Noticed a few bugs exist but is structurally much better than its predecessor.
1.) Strange beams of light and moving shapes in areas that are either in fog of war or haven't been discovered yet. Happens for both of them and is always were a "special" tile is.
2.) Had a question malfunction where I was supposed to rescue a farmer's daughter from slavers and when I'd get to the slavers I'd get a dialogue with an Empire champion saying that he'll join my side if I paid enough. I paid, he joined me, beat the bandits, went to take the daughter back and the farmer thanked me and the Empire champion looped and asked if I would hire him for the same gold, I did, he joined me, and we fought the bandits again, which led me taking the new daughter to a new farm, went there, started getting the same dialogue and I realized I had two of the same Empire Champion (whom also couldn't be edited, ie equipment, level ups, etc...)
3.) Crashed multiple times, one of which I tracked down to be me "razing" a troll lair and moving right after causing my turn to end, it would crash with the hourglass. The other times were normally after I found a really cool item, I feel like those were more "easy come easy go" instances though.
4.) My most recent play I was level 1 as was one of my fellow champions, our first battle earned both of us enough experience to advance to level 3 immediately. No qualms about that, but I was never able to pick a path for either of them, ie. Assassin, Defender, Mage, Governor, Warrior... so I didn't get the usual awesome starting bonus for them. Not a huge deal, but I was still bummed.
That pretty much covers it in terms of bugs, however if I can have some input as a gamer and what I'd like to see, here that is;
1.) I'd like that first choice I make for a character in terms of his "specialization" to matter more in terms of his overall growth, maybe even have an extremely rare option where you get the second level of your first option (ie. Mage II - +8 to intelligence and earn 1 Mana/season).
2.) In terms of the sovereign creation platform, I would like to see more options for both positive and negative effects and they all seem rather imbalanced as well. I would much rather get a +1 to my attack every level than a plus 2 to my con and half resistant to poison. Not many creatures use poison (save the damn spiders) making the ability handy to have but I would probably raise the con bonus just a hair, maybe a 3 or a 4.
3.) It is very difficult to get archers, I'm not entirely sure why that is, maybe the way the tech-tree is set up? I personally love having archers and will normally try to focus on that with most games, but with this game by the time I get archers they're nowhere near powerful enough to do the damage I need them to do. (I've never actually gotten to the longbow tech)
4.) I like the magic and the channeling much more in this version, it was way simpler and I love how the people you imbue with your "essence" use the same mana pool. My only critique is that I'd like to see more variety in each school. Maybe just one additional spell per category (3 first level fire spells rather than 2). But that's just because I like to have my options with my spellcasters - definitely being really nit-picky about that, I actually really enjoy how that system works at the moment.
5.) Thank you guys very much for doing this. To be honest I was pretty peeved when I was playing this brand new game from Stardock (from which I had played Galactic Civilizations and Sins of a Solar Empire) and was stoked to see a similar system put to use in a fantasy setting that I've been playing in all my life. But I had told more than one friend that the game was pretty much bogus and that it was designed to just keep you glued to your chair and provide very little entertainment. The changes you've made to the game are monumental and improve the gameplay significantly. I'm sure this game will be much better received once all its kinks get worked out. Kudos guys, your hard-work will pay off in the end.
