Awesome game, been playing it a ton. Would love to see like a "balanced start" setting where all players were guaranteed at least one instance of food industry gold and science within like 6 tiles of their spawn point. It can be kinda rough if you're missing one of those resources early on.
The game does start you within a certain distance of key resources, but somewhat farther than your suggested 6 tiles. The maps are varied enough that some of them simply don't have a start like that! (I'd like to avoid softening up the map generation too much because the variety in maps, including the challenge of dealing with occasional difficult resources, is part of what keeps me having fun...)
You're guaranteed to start quite close to science. And the game even tries to give the human player the best spot it found. So you can at least be fairly confident the AI had to work hard or get lucky as well.
All that said, you're right that it can still be frustrating, of course, and sometimes the logic above is not perfect! I think a lot of the frustration comes from starting off exploring in a bad direction, which is just random bad luck.
I recommend using the "show more start resources" option when you play custom games. It's on by default in other modes. It seriously reduces frustration for me, and gives me some good options for starting directions. Beyond that, I find that using science to find what you're missing as early as you can also helps a lot!
[EDIT: Woops, I forgot I had already released the improvements I mentioned, so I rewrote the above a bit.]
Some bug with extractors next to cities it seems? The extractor on the bottom left is only getting one hammer. I believe the extractor was built before the game was closed, and this screenshot is the game was reloaded. Don't remember for sure.
Love that you're continuing to make improvements! Seeing the stats/records is cool.
A fair, yet random resource gen is a tough task, so I hate to criticize. But there are spawns which seem unintended.
1. It's possible for a resource to be positioned so it's impossible to build a city adjacent. 2. With certain gold mountain spawns, it's even possible that a gold can't be reached at all. 3. There have been also cases in a 4 player Emperor game where there only 3 of a specific resource (eg, 3 hammer on the whole map). (I could see how that is intended to increase tension)
Still enjoying it, and getting a game in most days!
Thanks very much for the feedback and for playing the game! This helps!
True! That's in my list, but low priority. I could prioritize it if everyone hates it. It seems rare.
That should be fixed in the latest build. Please let me know if you see that again.
That's intentional, but if you hate it I'd like to know. My reason was almost entirely "more variety from session to session". Basically, the map generation sometimes decides to make something like a gold-sparse map, just for fun.
I play the game regularly myself and enjoy more uniqueness in scenarios, which is part of why I drag my feet on trying to do a more even spread of resources. I may reverse my position on that at some point? Or add it as an option in custom games?
1. It's not bad at all, just didn't know if it was intended.
2. Haven't seen it again.
3. I don't hate it, but can imagine other people might. It is quite interesting to have rich and poor spawns, plus tension of not knowing whether there will be a runaway AI or not.
Someone who's expecting to be able to win every game via skill could be frustrated. But the games are short enough so it's easy to get back in. If someone has the expectation of something like Slay the Spire (you can have bad luck and it's not expected to be able to win every game), it works.
That having been said, it would be nice to have win percentage in the stats, or at least total games played. (I use pets rescued as a proxy for total games played)
It feels like I never have enough. I think there needs to be an option to start with enough resources to start your first town (like civ). I think the resource spawning needs to be normalized so there's always what you need within x tiles. It is a really really cool idea but how it plays out is always arbitrary. Oh, and it shouldn't be possible to hang out near someone else's town and steal their stuff without spending a sword.
You are guaranteed a start within X tiles of every necessary resource (and within 2 spaces of science, so you can Detect the other things you need), but unfortunately you don't initially know where things are, so you might explore in a bad direction initially. I've added a feature (in the version I'm uploading today) in Custom games where more resources are revealed at the start. I might make this the default in all game modes, because I like it. It doesn't reveal all the resources you need, because that made the start boring, so some exploring (use the Detect button!) is still needed.
And, if you don't feel good about a particular start, I've tried to make it low-friction to just start a new game.
I feel like the AI is cheating somehow... I can be with in a couple turns of victory when someone in 4th swoops in at the last minute...
I'm far from a strategy master, but to lose when you're at a clear advantage doesn't leave you feeling "Oh, that was my mistake. I'll avoid doing that again." Instead, feeling more like "I was one gold away from finishing my bank!" Or "I had the dragon down to 2 HP and I had 5 war, they only started building a rocket!"
I'm enjoying the game anyway, but I feel like the AI knows something I don't? Or it could just be not feeling like I made a mistake is making me miss that I did.
