RED elements are new

1 09

First of all I play an empire faction on a vista64 system

IMPORTANT:

MOVEMENT GLITCHES

1) Units still exit cities from the wrong side occasionally (maybe because the final destination is shorter if one does not consider the terrain) example: a city on the left a mountain on the right. the only way to reach the destination behind the mountain would be to exit from the left side of a city and go around, but since the right side is closer to the destination I clicked, the game puts the unit between the mountain and the city.

2) Units movement points shoud be individual, a unit should be able to enter a stack which has 0 movment points withot having its MP going down to zero. It should be able to keep moving alone if needed. Or be able to move the following turn to its full extent without having to start the turn with an handicap because the units in the same tile are slower.

I STILL CANNOT UNDERSTAND THE COST OF TERRAIN WHICH SEEMS ALL WRONG TO ME
3) with a unit that has 3 movement points, while on plain i can fight then move by 3 plain tiles (thus fighting seems to cost 0 MP) but if instead  I move first, after having spent 3MPs the unit cannot attack... Why? (this is true for all units not only for those with 3MPs, that was just an example)

4) If i start my turn on plain next to a wood, with 3 movement points I can move by 2 regular wood tiles (but doesn't a wood tile cost 2 movement points?)if instead the same unit starts its turn in the woods it moves by one wood and one plain (this is fine because has 3 movement points) movement is messed up in this game!

5) If a city tile costs 0 movement points one should spend those MPs when entering a city not when walking out of it! make sure that entering woods costs 2 entering plain costs 1 entering city costs 0 entering road costs 0.5 and fight cost either 0 or 0.5. I just don't understand how movement works in this game sometimes one seems to spend the movement points for the tile they enter into, sometimes for the tile they exit from. Please fix or explain!

6) Pathfinding: units occasionally still prefer to walk into the woods than choosing a plain tile.

7) Units buying a horse should get the extra 1 mP immediately not the turn after

8) By selecting a unit within a stack and then clicking on the stack tile in the map I create a nexw stack in the same tile. Very confusing: how do I put them back together without having to move them?

9) Attacking while riding a horse is still slow (not sure about riding a wolf): In other words the animation of the rider's attack has not been fixed/sped up.

10) Auto resolve an attack still makes lose a movement point - if a player wants to autofight is because the battle is boring. he should not be encouraged to get bored or lose some movement.

11) Right after the research of the treasures and locations is accomplished, they become available, but are not wisible yet, that turn, unless one casually stumbles on them (I GOT THIS BUG BY PURE CHANCE). But if one does then they immediately become all visible. In fact sometimes locations are not visible but they become so when 'something' happens, like by having a champion walking out of a city or other actions.

12) IMPORTANT: By reloading an autosave of the very turn in which a tech  has been researched the game seems to 'forget' it and offers another technology. (or was that because the stuff was only going to appear the turn after?) ANYTHING created that same turn a game is reloaded should be investigated for strange behaviour upon reloading the autosave (or regular save) - (Stuff tend to disappear): including cities built by the AI, gildars, materials. researched technologies and Units just spawned by cities, maybe spells too etc... (some of these things might have been fixed but I am positive at least for technologies) in my case I had developed one of these techs that make appear new locations, after reloading the locations were not there anymore and I was offered again to choose the tech.

13) Padded cuirass is defense 2 but certain units (like forward observer) are equipped with a padded cuirass which has erroneously defense 3 (empire, not sure for kingdom) - that allow to buy a pre-made unit stronger than one that is possible to make using the same items.

13bis) Also the Leather cuirass is listed as adding 2 defense but the empire HONOUR GUARD wears a leather cuirass that offers 4 defense, and leather leg greaves that offer 2 defense instead than one.

14) Occasionally units get other unit's portrait for a few turns not sure what triggers it, then things go back to normality on their own.

15) Wizards use magic in auto fight against pioneers and maybe caravans too. They use it when not needed.

16) Playing on the 3D map would be beautiful but it is very hard because the forest tiles are hard to define (certain trees look like grass) and resources are not all easily visible. On the other hand while playing on the cloth map roads are invisible.

17) When a town is built by a pioneer the units that are stacked with him should automatically be put inside the town to immediately be able to defend it, instead than being shifted one tile away. In multiplayer details like that allow an enemy to exploit the situation and conquer the empty city.

18) The game still recenters the map when one tries to build a new building, making it appear in the wrong tile. Apparently an attempt t fixing it has been made, because now it is build upon releasing the mouse button, which helps but occasionally  still creates a frustrating situation.

