Slitherine

I got the Armageddon on iPad some time ago and thought I'd give some general feedback about the game. I haven't played the game too much yet and mainly on normal difficulty but I have put couple hundred hours into Panzer Corps so I'm mainly comparing Armageddon to that. I know most of these issues have already been discussed on the forums previously.

Overall I think Armageddon is a good game, not a genre defining benchmark game like panzer corps though, and some issues keep it from being a great game. I start with some of the things I especially like in Armageddon: The attack/defence/damage system works great overall and there are really a lot of valid options when you are choosing your vehicles (and other units) from the great selection of units thank's to the numerous different niches that the different weapons fill. I also like how different the campaign mission objectives are and that your objective isn't always just wiping out every enemy on the map.


Here are three of the biggest crippling issues and missing features that are really holding the game back and really take away from the enjoyment:

1- The enemy AI is just plain bad (at least on normal difficulty). The enemy doesn't do anything if it doesn't see some of your units at the start of it's turn and if it sees some of your units the chances are it will wipe out the seen units during the next turn. When AI is attacking it will mindlessly walk into the front but not attack, presumably because it considers the odds too bad. These behaviors make if feel like I'm exploiting the system all the time but at the same time the game is forcing me to do it because taking losses isn't acceptable (and that is the next big issue).

2- Experience system is draconian and you can't really take any losses or even damage unless you wan't to get more and more crippled as the campaign progresses. For comparison Panzer Corps handled taking and replacing losses wonderfully: Losing strength from units was sometimes unavoidable and replacing them with veterans was expensive (especially on the field) but at least you could save your experienced units. Thanks to the Armageddon's lack of veteran replacements a unit that has accumulated experience for last ten missions might lose almost everything in a one single enemy turn with a little unlucky rng. This forces the player into constant save scumming on the first play-through as there is no proper scouting units (more about this later). The irony is that the player forces are mainly Imperial Guard which should be a very expendable fighting force in the fluff and lore. Veteran replacements option should be added to the game or the amount of experience loss should be decreased.

3- Every unit takes the same amount of unit slots: I'd love to have an infantry heavy human wave army but when I'm given the option to take either one guardsman unit (not to even mention the militia/conscript units) or a one Leman Russ or Orgyn Veteran squad there is really just a one real option. Making the player choose between one titan or one militia unit is just absurd in wh40k setting. In Panzer Corps this wasn't that much of an issues since you could maintain a larger pool of core units than what you could deploy so you could go infantry, plane or tank heavy as the situation demanded. Armageddon should either allow for the similar larger core unit pool. Even better would be if different units were given different slot point values so that you could, for example, decide between deploying 10 units of Guardsmen or three Leman Russ with two squads of Orgyns.

As a result of these three issues the most valid strategy for playing the game is only having the heaviest and the best (=most expensive) units sniping the enemy from outside their view range, sometimes never provoking an enemy action during an entire mission. Everything else ranges from inconvenient to outright suicidal. If these issues were fixed the game would be vastly better.


And here are some smaller issues and pet-peeves that don't ruin the game but would be easy to fix and make the game more enjoyable in my opinion.

- Add scout movement (like in Panzer corps): scouting with just a single move is very dangerous and leads to unavoidable losses and save scumming. Giving units like Rattling snipers scout movement would actually make them a valid unit choice.

- Working jump packs: jump packs are currently not modeled or even taken into account in any way. Either make a new movement mode for jump pack units or at least give the assault marines more movement than tactical marines and/or initiative bonus.

- Add heroes and maybe "medals" to the game (as in Panzer Corps): Heroes are one of my favourite features in Panzer Corps, they really added some personality to the units and sometimes produced units that were very different from the original units (like an towed artillery unit with two movement +1 heroes). Heroes and decorations (Psykers, Comissars, Chaplains, artifact weapons, armor etc) would also fit wh40k setting perfectly.

- Make flying units more like the planes in Panzer Corps, the current Armageddon flyers are just lazy and boring design.


And here are some balancing suggestions for some units:

- Steel legion mortar is just universally worse than Steel legion fire support (heavy bolter). The only perk of the mortar is the ability to shoot over obstacles and I can't recall any situation during about 10 missions I have played where that would have been usefull. Give the mortar better max-range or remove the min-range or increase the attack strength to make it a valid option for heavy bolter.

- Give Steel legion flamers also lasguns or autoguns to make them a valid unit choice, now they are just completely pointless unit when compared to normal infantry or orgyns.

- It would be nice to get more IG walker options. I know the GW is almost impossible company to work with but since many vehicles are already using crews with Cadian pattern armor I don't see why you coudn't maybe add Catahan and Mars pattern versions of sentinel. Combined with scout movement the Walkers would make a very interesting unit class.

Also please fix the iOS version Product info page. It still claims that "extensive modding options are available through a powerful and easy-to-use game editor." : http://www.slitherine.com/games/warhammer_iOS The game manual also has errors and describes features that are not currently in the game (dangerous terrain etc).


Overall I really enjoy playing the Armageddon and I hope it will have a plenty of updates, new features and expansion like the Panzer Corps has had.

/signed with one little exception:

The mortar crew is very useful in my point of view and there are very few maps in the campaign were i switched them to heavy support. The point is, that they are one of the very view units that can attack the enemy without retaliation even when in range, due to the ability of shooting over obstacles - I abused that a lot in the highest difficulty setting .

But aside from that, and with a little above 500 Hours gameplay under my belt (says Steam), I come to your conclusions as well Sir, nicely done, although way faster than me ...