Dunno how about u, but overall I liked this game. A pleasant atmosphere of turning useless piece of dirt and water into a flourishing infrastructure, like in Alpha Centauri or Beyond Earth, is present. Also, all these quantium temporal manipulators look more interesting to me, than magic artifacts or whatever. Text descriptions of different objects and events are also good. So in terms of atmosphere and lore this game is pretty cool, and it is fun to play with all these units and their upgrades. Campaigh with choices, deciding who are ur friends or enemies, is also fun.
What is less fun, is that going to war with all these units is counter-productive. Stubborn AI just builds a blob of 5-6 stacks and sits in a city with them, like asking u "So, what are u supposed to do with me, loser?" And what I am supposed do to, except to build my own 5-6 stacks and go try to pick it out of there? But an epic battle of 3x3 stacks is a disaster. Especially in endgame, where units not just do pew pew at each other, but use thousands of buffs, debuffs, cc, heals and whatever. When there are ~50 units on field, it is hell to track, who used what on what, and who is going to use what on what.
Auto-resolve is not a brilliant solution, since comp can easily flush a half of ur very expensive upgraded units, where u would never flush em manually. So if u like to go to war, u have two bad choices.
Or three, because u have other option - from very beginning go rush with a crowd of low tech cheap guys, before comp can build up. But it is also not fun.
But, if u screwed up and lost ur army, comp will not hesitate to take his blob out of city and go burn ur cities to ground. So most of the times, fate of a whole game is decided in a single big fight.
On the other hand, playing on quests is very ez. U just run around map, kill easy stacks of quest mobs, and make alliances, and scripts will do main job. Also, u can buy fat and cheap units from ur allies, long before u can build up for them in common way. Though, in a war ur allies are as useful as an enemy - they sit in a city with blob untill enemy is almost destroyed, and then they will gladly help u to split his property. Just like Americans in WW2, lol.
Well, maybe it is logical, and maybe I would do the same, but AI mus entertain player, not just be pain in the arse. Where are stacks of single-shot cannon fodder, which I would squash with my mighty tank armadas, while drinking a beer? None of em. Waiting for a patch.
Wanna some patch suggestions? I have.
- Add minimap to combat mode, it is easy to forget who is where in this blob vs blob massacre
- Make more informative descriptions of buffs and debuffs, instead of just writing that unit is "corrupted". What does it mean? Damage reduced? Health drained? U'll never know until read description of unit skill. Do this for all 50 units in battle? Meh...
- Maybe, focus on more frequent small scale battles, instead of staying in place and blobbing? At least, when player himself prefer such style. When comp gathers 5 stacks in one place to stop my 1 it is a little overkill...
- Maybe, add a command for ally to follow you, or to make a breach from other side, while you keep enemy's blob busy?
- Maybe, make all these paragons and like them to raise some tech level before they can provide u with high tier units? It is very easy to use them to build fat army in comparsion to building up ur own colony and research techs.
- Add an option to disable quests from certain faction if I do not plan any diplomacy with it. Also disable these annoying hire a hero notifications every turn, if i do not need another hungry mouth.
As an option, let me demand quests and heroes when I need em, instead of feeding me with thousands of notifications and useless quests, hanging in a list
- Add an option to set up game speed in campaigh like in scenario. I hate it when ur army become obsolette, while it goes to a fight place.
What is less fun, is that going to war with all these units is counter-productive. Stubborn AI just builds a blob of 5-6 stacks and sits in a city with them, like asking u "So, what are u supposed to do with me, loser?" And what I am supposed do to, except to build my own 5-6 stacks and go try to pick it out of there? But an epic battle of 3x3 stacks is a disaster. Especially in endgame, where units not just do pew pew at each other, but use thousands of buffs, debuffs, cc, heals and whatever. When there are ~50 units on field, it is hell to track, who used what on what, and who is going to use what on what.
Auto-resolve is not a brilliant solution, since comp can easily flush a half of ur very expensive upgraded units, where u would never flush em manually. So if u like to go to war, u have two bad choices.
Or three, because u have other option - from very beginning go rush with a crowd of low tech cheap guys, before comp can build up. But it is also not fun.
But, if u screwed up and lost ur army, comp will not hesitate to take his blob out of city and go burn ur cities to ground. So most of the times, fate of a whole game is decided in a single big fight.
On the other hand, playing on quests is very ez. U just run around map, kill easy stacks of quest mobs, and make alliances, and scripts will do main job. Also, u can buy fat and cheap units from ur allies, long before u can build up for them in common way. Though, in a war ur allies are as useful as an enemy - they sit in a city with blob untill enemy is almost destroyed, and then they will gladly help u to split his property. Just like Americans in WW2, lol.
Well, maybe it is logical, and maybe I would do the same, but AI mus entertain player, not just be pain in the arse. Where are stacks of single-shot cannon fodder, which I would squash with my mighty tank armadas, while drinking a beer? None of em. Waiting for a patch.
Wanna some patch suggestions? I have.
- Add minimap to combat mode, it is easy to forget who is where in this blob vs blob massacre
- Make more informative descriptions of buffs and debuffs, instead of just writing that unit is "corrupted". What does it mean? Damage reduced? Health drained? U'll never know until read description of unit skill. Do this for all 50 units in battle? Meh...
- Maybe, focus on more frequent small scale battles, instead of staying in place and blobbing? At least, when player himself prefer such style. When comp gathers 5 stacks in one place to stop my 1 it is a little overkill...
- Maybe, add a command for ally to follow you, or to make a breach from other side, while you keep enemy's blob busy?
- Maybe, make all these paragons and like them to raise some tech level before they can provide u with high tier units? It is very easy to use them to build fat army in comparsion to building up ur own colony and research techs.
- Add an option to disable quests from certain faction if I do not plan any diplomacy with it. Also disable these annoying hire a hero notifications every turn, if i do not need another hungry mouth.
As an option, let me demand quests and heroes when I need em, instead of feeding me with thousands of notifications and useless quests, hanging in a list
- Add an option to set up game speed in campaigh like in scenario. I hate it when ur army become obsolette, while it goes to a fight place.
