So, The Campaign...

I'm playing through the campaign and I have a few thoughts on it that I would like to share.

First off: The latest patch has done wonders for it. I'm now hundreds of turns into the campaign, and I haven't crashed yet. I tried the campaign briefly during the pre-release, and it was a painful 5 minutes that ended in a CTD. So props go out to Stardock for the quick and effective patching.

That said, it has not been without hiccups. I still get random slowdowns and buggy unit behavoir. I'll leave those issues for the support forum, though, and instead focus on what appear to be issues with the campaign design itself.

The campaign, in a quick summary, lacks polish. A lot.

The Map:

I'm in love with the size of the campaign map. And the fact that it is one continual game on said map. If I could play custom games on this map, I'd be beyond happy. It's gorgeous, it's huge, it's interesting. However, it's also largely being ignored. the format of the campaign (Continuous "kill" quests) just doesn't make use of it. Earlier areas, once I have the towns built up and the resources tapped, are utterly forgotten. There's nothing going on back there. The other kingdoms don't do anything. There are no random monsters. They're no need to look back!

Issues with the Paper Map: I play, primarily, with the paper map. I just like the aesthetics more. However, the campaign is highly scripted and "railroads" you along a preset path, largely by placing barricades that are unlocked by doing quests. It's not a huge issue, though I find it restrictive and ... bland... Except for the fact that these barricades are ONLY visible in the 3D map, and it seems that only one (the swamps) has any sort of a prompt telling you you cannot cross. This lead me to wasting about 10 minutes the first time I came across one, wondering why my party wouldn't proceed down the mountain pass near the starting town. Given the state of Elemental, it shouldn't be surprising that I attributed this to yet another bug.

However, coming back to it, and zooming into 3D mode, I saw the barricade quite clearly. But if I hadn't zoomed in? Or if I was playing this on a net-book, a feature Brad and company are quick to advertise, I wouldn't have known. And this comes up again and again. Something that is obvious on the 3D map is entirely invisible on Paper Map.

Exploration:

There isn't really any. Which is a pity, because this is a nice large map with nooks and crannies galore. Instead, you are pretty much directed to the location of every monster or treasure through the storyline quests. There's no need to leave the beaten path because there is nothing off of it.

Quests:

There's a real lack of variety. For the most part, it is this: "Help us defeat the monsters just over there, and I'll let you progress to the next kingdom." I can't really say much more than that.

Intuitiveness:

Is that a word? The campaign is meant as a bit of a mini-tutorial for new-comers to the game. However, so much is glossed over or completely ignored. And a lot of the rest is simply hinted at. As an example, early on you're told that your scholars have discovered a slew of new technologies. Interested, I went to see what they were, only to find out the technology section was unavailable. Even the list of completed techs. Instead I found a couple new buildings I could built, and some new equipment in the troop design screen. Nice, of course, but it would have gone a lot smoother if the campaign had added the the prompt something like "This enables us to improve our cities and better equip our troops" or some such. As a secondary issue: I noticed that one of the new buildings required a level 5 city. At a growth of 1 citizen a turn in my main city, that's going to take me hundreds of more turns to achieve... Perhaps that building should be awarded later in the campaign, and not right off the bat?

Balance:

The most glaring example comes when you are joined by the 4 units of archers from Tarth (?) and asked to clear the swamps of trolls. I found the archers overkill for the task. They single-handedly took out the "Troll and his Skag," an encounter I was nervous about because of it's 100+ challenge rating to my much lower rating. And they managed to decimate the troll shamans (170 or so rating) with the help of a small peasant party. And this is without exploiting the AI. I didn't have the monster chase a wounded unit while the archers fired on it until it died. I just had them stand there. The trolls were dead by the time they entered melee range.

I don't know where the problem lies, here. Are ranged units too powerful? Are the challenge ratings not properly reflecting the difficulty of an encounter?

Likewise, I've found the encounters not scaling well. Early on they were tough. I lost Janusk and the farmer to the darlings early on. It was a tough fight, even with our spears and leather armour, and I enjoyed it. However, to replace the lost champions, I built a few parties of peasants and later on a party of broadsword/leather Guardians. I've since then gone a hundred or two turns without replacing a unit. I simply don't have to. those early units are still tearing through the encounters. Every once in a while, when I notice me resources are nearing 700 or so, I build another party of the best troops I can, and add them to my army. It's gotten to the point where my men dont even take damage in auto-combat, and my army's challenge rating is usually 10x higher than the latest encounters. I'm simply not encountering anything beyond the middle of the campaign that constitutes a challenge.

Oddities:

I'm not sure if this is a bug or if it's intended, but the "allied" kingdoms don't grow. They don't even produce prestige, so their town borders never grow beyond a single square. So they never even tap those resources TOUCHING their towns. Instead, my town borders eventually surround theirs, and I just claim those resources for myself. Seriously, I don't see the sense in uniting all these annoying little monarchs, when my starting town, the moment I place it, is already surpassing their kingdoms. From a immersion point of view, it's just silly. At least make an attempt to show these "kingdoms" to be something more than a single tile I approach in order to receive quests.

Er... yeah. That went on for a bit longer than I intended, but it needed to come out. I'm more-or-less disappointed with the campaign. It feels like it needs another month or two of content and polish.  The map is fantastic, but the rest feels tacked on loosely, and at the last minute.