This isn't really a reply, but rather my big list of random bugs and feature suggestions. I'm not a regular reader of forums, so it's quite possible I'm repeating what others have already reported. If it's too much of a hassle to read yet another unstructured list of known issues, please feel free to ignore this post.
Bugs in version 1.11 (some of which may be features; that can be a fine line):
- Memory leaking (still). Much better than earlier, but still the game crashes on Save after a while (although it's nice it crashes before starting to overwrite a save, so that save can still be loaded).
- It seems memory leaks a little on ALT-TAB to minimized, back to the game, and then ALT-TAB again. If correct, the rendering might be leaky.
- Move lost in restored game. If a game is restored the unmoved troops are given their base movement points, not their current movement points. I.e., if I have a hero with Traveling Boots, he'll get a move of 2 (unless Adventurer), while before the save he had 3 (because of the boots). Probably the game "equips" the boots on save restore, which causes the move loss.
- Another odder move loss is Transports, which have their moves reduced to the base movement rate of their slowest embarked troop when loading a save.
- A movement "feature" is that troops starting in cities always are given the base movement rate of the slowest troop in the city, regardless of whether they have speed enhancing equipment donned.
- Troops in stacks always have the movement rate of the slowest unit in the stack. I would have preferred to see troops have their own movement rate, to e.g. allow me to split a stack to let my heroes enter the new outpost created by the escorted Pioneer (especially since they are kicked out from the outpost as it is created). This can be debated, of course.
- Imbuing a hero now changes its class to Channeler, removing any special features in the process (I tried to Imbue Ayen Witela (who has the Dominate special ability). She was converted into a Channeler and lost Dominate in the process). I suspect this means Money, Tech, and Arcane supplying heroes lose their features as well. Channeler ought to be a added to a hero. After all, you select a class for your leader as well.
- For some odd reason female heroes cannot equip Traveler's Cloak (they can't buy it either, which sort of makes sense, but it's possible for someone else to give it to her, and it won't show up as an equipable item). In the original release females couldn't use Traveling Boots, but that is OK now.
- Sometimes I'm unable to suggest a treaty with a nation by pressing the treaty key on "my" side of the screen, but pressing it on the other party's side will bring the treaty suggestion on the table. That looks like a bug to me, and it's been that way all the time (well, I'm not sure about the work around, since I haven't tried it until 1.10).
- The change to remove caravans from the movement queue is probably a bit overzealous. ALL caravans are removed, including those which haven't yet established a trade route and haven't been ordered to move to a city (e.g. because I want to move it a step at a time to look for monsters).
- The feature to automatically move to the next stack with remaining move has two problems:
A: It moves to another stack after battles. Since battles don't cost move, I always have move left after the battle, and I would probably want to continue with that stack until done, rather than switching to the next one halfway through.
B: It should probably switch a little bit slower, to give me time to see if something interesting is detected (monster, or uncovered terrain (especially resources) while mapping).
- When building a new settlement, the build screen is brought up, but at the same time the focus is moved to the next stack. The focus shouldn't move until the build screen is closed (and probably not then either, as I don't see any reason not to also produce at least caravans at the same time [well, single settlements on islands...]).
- The end of turn doesn't work too well from a usability point of view. First I get a pile of messages telling me I've got finished production in a bunch of settlements, but I can't act on it until I've accepted the last such message (and then I frequently get information for one settlement with orders for another). Secondly, battles initiated by the enemy, as well as AI movement, takes place behind this pop up. The AI movement phase should be performed before these reports are brought up (if for no other reason that the enemy might conquer a settlement that just produced a production pop up). The pop ups can be disabled, fortunately, but it would be better if they worked as intended.
Features:
- Consider making it a declaration of war to create a settlement within another nation's area of influence. Being unscrupulous I've stolen a Warg producing kennel, despite not being able to build kennels (wrong allegiance), by settling next to it (and yes, I've produced a Warg). When trying to settle, you could get a message from the other nation's leader and given the chance to abort the settlement order (the same mechanism as when you try to enter the influence zone of someone you haven't gotten a non aggression treaty with).
- Make the influence border of nations with which you haven't got a non aggression treaty e.g. blue, so you don't try to take a route through that nation's territory inadvertently (although I'd prefer the scheme Red=Hostile, Blue=Friend, Green=Neutral, Yellow=Unknown - same as the military is using).
- Make it a bit clearer that special attacks are "spells". I attacked a unit that was immune to magic using a hero with either Triple Strike or Crushing Blow (don't remember which one), only to see it having no effect. I would have expected a negation of e.g. Dominate, but not a "weapon" attack...
- Maybe it's just me, but I've got a problem seeing how many citizens I have available for building projects. I see Population current/max, and then I see a negative number of Citizens, a number that is frequently larger than the current number of Population (and possibly max Population, I'm not sure). I would propose changing the heading to "Free Citizens" (with the corresponding, non negative, number underneath).
- Making regular units usable by allowing you to upgrade them. Currently they are far too costly and ineffective for me to produce them, so I simply recruit every hero I can get my hands on (and pay for, of course). The situation will change late in the game when you're able to produce groups, but I'm still on single units (and I've basically mapped the whole world, using the largest map).
- Make buying equipment for heroes cost the corresponding resources as well as money. That would make hero spamming less successful, and troop production more so. Why not allow you to Imbue troops as well as heroes (although I guess it would have to be single character units, and possibly not allowed for summoned units).
- If hero equipment costs the same as troop equipment, it ought to be possible to equip your troops with purchased equipment, as well as allowing you to trade equipment between heroes and "regular" troops.
