Some feedback on the multiplayer campaign

[Felipepepe]

Played just for an hour, have to go to sleep now, but here is some feedback:

- I can't change cards after I select them, is this intended?

- During battle, WASD and arrow control is now horrible, failing all the time. It wasn't like this before this patch.

- Cards mean everything for Auto battles, but I don't they don't mean much when you control the fight yourself... 3 mercenaries granadiers don't mean anything.

- It's too easy to miss-click and sell your building on the world map.

- Having to scroll back to the capital to research upgrades feels dumb, why not just add a Research/Dragon button on the UI of the wolrd map?

- Why the hell now the victory screen is "YOU WON + VICTORY"? Wasn't just You Won clear enough?

[LordCrash]

I agree on all these points!

[Stabbey]

I agree with all of these things this as well, and would like to add:
- When a battle is going to take place, you have two options: An image of a Dragon, and one of the army, then you continue to the army balance/card select screen and it says "who will lead the battle?" But you already selected who will lead a screen earlier and can't change it, so it's rather redundant to have that option there as well. Maybe just have that option on the army balance screen.
- I guess this isn't a bug, but Auto-resolve does a much better job at keeping casualties down than actually trying to fend off the crazy waves the AI sends in the RTS mode (even on Easy!). It seems better to auto-resolve than to actually play them yourself. I'll try playing with this some more.
- Also probably not a bug, but it's interesting when retreating from battles, you can end up doing heavy damage to the enemy. Once I retreated and lost the unit I had on a country, but it remained in my possession because the invader was killed. Another time my invasion was thrwarted because the enemy had decided to move a bazillion units into that one (I guess my boat hanging around next to it was a Clue), I retreated, and while I did lost all but one armour, the enemy suffered major casualties as well despite a huge numbers advantage.
- I wonder what happens if you invade a country by sea, and then retreat. If your boats are lost, can some land units survive? If so, what happens to them if there's no land country safely nearby? I'll test that.
- Long names like "Stabbey (Everyday I'm Zeppelin)" don't fit properly in the name box (although that is kinda my own fault.

[Vinay Shenoy]

Agreed. Some more to add

- Game crashed just before beginning a battle in multiplayer. Selected all my cards, clicked on Start, Loading screen and Quit to desktop! I had won a battle in the previous turn. Not sure if that'd have made a difference.
-Building Academy Description says 0% discount to research

[Lotrotk]

My first suggestion:

(a) (see felipepepe) good suggestion to keep research in a global menu somewhere, also a visual on exactly what will be researched next. I also wonder, I believe it is currently not possible to see what exactly your enemy did research. Is that a good thing? Perhaps that a strategy card revealing your enemies' latest research would be nice.

(b) when battle fase starts, please have the battle region centered immediately

oh yes, the game had my pc completely stuck during TBS, the only input my pc reacted on was power off. hope that helps!

[Garod]

Another game breaker at the moment is the starting position of the host player. If you are playing against another player it's simply impossible to win from that position and you'll just get whiped since you simply can't get enough land quick enough. I just played someone and I had all 3 capitals before he even got to me..... this just needs fixing or would be great if you can add another map.

[twincast]

Yeah, I love me some elves, but that starting position sucks.

Also, since the game crashes before or after every RTS battle for me so far, I've been trying to get through a campaign solely through autoresolving (<OT>Which my laptop won't let me, though, as recently it suddenly keeps shutting itself off from overheating after sometimes more, sometimes less time playing video games it should - and previously did - handle easily. WTF?! Hadn't happened in ages before and then only extremely rarely. I guess the fan needs some cleaning. Otherwise I have no idea what (fixable) reason there may be.</OT>) and I keep the southeast AI on my team/off my back, but its TBS AI is totally bonkers. Once it meets the northeast AI at the undead/imp border it does nothing but rotate a whole bunch of units between its own (core) countries while only sending a meager single unit to recapture the northernmost imp region. Well, to state in detail the most recent/vivid example; it's acting pretty much identically every campaign, though.

[Stabbey]

I played a campaign a few minutes ago and the map is different for the Elf corner, there's now an additional country bridging the gap to let you spread out faster. It definitely helps, but time will see how much.

[LordCrash]

The new country really helps in the campaign mode. I just won against two default AI enemies and one default AI ally.

Problem is that there seems to be no variation of AI. I would love to choose from preset AIs like defensive and aggressive ones. The default AI never really attacked me on my border or my capital.

[Stabbey]

Different variations of AI? There seems to be no Strategy map AI at all. Now I haven't had much chance to fool with the game since the 1.5 GB patch, but the previous version the AI just moved pieces around randomly for no apparent purpose. Pieces with 2 Movement points would start in country A, get moved to B, then back to A. It might seem like it has AI at the start, but I played 27 turns and over time realized that it was just shuffling them around between its own countries. Sure, there were occasional forays into other territories (often with only one or two pieces), but there wasn't any sign of a coherent plan or goal.

[LordCrash]

Yeah. the AI on the strategy map looks rather clueless.....

[Shades]

Not only on the strategy map. Recently fought over one country with 1 AI ally against to AI enemys (all set on medium if this makes any difference). It was the map with 5 major isles formig a X on the map.
I had to restart the map after i first went to the neutral middle, and biggest, isle to take over control there. After that i had no chance to win anymore. Both Enemy AIs only sent 1 ship every min with 1-2 troops to the middle or my home isle while it bunkered itself in on its own isles.
Because of mainly grenadiers on respective islands i had no chance to clear somethign out with my dragon and my troop were always anihilated upon landing on the island. I had no juggernauts or flying units.
Maybe maps with bases only reachable by sea or air should not be in the rotation as long as no true air or strong sea units are available.

[Stabbey]

The RTS AI is realy not good with anything naval. Investing in Juggernauts fairly early on is probably not a bad decision, though. The campaign AI is slow to move up the tech tree - I was 27 turns in and the Red AI still had no anti-air turrets, and the Juggernaut's range is the longest in the game except for the sieged Devastator - and even then, a Juggernaut or two easily kills those.

[LordCrash]

The fighters are seriously overpowered in the campaign mode. They can move four fields per turn and if you have researched the ground attack ability they are even more powerful.

I think there should be something like a "tech tree" for research. Being able to research everything from the start can cause serious balancing issues.....