Slitherine

Thank you for access to the beta, I've been playing it the past 3 days and it's been a blast.I think that if it continues to improve then it has a very bright future in front of it.

When I say that I love the design of something, I mean that I love the concept behind how it is designed, even if I think that certain elements of it could use tweaking.

Things I love:

-The Design of the Economy
I absolutely love the centralized resource stockpiles and the worker allocations. It makes economic planning very engaging and much more dynamic then the economic systems of Civ and AC. I find myself constantly refitting the terrain and output of my cities in order to adapt to my Civ's changing needs. Being able to build up a solid reserve of minerals during an economic boom so that I can ramp up production when it's needed is AWESOME. The process of specializing my cities as my empire expands keeps economic management very fresh.

-The Design of the Tech Tree
I love that the techs are small and focused and that I can only see the next few technologies; it makes planning my research far less burdensome and overwhelming then in Civ. I also love the randomization: not only does it prevent build orders but it forces me to play slightly differently every game.

-The Turn Times
These turn times are magic! After playing Rome 2 and Civ 5 it boggles my mind how fast they are.

-The Design of the workshop
The amount of customization is perfect. It offers meaningful choices without being overwhelming, and allows for a very diverse range of specialized units.

-Most of the UI
The UI has some kinks that I'll outline below, but for the most part it is very intuitive and nice to look at. In certain respects I think it's an improvement on Civ 5.

-Most of the Graphics
The graphics also have a few kinks that I've outlined, but overall I think it's a great looking game with a distinct visual style.

-The art style
The ruins, aliens, concept art and landscape all look good and stimulate the imagination.

Things that could use improvement:

-Late game Fungi spam is uninteresting and unbalanced.
This is definitely my biggest problem with the game in it's current state. As soon as I reach the last fungi tech the terrain management turns into a tedious brainless chore of pumping out formers and replacing everything with Fungi. Not only is it insanely powerful with virtually no drawbacks (As long as you don't Fungi your roads), but it's negative pollution yield kills the interesting balancing act between production and pollution. Why would I ever need advanced pollution control buildings once I have the fungi replacement?

Note: I have a simple but radical solution below that I think would make Fungi harvesting a MUCH more interesting component of the game. Please consider it!

-Mountains are a strategic liability!
Because Fungi can't be planted on mountains as a means of defense, and because mountains only impede movement rather than block it: mountains are counter-intuitively a huge strategic liability. I vastly prefer being able to use mountain ranges as a defensive barrier that can funnel troops through desired chokepoints.

-Aliens disappear mid-game!
Aliens seem to peak in strength very early game, and then decline rapidly as territory is colonized by humans. They disappear completely by midgame. An easy fix would be to really buff large Hive defenses but make them passive to nearby players, but I wouldn't say that's an optimal fix. I think a good fix would be to select certain hives to be 'legendary' when the world generates. These hives wouldn't look different, but would have buffed spawn rates and much more sizable passive defenses.

-The graphic for the farm could use work
As I've said, I think the game is generally gorgeous, but the graphic for what is arguably the most utilized terrain feature (The farm) is just not up to par with the rest of it and detracts visually from the game.

-Minor issues with the Writing
I've noticed lots of spelling mistakes and words that seem lost in translation. I'll create another thread later that compiles my issues with the writing to make it easier for you fix.

-The Mini map needs an overhaul.
In it's current state, the minimap isn't either useful or pretty, and it frequently displays my faction on the corner, which is confusing and unintuitive. Centering the minimap on the player's capital would alleviate many issues, but making it show the borders of the world would rock.

-The Interface has a few niggles
-The Diplomacy screen and the dialogue screen spawn by default on the same space over the screen. It would be more intuitive for players if the diplomacy screen spawned to the left and the dialouge screen spawned the right to allow the player to assess faction information.
-It would be better if the dialogue screen would be longer so that the user doesn't have to scroll as much to see options. You could use the space below the portrait to show the faction's mil/econ/tech info.
-Being able to see how many turns it would take for a unit to travel to the location I've moused over would be great, but I'm sure you already know that.


