Opinions on the game?

[scaper12123]

I've played 112 minutes (less than the 2 hour return stipulation) and I somewhat enjoy the game, but it's marred by several issues. The placement of buildings needs to be more clear on which side is considered the "front," the lack of tutorial is a mild inconvenience and the advisors don't give much more than off-handed advice, the variety of buildings is a bit lacking seeming to cover only basic functionality, and the information text... oh god, the information text. Literally impossible to read in my resolution, which is the highest avalible to me, without pressing my face to the screen.

This game is definitely going to be good but... I've played a game almost exactly like this albeit in a different art style and without the invasion aspect, Banished. Banished had my attention for a while but I quickly realized there was no challenge beyond building and expanding the city. Is there any feature expected which will address this issue? Such as end-goals or a campaign or special objectives?

[Buntkreuz]

Originally posted by scaper12123:

I've played 112 minutes (less than the 2 hour return stipulation) and I somewhat enjoy the game, but it's marred by several issues. The placement of buildings needs to be more clear on which side is considered the "front," the lack of tutorial is a mild inconvenience and the advisors don't give much more than off-handed advice, the variety of buildings is a bit lacking seeming to cover only basic functionality, and the information text... oh god, the information text. Literally impossible to read in my resolution, which is the highest avalible to me, without pressing my face to the screen.

This game is definitely going to be good but... I've played a game almost exactly like this albeit in a different art style and without the invasion aspect, Banished. Banished had my attention for a while but I quickly realized there was no challenge beyond building and expanding the city. Is there any feature expected which will address this issue? Such as end-goals or a campaign or special objectives?

Thats the point, where i jump in, telling all these "singleplayer" evangelists that this is where you need multiplayer.
I know, whenever someone asks fo such a mode, these people jump right at them trying to tell them that a game "doesnt need multiplayer". Problem is, playing a strategy game in singleplayer will only get the challenge so far. You WILL hit a point at where you dont feel challenged at all, not by AI, not by the map, not by events or mechanics.
And human players, which you can either play against or cooperatively with, expand that time until you wont be challenged quite infinitely.
But no matter whether you are one of these people, keep on reading as my personal ideal addition to the game would benefit all players alike.

I think some mechanics are not deep enough to provide a real challenge. Its less its casual production line, Northgard hasnt any production lines at all and is deeper as a strategy game.
But Northgard des that better as it provides several challenges from different directions.
Which means, neutral forces attacking you (Vikings or Dragons here, Wolves and Undead in Northgard), Natural Disasters or other things (like the Plague, Winter, Storms or Fire) and then other Factions that act on your level, trying to either destroy you or suppress your power enough so you cant withstand and only pay tribute. Northgard has that, KaC lacks that.

What would help, in my eyes, was a feature that allowed me to send soldiers from my map, to the map of another player.
Like an indirect multiplayer feature. I cant control my soldiers and tell them what to attack, i just train them on my map, send them to my shipyard and then select which player or which city to attack and maybe also where to land with the ships. Then they sail off, trying to beat that player.

Here it comes:
This must not be a multiplayer feature only. This could work the same way with AI players and premade cities.

For example ,the devs could create some premade cities and insert them as your opponents. The AI controls these balanced premade cities and regulary sends troops to beat you, and your goal was to beat them.
In multiplayer the only change would be, that a player starts on a new map and you do aswell, instead of premade cities conrolled by AI.
It could even allow the player to play against a town created by the player but then controlled by AI. So you could design your own enemy city that you have to beat.

On top, this could add a coop mode, where you and another player could play against the AI, each of you on your own map, you can send resources, send troops to help defending and coordinate your attacks.

This would have many advantages. A: you dont need to change the gameplay as you wouldnt play on one map with other players. B: This fact means that the performance wouldnt be affected at all.
C: this means that you had a mode with a fine singleplayer challenge and on top a nice multiplayer mode all in one. All could be happy. D: it would "only" need a new building and a new mechanic to be implemented. No need to change everything in the game so it works with other players. As playing on the same map would mean the game needed big changes to support that (like who is allowed to build or how far can you build, how close to the enemy can you build and will attack invading Vikings all players or just one and how do you balance that?). No need to take care of all of these questions.


Sadly, this game already has some flaws that needed to be adressed. Which means, i doubt they would pump effort and money into making this real. Although i think it would add much more variety and challenge to the game. Also a victory condition (you beat the enemy and destroy its mainhall).

[Lu5ck]

It is 9 bucks for simple city builder with some survival and defense. Each citizen also has their own age and mastery so I think for 9 bucks, it has done a lot.

