- 1. The villagers- I DO NOT like strong villagers. I think I am right in assuming that in the rare case that villagers took their guns silver mining with them, the muskets would be either too old, or the villagers too unskilled to actually stop any sort of raiding. I liked the way villagers in aok were awfully weak, so that a serious raid could do a lot of damage. Instead of powering up villagers, I would have made all buildings garrisonable. I mean, what's the point of building a house, if the villagers can't get inside? This would also sort of offset the no dropoffs, cause it would force you to build a garrison of some kind near the more distant gathering spots. The one other thing that bothers me about villagers is that they somehow really decimate war dogs (they get 2X the dogs 0.3X). This type of balance is annoying as there is absolutely NO reason for a dog to do less damage to a villager than to an armored soldier. If dog rushing in age I is the problem the way to address it would be to weaken dogs. Period. They could get more attack in age II.
2. The limits- I first wish to define two types of limits: A tech-related, arbitary limit and an in-game balance limit. The first type, to which you can attribute the pop-limit, ship limit, native limit, map size limit and so on, is quite easily explained by saying that if the limit was removed, the limited feature would eventually cause technical problems (consider for exapmle 10,000 units). This limit is set to an arbitary value and the game itself usually is based on those limits. Since there must be a limit anyway, you have to choose 3. The nuggets- There are 4 reasons I can think of to justify this feature: 4. Formations/Stances- Not the advanced ones, just the usual aok with perhaps a few more such as spearhead for breaking through enemy ranks to get their siege or single file/thin line to pass choke points smoothly. 5. The UI- It is too big for me. I like the minimized one better, but still not enough. I want the stats to show, and the HP bars, too. 6. Unit experience- Warriors become better after participating in a few battles. Villagers tasked on the same resource for a long time get better too, as do builders. 7. Unit sharing- Not sure if this is in or not, but I assume not. Anyway, I would have wanted this playtested to see how it works. In team games I'd have liked to be able to select a group of soldiers and click "Give to Ally" and they become his to control (can't exceed pop limit). 8. Target first- IMO a nice feature that although it reduces micro, it is realistic and gives you some ability to plan battles. However this is a MUST for playtesting, since I can only guess at how it would work in a real game. Selecting a group of units you could have this droplist of "attack a. Signifies the historical "go out and explore the countryside."
IMHO, the nuggets make the game a trifle childish. Treasure chests scattered every 10 paces just waiting for you to pick them up; pirates defending a pair of sheep with their lives; Outlaws who tie up villagers and wait for you to rescue them...It's a bit out of place the way I see it. There are enough neutrals anyway, with the new posts and natives, I don't think the nuggets were a good idea. If I had a say in the game design, I would ask to scatter a handful of native camps, about the size of a trading post, on the map. These camps could then do services for you in exchange for something, like "bring us 4 sheep and we will explore this part of the map for you." or "we are in need of food after the hard winter. For 100 food we will give you these nuggets, worth 300 coin." or "we will agree to build a section of wall for you wherever you choose if you allow your explorer to stay here for a minute, so we can learn more of your people." or "send us as many villagers as you want, and for 50 coin each we will teach them our hunting method, boosting their hunt rate by 10%"...well, you get the gist. For further micro, you could make these camps invisible, meaning they don't show up under fog of war or on the minimap. In small maps there should be only 4-5 of them, unlike the 20 or so nuggets. I suppose this fulfils a-d, plus makes it look a bit more serious. And you could get really creative about that stuff, too.
b. Adds another twist of randomality into the game, thus fighting predefined build orders.
c. Gives the player interesting stuff to do in the first few minutes.
d. Rewarding players for paying attention to their scout/their ability to micro it.
Ok, enough for now. The last thing I would have added is returning the wheelup/wheeldown hotkeys from aok, AFAIK they can't be used in this game.
It's your turn now. What would you have changed? ES? I know that as a designer I might have been tempted to say "the game is perfect the way it is. No regrets." But come on, there's no chance you all got everything you wanted, and honesty is always appreciated above all else. Plus I'm mighty curious to hear how the game developed, what ideas were considered etc.
Feel free to debate my post, or any other in this thread, but please don't resort to flaming. Even the 1 account per cdkey fellows. Let's keep this nice and civil, and keep the posts intelligent and well backed up, ok? Enjoy!
EDIT: Ummm...yeah, this is only a demo, of course. I hardly think anyone will have time for these threads when the real game comes out though, huh? When the hype over the game release is over, though, I might just come back and add another 10 pages. I hope not, and super-glad there's gonna be a post-ship support team this time [This message has been edited by Errand (edited 09-24-2005 @ 09:38 PM).]
If it's coming right at you, duck.