What I suggest:

-Make Fungi GIVE +1 pollution rather than take -1 pollution.
This is the suggestion I really want to push. As I said before, late game Fungi harvesting is tedious, brainless and makes pollution irrelevant.

So let's imagine for a second that Fungi's purpose in this alien ecosystem is to take in the oxygen that trees create and recycle it back into the CO2 and Methane that the trees breath in. The corrosive process that causes this chemical cycle is what makes it such a dangerous environment for humans and is what makes it so unhealthy for nearby cities. We now have a lore justification for what I think would be a more interesting game mechanic. Instead of the player being able to mindlessly replace vast swathes of land with fungi, he would have to carefully consider the pollution levels of nearby cities and work towards growing strategically placed forests and implementing advanced anti-pollution tech into cities specialized into resource harvesting. It provides an incentive for player's to strive towards greater anti-pollution technology, because in the base game there are rarely situations where the player has to use Transcendence era anti-pollution buildings. It would serve to keep the economy fresh, interesting and dynamic even in the late game, as civilization race to implement the infrastructure to reap the rewards of fungi harvesting.

This would also cement fungi as dangerous toxic terrain within the player's mind, and force him to consider new strategic elements when placing cities in the early game. I understand it might be difficult to bring the AI to speed, but I really think it would make for a more interesting second half to the game.

-Make Fungi more deadly, but make formers invulnerable to it after researching Fungi removal tech
Personally, I think Fungi as it is is too weak to be used as a defensive barrier from other factions. I would make it far more deadly to military units, but I would make Formers immune to it to prevent frustration when planting/removing fungi.

-Create an option to increase research times
Personally I find Research times are way too short. In my last game I researched each End game tech in a turn each.

-Find a method of making the diplomatic AI more willing to scheme.
As it is, the AI never catches me off guard. Having an AI that becomes more willing to declare war in unison with other AIs as I approach victory would be a good start.


I'll provide more feedback as I keep playing. One element that I would LOVE to test is the multiplayer. The problem is that none of my friends have the beta and nobody is online. If my friends could get beta invites then we would ALL provide detailed feedback on the experience. Cheers.

(Their emails are:)
Email: Theblacklight0@gmail Username: UltimateEnd
Email: Cgraham.15@hotmail Username: Emperor_Blarg
Email: outa_control10@hotmail Username: Triptamine

Flavorable wrote:Thank you for access to the beta, I've been playing it the past 3 days and it's been a blast.I think that if it continues to improve then it has a very bright future in front of it.

Things that could use improvement:

-Late game Fungi spam is uninteresting and unbalanced.
This is definitely my biggest problem with the game in it's current state. As soon as I reach the last fungi tech the terrain management turns into a tedious brainless chore of pumping out formers and replacing everything with Fungi. Not only is it insanely powerful with virtually no drawbacks (As long as you don't Fungi your roads), but it's negative pollution yield kills the interesting balancing act between production and pollution. Why would I ever need advanced pollution control buildings once I have the fungi replacement?

Right, have the same opinion

-Aliens disappear mid-game!
Aliens seem to peak in strength very early game, and then decline rapidly as territory is colonized by humans.

I think the best solution would be, alien spawning depends on player pollution... I have managed it so in my mod, and the mechanic works well...

-The AI has some issues with war
I have limited experience with war, but from what I've seen the AI seems to have troubles with sending their armys in stacks.

I have a different feeling, in my last 3 Games (v 0.23.0 - v0.24.0) the ai make a lot of trubble...send their troops over the ocean.
And i liked that this stacks was no gun fooder... The Ai use the the Unitmoduls nice!

-The graphic for the farm could use work
As I've said, I think the game is generally gorgeous, but the graphic for what is arguably the most utilized terrain feature (The farm) is just not up to par with the rest of it and detracts visually from the game.

He is absolutly right, the farm grafic looks....

-Make Fungi GIVE +1 pollution rather than take -1 pollution.
This is the suggestion I really want to push. As I said before, late game Fungi harvesting is tedious, brainless and makes pollution irrelevant.

Thats nonsense because native flora cant appear negativ for the planet...because it is native...
But on a nother point of view, fugui is toxical for humans...
Pollition or not depends on point of view...Player...or Planet...

