Feedback from a Norse God

[stevey]

Hi Devs,

Now that I have played 25 games of the Kingdom of the Lion, I would like to add my feedback to the others. I know that some of this may be a duplication of what is already there; I tried to read it all, but there is a lot, so please consider any duplication as a +1!

Also, before you see all of my feedback/complaints, please understand that I REALLY like the Lions and all of the new features. The following feedback is offered for consideration for improvements. Note: not in any particular order...

- I don't really understand why the Lions can't use things like circle of stones etc. Maybe that gives too much of an advantage? But... you must understand that things like Mimirsbrunn, Ancient Graveyards, etc. have side effects other than wisdom. Lions should be able to access those. But really, what is the downside of the Lions accessing all these things (including Sword of the Gods). I just don't get it.

- I would like to be able to "tab" through buildings based on their "base" building even after they have been upgraded. That is to say I would like to tab through all buildings that were based on Foraging Posts, etc.

- Anchorages that are upgraded to trade routes (basically the same as light houses) should be protected from the Kraken. If you wanted to be generous, protect all upgraded anchorages from the Kraken.

- We REALLY need "farmers". So peasants that got upgraded and work on "farms" should be farmers, not peasants. This is a huge problem for me. Not sure why you did this, but please fix this ASAP

- There is no equivalent to an Offering Well. I think there should be one. This is very important to establishing relationships as you know.

- Enemy buildings: Not sure what to do about this but when I conquer an enemy territory I can't just put the fires out and use the building. I have to destroy them and build the Lion equivalent of the building. I thing we need to think about this some more. Can they "morph" into the Lion equivalent? Please give it some thought.

- Sentries: I know that sentries are just subjects with a pitchfork. But we seem to have a problem with them. Either they are subjects, or they aren't: If they are subjects, they should be able to return to the home tile and be healed (and start praying) as other subject are. Also, it costs the same to upgrade a sentry or a subject. Since I already paid to upgrade the subject to a sentry, I think I should get a discount.

- The Lance of Longinus does not retrieve a bodyguard. Is this a bug?

Thanks for reading all this!
Steve

[Imesh]

So i'm not a norse god, i'm mainly a conquest player who was once top 200-ish in multiplayer, but i'm not up to date on this season.

-I don't know how the numbers compare, circles of stones etc already buff faith generation, so all (undamaged) subjects can be moved to one for more faith. These are basically discount loremaster, generating less lore/faith but also not costing as much food. If you want a full loremaster, build a monastery. You can even build one near a stone to get better monks. I think that maybe the buff should be variable, having the same buff for runestones as for circles is rather weird IMO (but adding this would make kröwn generation insane).
Fully agree on mimir/graveyard etc.

-Fully agree on that, maybe it should be an option people can shut off if they disagree with you.

-Agreed, Kraken event is already very variable in effect across clans, this would add some consistency to it.

-While i agree with you about the farmers, i don't think that it's that important.

-Add offering well or make this the racist clan that hates all other beings, so you get a bonus for "interacting" with neutrals. Having neutrals be a hindrance with no further consideration is stupid IMO.

-Yeah, it can't be that we steal nearly all building from enemies, except when they're lion, where you can steal none. This is a pretty huge design oversight.

-To go deeper into what you're saying about sentries, i think it would be interesting if you could convert them back, maybe at half price. And yes, upgrading them should come at a discount.

- Have you tried reviving other units that are in the "allies" category within the units? i think militia, dwarves and spirits (and boar wolves) are within that category and probably all aren't revivable. To put it harshly, all of them aren't people (of your population).

[Stinky Bishop]

With regards to the "no equivalent of offering well": if you look at the base faith tree for the Southern Kingdoms, they have a knowledge that makes monasteries cost no stone in regions with viking religious buildings (ie lore stones) AND allows monasteries places adjacent to neutral factions to essentially act as an offering well. It is replaced with the Miraculous Healing knowledge for the Lion. As I see it, the Miraculous Healing knowledge is actually a nerf, because with Lion's ability to purchase troops with faith getting a monastery for 0 stone would be op, and I can kind of see that as a military-oriented clan they would prefer to conquer neutral factions rather than ally with them.

So basically, there is a Southern Kingdoms equivalent, it's just that the Lions don't get it :)

[CeeRo]

Originally posted by stevey:

Anchorages that are upgraded to trade routes (basically the same as light houses) should be protected from the Kraken.

I think they are? I've only tested it in one kraken event, but it didnt get attacked

[AnonymousObserver]

Originally posted by Stinky Bishop:

With regards to the "no equivalent of offering well": if you look at the base faith tree for the Southern Kingdoms, they have a knowledge that makes monasteries cost no stone in regions with viking religious buildings (ie lore stones) AND allows monasteries places adjacent to neutral factions to essentially act as an offering well. It is replaced with the Miraculous Healing knowledge for the Lion. As I see it, the Miraculous Healing knowledge is actually a nerf, because with Lion's ability to purchase troops with faith getting a monastery for 0 stone would be op, and I can kind of see that as a military-oriented clan they would prefer to conquer neutral factions rather than ally with them.

