclear Weapon Components, and that, for Warheads and ICBMs.
Coal helps you to get Composition B needed for several military units.
While pencils are just pencils. Its up to you if you want to invest in it or not, but I wanted people to have the option of real life resources associated with what is being produced.
In essence, wanted gamers to have some experience of the supply chain demands needed to create a "Tank" or "Drones". That it's not always the same and it has more thought for modern resources than simply "Build Tank" or "Build Artillery" since Trade Conquest has both a focus on Resources and Conquest.
The problem is there's no real tutorial in the game. The info dump doesn't count - it's too long for most players to read and remember it all. I actually did read it, but it didn't mention using trade tab to filter T1 resources. Maybe I've missed it - but that would only prove my point. The game could use a proper tutorial.
Another problem is the lack of information - or at least, access to information where, and when, you need it. e.g: there's 12 T1 resources available in each province, but some of them require research. I don't want to click through all of them to check which ones can actually be produced - unresearched resources should be grayed out, and the list should be sorted; push the available resources to the front of the list.
This may look like a minor thing, but it's often the minor features like this that make or break the UI design.
Another example: the list of stored resources and their tooltips.
- tooltips don't have the monthly production and usage, which really should be there
- instead, those tooltips contain the production and upkeep costs of a single lvl1 building, which IMO does not belong there - I only need this when building a new factory, and it's already available in build menu
- they also contain product description - which I appreciate, but this also doesn't belong here. Most people would want to read it once, it only makes the tooltip larger than needed (and covering other resources, as there's no transparency on the tooltip window). Instead, you could display a popup on click, with all those details (and maybe a full production chain).
- requirements and next-tier products - again, this would be more useful in build menu, but it's pretty short so I don't mind having it here too. It would still be better to have just the production and usage amounts, with details on demand after clicking.
- there's no info about available and used storage space here. To check the storage, you need to click a province and check the info at the bottom, which is really counter-intuitive (storage is global, not tied to provinces, right?). To check how much you're currently using... I don't know, manually add all those floats I guess? ;)
- military resources are always displayed, even though you don't really care about it in the early stage of the game. I guess it's important later when you take over the country and start building an army; I'm not there yet. But for us noobs there should be an option to hide what's not produced.
- even without all those fancy changes to the tooltips, just using colors (green for where you have surplus, red for deficits) would help IMO
About graphite, pencils, etc. - OK, now I get it, you wanted to give players some options for T2 finished products, with higher profitability, instead of pushing for higher tier products. Fair enough. I still think there's way too many products, but maybe it's just me.
As a developer, I'm sure you know the whole production chain for e.g artillery - but don't assume players know it too. Most of us don't want to spend time reverse-engineering it: oh, I need artillery body, to make that I need artillery frame + NERA armor + tracks, now how do I make the NERF armor? ;)
OK, sorry for the long post and for all the critique. I hope you'll find my suggestions useful. I can see the passion and effort you've put into this game, I really like the concept and I want it to succeed. Check out e.g Victoria 3 (it's probably the closest to what you're doing), Terra Invicta, Realpolitiks (even if the last one kinda sucks) and the ways they present information, I think you can learn a few tricks there.
Once again, thank you for the feedback.
Always looking for ways to improve the game regarding accessibility, and this has been largely done thanks to constructive and detailed feedback such as yours.
I will keep them into account for future updates.
Hello BlitzMike91
Thank you for your suggestions. Will keep it in mind for possible large updates depending on popularity.