This game is vanilla right now and while it's fun, it plays very much like two other games, Stardock's own Sins of a Solar Empire, and Arcen Games' AI War: Fleet command (v1.0). And I say this because the focus is completly on building the empire and taking from the enemy. And while this is fun, since both you and your enemy are on somewhat level playing fields, games can become 'cold wars' with two superpowers building up for tens of turns. What I propose are objects that take the interest away from the fight and negatively/positively effect everyone. There needs to be more random chance instead of just two symmetrical players standing off.
I brought up those two games because they fixed thier cold war problem in interesting ways. Sins had fortresses which prolonged gameplay with meaningful, modular defense. A.I. War introduced such threats as the Children of Neinzul, thd dreaded Devourer Golem, and the enigmatic Dyson Sphere. We need Thos two types of interests. Single, powerful bases defenses that can be used in place of stacks with limits placed on them and frces not bound by the rules we are.
I say there needs to be firstly, weather effects.Pretty self-explanatory- certain weathers adversly effect not only combat but the overworld as well. Snow creating slow movement, rain hampering sight. Perhaps it could be mitigated by influence. Since inf basically equates to civilization, maybe the effects are halved in adverse weather. Magical meteor strikes would be interesting and they could randomly drop elementium or crystal. The enviroment- the land itself could warp and change- Ogre's destroying mountains or tiles becoming inacessible in the Empire influence due to demonic earthquakes.
Another interest would be roaving bands of monsters that are a serious threat to everyone. Dragons that go into towns and eat population is an idea. Perhaps crazed wildmen that burn laboratories and studies? In any case, what happens in the game right now needs to be more of a threat. That damage monsters do now is negligible and doesn ot happen often. The point, though, is that there should be an intelligent, super-powerful creature doing damage at random to everyone. A knife to the throat of every player, that (human players at least) would have to try and work toghether to kill or stand alone and avoid.
Some quests should be- not exactly mandatory, but game changing. Quests now simply are worth going out of my way to do and then, when I complete them, trying to trade the rewards to my Sovregin or kids. A quest that creates a tunnel directly into enemy controlled lands (tile chosen by player). The reward of an eagle or some such thing that indefinately follows an enemy sovreign. A helicopter reward or mayhaps a jetski.
Like the Golems in Ai War, there needs to be a powerful unit for players to focus on getting. Why? Because this unit would break up the 'cold war' by forcing players to make risky moves for what can only be a great return. I like the idea of a giant "clockwork man" which I will elaborate on in the next section. Using teh rules I set in the Shard section, the Clockwork man will be made from a moutain anywhere on the cloth map outside of Enemy of enemy territory. But, he won't be yours. He'll be neutral. Four can be createdi n this way. When struck he'll fight for you. When struck with lgihtning again he'll deactivate. When struck by lightning after that, he'll for the caster. Over and over like that.
The shards certainly need to do more. A great way to expand quests is to have high-level quests that can only be undertaken with a hard in your control. I've decided on a few rewards ofr quests utilizing a shard.
-Earth: You get to create an island 5x5 or 6x6 tiles in any ope water; a bridge connecting two lands; planting a 2x2 patch of fertile land in territory; turn a 2x2 tile mountain into a "Clocwork man"
-Fire:Burn (at random) two enemy farms (they come back after 10 turns.); Have a dead champ be reborn from the flames like a pheonix
-Air: Grant your Sovreign or children flight, allowing them to travel over al lobstacles; Invoke in a single battle a gust of wind rendering arrows unusable (great for taking out archery buffs); Strike "Clockwork Man" with lightning causing it to fight for your side.
-Water: Create a moat around your settlement that causes the enemy stack to take two-three more turns to actually actually attack your settelment even though they're adjacent to it; Magic rain- for three turns a settlement of your own is drenched in rain, cutting it's production by 25-50%, but on teh fourth turn a rainbow leads from the town and ends at a random super drop(1000 gildar, Elemental Shard Sword, An Elemental Shard, a jetski); A Leviathan- a transport craft thhat has 6.0 move points and eats enemy ships.
So, to be clear, the main problem I have with this game isn't the bugs but that the enemy is such a big focus. While quests and dungeons are great, the rewards are subpar. Collecting and sitributing these rewards is time consuming and pulls mid-high strength champs from the fight. What is needed are integrals quests and wildcard units. Units that are a threat the entire game whether controlled by A.I. or a single enemy faction. I hope that the devs and the community find these ideas interesting.