Which AI difficulty are you playing? On the higher difficulty levels (anything above Prince), the AI definitely cheats - the main way it cheats is it has lower costs for building things. It doesn't do any kind of sudden extra boost late in the game - I would hate that.
The AI is very complicated, and I've put a lot of work into making it competitive through logic, but like many games the higher levels have to have an advantage to be competitive against humans. I'd love to have non-cheating competitive AI, but it'd have to be human-level smart, and it's just not.
I've also tried to reduce the feeling of sudden loss, with things like showing AI progress on certain buildings, but sometimes the AI's win is still surprising. On advanced levels where they've built up a ton of income, they can pretty quickly progress through the stages of advanced buildings.
I feel like I'm still fumbling the early game - getting access to resources to build your first town, and then using that town to secure further building resources to build the next town, and collector(s) - it just feels like a crapshoot whether you get to the essential resources first or the computer does. You know? Like if you're not doing good in the first 20 moves then you should almost start over because you have no chance of winning 😟 I'm not sure what to suggest to balance that out though - maybe decrease the price of building relative to how far behind you are in the leaderboard or something?
It's not that I mind getting off to a bad start, but it seems like your luck really snowballs in this game, so that there's just no way to catch up, one essential resources are locked down by other players.
Yeah, it's unfortunately more of a crapshoot than I would like. The map generator tries very hard to put you in a fair (in fact the best) starting location, away from AI. But the very unpredictable nature of the map generation might still mean you have a good starting experience on one map and a bad one on the next, especially because you have to choose to start exploring in some direction without knowing yet which direction is best. There might be a beautiful valley of resources right behind you.
I agree about the snowballing, of course. The start is crucial. I feel the same way about every 4X game I've played, so at least I think we're still in good company.
I'm committed to the random nature of the starts (as opposed to, say, scripted or mirrored maps), but I agree it's sometimes frustrating. If I haven't built my first town in 50 moves, I often start a new game. The game carefully avoids any real penalty for starting anew. Start over all you want. It's another upside, I hope, to a game that takes only minutes to play.
Strategies:
When exploring, step on hills when you can! You see farther from hills, which helps find crucial resoures.
Make sure you get 2 science quickly, while continuing to explore, and use those immediately to Detect any key resource you're missing. Just remember you still need another science at some point to unlock Town building.
The map generator always starts you somewhere near a science resource, so if you don't find it right away, consider doubling back (through unexplored territory)
This is subtle, but: If you're ever waiting next to a resource, killing time, use that time to do the Discover Town Building action, rather than wait until you're about to build the first town. All actions take turns, so if you're going to spend a turn waiting for something, spend it researching/detecting/trading instead.
Food is (usually) far more common than other resources, so I try to avoid spending a Detect on that. I figure I'll find some eventually. I'm only sometimes wrong. :)
Standing on a resource will mean you get it rather than an AI standing next to it. (note: doesn't override buildings, just other AI heroes). And in fact the AI will often give up and leave if you're standing on the resource they want.
There's a lot more that can help, but I think these are some good basics. Feel free to sugest your own strategies here! I find the start of the game challenging, and I'm always trying to optimize my starts.
thank you, those are some good tips! (exploring from hilltops I already figured out, as well as the "standing on a resource vs standing next to a resouce" collection precedence)
(And I get that these are issues that are kind of endemic to the genre, don't hold that against you.)
I've already been experimenting a bit with the idea that's #2 on your list. In my opinion, if too much is revealed initially, it kinda wrecks the start, makes it more of a chore and takes away some of the magic of finding resources you need. But revealing a few resources (not everything you need) is not so bad - it gives you some initial direction while still requiring you to explore and detect.
I'm thinking of putting that in the custom game options in a future build.
Hello, excellent game. I have one suggestion - when I have mouse cursor over left menu (basic or extensions), try to click an action (eg. Build Town, Collector, ...), but miss it and instead click an area next to the button, my player moves in that direction. It would be better if the piece wouldn't move (so the cursor focus will be on menu area, not "under" it on the map). I don't know if there could be a problem after this change thatsome area on the left will be unreachable - it depends how maps are generated (if there is always some water space on the left), or scrolling on the left edge can be extended a little bit, that the most left map field will be always reachable.
Hi! thanks for the suggestion. I'll have a look at it!
Edit: This is done. Anything over the "action panel" on the left doesn't click through to the map. And I needed to update the current itch.io build anyway, so there's a new version today with some other changes as well.