So basically, there is a Southern Kingdoms equivalent, it's just that the Lions don't get it :)

Yeah, replacing that lore with Miraculous Healing definitely is a nerf. I personally felt that Miraculous Healing would be more appropriately placed with the increased healing lore than that one, especially considering that Lion I feel their economy aren't exactly all that "tile-hungry" for resources, and are should be more focused on increasing livability, so I don't really see Lion building all that many Church-related buildings. Perhaps it would be more useful early-game when u aren't building monasteries yet. but I found the lore very meh.

Originally posted by CeeRo:

Originally posted by stevey:

Anchorages that are upgraded to trade routes (basically the same as light houses) should be protected from the Kraken.

I think they are? I've only tested it in one kraken event, but it didnt get attacked

Yeah, I can attest to this too. The ones that tends to get attacked are the seaport ones from what I have experiences, which is the building I usually use since getting stones/irons in addition to nearby stone/iron in nearby tiles is extremely useful/

[AnonymousObserver]

Originally posted by Hollow:

Originally posted by CeeRo:

I think they are? I've only tested it in one kraken event, but it didnt get attacked

Originally posted by Shiro_Steven:

-Kingdom of the Lion : Fixed the merchant port to be immune to Kraken event

No one reads the official, pinned patch notes.

huh....I remember it working from like the few times I've used merchant ports. Welp, guess bugs pop out unpredictably :V

[Stinky Bishop]

Originally posted by AnonymousObserver:

Yeah, replacing that lore with Miraculous Healing definitely is a nerf. I personally felt that Miraculous Healing would be more appropriately placed with the increased healing lore than that one, especially considering that Lion I feel their economy aren't exactly all that "tile-hungry" for resources, and are should be more focused on increasing livability, so I don't really see Lion building all that many Church-related buildings. Perhaps it would be more useful early-game when u aren't building monasteries yet. but I found the lore very meh.

Tbh, I don't know exactly what speed bonus the Miraculous Healing knowledge gives you, but as far as I'm concerned it would be a nerf if it took over the Healing knowledge slot as well (maybe I haven't been using it judiciously, idk). The problem I see with it is, that it gives you a bonus to healing from... Your building from which assigned workers heal you anyway. Maybe if it gave Hildegard healing powers a la Rat? Or maybe if it allowed Monks to heal outside your territory? Maybe if it applied to monasteries and military buildings it would make some sense (synergising slightly with them giving +1 livability, and fitting thematically with the Ost knowledge), but even then I would still feel it was underpowered. I also do kind of feel that from a game design perspective it's a bit of a cop-out to make a unique knowledge a nerf.

But at the same time, I do get that given Lion is meant to be a military-focused clan, the standard Southern Kingdoms knowledge would make its faith victory potential way too strong. I find that as it stands, vs ai at least, you can win a faith victory almost as quickly as a domination victory given the right starting tiles, which shouldn't be the case for this clan. So maybe something like Paladins cost less faith would be better? That has a problem in that players can easily get to that tech way before they hit 500 fame, but let's be honest, who at the end of the day is picking a knowledge in that slot that isn't Carpentry Mastery? And it would actually be something that I might pick up in some games.

Fundamentally though, Miraculous Healing is a knowledge that lacks direction. It doesn't help you towards any victory condition, and that's a problem for a knowledge so deep in the faith tree.

[Sayumé]

Miraculous Healing a nerf? Come on have we played with the same clan? Did you understand that relics ARE religious buildings? So if you get it with you, your untis are healed everywhere you are, even in fight. This very powerful.

[stevey]

Originally posted by pageaure:

Did you understand that relics ARE religious buildings? So if you get it with you, your units are healed everywhere you are, even in fight. This very powerful.

To be honest, no, I did not know that. That is good to know and I will certainly try that.

But... even knowing that, I think that Miraculous Healing could be replaced with something else. I would propose something to do with the Lord. Maybe give the Lord 2x defensive strength? Or to be able to have another Lord in the tile? Give the keep an arrow shot like the towers have? Not sure, but I really think the Lords need more that to be able to go into an adjacent tile.

[stevey]

To devs:

Sorry I did not read the release notes about the merchant port and Kraken. Whenever Steam tells me there is an update and I can "view notes" it usually just takes me to the home page for the game and not much else. I'm sure the release notes are somewhere, but I am too lazy to look for them. So now I just click on "play game as soon as update is complete". So apologies for that! Haha I just tried it in a game and the Kraken did not show up! My dock definitely got destroyed by the Kraken when I first played it, but I am sure it is fixed now.

