Beta 0.952
Well now. Don’t even get a chance to finish my previous game…not that I’m complaining. 
Game 6: Going to try out Lord Markin
- I’ve been really feeling that the default ‘normal’ difficulty setting is too easy. Increasing to ‘challenging’.
- [Bug] Starting Game. Speech Volume of the ‘book speech’ is still way too quiet.
- Wow! Great start for my first city 4/3/2 with a second location at 3/3/1. Lucky day!
And the game just crashed!
- NO auto-save?!? NOOOOO!! I was 6 turns in! Auto-save should happen on turn 2!
Started again. Grumble. Not nearly as good…
- Had to ctrl-N 17 times until I felt I had a reasonable start, but still not what I had before.
- Game crashes several times when attempting to cntl-N. (never happened in 0.951)
- Still has a strong lack of essence in starting locations.
- Markin sure doesn’t start off with a great deal of mana…each to their own I guess
- Many sound effects in tactical combat are missing; worse than in 0.951
- Are the Tilda Herbs supposed to be available for you to consume while in tactical combat? If so…. They were not there….
- Game is crashing more frequently when attempting to load a saved file. (never happened in 0.951)
Decided to stop and take a breather before starting again. Just lost the mood after that first starting location was lost.
Started a new game a few hours later and got this:
http://img222.imageshack.us/img222/4599/game6kingdom0.jpg
Not sure why there is a difference in starting position when first entering into the game versus hitting ctrl-N, but I’ve never had such utopian starts with the re-mapping.
- Cities seems to level almost TOO fast now. Granted, I have Sovereign’s Call cast, but I haven’t even had time to finish building a unit to ‘scout’ around the city to decide what the best level choice would be, and it’s already leveled in JUST 7 turns.
- Heroes are leveling a little too fast as well. I just did a single combat against a bear cub, and it was enough to level. ??? That ain’t right.
- Sovereign just fought a single battle against a darkling shaman…and it was enough to level. Leveling is too quick.
- [Bug] Tactical sound effects seem to be off, both in volume and frequency. It’s inconsistent from one battle to the next.
- [Bug] My city leveled and I chose ‘town’. It said I was to receive +1 ZoC…but I didn’t.
- And the game just crashed.
Reloading most recent save…
- Caught back up….
- After stepping on a lair, the UI shouldn’t be moving on to the next unit until after you get to find out what you’re receiving as loot. It’s confusing to have to keep returning to your unit to equip.
- Looks like the city and hero details update now right when you get bonuses. Good job!
- [Balance] Just tried fighting a ‘weak’ party allied with the empire. I am a ‘strong’ party, with a path of the Defender and 3 wolves. I was slaughtered.
Here’s a shot of my kingdom so far.
http://img195.imageshack.us/img195/661/game6kingdom1.jpg
Well, that’s enough for tonight. Got myself a really good kingdom growing; with surprisingly a large about of essence available. I’ve really been enjoying the games with more essence. Hope the game continues in that direction since so much is dependant on the stuff.