New Look at the Game

[UxBrother]

Hi
I’m a longtime fan of your game and consider it the best medieval strategy game ever.

But I also design interfaces and was curious to present a different approach to the parts of the game where I had the most difficulty.

Chapter 1

The most important change to the interface has to do with the fact that the panel with the units is displayed on the left in the format as it looks on the battle.

Take the panel with the brothers in the city window also to the left.

In all shops add the same panel, it will avoid switching between brothers and stash.

You need to admit that people don’t want to follow your game design and are using the safe/load to hire brothers. Simplify people’s lives from useless actions. Leave the complexity to the iron version. For the money I can get all the information about the brothers I want to hire. Also, I can compare the characters with my brothers right in the same window. It would be nice if this interface will also be a button to turn off the equipment to understand the stats with an empty fighter.

Make the display of the training hall and the temple a little differently

Taxidermist should be reviewed, you should show those items that I have, a list of what I can do with them, as well as offer to buy recipes instead of me to go to the Internet and look for information on the wiki. I came to a specialist who already knows this information, it is strange that he is silent and not trying to help me.

Ports should be more informative, I must see immediately the port where I move, as well will be good for greater reliability to make different prices for different rates of arrival.

Chapter 2 > soon…

[Koburn]

Hello fellow gamer.

I agree with some part of the suggestions but not all. I think a great part that makes the game fun and challenging is how the game treats the player: It won’t hold your hands and tell you everything. The game presumes you are doing your job as a manager of group of mercenaries, for instance it wants you to take the time to know your geography: Harbor so-and-so is on the south on the peninsula near the mountains. The game gives you the name of the port and the visual design of it. You can for instance clearly understand by the name of the southern town and the architecture of it that it is in the south. It is perfect visual representation of the required information: Not too much, but just enough. If you do not where that port is, then it is you who has not taken in account your bearings and the geography of the world you live in and work in. You are the manager of the company after all and should take responsibility, I think such details makes you take minor details into account and try to make you do really do your part as a manager. It brings another depth to the level of the game which would be diminished by showing the surroundings of the port town. If anything could be added, it could be the cardinal and ordinal directions of the compass rose in their shortened forms. N, E, S, W and NE, SE, SW, NW respectively.

I like the idea of traveling time with the ship though, it would bring a realistic touch to sailing. However, the problem is that the portion of the world which is shown in-game is quite small. It does not take too many days to travel from one end to the other. If you travel by road it will cost you time and time is money: You have to pay the wages and feed your crew. Sailing itself costs money, by adding a time frame to it, it would mean increasing the cost of the sea voyage indirectly. And being a seaman myself, I just have to mention that the option of different speeds to the same location just feels wrong. They are using sailing vessels, the speed is dependent on the skill of the navigator and the seamen and the winds, not on the amount of money you pay for your passage. While instant traveling might feel unrealistic I think it makes sense within the game terms and its inner logic.

In the taxidermist section, it could give you the description of the item you get by hovering over the to-be crafted item (I thought it actually already did this but having an ongoing iron man game I won’t check it at the moment).

On the hiring in non iron man games, I understand your point. However, just because you *can* save and reload to get the “perfect” candidate for your company, does not mean you *have to*. I don’t think all information should be shown by clicking the try out button. You have the option to save and reload, if you want, to avoid getting bad candidates. However, I think a huge part of the game is that you have to work with what you got. It *is* hard to find good men. I would even suggest that the game could go further in the other direction: It could reveal the talents first after a level up instead of directly after hiring. I realize that would make it difficult to implement on candidates who have more than one level at the point of hiring but it would add an interesting depth and a moment of surprise.

As for the layout of the roster of men, I think it works as it is by having them under and not on the side (here a sense of direction is all that is needed), but having them in the hexagonal pattern instead of top of another would definitely be an improvement and reflect a battle plan more properly.

Cheers,
D.

[Ledgren]

@UXBrother
I love your changes almost universally. But that’s just between us fans. I think the dev team is either burned out on community feedback or just not checking the forums. Game’s a success (I hope), so I’m not sure how plugged in they are. Can’t please everybody. In fact, even if the devs made a perfect game in a very specific way, they’d have people wishing it was something else. And that’s fine.