For those who wanted to know why I think "farmers" are so important, it's just this: At the beginning of the game I have to build Foraging Posts even in tiles that don't have the "traditional" food sources (as do we all, I'm sure). But as the game progresses and my pathfinder finds more food tiles, I build Foraging Posts there that can be upgraded. So later on in the game I would like to click on the "peasants" button to see where I have posts I can upgrade and posts I can destroy and redeploy the people. Having "farmers" would make it easier to see. That's all.

Of course if I could "tab" between all buildings based on "foraging posts" that would accomplish the same thing.

Thanks all!
Steve

[Imesh]

Originally posted by stevey:

Originally posted by pageaure:

Did you understand that relics ARE religious buildings? So if you get it with you, your units are healed everywhere you are, even in fight. This very powerful.

To be honest, no, I did not know that. That is good to know and I will certainly try that.

But... even knowing that, I think that Miraculous Healing could be replaced with something else. I would propose something to do with the Lord. Maybe give the Lord 2x defensive strength? Or to be able to have another Lord in the tile? Give the keep an arrow shot like the towers have? Not sure, but I really think the Lords need more that to be able to go into an adjacent tile.

I also didn't know that, seems OP in casual

I feel like lords don't need an upgrade. They can be made better several ways already:
- The towers are more tanky aka more rush resistant (tower damage is negligable after 802 usually anyway)
- The lord can take some aggro if the enemy doens't micro well, unlike a normal tower that just stands in the back and is probably the best tank in the field, but can't really fill that role (if you build it in front it will be dead before the fight starts, so that's not helpful
- If the lord tanks, it doesn't care unless killed fully
- the lord can be upgraded by military path (defensive, warchief, valhalla), lore.
- if the enemy doesn't focus the tower and doesn't have many ranged units, the lord can delay even longer by running in circles. This probably isn't really a point outside of games vs AI.

If you give too many defensive advantages, games will become pacifist.

[Stinky Bishop]

Originally posted by pageaure:

Miraculous Healing a nerf? Come on have we played with the same clan? Did you understand that relics ARE religious buildings? So if you get it with you, your untis are healed everywhere you are, even in fight. This very powerful.

Yeah, also didn't realise this. Given there is no in-game text defining what religious buildings are, the description for this knowledge should be more specific. Especially given that I don't think most people (or most native English speakers, anyway) would automatically consider a "relic" to be a building. I assumed that the language "allied religious buildings" meant that you could also heal in allied Viking zones with Runestones (which isn't something I have tested, and may still be true).

[WRYYYYYYYYYY]

Though farmers in food posts and farms are both named as farmers, they're different. Farmers in food posts yield as same as Viking villagers, farmers in farms yield even more than Viking farmers ( same as Viking farmers in summer, more than hunters in winter).

[stevey]

Hi All,

Here's one more thing you might want to look at... please refer to the following screen shot:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2919550313

It would be nice if you could modify the goals for these expeditions such that they work for the Lions. So "Deal 4000 damage with Shield Bearers or Fantasasins", "Gain 10000 Lore or Faith", Build 20 houses should just work.

It's not that I need the silver bars (I have nothing left to spend them on, but that's an issue for another day), but doing the expeditions gives me an extra challenge so I like to do them. And I want to get to 50 games with the Lions, so that's why I don't want to play a different clan right now (not to mention that my poor brain gets confused changing back to the "traditional" clans. Hmmm, why won't it let me have >2 people per building! Oh, right :) )

Thanks!
Stevey

[Fauxsteel]

Originally posted by stevey:

Hi All,

Here's one more thing you might want to look at... please refer to the following screen shot:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2919550313

It would be nice if you could modify the goals for these expeditions such that they work for the Lions. So "Deal 4000 damage with Shield Bearers or Fantasasins", "Gain 10000 Lore or Faith", Build 20 houses should just work.

It's not that I need the silver bars (I have nothing left to spend them on, but that's an issue for another day), but doing the expeditions gives me an extra challenge so I like to do them. And I want to get to 50 games with the Lions, so that's why I don't want to play a different clan right now (not to mention that my poor brain gets confused changing back to the "traditional" clans. Hmmm, why won't it let me have >2 people per building! Oh, right :) )

Thanks!
Stevey

There are already Clan-specific Warchief weeklies, why should the weeklies be changed for a single clan when you can do them with every other clan?

I don't care either way, but it seems like an incredibly small thing to bring up while we have some pretty awful bugs and discrepancies in the game already.

[stevey]

Originally posted by Fauxsteel:

Originally posted by stevey:

I don't care either way, but it seems like an incredibly small thing to bring up while we have some pretty awful bugs and discrepancies in the game already.

Yes, I totally agree, this is a small thing. I just brought it up in case the devs did not realize that it was there. Maybe it's just a small tweak to get it to work? I don't know.