Did not know this. The UI of the game should indicate this is the case some how.
[quote] Yes, having the most units will win the game, but if you find a player that is making lots of Powerplants, they will have spent a lot to buy them and can be more vulnerable. It is an interesting balance game that, I think, adds to beauty of the game mechanics. The same with the overwhelming forces not losing as many units. Iāve seen players who are losing dance their units around a larger force only to corner a part of the bigger force and wipe them out and turn the tide of the battle.
Overall, I find this to be a wonderful game. Perhaps build times on buildings might add something, and making forts and artillery stronger might make them more significant factors in a battle, but the game plays very well! [/quote]
Since writing my original critique, Iāve played another 10 or so games.
I find the the numbers advantage is so huge that if I just simply focus on producing the most units, I nearly always win.
This means I spend way more time moving units to loci to build power plants than I do deciding when to attack.
As an experiment, I tried a couple games where I blitz my neighbor instead of building a power plant first thing. This should be a valid strategy, since if you can capture his plant, you should be able to crush him. However, the balance of the game is such at the moment that this is impossible. My strategically daring and interesting move is blocked by simply building a power plant.
In my opinion the most interesting part of the game, the part I want to focus on, is moving my armies around in and out of cover, feinting an attack, then flanking. I spend most of my time instead building up my economy, which I think it boring in comparison. Itās easy to formulate an algorithm for how to best lay out oneās plants to get the highest units per turn. Thereās no strategy there.
In fact, the best use of the first 5 minutes of the game is building 2-3 factories and then waiting to get to 2500. This is boring. Itās more fun to build 5-6 factories and then build the powerplant, but it is suboptimal by a large degree in a game that is all about geometric growth.
I feel like this could be countered by a large degree if each additional power plant cost x2 the one before it.
And there you have it, legitimate game critique on the DevForums
well, Iāve successfully pulled that off multiple times before, so youāre probably just doing it wrong.
well, Iāve successfully pulled that off multiple times before, so youāre probably just doing it wrong.[/quote]
Depends on the skill level of the person that youāre attacking.
well, Iāve successfully pulled that off multiple times before, so youāre probably just doing it wrong.[/quote]
Depends on the skill level of the person that youāre attacking.[/quote]
I just timed it right. Just sit around and wait for them to build a factory and immediately capture it.
So you really need to fix artilleries and forts. I was playing a game where it looked like this:
O F F
\ | /
\ F /
|
A
F==Fort, A==Artillery, O==Other.
The 3 forts were mine, and the artillery was my opponentās. Our forces were about the same (113k vs 113k). He attacked me from the artillery, and he won with more than half of his troops to spare. Why doesnāt having that many forts protect against a single artillery? 
[quote] So you really need to fix artilleries and forts. I was playing a game where it looked like this:
O F F
\ | /
\ F /
|
A
F==Fort, A==Artillery, O==Other.
The 3 forts were mine, and the artillery was my opponentās. Our forces were about the same (113k vs 113k). He attacked me from the artillery, and he won with more than half of his troops to spare. Why doesnāt having that many forts protect against a single artillery? [/quote]
Artillery were created specifically to counter forts. Why should your fort that costs 400 units be able to hold up against an artillery that costed 4000?
Still playing this several times a week.
Great game.
I think I was wrong about the blitz strategy, Iāve been able to do it several times now.
I might also have been wrong about the power plants, though I still believe their huge bonus magnifies starting position inequity. I.e. getting a 7-fac pp location to start is huge. Getting forced to build your first pp in a 4-fac location means you are starting out behind the 8-ball.
Also, starting in the middle is death.
[quote] So you really need to fix artilleries and forts. I was playing a game where it looked like this:
O F F
\ | /
\ F /
|
A
F==Fort, A==Artillery, O==Other.
The 3 forts were mine, and the artillery was my opponentās. Our forces were about the same (113k vs 113k). He attacked me from the artillery, and he won with more than half of his troops to spare. Why doesnāt having that many forts protect against a single artillery? [/quote]
Artillery were created specifically to counter forts. Why should your fort that costs 400 units be able to hold up against an artillery that costed 4000?[/quote]
Yeah, maybe youāre right. It just seems like 3 forts vs 1 artillery should have at least knocked out quite a few more of his men.
Iāve been playing this game for a while too. Iāll tell you now that the best strategy is to ally the first person you encounter. This is by far one of the best tactics, alliances are very important in this game.
However, this is still interesting gameplay because you can definitely lose the battle.
This game is quite good from a game design aspect (itās very replayable).
If you end up in the middle your best bet is to spend a bit of time whining about starting in the middle. You can build up a nice starting base pretty easily in the middle, but then you need to pick a direction to āescapeā in. Iāve won several games from the middle by exploiting massive exploration techniques and then concentrating all my fire power on a single player and taking over a corner.
The biggest thing in this game is that defense is so much harder than offense, but the best players are the ones that maximize the movement of troops forward to all fronts, almost to the point that the actual battles donāt matter because you have such an overwhelming force.
I think itās more optimal to build more than 2-3 factories at the starting location, simply because the time it takes to wait for the 2.5k to accumulate is definitely a time when youāre vulnerable to blitz.