Played 3 full games and part of another. 1 died with the "can't end turn bug".
Short version:
- Its Fun and somewhat addicting
- Difficulty/AI need work at least up to challenging
- Research/Pacing is a bit odd and could possibly be revisited
- Champions can be powerful, which is good. Need a heavier cost.
Overall its enjoyable, even moderately short term addicting. Good improvements from ewom.
I've only played on challenging, but so far its pretty easy once you get a good stack going and get a cloud walker. AI is lacking in some decision making capability. Had the AI surrender a few times, the sov had 5 or 6 weapons and had a basic dagger selected. Also, the sov had like 10 leather greaves (at least 2 surrendered sov's had such. Magnar and one of my custom ones.) Offense is pretty terrible, I leave my cities completely undefended and haven't lost one yet. Thinking that if the PC is winning completely/overwhelmingly, everyone should pretty much drop the guantlet and gang up them.
Research is weird. Specifically the pacing. The early stuff is ok, but then theres a big chunk in the middle of warfare and magic with items - by the time those are researched I've already got better hero gear and I'm looking to tech up my units. But I don't have to because my hero's rock. By the mid point of the game, research is pretty ho hum. For warfare its army size, archery, and mounted warfare. For magic its quest/hero, and whichever set of spells gets tireless march.
I'd almost rather see all the items kind of tagged onto other chunks, maybe 1 or 2 per. i find it annoying to waste 10+ turns on necklaces I'll never use.
Similar with Warfare...by the time I'm at armor, I'm already well established and my leather guys and/or champions can take everything else out.
Obviously more than 3 observations. I love how powerful champions are. I'd rather have champs and no units. At the same time, they're too overpowered vs units. Possibly some level of balancing via choice. Possibly have champions have a pretty hefty upkeep cost - that rises as they rise in level. Eventually to the point that you can only have 5-8 solid champions and no troops, 3-4 champions and some troops or 1-2 champions and a bunch of troops. For me pure troops would be boring, but they're really overpowered. At least to the late mid game (where I usually win/end)
