Kudos and Suggestions

[PSY]

Great game Brit. I picked it up at Christmas and have really been enjoying it.

Kudos on a great game. It's really a lot of fun. I like what you've added to the classic empire game genre. The resources really make the game much more interesting. The artwork is also great. I love the tech tree and how things progress from a WW I dreadnought era with standard ships as transports and biplanes on to WW II with landing craft and prop planes on to the modern era with hovercraft and jet aircraft.

I'm also impressed with your interface, which I think is very slick. I particularly like how easy it is to chain together orders in an intuitive fashion -- for example telling a transport to go to a location, off load some troops, and then go to a different location while simultaneously telling the troops to go to a specific point once they offload.

If I could offer a few suggestions:

• Having the game remember the last game setup when generating a new game would be nice. It's a minor annoyance to have to re-enter all the information when I want to start a new game, and a couple of times, I've accidentally forgotten to change a setting or two back to my favorite settings when I start a new game.
  
  
• It would be great to be able to setup permanent teams in the game setup. This would be particularly useful for play balancing, for example, if I found it was too easy to beat a single Elite opponent, but too hard to beat two Elite opponents, I could setup a game with me teamed up with a Novice AI player and play against two Elite opponents.
  
  
• It would be nice to have an "always at war" option, which could be combined with the above teams. All teams would start the game at war with each other.
  
• Having units gain a bit of experience from combat would make for a fun addition. You probably wouldn't want too much of a experience bonus for balance purposes, but a bit of an improvement for veteran units would add some spice to the game. Maybe a 2-3% improvement in attack/defense values per successful combat, with a maximum of 20% stronger than a regular unit.
  
• Having tooltips with the name and level of a unit (e.g., Tank (Class 4)) show up on the left-hand information sidebar would be useful. For example, when it displays a list of "Sightings" for the turn, it shows a list displaying enemy unit icons, but I don't always know what I'm looking at (particularly their class). So I have to roll back to the point in the turn when the unit is actually displayed on the map, and then mouse over it to get the tooltip of unit name and class. It would be nicer to just have that information tooltip on the sidebar itself in addition to on the map. Alternatively instead of a tooltip, maybe just list the unit name and classes in the "Sightings" and "Combat Reports" sections.
  
• A more explicit indicator that we are out of research projects would be nice. I've played enough now that I tend to notice it on the left-hand sidebar. But for my first games, I repeatedly forgot to setup research, and would occasionally go several turns with no research project before I noticed. Maybe actively bring up the research window when more research needs to be assigned, just as you actively bring up city build windows when a city has completed its production list.
  
• It would be nice to have an end of turn hotkey. In Civ4, for example, I'm used to being able to just hit the spacebar to end the turn. (Maybe this is already in, and I just don't know the right key?)
  
• Some people have kind of hinted at this in other posts, but it would be nice to have a bit more flexibility in Field Orders. In particular what I most miss is orders telling a unit to avoid combat. I'd like the ability to tell some units to always flee and others to flee if they are faced with tough odds. For example, I'd like to be able to tell my transports to always run, and damaged capital ships to flee if they are facing opponents at their level and size or above.
  
• One UI improvement to consider if it's not too difficult is to have some indication when you try to move units but the "Replay Slider" is not at the end of the replay. Sometimes I've gone back with the Replay Slider to look at something that happened in the middle of the turn, then after spending some time looking around the map, I forgot to move the Replay Slider back to the end of the turn. What ends up happening next is I try to give individual units orders and the game just ignores me, and I think the game is bugged. But it's not, it's just that you naturally have to be at the end of the replay to give orders.
  

Also a bug report. Someone earlier reported a few weeks ago that Battleship bombardment was having problems. I'm still seeing this as of the build immediately before your New Year's Eve update. It could be I just don't know how to do this. I've had a Battleship selected and had the icon turn into the standard target icon. I've also had cases of the Battleship selected and had another icon displayed which looks kind of like a bombardment -- target plus a shell. But regardless of which icon I use to give orders to the Battleship, typically nothing happens. I've also had Battleships parked right offshore with enemy units next to them, and usually nothing happens. I think I've only seen Battleships bombard enemies on shore once.

[Raynale]

I'm also addicted to the experience point. Letting units advance by successfull battles would add another interesting aspect to the game.

Certain levels could give the units special bonuses like e.g. adding % to attack, defence or improve their movement or visibility ranges.

Some more ideas:

- Destroyers could improve their sub detecting and attacking skills

- Tac. Bombers could go for improved naval and/or ground attack (maybe even selectable?)

- Infantry may be able to improve their entranchement bonus

...

[drrowley]

•Having the game remember the last game setup when generating a new game would be nice. It's a minor annoyance to have to re-enter all the information when I ...

•Having units gain a bit of experience from combat would make for a fun addition. You probably wouldn't want too much of a experience bonus for balance purposes, ....

•Having tooltips with the name and level of a unit (e.g., Tank (Class 4)) show up on the left-hand information sidebar would be useful. For example, when it ...

•A more explicit indicator that we are out of research projects would be nice. I've played enough now that I tend to notice it on the left-hand sidebar. But for my ...

•One UI improvement to consider if it's not too difficult is to have some indication when you try to move units but the "Replay Slider" is not at the end of the replay. ...

>>

•Some people have kind of hinted at this in other posts, but it would be nice to have a bit more flexibility in Field Orders. In particular what I most miss is orders ...

<<

i like this player;)

[drrowley]

+

For units 'sighted' in the 'sightings window', replace the 'sighted' with unit type.

Brake up the reports tab into different window tabs. Instead of reports tab and summary tab, it would be

'sightings', 'combat report' , 'construction complete', 'units' and

'summary' tabs. 'Units' tab would still be grouped into the 'upgrade',

'additional orders' and 'idle's windows.

[Brit]

Great game Brit. I picked it up at Christmas and have really been enjoying it....

Thanks for the feedback. A couple notes:

[*]Having tooltips with the name and level of a unit (e.g., Tank (Class 4)) show up on the left-hand information sidebar would be useful. For example, when it displays a list of "Sightings" for the turn, it shows a list displaying enemy unit icons, but I don't always know what I'm looking at (particularly their class).

Okay, I went ahead and added this to the next update.

[*]A more explicit indicator that we are out of research projects would be nice. I've played enough now that I tend to notice it on the left-hand sidebar.

I generally watch the upper right research display. When you see a red diamond in the research section, it means that you need to add some research orders. Admittedly, even I sometimes forget to assign additional research orders sometimes, so I'm thinking about some other reminders.

[*]It would be nice to have an end of turn hotkey.

The list of hotkeys can be found in the "Preferences" window (which is one of the buttons below the minimap). The Submit Orders hotkey is "Q", but you can customize it to something else if you prefer.