Quirken's Impressions & Thoughts

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Quirken
Lance Corporal - Panzer IA
Lance Corporal - Panzer IA
Posts: 17
Joined: Wed Feb 27, 2013 7:27 am

Quirken's Impressions & Thoughts

Post by Quirken »

I'll keep this updated as I play, and try to be constructive.

  • Installation
    • Installer itself was fine, but avast complained about 8 times between when I ran the launcher and when I was fully in-game for the first time. Once I launched the game, it popped up saying that it was an unrecognized EXE and asked me if I wanted to run it in sandbox or abort. Then there were like 3 more dialogs of that sort for the updater and other game-related stuff.
    • I realize this is an avast problem, but there are things that could have been done to mitigate it. For one, the EXEs could have been sent to avast so that they could look at them and then not flag them. The update structure could also be tweaked so there were fewer different EXE files.
  • First 5 minutes
    • Game feels pretty familiar (from having played Civ V). Graphics are a little below my expectations, but not bad. Would be nice if I could zoom out without having so much 'fog'
    • In-game tutorial tooltips are pretty good, but miss a few things. For instance, they don't explain the resource types or what various icons mean. I figured these out on my own eventually, but there was a period of confusion where I tried to match up an icon I saw with something I could mouse-over for a name. There should be a tooltip for the icons with explanations.
    • There are a variety of things on the map, like an observatory and hot springs. It's unclear if these serve any function or are decorative
    • You can't rename custom units. This seems like it may be an issue down the road, if you have multiple similar units and need to distinguish them.
    • I told my city to make trading goods, which was supposed to take only one turn. It was still doing this several turns later; it wasn't clear if this was repeating or just never finished.
  • After a 250 turn game
    • Game is suuuuper sluggish. Almost unplayably so.
    • Game is fun, but a good portion of my time is spent tweaking the balance in cities to make sure my overall productions are all positive. This should be streamlined somehow, or give you the option to have governors to do it for you based on what you want
    • There's some weird interplay in the stats that isn't obvious; for instance, if you pick the option to convert production into making babies, you would think that putting your entire population into reproduction would be smart. But no, I found putting some people into research increases the overall birth rate. I imagine this is because it effects morale, but this is NOT shown on mouse-overs! And it is quite significant - a person or two allocated can make an enormous nonlinear difference. Sometimes taking one person away from research and adding it to production halves the birth rate! Even though you would think it would increase.
    • The tax section of the economic page doesn't stand out; it took me a while to notice it
    • Suggestions:
      • Diplomacy needs a lot of work. In addition to knowing why they are breaking contracts, etc, there should be a more direct way to affect diplomacy. Giving them gifts to improve disposition, bartering treaties (I'm thinking along the lines of "If you enter an alliance with me, I will declare war on ___")
      • Allied victory - it really bugs me that the moment I start doing really well, my allies start turning on me. This would make sense if they had cause to believe I was going to stab them in the back, but often times they do this at odd times. On that note, there should be a penalty for breaking an alliance - this would disincentivize backstabbing some, but might be necessary. I'm thinking that if you break an alliance, you can't attack that person for ___ turns. Or if you don't want to do that, just make some way to ensure that you and your AI allies will win together, so that we can wipe our enemies off the map without having to only have one victor
      • On a related note, locked team support. Start a game out with an ally, and keep them the whole game. Win if they win.
      • A little concerned that the game is too 'simple.' In that there aren't enough things you can tweak to make more complicated gameplay. Strategy is dictated by city placement, population assignment, research/buildings, and units/movement. That part works pretty well. But these strategy options are all mostly forward progression... there aren't more advanced options that are more along the lines of mutually exclusive paths. I'm thinking units like spies, more sophisticated economic policies (perhaps government types; thinking along hte lines of Civ V social policies)
      • more varied terrain. It seems like most of the map is covered in areas that give 1 of 1 resource, with only a couple that give more
      • quick-start mode. I feel like early game is a drag. This would auto-place your first city and give you more population to work with, as well as maybe some starting resource supplies.
Quirken
Lance Corporal - Panzer IA
Lance Corporal - Panzer IA
Posts: 17
Joined: Wed Feb 27, 2013 7:27 am

Re: Quirken's Impressions & Thoughts

Post by Quirken »

Updated with thoughts after playing a long game.

I'd like to play more, but until the AI performance improves, I think I'm taking a break. Waiting 5-10 seconds between clicks is annoying.
SephiRok
Proxy Studios
Proxy Studios
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Joined: Thu Jul 19, 2012 10:19 am
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Re: Quirken's Impressions & Thoughts

Post by SephiRok »

Do not panic, it shall be fixed soon.
Quirken wrote: [*]There's some weird interplay in the stats that isn't obvious; for instance, if you pick the option to convert production into making babies, you would think that putting your entire population into reproduction would be smart. But no, I found putting some people into research increases the overall birth rate. I imagine this is because it effects morale, but this is NOT shown on mouse-overs! And it is quite significant - a person or two allocated can make an enormous nonlinear difference. Sometimes taking one person away from research and adding it to production halves the birth rate! Even though you would think it would increase.
That sounds like a bug. A save game would help if you encounter it again.
Rok Breulj
Designer and Programmer
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Quirken
Lance Corporal - Panzer IA
Lance Corporal - Panzer IA
Posts: 17
Joined: Wed Feb 27, 2013 7:27 am

Re: Quirken's Impressions & Thoughts

Post by Quirken »

The save I posted in the other thread had that occurring in the city of Satry (in the middle of the map).

I was using cloning to try and grow the population as quickly as possible. I'd say I had 15+ people in production, and putting a 16th actually hurt my number while moving someone from food/mining to research helped.

I can't modfiy the saves, but you might be able to force the condition by modifying the save file so that Satry has fewer people (it's full right now)
whaleberg
Senior Corporal - Destroyer
Senior Corporal - Destroyer
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Re: Quirken's Impressions & Thoughts

Post by whaleberg »

Is it pollution from the added production causing a moral penalty that reduced growth?
Quirken
Lance Corporal - Panzer IA
Lance Corporal - Panzer IA
Posts: 17
Joined: Wed Feb 27, 2013 7:27 am

Re: Quirken's Impressions & Thoughts

Post by Quirken »

whaleberg wrote:Is it pollution from the added production causing a moral penalty that reduced growth?
Unsure since I don't have a savegame with the same state, but it did seem to be tied into morale.
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