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Great Game!
Thank you!
This game is so good please keep on working on it!
Thank you!
I've been distracted lately. Need to get back to it
You're Welcome, really hope this game sees more attention
A 3 way tie!
Wow! I don't think I've seen that before. Did you get credit for the win? You should have.
Yes!
Mate, this is an outstanding game, well done. Magnificent work.
Thanks very much!
Awesome game, been playing it a ton. Would love to see like a "balanced start" setting where all players were guaranteed at least one instance of food industry gold and science within like 6 tiles of their spawn point. It can be kinda rough if you're missing one of those resources early on.
Hi! Thanks for the feedback!
The game does start you within a certain distance of key resources, but somewhat farther than your suggested 6 tiles. The maps are varied enough that some of them simply don't have a start like that! (I'd like to avoid softening up the map generation too much because the variety in maps, including the challenge of dealing with occasional difficult resources, is part of what keeps me having fun...)
You're guaranteed to start quite close to science. And the game even tries to give the human player the best spot it found. So you can at least be fairly confident the AI had to work hard or get lucky as well.
All that said, you're right that it can still be frustrating, of course, and sometimes the logic above is not perfect! I think a lot of the frustration comes from starting off exploring in a bad direction, which is just random bad luck.
I recommend using the "show more start resources" option when you play custom games. It's on by default in other modes. It seriously reduces frustration for me, and gives me some good options for starting directions. Beyond that, I find that using science to find what you're missing as early as you can also helps a lot!
[EDIT: Woops, I forgot I had already released the improvements I mentioned, so I rewrote the above a bit.]
Some bug with extractors next to cities it seems? The extractor on the bottom left is only getting one hammer. I believe the extractor was built before the game was closed, and this screenshot is the game was reloaded. Don't remember for sure.
You're right! This is a bug in restored games. I just uploaded a new version that should fix that (along with some other changes). Thanks!
Cool game! Keep coming back to it. It is quite a bit luck based, but it feels like it's possible to get better at it.
Thanks!
Love that you're continuing to make improvements! Seeing the stats/records is cool.
A fair, yet random resource gen is a tough task, so I hate to criticize. But there are spawns which seem unintended.
1. It's possible for a resource to be positioned so it's impossible to build a city adjacent.
2. With certain gold mountain spawns, it's even possible that a gold can't be reached at all.
3. There have been also cases in a 4 player Emperor game where there only 3 of a specific resource (eg, 3 hammer on the whole map). (I could see how that is intended to increase tension)
Still enjoying it, and getting a game in most days!
Thanks very much for the feedback and for playing the game! This helps!
I play the game regularly myself and enjoy more uniqueness in scenarios, which is part of why I drag my feet on trying to do a more even spread of resources. I may reverse my position on that at some point? Or add it as an option in custom games?
1. It's not bad at all, just didn't know if it was intended.
2. Haven't seen it again.
3. I don't hate it, but can imagine other people might. It is quite interesting to have rich and poor spawns, plus tension of not knowing whether there will be a runaway AI or not.
Someone who's expecting to be able to win every game via skill could be frustrated. But the games are short enough so it's easy to get back in. If someone has the expectation of something like Slay the Spire (you can have bad luck and it's not expected to be able to win every game), it works.
That having been said, it would be nice to have win percentage in the stats, or at least total games played. (I use pets rescued as a proxy for total games played)
It feels like I never have enough. I think there needs to be an option to start with enough resources to start your first town (like civ). I think the resource spawning needs to be normalized so there's always what you need within x tiles. It is a really really cool idea but how it plays out is always arbitrary. Oh, and it shouldn't be possible to hang out near someone else's town and steal their stuff without spending a sword.
You are guaranteed a start within X tiles of every necessary resource (and within 2 spaces of science, so you can Detect the other things you need), but unfortunately you don't initially know where things are, so you might explore in a bad direction initially. I've added a feature (in the version I'm uploading today) in Custom games where more resources are revealed at the start. I might make this the default in all game modes, because I like it. It doesn't reveal all the resources you need, because that made the start boring, so some exploring (use the Detect button!) is still needed.
And, if you don't feel good about a particular start, I've tried to make it low-friction to just start a new game.
I feel like the AI is cheating somehow... I can be with in a couple turns of victory when someone in 4th swoops in at the last minute...