-Create an option to increase research times
Personally I find Research times are way too short. In my last game I researched each End game tech in a turn each.

I say it all the time research time is to short!!!!

I stand corrected about the combat AI! In my last game it was exceptionally good. I had the AI send massive stacks at my frontlines that forced me to take my defenses from my capital. They then flanked around using the ocean to RIGHT behind my capital. I was extremely impressed, especially after playing the disaster of Civ 5's combat AI.

Thats nonsense because native flora cant appear negativ for the planet...because it is native...
But on a nother point of view, fugui is toxical for humans...
Pollition or not depends on point of view...Player...or Planet...

As I said, the fungi acts as an essential part of the ecosystem by recycling the oxygen created by trees back into concentrated Carbon Monoxide and Carbon Dioxide, both of which can be considered pollutants, and one of which is incredibly toxic.

But let's forget about how it fits into the lore and talk about it's role as a game mechanic for a second. At the moment, fungi spam is mindless in that it is ALWAYS the best option. If Fungi pollution were to become a concern, it would add a very dynamic and interesting layer of depth to the late-game economic management. Players would struggle to reduce pollution so that they can reap the benefits of fungi resources. powerful cities would develop advanced pollution controls while outposts would have to rely on a mixture of fungi and forest. Pollution would become a vital strategic element of late-game rather then the forgotten afterthought that it currently becomes in the final stages of the game.

-Make Fungi GIVE +1 pollution rather than take -1 pollution.
This is the suggestion I really want to push. As I said before, late game Fungi harvesting is tedious, brainless and makes pollution irrelevant.



Thats nonsense because native flora cant appear negativ for the planet...because it is native...
But on a nother point of view, fugui is toxical for humans...
Pollition or not depends on point of view...Player...or Planet...

When the fungi give +1 pollution, the whole planet allready would have a toxic atmosphere and wouldn't be habitable for humans anyway.

We emit a pollutant when we breathe. Cows emit heavy pollutants when they shit and fart. (Methane makes up the majority of global warming)

It isn't a stretch to think of the fungi as a Carbon Dioxide producing element of the planet's ecosystem.

Heya Flavorable,

Thanks a bunch for the very encouraging feedback!

From a gameplay point of view giving fungus positive instead of negative pollution sounds like an amazing idea, and can also be justified from a lore point of view: pollution in the game primarily indicates toxic/polluted to humans (just like food provides nutrition to humans), but does not necessarily (!) specify the degree of toxicity to the flora and fauna. This suggestion is very likely gonna make it in soon.

Our publisher is sending out invites to these accounts. Though we did a bunch of inhouse multiplayer testing over the last weeks, we can definitely use some more help from beta testers in this regard. So if anyone else wants to get testers in for multiplayer, just shoot away.

Really awesome feedback, thank you!

Regarding mountains and fungus as defensive measures, have you considered their movement cost, sight cost and sight bonus? We have used both of these to great degrees in our multiplayer matches. Building forts on mountains was particularly popular with one player, it gives you pretty crazy sight and doesn't let the opponent see into it that easily. Fungus on the other hand is a quite hefty slowdown, taking 3 movement almost guarantees your opponent to take damage and coupled with the reduced vision is quite annoying to move through.

As far as the default research times are concerned, we have played a ton of games, and never felt like research times were too fast for us. It only became absurd when one is absurdly ahead, but that is not a good situation to base your balance on. Instead we will rather add options to tweak the pacing of the game so you can adjust it however you like to play.

Cheers,
Rok

It's awesome how responsive you guys are to beta testers.

void wrote:Heya Flavorable,

Thanks a bunch for the very encouraging feedback!

From a gameplay point of view giving fungus positive instead of negative pollution sounds like an amazing idea, and can also be justified from a lore point of view: pollution in the game primarily indicates toxic/polluted to humans (just like food provides nutrition to humans), but does not necessarily (!) specify the degree of toxicity to the flora and fauna. This suggestion is very likely gonna make it in soon.

