My Experiece

Go to the options screen, and set the tactical threshold slider all the way to the left.  Then it will give you the option of having a tactical battle even with very few units involved.

You can turn down the threshold for tactical battles to 0. That'll then always give you the option if you want to resolve or fight.

Thank you very much for the tactical slider help.

I completely agree with your review, stardock does need forgiveness for releasing a unmistakably unfinished game.  Trying to find documentation on basic game mechanics either in the users manual or in game help function is extremely frustrating as it is very incomplete.

About summons,

I know the spellbook has been removed but there are two things i've noticed in my game:

#1 Custom sov's i gave the summoning book to before the patch have still got it.

#2 One of my sov's that doesn't have the spellbook and was created post patch can summon bears and fire giants and elementals and stuff now.

Is this how everybody else is experiencing it?

Also regarding mouse clicks, i find the game has trouble registering clicks on tiles if you play the game with the camera at an angle, if it wont respond you can quickly turn it using the middle mouse button and it should work fine if you click from an overhead view.

Hon. Wargamers;

In my efforts to play the game I have chosen to play a restrained altruist Mage.  I try to avoid combat as much as I can.  This lets me play the game longer between emersion shattering crashes and freezes.  I am having fun with this and am amazed by the depth and details in playing the game.  

I went grocery shopping and found that Wallmart had already sold out of the game.  This coupled with gamestop having trouble keeping it in stock makes me glad I bought it at midnight.  I also hope this represents a game polishing cash infusion for Stardock:)

Respectfully

Pleroma

It looks to me like summonings is now part of the other types of magic and reworked a bit.  Before the day 0 patch, the bear summon was available very early (and was very OP) and the less powerful summons came later (imp/familiar).  It seems better this way to me, since I was able to pretty much roll the cpu with only my sovereign, the bear and a familiar in the gold version.  

It would be pretty keen if there was hover text for some of the options.  I've had the same issue and the ONLY way I know now that tactical threshold controls this behavior is by accident of seeing it mentioned here in forum posts.

You seem to start getting summoning spells with spell level 2 which is fast to obtain, so meh.  I usually skip tactical spells and bump my casting level til I see if there's a node around to give me an obvious direction with tactical spells, even though I've yet to notice the supposed dmg increase from controlling an appropriate shard. :/

Ultimately - screw summons.  Research warfare til you can build squads (and ideally medical kits).  Custom design troops that actually have armor (+def) and health kits (more hp/regen) and put them in squads of 4 or more (the troops that are automatically designed are weak but cheap).  Squads and beyond are insane because you the units are merged.  You elect to train a group of 4 instead of an individual - and you get a super unit that merges the power of the 4 togther (combined attack, def, health).

Med kits boost unit health by 5 (from 5 base) to 10.  let's say you have a weapon with 10 att.  Multiply by four, and you have a unit with 40 attack and 40 health (and whatever combined defense from the armor you designed for the unit).  Who needs summons, baby, who needs em!?

And squads are just the beginning.  It's all rather disgusting, actually.

Agreed but after hearing about squads last night and not getting it, then seeing the AI using it and about crapping my pants, I quickly figured it out and at that point I was like....who cares about summoning.

I'm still learning and figuring things out but at this point squads and formations seem just a WEE bit overpowered and ridiculous.  They make the sov, hero type units, and magic seem less significant, IMO.

Is squads of 4 a kingdom only thing? As empire I get 3 people per.

Hon. Wargamers;

I learned how to build roads.  Build a caravan and order it to move from the city of origin to another city in your empire.  Now you have a road and some trade income.

I built a harbor.  It is supposed to be able to construct boats, but I have not yet stumbled into how that works.  I tried ordering a unit unto the harbor tile and inton the sea next to the harbor.  No luck yet.  I will try entering the city proper and exiting unto a sea tile.

Negotiations with the rival kingdoms is fun.  The bad guys are arrogant and pushy, the good guys are friendly and generous.  My usual attitude towards the computer opposition is "They are all freaking crazy, kill'em all".  This game seems to allow you to treat your enemies and your friends as you should without penalizing you with crazy random treachery.  A comparison of relative empire strengths shows that my live and let live policy has so far kept me in the running for most powerful nation.  I am waiting for one of them to start something before I declare total war.

I have been researching tech and magic.  I am slowly building up my spell book with every spell possible before leveling up.  This seems to keep my magicians usefully employed.  I have ramped up my tech levels to 4 starting with the military and working my way through civics, arcane, diplomacy, and adventure.  I am now back to civics where I will fill out the tech tree before moving on to the military.

As soon as I figure out how to build ships, I am going to go Greek on my first full game.  Colonies everywhere with humble garrisons.  I suspect that the computer just doesn't have the wherewithal to close the "Peace Gap"

Respectfully

Pleroma

P.S.

If your battle screen freezes on a white fog of war, click on your mage icon in the left corner and then click on your spell casting icon in the bottom middle of the screen.  This will bring up a wand mouse pointer that you can use to slowly pan across the screen untill a pop up card description of your foe appears.  You can now click and wait about 15 seconds for the spell to barbecue your foe.  If you kill him you will end the battle in about 45 seconds That should return you to your properly functioning strategic screen where you can save and continue the game.

In a natiown without metal, transports are greyed out on your unit build screen and easy to overlook.  metal is important and all of my neighbors need it just as badly as I do.  Iwonder if the game will let me sub Gold for Iron?

A few well tended cities can really dish out the pioneers.  Since the other powers are my trade/treaty love slaves, I will soon own the new world.

Stupid adventurers let the monsters out... Good gravy! that's a lot of critters.  There ought to be a law against incompetent adventuring.  My humble garrisons just got a crash course in customized well equipped parties.

Well, They didn't get all of my cities in the initial bum rush.  I am now systematically retaking my lost territories.

Turn off your automatic end turn, I did and it helps.

See you tommorrow with my first win.

Well I played through a small game.  I have had many false starts in the last two days.  The game has crashed,  frozen on battle screens, and slows to a crawl after the third turn or so.

Please fix this game.

Enjoyed your experience/10

Hon. Wargamers;

The 1.06 update has made the game playable for me.  My battles no longer freeze up on fluffy white blank screens.  My main screen will scroll properly and will respond crisply to my click and drag. 

As for play ballance and unit design "timesinks" I will leave it up to Stardock's judgement just how many of us have to be Napoleon, or Ceasar to break even on normal level.

I am going to go enjoy the game as it was meant to be played now.

Respectfully

Pleroma

P.S.  The patches that transformed the game from pulling my hair out, to just what I was looking for came out really quickly.  Thank you.