[Sator]

to be honest it was made by two (what looks like) college kids and it is a cheap tower defense(sorta) city builder with a low polygon look sooo

[Buntkreuz]

Originally posted by Pixelshocker:

to be honest it was made by two (what looks like) college kids and it is a cheap tower defense(sorta) city builder with a low polygon look sooo

you keep saying stuff without really saying anything.
Depth of a game is achieved with clever design. A game can be fun, deep and challenging with far less effort even. Its bound to how each system used works in a game, how each of these systems work by themselves and how the game goes into different directions. Thats design.

[steven.lepanda]

problem is having AI vs single player is that the hero units atm does nothing but stand there. When the AI know when to attack then we can have a nice war.

[Buntkreuz]

true that, it also was just an idea of what i think could improve it (also a very ambitious one).
There obviously (probably) are several other things that could enhance gameplay and make it (more) challenging and deep(er).
Currently, the best word to describe this game is using the word "solid". Not good, not bad, not awesome and not horrible. Just solid. Its an ok game for the price. Sad thing is, it could be better by a large stretch, as it has the potential and they seem to have the skill to make it happen.
As it is, its an ok game i can recommend to those who hirst for build-up strategy, as the genre isnt saturated. If it was, i think the game would be overlooked and not stand out in any way.
Doesnt even really have a unique aspect that sets itself apart. Except you think visual style is enough.
As the market is now, thats fine, as delivering what we already know is already more than we currently have.
If they did that in another genre, such as FPS or Moba, they wouldnt see any land.

[gopher]

honestly, new features would be nice and all, but all I really want is polish. There's a lot of minor little things that just make the game feel rough. Now, them being small things from a player's perspective doesn't mean they're small things for the dev to fix, but regardless... the game feels a bit rough to be out of EA to me. Not encountered any game-breaking bugs, but lots of minor things - it can be impossible to see highlighted zones - things like well access - in built-up areas, making it hard to judge placement and coverage; selecting items/people is oddly twitchy at times, and I often have to click more than once to select what I wanted to select; I'm past needing it now, and I didn't struggle too much personally, but the complete lack of any tutorial at the start would probably leave some more casual gamers scratching their heads - 'r' for rotate selection is obvious to me, because 1000 other games, but not obvious in an objective sense; other little things like that, minor quality of life features, polishing up the controls, allowing custom keybinding, for our non-qwrty friends, etc.

More features without more polish will probably leave me underwhelmed, tbh. For a somewhat simple, fairly light and casual game like this, polish is *very* important.

[RMJ]

I would like if resources wasn't so set and forget. They are a bit too dumbed down for my taste. Even Red Alert 1 had more engaging resources. Fields went dry and grew back out again.

Bigger maps, as the current is just TINY.

Better UI, seeing in a big overlay screen who is doing what.

Being able to chop the multiple tree's, clicking isn't in itself particularly engaging.

Bigger maps, could also mean you eventually had to trade with caravans etc from distant lands.

Farming with animals ? or is the developer a vegetarian, which is cool, but i would like to farm me some pig and cow meat. And fishing would be nice as well.

Farming different kind of things, potatos, wheat etc, and trade with it.

Upgrading buildings.

Think they should look at the settlers "first few" games for inspiration, i would like the idea of setting up supply chain.

Wood gets chopped. it goes to sawmill for processing into planks, thats then ready for building.
Wheat gets milled at a mill, then gets taken to a bakery for processing, before it can be eating. Who likes to eat wheat anyways ? :P


I hope they continue to support it. Because its a fun game, its a bit shallow atm, and suffers from UI issues of hiding information.

There could be other problems as well in a Castle kingdom as crime. Not just being invaded, like having some kinda police force or something patroling around.

I hate not being able to drag roads and walls, against its just more clicking more clicking's sake, not engaging or fun in itself.

You can't get up a forrester if there aren't any trees around. That doesnt quite make sense. So you can techinally deforest the entire tiny map and your boned or what ? :O

All in all its a great game, with real potential :) Would be nice with some voice acting. like mylord etc from the humans in warcraft 2, in that sort of style

[scaper12123]

Originally posted by NemesisZidar:

Originally posted by scaper12123:

I've played 112 minutes (less than the 2 hour return stipulation) and I somewhat enjoy the game, but it's marred by several issues. The placement of buildings needs to be more clear on which side is considered the "front," the lack of tutorial is a mild inconvenience and the advisors don't give much more than off-handed advice, the variety of buildings is a bit lacking seeming to cover only basic functionality, and the information text... oh god, the information text. Literally impossible to read in my resolution, which is the highest avalible to me, without pressing my face to the screen.

This game is definitely going to be good but... I've played a game almost exactly like this albeit in a different art style and without the invasion aspect, Banished. Banished had my attention for a while but I quickly realized there was no challenge beyond building and expanding the city. Is there any feature expected which will address this issue? Such as end-goals or a campaign or special objectives?

