The game is paper thin!

[dninov]

Hi guys, first of all I really enjoyed what you have done so far in terms of city building mechanics, but after all this game is lacking so much more. After the first few hours play-through there is absolutely no reason to play it again. Once you managed to go to last age in the tech tree there is nothing else to do. At this point fighting the raiders is just a routine and there is no point to keep playing. You must add some campaign goals (not speaking about the milestones), or as many other suggested a rival AI so this can be called a finished product. So far it is a very basic city builder, that is lacking a basic mechanics - like roads, channels, medics, defensive mechanics and so much more.
This is a great start, but needs some end-game goal after all.
Good suggestions for end game would be a final wave at some point after a given amount of time, like in They Are Billions, which will give much more sense and reason to keep on playing and upgrading your defenses.

[zorkman]

By the time you get to the Iron Age the game does seem to run out of steam, as there is nothing really more to do than build your village. I disagree about things like roads, medics etc, as it already seems ridiclous how a village which at most is 200 people has all this tech & structures, despite being isolated from the rest of the world, with the exception of a trader or two, & random raiders.

[The Great Gazoo]

This was an issue with Planetbase as well. Virtually all the players considered it half finished, but the devs consider it a finished product. If they combined the two games and did some serious development they could have a game rivalling the big names. Huge potential wasted.

[hbrosmoe]

Despite all the things "it doesn't have" - Dawn of Man provides many hours of game play. Yeah, there is No "Whopee Moment" where you "beat the game". Your only goal is to complete all the Milestones. I did it the first time I played. And the second. etc. There are currently 5 different start locations on the first campaign, each with unique terrain. There are also currently 5 start locations for the second campaign. Can't tell you how many for the 3rd campaign, because it's not in the Beta. BUT, the devs assure us that they will be adding more start locations.

Combine that with the 6 challenges already in the Beta, and the "Community Scenarios" Tab - just waiting to display player's creativity and there is quite a bit of "replayability".

it already seems ridiclous how a village which at most is 200 people has all this tech & structures, despite being isolated from the rest of the world[/quoe]

I don't understand your confusion. All the "techs" are "learnable" without outside intervention - a path of "self discovery" (with the exception of the Water Wheel, which just pops up out of nowhere) And ALL of those buildings are necessary to the community. There are no Town Halls or Recreation Centers. There is storage, sleeping quarters, stables, crafting huts. The basics, the essentials. NO village could GET to 200 without them.

But my villages never get that big. I am not driven by the need to pack as many villagers into my game as possible. I am more concerned with having a stable village than a large village. Not that you can't have both, I just don't consider population count to be a goal of mine. (except as a milestone)

So see, there are as many approaches to this game as there are unique players.

[CadeyrnOfAlesia]

It would be neat if there were other villages that you could interact with. Though, hopefully if the devs add them, there will be a way of interacting with them other than a war of extermination.

Perhaps add a Civilization-ish diplomatic screen. Maybe a simple 1 to 10 opinion scale where 1 is absolute hatred of your tribe and 10 is like an alliance. Doing things like pilfering their resources and aggressive action loses you points and giving beneficial trade agreements gains you points.

And of course they will reciprocate in kind by helping defend you from raiders or giving you beneficial trade agreements.

I'd love to see this.
That said, I'm not holding my breath for this as it is a lot of work on a game only a few months from release.
I'd much rather that they focused on improving the battle AI so that we don't get these ugly blobs of units with 40 arms shooting arrows and spears at another blob with similar qualities.
Like Hindu Gods fighting each other.
Individual people should have some sort of unit collision so that they pathfind around each other in a realistic manner.

Also, I'd love to see some aesthetic minor things like the children playing and the women gossipping near a well and the men drinking and telling tales about their hunts and triumphs. Just little things to make the tribe seem more alive. Also, I'd love to see passage graves and more complex religious traditions besides sitting and bowing.

Here's a crazy idea; So every so often, you can throw a feast and religious festival at the stone circle with dancing and instruments and this raises the morale of the entire tribe.

[BdrLen]

Originally posted by zorkman:

By the time you get to the Iron Age the game does seem to run out of steam, as there is nothing really more to do than build your village.