- A further equipment thought is that you could be payed for obsolete equipment with resources as well as money (basically some fraction of what it cost to originally produce it).
- As someone else has pointed out, it would be good if it was possible to manually create roads. They often take routes that are undesirable right away (through future enemy territory, or through monster spawn territory rather than within relatively safe Influence territory), or that become impractical as settlements are expanded or created.
Spell features:
- The current spell system incarnation makes spells almost impossible to use, since they are so incredibly expensive. Two mana points per turn and node, with maybe a dozen nodes total in the world, and spells costing 128 and 64 points makes spell casting something only for truly desperate situations, rather than the edge your Channelers have. I would propose a major tweaking of the system, inspired by the magic system of The Broken Hourglass (which I hope will eventually be produced, by the way), i.e. mana is a "flow", similar to Food currently. You have a given number of mana points to use, and if you don't use it this turn, it's gone, as you can't save it. Basic outline of the working:
- Continuous spells, like Imbuing, Summoned Creatures, City or Character enhancements cost 1..X mana to maintain, with no particular casting cost apart from the maintenance. The upkeep depends on the power of the spell. As with the current system, more difficult spells require higher Intelligence to cast, but might not have a higher upkeep. In fact, a more difficult version of a spell might have a lower upkeep than a simpler version, for the same effect.
- Combat spells can be cast from the remaining mana "flow", when continuous spell upkeep has been deducted. During combat you may cast continuous spells (active during the combat only), and instantaneous spells. Continous spells during combat deduce their upkeep from the "flow", reducing the amount of mana available for other spells.
- Instantaneous combat spells (heal, damage dealing, etc.): You need to have researched the spell, have the available mana "flow", and the required Intelligence to cast them. If you can cast a spell the first turn in combat, you can cast it every turn, as long as you don't commit too much of your "flow" to continuous spells. Again, you can have an inefficient low level spell that's easy to cast, but does modest damage (e.g. Burning Hands, range 1, damage 5 + Fire Shrine modifier, cost 1), a higher research and Intelligence level spell (e.g. Flame Dart, range 3, damage 5, + Fire Shrine damage modifier, cost 1), even higher (Flame Sheet, range unrestricted, damage 5+Fire Shrine vs all within 1 radius, cost 2), and then e.g. Immolation (range 1, damage 10+Fire Shrine, cost 2), Fire Lance (range 3, damage 10+Fire Shrine, cost 2), and Fire Ball (range unrestricted, damage 10+Fire Shrine vs 1 radius, and so on) as higher research+INT level options.
- Multiple spell casters within a battle would share the "Flow", so everything used up by one caster is unavailable by the others on the same side for that turn.
- Battles are considered never to occur simultaneously, so the full "Flow" remaining after deducting the continuous overland upkeep is available in every battle.
- Continuous spells cast during combat ought to be possible to cast from the Overland map as well. It's just a matter of whether you want to reduce your available "flow" on a continuous basis (gaining time in combat), or have a larger available "flow" at the cost of lost time in combat). This also means it makes sense to cast those spells prior to initiating combat yourself (but you won't be protected if the enemy attacks you during their turn).
- "Instantaneous" overland spells take a full overland turn (reshaping the land takes time, produced by multiple castings of gradual effects, but that work is put on hold while the "Flow" is needed for battle). Similarly, casting a "single" overland attack spell at an enemy army or settlement is actually a barrage of attacks, negation of an enemy continuous spell is a battle of prodding and pushing which takes a season to do.
- Two alternatives to deal with sneaky players who simply drop all their continuous overland spells before their attacks only to restore them at the end of the turn:
A: Accept it, and just change the rules to make the complete flow, except that of continuous spells on battle participants, available during battles, effectively doing the spell dropping and recasting automatically.
B: Make effects of continuous spells take effect on the next turn, so the benefit is lost for the turn if a spell is dropped and recast.
The spell system would encourage players to cast spells to their heart's content. Don't have anything important to use the flow for? Use it to improve a bit of terrain!
AI Battle Improvements:
- During battles, let the enemies gang up on one unit at a time. That way the first enemy might die because of counter attacks, but the next one then is free to hit on the chosen victim as the first one has drained all (or most) of the counter attacks.
- A smart AI might use weak units to drain counter attacks, before the heavy hitters move in (alternatively the heavily armored units go first, to soak up/evade the damage).
- I've seen the AI units decide on a juicy target, and decide to chase it despite having to go around my battle line of troops, making it available for being hit by three units per turn, and despite the "victim"moving away with the same speed. It should give up on its target and select a new one if there is no reasonable chance to catch it, or great risk of getting hit by multiple enemies without making any attacks itself. I've also seen archers running around my troops to chase the retreating victim (causing them to be hit in the back rather than the front, without any chance to at least hurt some of my troops).
- Archers could realize when they have the same speed as the enemy, and either use the knowledge to escape from battle (as they will otherwise be chased to the edge and killed), or use the realization to stand and attack, rather than retreat to the edge and THEN attack. That can save some unnecessary rounds of chasing during combat.
- Consider whether to move all the way up to the enemy or stop and wait for the player to come to the AI's troops. In the beginning of the game I set up my battle line so the enemy just reach me but can't take a swing (meaning I get the first chance to attack). Later on in the game when my troops have some armor I switch to allow the enemy to get one step's worth of attacks, so I can start to whittle them down with counter attacks before my attack round, reserving the option to retreat and let someone else take the place if a troop gets too badly damaged.
