Darth_Teddy_Bear wrote:
In the demo game I played last night I was well on my way to winning, and still did in spit of loosing every unit (12+) in one turn after I was blind sided when a new unit from a just surviving opponent was able to instantly go to battle and perform a leap frog with its other unit that spit my kingdom. Being blind sided is not fun and less so when the consequences of such is so severe.
You can tooltip the enemy territory and it will tell you what money it has available, if any. Originally a debug feature, but we kept it because it was so handy. The AI has a habit of not spending everything, and older versions of the AI were even more prone to it, making it important information as regards what to attack and where.
Darth_Teddy_Bear wrote:
I would prefer new units originate anywhere in your territory but have to wait one turn to attack, this I feel would reward those who better forward think their strategies. I also would prefer that a upgraded unit i.e. making a Spearman into a Pikeman only be allowed to go anywhere in your territory and have to wait one turn to attack and again would reward those who better forward think their strategies. Additionally these measures would go a long way to removing being blind sided.
Danger here is that while sometimes we want to contain an aspect of the game, the smallest block available to work with - a turn - is pretty big in game terms. It's not the first time this has come up, either. These were some of the harder balances to work with.
Darth_Teddy_Bear wrote:
There are issues with the way your kingdom is split and where the money goes to and in last nights game when the game split my territory it put all my money all in the territory with no units, thus the next turn I loose 12+ units. In my view when a kingdom is split then the money should be split to ensure my units survive and if there is insufficient money I should get to choose which units I loose/keep.
As a side note I should be able to choose which town I want when my kingdom is joined and if my kingdom is split or my town attacked choose where I want to set it up at.
If a town survives a split, it keeps all the money. The new town for the breakaway kingdom will start with no money. If a town is attacked (causing a split or not) all money is lost in that town. Another reason to have that tooltip, sometimes the AI is too greedy to live!
In the case of a merger, the bigger territory keeps it's town. The money in the old town survives of course.
It would be nice to reposition any new town and decide which town dies in a merge, but that is rather a lot of micro and I wonder if a lot of people would be put off by it.
Darth_Teddy_Bear wrote:
If I cut off a invading force I think the affected unit should have 1 turn to rectify the situation rather than be instantly lost.
Dooming almost any counterattack to fail, since the next move will surely be to re-connect at any cost. It may not always be true for human raids, but it would be for most and for the AI.
Darth_Teddy_Bear wrote:
I would prefer new units originate anywhere in your territory but have to wait one turn to attack, this I feel would reward those who better forward think their strategies. I also would prefer that a upgraded unit i.e. making a Spearman into a Pikeman only be allowed to go anywhere in your territory and have to wait one turn to attack and again would reward those who better forward think their strategies. Additionally this would go a long way to negating a player being blind sided.
Problem is you can be countered within that turn, so there is no reward. Deploy L1 spear, find L1 ranged waiting. Upgrade to L2 spear, find upgrade to L2 ranged waiting. Ultimately the guy who can't afford to keep up the arms race will lose, which will be the smaller player. If you've earned that right it's great, but not every start is so rosy and you may need luck just to survive (already true as it is).
Darth_Teddy_Bear wrote:
Like units it would be good to be able to upgrade the tower to a castle as it would appear they are of little value and I saw no benefit in building any as they cannot be upgraded and are easily be lost as it only takes a comparatively cheap Level 2 unit to destroy them.
The building of new castles should be restricted to a % of the territory you have. This will require the player to be more thoughtful when using these units, which have no upkeep (another suggestion) and go some way to leaving a player who a not in a position to support a Level 3 unit some hope of being able to invade enemy territory.
Like in RTS games static defences are cheaper (and in this case have no upkeep). The tradeoff is of course, that you can't win on the defensive and you need units to go out and win the game (which is why in RTS only a few defences are typically used at key points, and most assets are units - you need as much of your economy to be in battle at any given time as possible).
Again like RTS though, there are cases where rather than pay for a unit that will be long-term defence - you can buy in a specialised defence that will do it for less. In the case of Conquest, the immediate use that comes to mind is to use it to hold a territory long enough to unify it with other territories for a potentially game-winning advantage. They have other uses too - a castle late in the game to prevent an easy counter-attack in a given area or to keep a nearly-dead opponent down. The town - as you will know by now - is invaluable for the defensive coverage it gives you early in the game for a potential maximum of 7 other tiles (including it's own) and you get it for free.
Turtling/defence spamming will lead to the same thing it does in those other games - you/they will be left huddling in the corner while others get in on the action, and win.
If I had to guess by the tone of your overall post, I would say you're very aggressive but rarely defend. Obviously there is no way to know though, without being present when you play. Certainly my experience is that some territories can attack almost unhindered while some simply have to survive until backup arrives, but the impression I'm getting here is that your game is almost all attack - sorry if I'm wrong, though. Mostly trying to address this blindsiding issue.
Darth_Teddy_Bear wrote:
I will continue to monitor the progress of this excellent title and hopefully either in its current release + updates or the next version I will be able to buy in. Do you notify members via e-mail of any sales?
Thanks Jekky and Cerbykins for your prompt and helpful replies.
We're only the developers, it's up to Slith as the publisher to control anything to do with sales and distribution, can't help on that one I'm afraid.
But a pleasure to be able to help!
... I would prefer new units originate anywhere in your territory but have to wait one turn to attack, this I feel would reward those who better forward think their strategies. I also would prefer that a upgraded unit i.e. making a Spearman into a Pikeman only be allowed to go anywhere in your territory and have to wait one turn to attack and again would reward those who better forward think their strategies. Additionally this would go a long way to negating a player being blind sided.