Looking at some youtubers play there is a lot of scope for different missions. Raptor did the temple of the sun mission which looks a bit challenging for example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=petnTW47tCk

[zorkman]

I saw Raptor do that. The mission itself was okay, except it is kinda tedious moving thise stones around. I agree it has potential for missions, just that the latter stages of the main game run out of steam.

[Illimitus]

It's the following equation:

hours of fun / cost in dollars

The numerator DOES NOT have to be infinite.

[CadeyrnOfAlesia]

Originally posted by Illimitus:

The numerator DOES NOT have to be infinite.

I'd like it to be :-)

[Anaztazioch]

The biggest lacking of this game is random events.

Storm doesnt do anything, there are no floods, prolonged winters where you need to kill of livestock, massive migrations which bloats your population beyond your supply, so you need to rush off hunting housing, or lose happiness and have people leave the village etc.

[aquaricorn]

Originally posted by Anaztazioch:

The biggest lacking of this game is random events.

Storm doesnt do anything, there are no floods, prolonged winters where you need to kill of livestock, massive migrations which bloats your population beyond your supply, so you need to rush off hunting housing, or lose happiness and have people leave the village etc.

I agree re: weather and climate drivers, but let's not recreate Rimworld here.

[Kinja]

This is sort of the same problem Banished had and i think it's a problem with these survival centered city builders in general. Once survival stops being an issues the game basically becomes "on rails" and can get stale for most people. I think this is further accentuated with Dawn of Man since there's so much fewer buildings to build than in most other games of this type and while you can build some nice looking villages you can't exactly do what you can in other city builders. Part of this is due to the time the game takes place in but at the same time you advance all the way to the iron age and there should definitely be more to do at that point. They tried to mitigate this with the raiders but those stop being much of a challenge after your population hits a certain point and a certain number of dogs, especially since the raiders aren't too bright and will shoot at your walls/towers while the villagers shoot them.

Thankfully they've already said that they plan to add more techs and buildings to the game. The game could also use a lot more random events, things like rabid animals, large packs of carnivores entering your area and attacking your village, etc. Another easy improvement could be some sort of actual religion system with monuments(which are already there) and shamans. Beyond that, especially with how large maps are, it could really use AI villages on your map but that's a pretty complicated to implement and i don't really know how big their team is so it might be too much to ask.

[aclyte]

Originally posted by Anaztazioch:

The biggest lacking of this game is random events.

Storm doesnt do anything, there are no floods, prolonged winters where you need to kill of livestock, massive migrations which bloats your population beyond your supply, so you need to rush off hunting housing, or lose happiness and have people leave the village etc.

oh, it would be SO GREAT
Actually, this random stuff is one of the reasons Rimworld is so fun to play.
Imo, games like Dawn of man should be made with "losing is fun" ideology. Of course, with easy mode for casual players.

[p.stucki]

I agree about random events. And surely there is space for expansion. Ceramics / Pottery should not appear out of nowhere, for example.

If I had a wish for endgame, then something along the lines of "King of Dragon Pass". I don`t mean the ducks (lol), but that there is some kind of basic government that reaches out beyond the own map. Maybe something like a culture, that tries to spread and aligns other tribes. Or, failing that, getting cultural aligned by another tribe.

[🐭 🅼🅾🆄🆂🅴 🌈]

Originally posted by Illimitus:

It's the following equation:

hours of fun / cost in dollars

The numerator DOES NOT have to be infinite.

Truly this. I don't understand why there are so many that feel every 10$-20$-40$ game must provide them with tens, hundreds, thousands or unlimited of hours of fun. Their expectations per dollar is staggering. If I get 1-2 hours+ of fun from a 10-20 dollar game, I feel it was worthwhile entertainment expense, and move on with my life. You want to talk about entertainment that's overpriced, go to the movie theater. Your hour of fun per dollar spent ratio is absurd.

[MiaSakura]

I think moste of u ppl don't know but this game was made by 1 person only .. ur talkin about "devs" stop it... 1 person can only do as much as he can do and it will take time.. have u ever tried to make similar game to urself alone??? I don't think so.. anyway I pought this game when it did come officialy out (the same day) and I love that game for me its fun to play still... and lets not forget .. its a brand new game sooo there might be updates and packs and stuff like that later on