I'm far from a strategy master, but to lose when you're at a clear advantage doesn't leave you feeling "Oh, that was my mistake. I'll avoid doing that again." Instead, feeling more like "I was one gold away from finishing my bank!" Or "I had the dragon down to 2 HP and I had 5 war, they only started building a rocket!"
I'm enjoying the game anyway, but I feel like the AI knows something I don't? Or it could just be not feeling like I made a mistake is making me miss that I did.
Which AI difficulty are you playing? On the higher difficulty levels (anything above Prince), the AI definitely cheats - the main way it cheats is it has lower costs for building things. It doesn't do any kind of sudden extra boost late in the game - I would hate that.
The AI is very complicated, and I've put a lot of work into making it competitive through logic, but like many games the higher levels have to have an advantage to be competitive against humans. I'd love to have non-cheating competitive AI, but it'd have to be human-level smart, and it's just not.
I've also tried to reduce the feeling of sudden loss, with things like showing AI progress on certain buildings, but sometimes the AI's win is still surprising. On advanced levels where they've built up a ton of income, they can pretty quickly progress through the stages of advanced buildings.
I feel like I'm still fumbling the early game - getting access to resources to build your first town, and then using that town to secure further building resources to build the next town, and collector(s) - it just feels like a crapshoot whether you get to the essential resources first or the computer does. You know? Like if you're not doing good in the first 20 moves then you should almost start over because you have no chance of winning 😟 I'm not sure what to suggest to balance that out though - maybe decrease the price of building relative to how far behind you are in the leaderboard or something?
It's not that I mind getting off to a bad start, but it seems like your luck really snowballs in this game, so that there's just no way to catch up, one essential resources are locked down by other players.
Any strategy to share?
Yeah, it's unfortunately more of a crapshoot than I would like. The map generator tries very hard to put you in a fair (in fact the best) starting location, away from AI. But the very unpredictable nature of the map generation might still mean you have a good starting experience on one map and a bad one on the next, especially because you have to choose to start exploring in some direction without knowing yet which direction is best. There might be a beautiful valley of resources right behind you.
I agree about the snowballing, of course. The start is crucial. I feel the same way about every 4X game I've played, so at least I think we're still in good company.
I'm committed to the random nature of the starts (as opposed to, say, scripted or mirrored maps), but I agree it's sometimes frustrating. If I haven't built my first town in 50 moves, I often start a new game. The game carefully avoids any real penalty for starting anew. Start over all you want. It's another upside, I hope, to a game that takes only minutes to play.
Strategies:
There's a lot more that can help, but I think these are some good basics. Feel free to sugest your own strategies here! I find the start of the game challenging, and I'm always trying to optimize my starts.
thank you, those are some good tips! (exploring from hilltops I already figured out, as well as the "standing on a resource vs standing next to a resouce" collection precedence)
(And I get that these are issues that are kind of endemic to the genre, don't hold that against you.)
You could mitigate bad starts by one of the following (maybe as option):
- Reveal more of the map around the start point.
- Reveal the closest n resources, but not the terrain around them
- Reveal random patches around the start point
All these should, of course, apply to the player and AI.
The game is great, I just thought I'd pitch in my two cents on the topic :)
Thanks!
I've already been experimenting a bit with the idea that's #2 on your list. In my opinion, if too much is revealed initially, it kinda wrecks the start, makes it more of a chore and takes away some of the magic of finding resources you need. But revealing a few resources (not everything you need) is not so bad - it gives you some initial direction while still requiring you to explore and detect.
I'm thinking of putting that in the custom game options in a future build.
Hello, excellent game.
I have one suggestion - when I have mouse cursor over left menu (basic or extensions), try to click an action (eg. Build Town, Collector, ...), but miss it and instead click an area next to the button, my player moves in that direction. It would be better if the piece wouldn't move (so the cursor focus will be on menu area, not "under" it on the map).
I don't know if there could be a problem after this change thatsome area on the left will be unreachable - it depends how maps are generated (if there is always some water space on the left), or scrolling on the left edge can be extended a little bit, that the most left map field will be always reachable.
Thank you.
Hi! thanks for the suggestion. I'll have a look at it!
Edit: This is done. Anything over the "action panel" on the left doesn't click through to the map. And I needed to update the current itch.io build anyway, so there's a new version today with some other changes as well.
Great, thanks.
I have one more suggestion - remember display zoom between games. (I always zoom out as the first step in the game).
That seems reasonable!