19) The (hidious) teleport friend spell description is idenical to that of the the (hidious) "spirit dance" correction needed (then remove them both never to be seen again!) TELEPORT SPOILS THE GAME!

20) Sometimes after dividing and reuniting groups an army end up being the leader. Unless a champion is the leader of the stack he is in, going on a treasure or notable location has no effect other han getting the same old message "only champions can  blah blah" (could that message apper only once, by the way?)

21) If units within a group have the same name (both "observer" etc...) once you select them individually the window that opens in the bottom right corner does not refresh while passing form one to the next. But in this game two vary different units cold have the same name, one could be wounded and the other not, so the fact that have the same name is no reason not to refresh the image and the description.

22) Heroes still cannot magically summon units while in cities (not with themselves, haven't tried on an adjacent tile)

23) panick cannot exist in its actual form - a regenerating unit can just fully reload mana an wounds exploiting the fact that the enemy does nothing: the panicking unit should at least respond to attacks and have a random behaviour

24) All children of sovreigns regenerate mana and health even though they dont seem have the skill (bug or feature?): Health and even more mana regeneration are given with too much ease in a world where everyone struggle to recover (for units with less mana it's OK but children become too strong IMO)

25) When casting hurricane an air elemental can send an enemy next to the map border in a tile where it cannot be reached (not because of impassable ground but because it it one tile away from the area that can be reached by units - such unit cannot move either (no panick message)

26) A sovreign cannot choose which unit cast IMBUE onto if those units are in the same stack as he is - The game decides randomly

27) Occasionally after a battle the defeated unit is still visible on the strategic map but one cannot interact with it and can occupy its tile (like if it wasn't there) - that lasts just one turn (glitch)

28) In tactical battles units doisppear (are killed) EVEN BEFORE THE ENEMY STRIKES THEM (just a glitch)

29) The very turn a city is conquered its area of influence still belongs to the enemy unless one saves and reloads the game. In which case the area of influence gets correctly upadted. This has been signaled several times and it is part of those "save and reload to obtain changes" bug.

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Impressions/suggestions for balance:
The game is much better. The only map I played was kind of boring at the beginning though:not much to do other than spam cities and being pennyless for about 100 turns even though I almost only researched "domination". Players  need more gold, but with gold they shouldn't be able to buy pioneers.
SUGGESTION: Maybe pionees should stay as they are but in order to be able to build a city they should spend food.

No money from killing bandits a mosters is a big change, my economy was based on that...  Now?
Besides I ended up not having armies for a long time (no money) so I really had nothing to do other than wonder in a desert world for 100 turns,
occasionally building cities. Would be nice it cities coud sopawn several armies at once (like in Napoleon Total war) instead than passing time regrouping armies coming from everywhere. Too many turns before something happens in this game, which is going to hurt the multiplayer experience.
SUGGESTION: forests should be full of aggressive but WEAK critters of all sort which pay a little money (much less than it used to be) when killed, occasionally a stronger one should appear. That would also give players things to do.

With so few monsters around I felt encouraget to spam cities even more, instead than defending. I definitely of liked it better when there were more
roaming monsters. It was an original concept that of being forced to defend cities from inside treaths. Maybe the frequency of monsters should be an option to set at the beginning  

Does the better low level armor available in the shop have to be patched like that? At turn 150 the empress owns 10 cities but looks like a hobo. If it was an armor I found OK, but at least when I buy it... (not very important I know but kind of spoils the atmosphere)

The enemy sovreigns should ALWAYS stay in their city , like in Age of Wonders.

The AI advances and attacks with single units instead than preparing stacks.

Would be nice if heroes could build watchtowers: small forts with a range view buildable everywhere. great to defend bottle neck passages or roads.

Would be nice to have dominium spells like in age of wonders: a spell that inflict wound to every enemy anywhere in the territory, a spell that keeps covered with fog of war all territory, a spell that slows down all enemy armies and all that.

Ships are still useless since there are very few places where one can disembark. I would make ports available also in small cities, maybe upgradable when cities grow (they would allow to build better boats).

Need to teach the AI to use ships, that would allow island to be actually usedand boats to be necessary.

[Movement frustration make developers want to build moon gates moon gates make me develop a rash, my rash doesn't allow me to involve the teleporting hating Age of Wonders play by email community, if they don't buy the game we won't be able to convince Brad that this game needs PBEM and my rash will get worse. Please for medical reasons add an option to remove all forms of teleport.]

Units inside of enemy cities should not be visible when in FOW, makes no sense and diminishes the importance of scouting