Our publisher is sending out invites to these accounts. Though we did a bunch of inhouse multiplayer testing over the last weeks, we can definitely use some more help from beta testers in this regard. So if anyone else wants to get testers in for multiplayer, just shoot away.

Wow, awesome! I look forward to seeing how it changes late game. Can't wait to try out multiplayer.

SephiRok wrote:Really awesome feedback, thank you!

Regarding mountains and fungus as defensive measures, have you considered their movement cost, sight cost and sight bonus? We have used both of these to great degrees in our multiplayer matches. Building forts on mountains was particularly popular with one player, it gives you pretty crazy sight and doesn't let the opponent see into it that easily. Fungus on the other hand is a quite hefty slowdown, taking 3 movement almost guarantees your opponent to take damage and coupled with the reduced vision is quite annoying to move through.

As far as the default research times are concerned, we have played a ton of games, and never felt like research times were too fast for us. It only became absurd when one is absurdly ahead, but that is not a good situation to base your balance on. Instead we will rather add options to tweak the pacing of the game so you can adjust it however you like to play.

Cheers,
Rok

I didn't realize that Forts give a sight bonus, I was so used to thinking of Forts as completely useless from my days playing Civ. That definitely makes them much more useful strategically. I find that research times are a great length until I reach the end of transcendence era, and then it doesn't keep up with the exponential rise in my research output. This experience is from a very limited number of games though, so I'll keep testing.

SephiRok wrote:Really awesome feedback, thank you!
As far as the default research times are concerned, we have played a ton of games, and never felt like research times were too fast for us. It only became absurd when one is absurdly ahead, but that is not a good situation to base your balance on. Instead we will rather add options to tweak the pacing of the game so you can adjust it however you like to play.

Thats maybe ok for multiplayer matches. I think multiplayer matches don't stay that long alive that a player will reach the golden Era.
But as Singleplayer, special when you are a defensive player and spend most of your workers into science then produktion you will research new techs in 1-3 turns. That happen at last at most of my games too.

I think there are good arguments for having faster tech rates in MP compared to single player. In general you want MP games to move faster. Civ used to have a mode where you could get more output per turn in MP games to make everything including tech and city growth go faster.

We could definitely use more data on this. What exactly is the cause of research dropping to 1-3 turns from the usual 4-8. There are a lot of parameters involved. You also have to keep in mind that one can research technologies either wide or deep and both should be a viable strategy.

Detailed feedback and saved games especially are the most helpful, so we can analyze the situations. We will also do some more tests and try to figure out exactly how the situation arises.

Alright, from my observations and what most people report is the first and second era are fine, but in Transcendence it seems too fast. We'll experiment with a new formula that keeps it close to around the first half of the game, but slower towards the second. It's a very delicate matter, because if research goes too slow one can't reach buildings that counter pollution and give habitat/morale in time.

Independent of that we'll add an option that allows to modify the overall game pace by scaling growth, production and research cost (between half to twice as fast).

One choice game I had started me near a Observatory... as Togra... so needless to say I had extremely low research times and was able to easily outpace the AI, research times were often 1 turn on most of the bypassed techs, never over 4 turns to research anything.

Compare that to my most recent attempt as Terra Salvum which placed me on a continent with NO observatories and my early tech advances were 6-8 turns each, and even now that we are nearing the Transcendence level, I am still 4 turns OR MORE for each tech unless it is something I skipped way back in the tech tree. At this time in the game I hold 2 observatories and have 3 cities dedicated to research to attempt to catch up, but it's generally hopeless.

I like the idea of adjustable research rates at the beginning of the game and would even suggest a LIMIT on multiplayer games. Maybe only allow the Mech era techs for multiplayer.

I agree on the Fungus spam and also feel sorry that native alien lifeforms disappear after the early game. Maybe they should re-emerge with a random turn timer after the first player enters a new technological era, strong enough to keep up with the tech and forces in it? Mutated Devourer maybe?

I also think Mountains should be impassable for vehicles unless there is a road.

Arn't former a vehicle too how should they build a road there ?

Humans have built LOTS of roads in places you could not take a vehicle initially. Pike's Peak is just one and it's a regular racing event.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pikes_Peak