Glad to hear it! I bought this today despite my concerns about late game play, both to support Jon and because I think I’ll get enough from the current build to rationalize its relatively low price. I won’t get a chance to play it before the weekend
I got some early access thing from the kickstarter and didn’t touch it until the last 2 weeks and then dropped 20 hours on it.
To echo other’s thoughts, the early game is interesting. I especially like the “play to the map and the clans who show up” aspect in keeping the tribe fed and teched up to stone blocks / permanent structures. After that it’s just a “how quickly can I get the victory” game (50 steel weapons and armor with 5 clans trained up as legions). I don’t think I’ve seen any romans on the map ever, just other tribes.
Well and I have broken my sorta “rule” over the last year so many times it makes me doubt my preaching.
But I do feel sorta bad voting for At the Gates for tonight’s stream … I think it may still be rough.
(Scott it is fun to consider Pillars Turnbased! I mean wow!)
This game is fun so far. Definitely a brain-burner. I read the whole guide before starting but I’m still making mistakes like stocking up on five whole tools and then realizing the profession I want to train is 20 each. Each time I have to earn gold with the settlement I kick myself. Definitely working as intended early on, I think, and will keep me busy.
Why did you do that.
Well Tom’s stream went well. He got into quite a few systems. Though I am not sure it was a roundhouse recommendation… he played for over 2 hours. FYI.
WHERE IS TEH CLAN INFO SCREEN F8 DUZN"T WORK ON MY COMUPTER???SO MAD
-Tom
I’ve got about 10-12 hours in it now and it’s got some interesting concepts and systems. For example, the weather system is nifty, i.e. units being forced to encamp during winter to preserve supplies and in some cases are completely immobilized by snowstorms. Also, clans with certain professions (say, Guide) that require they remain “settled” in town but provide a sort of global benefit to clans in related professions out in the field (Foragers and Reapers) sure is neat-o.
But OTOH it’s a super slow burn and keeping track of all of these synergies and skills, traits and clans feels sorta like doing taxes. It’s just not that much fun and I keep thinking “why would I play this over Civ or AoW?” and I can’t think of any compelling reasons.
There may be more to it in mid to later gameplay but based on what I’ve read about lack of combat, weak AI and simple diplomacy, I’m not sure I care.
GB as we watched I think we were thinking the same thing. To Tom’s credit he played it straight and did the best he could. I was thinking “Warhammer 2” the whole time but … that’s just me.
You mean Gladius.
That’s certainly what I was thinking while playing.
-Tom
Well I bought it anyway in the hopes my contribution will help expand new and original ideas.
I’m happy, and I haven’t even started the game yet.
I was thinking, future testing of games should include the developer literally watching a player start up, mess up, etc, to see what players actually do.
RPS review sounds like he only played 7-8 hours. Then again, it sounds he played only 7-8 hours because some big pace problems.
I’m going to think of this as an Early Access game, based on player reactions and the following from Jon posted in the Steam forum last month:
"Post-Release Update Plan
AtG is almost ready to be released, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be bugs and it certainly won’t be perfect in terms of pacing, balance, AI, etc. So the plan is to release patches over the next several months on a fairly regular schedule:
• 1.01 … 0-2 weeks after release … Stability
• 1.1 … 4-6 weeks after release … Balance
• 1.2 … 8-12 weeks after release … Strategy + Mod Support
• 1.3 … 5-7 months after release … AI + Diplomacy
This doesn’t mean support for the game ends after this, but the above is already set-in-stone and I want you all to be in the loop with regards to the plan. It’s also possible things will change a bit, but if and when this happens I’ll be sure to post here and let you know.
- Jon"
Think I’ll wait for 1.3. Based on @GuildBoss’ comment I certainly won’t be playing this during tax season ;-)
My feeling as well
By then this will be a distant memory
Not at all (at least for me), I have lots of games I’ve tagged “backlog” just to wait for them to get patches (or in some cases, DLC).
I’ve got a hunch that when AtG finally gets AI and diplomacy patched it, there will be a lot of chatter in this neck of the woods. In the mean time it can sit quietly in my WIshlist.
It’s definitely a huge part of the problem. The early game is slow, uneventful and unrewarding and in many cases just plain aggravating (e.g. your starting clans all having negative traits, cold weather rolling in too fast). I started maybe a dozen games and never got past turn 20 with any of them.
My biggest gripe with the early game is the map and its features don’t offer anything exciting to discover early on. Sure, there’s the occasional ancient battle site with a handful of weapons but you can’t even use them until you do some deeper research into the Honor tree, which is mostly useless early on anyway.
Then you’ve got a few scattered farms and such that are occupied by unaffiliated clans but again, you can’t conquer them until you get warriors/archers which is in the Honor tech tree…and you’ll need weapons to equip the clan.
Beyond that it’s just unidentified rocks and bushes, which, after the 10th time surveying a rock to discover it’s actually Salt, gets a bit old…and salty.
Compare this to Civ or AoW where early exploration is much more exciting, especially if you enjoy combat in your 4x games.
I really wanted to like this game. I know Jon has gone through the ringer with it and I’m happy he’s okay now but I’ll probably shelf this until 1.2 and mod support and see what happens.
Which leaves me puzzled as to why he didn’t label it Early Access?