A warning that this is long, so sorry and props to those that care to read it all. I thought I would give some feedback on the S build as we go into the weekend, since the new builds are coming fast and furious. As ever, the game feels like its getting better in general, though I thought these recent builds are a bit of a step forward/ step back in a couple ways. There's also a bit of feedback on the R build, since I didn't get a chance to mention it before S came out.
Played two starts, both more casual (not really trying to rush the AI or anything, so I don't have too much feedback with the AI). Haven't gotten too much past the 100-200 turns in either start, one due to poor planning with new balance, the other just due to lack of time.
The best things to me were the economy in general and the combat (melee) values. My bigest minuses for this round was that I think that the magic got a bit messed up, the gameplay seemed a bit more city spam oriented than earlier in the 1.09 beta, and I hit some bugs/ crashes (mentioned towards the end).
Early economy of the basic resources seemed good in general, with few meaningless resources. Economy in the early 1.09 beta generally felt like food was the only limiting resource to the econ. Materials now feel much more valuable, and my old 2-3x workshops total method led to some disaster. Gold also seems less abundant (and did in the R build too), made me pick and choose a bit and I couldn't hire every random champ. Other than the very early game I rarely hit any pop cap limits, so the swords or butter choice never felt like it was there, though I didn't get far enough to be building large stack formations, where it would likely hit more.
The downside economically was perhaps luck of the draw. In the R build I hit one seed that gave me 2x water shards within 1 square in my initial city's AOE, and a third water shard 3 squares away. (Blizzard fun occured) I also hit 2x earth shards very close to one another in the S build, so mana was really common. Food seems a bit more common, more than I really wanted unless I spammed huts. Some is also related to 1 cast/ turn limit as well.
Also on the thought of city building, I think I enjoied some of the influence of cities a bit in the earlier 1.09 betas. Earlier I could get 4-5 squares out from the city if I focused on building pop, even without much tech, which really gave a big city feel and helped nab resources without city spamming. Due to the balances on city leveling and influence, even concentrating a lot on civ techs early on, you seem locked at 3 tiles out from the city for a long long time, which starts me going back to the city spam mode. Its a bit odd as you only need a few huts to pop the influence out 3 tiles, but need a ton of tech or huts to push it further. Also as a random wish on influence . .I'd like some of the asymetric influence one sees in early cities to extend in latter design, even my long drawn out cities at level 3 have square influence zones.
Melee combat, again, seems good. Lots more blocking/ dodging, and getting new equipment felt like I had gained a good amount of power from doing so (both on weapon and armor front). Since there was a good bit more back and forth early on I found myself zooming in a bit rather than just one hitting everything. It might have felt just a touch slow with the bigger battles but low hit values . .but I think it was more soloing with sov early on, and once equipment flowed in, felt like a good level up as it were and sped things up. That to me is huge, since the RPG elements take off once leveling and gaining items starts to feel important.
Spells in combat . . that was my big gripe. I know that the current system is a bit interim and that long term theres some more casting time/ chaneling mechanics being batted about, but the newest balance seems a step back. 1 cast per turn may give some balance, but it goes back to making magic feel very underpowered. Some of the balance like making heal 6 hp/cast instead of 10 may work if you spam it 5x per turn, but as is now its almost always a waste to cast a combat spell. The new cheese is to just make your cast the last move on your turn, like a finishing move. Two alternates I thought of – baseline double all base values of number combat spells (heals, damage spells), then make casts require 3 actions, as well as ending turn. Would make a cast a bit more worthwhile, and stop the cheese, though it may stop heavy armored units from casting. Another option would be back to the cast as much as you want in earlier builds, but up mana costs so that chain casters drain their pool fast, and perhaps up base resists on sov/ champs a bit more to prevent glass cannoning city defenses with 4x blizzards or whatever.
A few other general notes I made:
For sov creation, the green thumb and attunement(?) pick that gives extra mana seem a bit OP, or perhaps meditation and the research tech is a bit under powered now. 2 food lets you throw out huts on turn 2, and quickly level your city + get all the tax benefits + get the pop to build yourself an arcane or whatever else you like very quickly. Extra mana per turn allows 2x more city enchants, which gives you the same thing. Just seemed a bit unbalanced.
Equipment balance seemed a bit better in costs, though shield is perhaps a bit better than the cost suggests. I was blocking near everything that came at me early on, which is very nice for 2 points.
It seems like putting points in characer stats generally seems the worst picks now, especially charisma since I'd think that the sov would rarley be left to waste away sitting in a town forever. Unless there were other boosts given to cities with the sov stationed there, or there was some passive exp gain by a sov in a city.
Having the shields show up in character creation in front of the unit, blocking them entirely, was a bit annoying.
Shadows still seem funky close up.
Since the AI now groups up dynamically, perhaps it should start to retreat if its getting beat down (especially as it doesn't seem to evaluate situations where a player tank can nullify all damage via block/ resists all that well yet).
Guardian aura's listed duration at 9999 turns seems odd, though it only lasts through the battle properly.
Picking Guardian for a city leveling up is a really bad pick early on. It might be better to give a more powerful but unmoving unit just so that a player picking it for their capitol early on isn't forever regretting it.
The combat UI might be cleaned up a bit by making similar unit icons group horizontally under one major unit type card – Rather like in the main screens the cities show and have a tab to open up to list out the buildings etc.
Onto the bugs:
Major one was a lockup in battles. Usually seemed to happen when the NPC was attacking, and my units were countering, it would lock up in a state where I could select things, but not do anything other than auto resolve what was left. New to the S build for me.
Had a few crashes in main game, and one odd moment where the menu kept popping up, though I almost wonder if my arm was on the esc key or soemthing as it only happened the once.
My debug.err file was about 13.5 megs for a 120 turn game. Most of it was spamming that "XYZ (unit name) has a target." about 300 times in a row.
In any case, as I said, I like the steps forwards, I definately liked the tweaks and balance to balance and the economy. Combat magic took a bit of a step backwards, and a few bugs, but its coming along. Looking forwards to seeing what is coming down the line, and once the basic mechanics get nailed down enough that modding once again can become a sensible way to spend some more time.