The only changes I would object to on personal preferences are the changes on the port, since as Koburn has pointed out, there are already trade offs associated with the mechanic in-game and the logic followed is sufficiently in-step.

I would however object to one of the points made by @Koburn.
The original Poster’s point on hiring is that most people don’t actually use the in-game hiring system as presented. Although it likely does appeal to people who want an experience where the player is forced to make do with what they get, some of the most downloaded mods are consistently recruitment change mods.
This strain of thought is also counter to one of your other statements, a statement that I agree with. Chiefly, as a mercenary manager, you take responsibility for information involved with running a company. Now with this in mind. What thoughtful manager hires someone for an ungodly amount of money with no idea what his capabilities (stats) are? Who would hire a hedge knight for 8000 crowns without first giving him a training sword and getting a good idea of how well he can use it (melee attack stat)? I’d argue that no prudent manager would. The mechanic as it stands in game is more artificial difficulty conceit straight from a skinner box style of design than something a careful manager would put up with.

Those are my opinions anyway. Still a great game.

New profile, old player.

[Ledgren]

You know, thinking on recruitment further, can think of a way to do it that makes sense and gives a gameplay cost. I say this fairly certain that the devs are not going to revisit the matter, but it’s just something for us forum-heads to chew on.

It would make more sense if the company had a designated man to test trainees. The level of this character, his experience, would determine just how much he could suss out about potential recruits. There could be a further wrinkle of possible wounds.

Letting your level 1 peddler attend to the tryout of a hedge knight might give you the result of very serious injuries and little at all learned about the potential recruit, since the peddler doesn’t now his ass from the sharp point of a spear.

Having a level 11 peddler whose seen many many battles handle the testing would allow you to see the other character’s stat spread. If the devs wanted to get fancy, they could even make it so that certain backgrounds are more likely to suss out certain traits/debuffs regardless of level simply because of their background. A miner might know someone with breathing problems just as one example.

Then of course you’d have everything in between, where a mid-level bro can get some details on potential recruits but not a great deal if they’re near his level.

A system like this would pose the constant danger of injuries, and make it much more difficult hiring top tier talent at lower levels as opposed to once your company has serious combat veterans.

It would probably be a pain in the ass to code though. Makes more sense to me than believing a good merc captain would make a payment to a recruit on the hopes that he’s not bullshitting on his resume at least. “I’m totally a hedge knight, give me 10,000” he said in gear stolen from a roadside corpse.

None of this is anything other than forum chew though. I agree with OP’s statement. Best medieval turn based strategy game of all time, and definitely the most impressive debut game of any indie company I’ve ever seen.

New profile, old player.

[Koburn]

Yeah, I do agree that you would want to know the talents of a potential recruit before paying especially when hiring a hedge knight/gladiator/sell-sword. I guess what I was thinking was that the recruit might not know his potential or talents himself (unless he is already an experienced fighter). Anyway, I understand why the talents are not visible. Personally, while I do find it annoying at times, it’s also a part of the charm of the game.

The talents might be slightly overrated though, a star is basically worth 5 points in any given skill within a career of 10 levels, no?

[Evilpotatoe]

I like the idea of displaying characters the same way as they’ll be in battle, but did you think of the needed resolution for that ? E.g. What about the Switch version ?

Also agree about how annoying it is to constantly switch between inventory & bros in towns. This could definitly be improved.

OTOH, I don’t care about temples or training halls because… what are they for ? :p

—
Oh, and I absolutely HATE the main concept of “tryout mod”. I’d accept it for beginner difficulty only.
IMO, the game is way too grindy, but the things to fix aren’t there. What I want is an incentive to fight something else than brigands or take more contracts (instead of pillaging all wilderness locations, cautiously avoiding any contract asking me to do so because it’d lose any potential cool item inside).
And also, I’d like my bros to lvl up faster (or start with a higher level) once my campaign is advanced, so I could afford to lose bros much more often. This would encourage taking risks rather than playing a safe and repetitive farming.

[Author]

Posts