Thats the point, where i jump in, telling all these "singleplayer" evangelists that this is where you need multiplayer.
I know, whenever someone asks fo such a mode, these people jump right at them trying to tell them that a game "doesnt need multiplayer". Problem is, playing a strategy game in singleplayer will only get the challenge so far. You WILL hit a point at where you dont feel challenged at all, not by AI, not by the map, not by events or mechanics.
And human players, which you can either play against or cooperatively with, expand that time until you wont be challenged quite infinitely.
But no matter whether you are one of these people, keep on reading as my personal ideal addition to the game would benefit all players alike.

I think some mechanics are not deep enough to provide a real challenge. Its less its casual production line, Northgard hasnt any production lines at all and is deeper as a strategy game.
But Northgard des that better as it provides several challenges from different directions.
Which means, neutral forces attacking you (Vikings or Dragons here, Wolves and Undead in Northgard), Natural Disasters or other things (like the Plague, Winter, Storms or Fire) and then other Factions that act on your level, trying to either destroy you or suppress your power enough so you cant withstand and only pay tribute. Northgard has that, KaC lacks that.

What would help, in my eyes, was a feature that allowed me to send soldiers from my map, to the map of another player.
Like an indirect multiplayer feature. I cant control my soldiers and tell them what to attack, i just train them on my map, send them to my shipyard and then select which player or which city to attack and maybe also where to land with the ships. Then they sail off, trying to beat that player.

Here it comes:
This must not be a multiplayer feature only. This could work the same way with AI players and premade cities.

For example ,the devs could create some premade cities and insert them as your opponents. The AI controls these balanced premade cities and regulary sends troops to beat you, and your goal was to beat them.
In multiplayer the only change would be, that a player starts on a new map and you do aswell, instead of premade cities conrolled by AI.
It could even allow the player to play against a town created by the player but then controlled by AI. So you could design your own enemy city that you have to beat.

On top, this could add a coop mode, where you and another player could play against the AI, each of you on your own map, you can send resources, send troops to help defending and coordinate your attacks.

This would have many advantages. A: you dont need to change the gameplay as you wouldnt play on one map with other players. B: This fact means that the performance wouldnt be affected at all.
C: this means that you had a mode with a fine singleplayer challenge and on top a nice multiplayer mode all in one. All could be happy. D: it would "only" need a new building and a new mechanic to be implemented. No need to change everything in the game so it works with other players. As playing on the same map would mean the game needed big changes to support that (like who is allowed to build or how far can you build, how close to the enemy can you build and will attack invading Vikings all players or just one and how do you balance that?). No need to take care of all of these questions.


Sadly, this game already has some flaws that needed to be adressed. Which means, i doubt they would pump effort and money into making this real. Although i think it would add much more variety and challenge to the game. Also a victory condition (you beat the enemy and destroy its mainhall).

So... are you saying I should depend on this game improving its features? Honestly idc I'll probably keep it in my library I'm just wondering if everone else thinks it'll be good when it comes out of early access.

[Stevepunk]

Well they're adding ports in the next patch so sailing to viking islands to raid them could be in the future..
(or even playing as vikings)

[Eric Cartman]

I love this game and am rather addicted to it. It's a big departure from what I usually play, which is mostly grand strategy, but this is very enjoyable. For me the major attraction are creating a good looking kingdom combined with just enjoying the beauty of the game. It's just a very relaxing experience. It can use a bit more content, but I'm sure the devs will deliver. I hope they will atleast put the twitch feature on hold as it's useless to 90% of players. Same for VR, I guess. They're a 2 dev team and really must prioritize what they're focussing on and IMO, those 2 features are just unneccesary for most players. Content is what we ALL need the most.

[City Builder]

The more that I play, the more that I think that it's not ready for prime time. At the moment, I wouldn't consider this to be a PC game but rather a game you might find on Facebook.

[Stevepunk]

Twitch = more views = more sales = more money to send on updates?

[RMJ]

If there is one thing ive seen with all the smaller games, that has done well. Its constantly small updates. That keeps people coming back and spreading word of mouth.

The lack of updates atm has pretty much killed or put Astroneer on pause.

Minecraft is one of the prime exsamples of adding something constantly.

[fredreed2000]

City Builder I disagree the game is not ready for prime time but this game is not for facebook. This game is for PC only because of the graphics. Just be patient and let the devs address the bugs that need to be fixed.
RMJ you need to just chill out because It takes time for the devs to work on a patch to fix the bugs. RMJ If you cannot be patient then please stop wasting everyone's time with your stupid posts.
RMJ you must be the dumbest person saying that this game has a lack of updates because I tell you that the devs are working on a patch and new features.