Positives
The graphics are stunning.
The music is wonderful.
The basics appear to be there to make the game eventually phenomenal.
The commitment to excellence is clear.
The communication with the beta teams is refreshing.
The Red Dragon was freaking amazing. Make him roar/spit flame and I'll check my pants.
Suggestions (may be repeats with other posts/inaccuracies, sorry, I did my best):
1 Text in general: in some some places fonts are Times Roman(?), others like Quest explanations are larger/different. I’d prefer a consistent font, and at minimum 12 for those of us with vision struggles.
2 Mana/essence grows: If you don’t use your mana it should continue to build past the current artificially created barriers. This is one reason to leave your Sovereign in a city for a time. Perhaps if you spend essence your mana pool is greatly reduced each time by a like percent, making the essence even more valuable.
3 Killing a sovereign: Currently, they reappear too fast. I’d like to see a configurable cost to losing your Sovereign. Lose mana, lose turns, lose morale in all cities, some bigger price to pay for getting him kilt.
4 Sovereigns can help their Champions when battling in their domain: Maybe the connection the Sovereign has to the earth is that their essence has helped revitalize the earth, so now they know about combat / activities going on in their domain…So they are able to cast magic in combat which takes place in their domain and assist the Champion(s) so long as they’re in-domain. This would make going into a underdefended city more dangerous if the Sovereign is in his domain. Option: make them be in their home city to gain this special knowledge/connection with the land.
5 Siege-breaker: make it a special {ability, spell, unit, tech} and required to break the main doors of a city with good walls so you can make them fight you. This could be a combination of any/all of the following: tech level under Magic to learn a spell, or a high level War tech, or special units (sappers), some advanced units like Elementals, high level spell. I think it should be required to break down a well made wall to engage the defenders, and all the while they should get to target you while you can only target them if you can see into their city.
6 Unit special skills variety: drain life, teleport, fire breath, stoning, flying units, swimming units, invisible units, etc. this type of magical enhancement really makes the game more fun and magical! I’m still hoping for them. The units currently mostly advance based on mundane technical abilities/research more than any magical enhancement. Adding a +1 ring to a Peon is not fun; giving them firebreath for +1 is fun! I get bored with the current buff options pretty easy. So either with spells or in the Tech Tree maybe make “training” buildings which make units with Imbued Drain Life, Imbue Tactical Teleport (i.e., training the mundane units in specific magic skills.) This adds variety to the game. This wouldn’t be different creatures in your army but more interesting variety than just a bigger/better sword!
7 Units imbued with Flying: I know, I know, flying units are out but doggone it makes for FUN! Makes city walls less effective and scouting more fun. And I was really hoping to see the landscape under the big Red Dragon as he flew around.
8 Quests: where there are more than two options (Yes/No). If you refuse you must fight or if you accept you must expend mana/essence and you get to choose. Ideas: sacrifice, wait three turns in meditation, take over a hut/resource/city/, bring me a shrubbery.
9 Champion buffs: Leadership; Healing; Movement of entire group; Movement through terrain bonuses; affinity with certain monsters allowing percent likelihood to recruit;
10 Movement buffs: Improve the casting to show who is affected. Currently can’t tell if the movement buffs only affect the Champion, or all units in the square when you cast, etc. Can units be buffed with Movement improvements, or only the Caster? Can I cast it on a Transport?
11 Siege engines/catapults: are these available? Never played a game far enough to find if they are possible.
12 Tactical combat: creatures like dragons should do more than just attack: breathe, roar, etc. Spiders should be able to web, wolves should be able to roar to try to reduce morale, Undead should have default scare attacks. etc.
13 Tactical combat: ability to switch squares with adjacent ally.
14 Children/aging: I’ve never understood how a child could grow to become a Champion—the timescale is way off. Going to need to explain somehow that the Sovereigns can speed-grow them if you expect children to grow up into Champions during a game campaign and have it be logical. I’d like to be able to name my own Champions, and Children seem the only way to do it as recruited Champions are already named. Perhaps the ability to rename Champions? “I dub thee Sir Loin of Beef”?
15 Managing units: units are sometimes hard to find visually. I put a unit on a Gold mine and couldn’t select it versus the mine. Also, units inside cities are hard to find when you want to get them. A clickable listing of all your units that takes the focus to them would be helpful. Maybe when a City is highlighted pushing Shift shows you the Combat units in there?
16 Hostages: would you be able to take a {champion; city; Sovereign; unit) hostage instead of killing/ conquering it to your side? Make the other guy buy it back from you? During tactical combat, offer them to resign for ransom, or convert to your side rather than be killed?
17 Converting materials: Any other way to convert materials than trading? How about a Magic skill that allows a conversion.
18 Resource harvest/theft: Shards, mines, etc: Sometimes it’s hard to tell if a resource is being harvested, and who’s harvesting it. Be nice to have a color code or something to show who’s gathering {resource} from it. Maybe there already it’s just not clear to me.
19 Mana generation: does having a shard increase your mana? I can’t tell how, yet somewhere I’m sure I read it says that…Maybe you can store mana if you have shards under your control?
20 Sovereign Quest: Allow Sovereign to get a spell focus/special item just for them that goes into their graphic?.
21 Unit/activity focus: Currently if someone takes a Shard or a resource from you, does the focus shift there so you see it happened?
22: Keyboard: Please please make it so most commands have a keyboard shortcut. Next City key; Next Unit key; End turn key (spacebar used to work doesn’t now???) Spellbook Key, Quick Save Key. Hate the mouse-only options.
23 Reduce clicks: if you could show the Sovereign’s mana at all times (HUD, etc) it would reduce clicking on him/her to find it.
24 Reduce Clicks: Is there a ‘quicksave’ button to avoid needing to go to Kingdom, Options, etc?
25 Configurable ability to conquer city and : keep old race/units; convert to your units.
26 Race options: I see some race options in screen prints. Will there ever be racial units like in MoM (aka War Trolls) as units? This I beg of you. And would pay extra for.
27 Encounter diversity: I hope the encounters we’ve seen in beta are a subset of the creatures we’ll encounter. The wolves, bears, and spiders are modified but not “fantasy”. The darklings are not fearful enough (eerie music, spell effects constantly, something), the Storm Giant didn’t cast spells or hurl lightning, etc. I envision some really bad things, so bad they could steal essence, mana, or even ability points from heroes/sovereigns, and most normal units would run from them. They could teleport around the field and definitely cast naughty spells. Fighting skeletons, war elephants, wargs, orcs, green trolls, Treants, you know—fantasy!
Spellbook/Spells:
A The “research level 2 spells” in the Spell book is confusing. Could you move it as a clickable option below the Spells section and highlight either the Spells section or the “Learn higher levels/gain knowledge” section? I’m asking you to make the definition of Level 2/3/4/etc. spells clearer/more apparent. I think this refers to Tech Level on Magic, but it wasn’t clear to me for a time.
B use Tabs to separate the various Spellbooks. Have critical stats/descriptions beside each spell rather than needing to select it to see them one at a time.
C Improve fonts and consistency, especially below the spell graphic. Make it clearer when it’s tactical/strategic and range limitations. Sometimes takes awhile to understand a spell’s limitations.
D Don’t see any duration/maintenance costs for spells. Is that intentional?
E Don’t see where a Shard is required to cast spells Can that be made more obvious?
F Spell Idea: Relocate (Tactical): Exchanges two units; if enemy unit, distance, unit magic resistance applies to avoid being exchanged.
Thanks for listening.
