The whole shard notification thing would be more useful if it was telling you about shards you could actually do something about. But instead it just pissed me off.
Enemies in your land was similarly annoying.
If I had played more games before quitting than I did, I probably would have written a few posts here about that stuff.
How large is a larger empire though? I wouldn’t refer to any of the state’s I spawned a a kingdom much less an empire. I don’t think I ever had more than 10 cities and that was only on max map size and even then only in one game.
Yeah, I mean, there’s probably little-to-no benefit to having more cities as compared to just having a shit ton of outposts, since cities are mostly just waiting to be conquered until they’re pretty high level, anyway. Playing as the “General” Sovereign, I get a ton of buildings that make units built in each city way better than normal, but by the time they’re all in place and a city has enough hammers to actually get good units out reasonably fast, the game’s damn near over and my stack of 3-4 heroes and some quest-acquired villagers is enough to take down the SK, anyway :-/
Wait, you can get special buildings from the general guy to boost unit stats on top of using the enchantments? My custom sovereigns were always based on the Guardian even if I was using Tame for anything, never bothered with the others.
Yeah, if you follow the line fully, you can get pretty decent boosts to Attack, Defense, HP, Dodge, Initiative, and something else I can’t remember (Armor, maybe?). Plus the enchantments to do similar stuff. It can get a little wacky, to be honest–especially with Paladins :-D
It’d be easier to tell you all of that, but since the wiki entry for the Commander is empty and I can’t find a manual, if there even is one, well. . . ya know.
I assume heroes are still powerful enough to negate the need for units.
One issue they missed with heroes is that if a hero hits as hard as 2 Paladins I still prefer a hero even over 3 Paladins because it doesn’t die as easy and no logistics. I wonder if they’ll ever make heroes weak enough to balance with Paladins. And since you can generally get 2-3 heroes, you don’t need other units cept for garrison duty since its not necessary to field more than a few armies in the game.
In one run I spammed Domination on them. Fighting the SK depends on how you played, what the Doomsday Counter is at and many other things. Also they just did the hero nerfs I think.
What are good units to you? Drakes? Spiders? If your best units aren’t dragons it may be too early. Hero level may wanna be 10-15 depending on how far you let doom counter rise.
Sorcerer King’s been a really interesting experience. It’s probably best described as a 4X RPG. Which is to say, it’s very hard to market this game.
The thought was that because there are so many fantasy 4X games on the market (including our own Fallen Enchantress) that it we’d be better served in taking a different direction. SK is the player vs. the world rather than 1 civilization amongst several.
That’s all well and good IF you have a) the marketing clout to get that message out and b) an effective way to reach a player base that is receptive to a “Fantasy Star Control” type game.
Stardock’s audience is made up of a lot of core 4X strategy gamers. So there’s been some expectation challenges because they thought Sorcerer King was going to be a fantasy 4X strategy game (ala Fallen Enchantress but prettier). So when they see that the other factions are about as AI-driven as the Spathi and the that Sorcerer King is the thing that has to be defeated (i.e. conquering the other factions is not essential) they feel the game has become “lighter”.
Luckily, we’re independent so we can keep working on Sorcerer King as long as we want. So what we’re doing with the upcoming updates to it is starting to bring back more of the strategy 4X stuff. We won’t jetison the RPG elements, we’ll simply make the game world a bit richer.
So ultimately, “minor” factions will evolve to being major factions with their own agendas to take over the world rather than being either with you or with the Sorcerer King.
Thanks for writing about this, Brad. It’s weird to hear you say Stardock hasn’t got the marketing clout for this. If you guys don’t then almost nobody does in the strategy space (except Paradox and Firaxis, maybe?)…
I am also curious about calling Sorcerer king a fantasy Star Control. For me Star Control has more to do with Pirates! than with 4X games in terms of design. Hearing you describe Sorcerer King in that light makes me even more eager to try the game (I’m a future customer no matter what, it’s more about the when that about the if).
I really like SK. I enjoy it for the uniqueness which others view to be a detriment, I suppose. I like the cross between 4x and RPG with a rogue-like replay appeal. If it was up to me, I’d like to see more updates continue to build upon what is already there. Expand the minor factions with more aggressiveness and diversity, more building options, more crafting recipes and enchantments (uber-rare items?), expanded research, and definitely more quests and RPG flavor. Basically just moar of everything. :)
I think part of the reason I liked it as much as I did is because it was what I looking for- but people saw it as an update to Elemental.
I think the concept could have sold better if it wasn’t set in the Elemental world and didn’t use Kumquat.
If you do a sequel in a few years on a new or GalCiv3 engine, I’d love to see some sort of combination 4X and SK, if such a frankenstein is possible, where SK is like an AI faction that still plays by different rules, but you have to not let it win while still trying to win yourself against the other factions.
You got it. ttheyre working on 1.2 now. I think the units you can train are going to be updated in 1.2 so that, for instance, the nature guardian can train wolves.
THe rivals are going to get fleshed out further to have more life to them as well.
Hmmm. I’m not sure I like this. I’d hate to see SK turned into yet another 4X title. I kind of liked not having the minor factions that active. So if this means the minor factions are off doing interesting things other than directly competing with you, that’s not so bad. But if it ends up a game where all factions except the SK are the same, then it sounds like the exact same type of game we’ve already had over and over (FE, AoW, etc.). I liked the fact that SK was more your faction against the environment and less your faction against other similar factions.
I quite like SK the way it is, but I can’t say that:
[ul]
[li]I’ve ever felt under threat. Any losses I’ve sustained have come from me being overly ambitious when attacking a stack rather than feeling cornered.[/li][li]With the exception of the terrain/goodie hut levels that you’re exploring, the beginning of the game feels very much like the end of the game. Some sort of mid-game phase where you’re constantly being attacked and you’re forced on the defensive might add greatly to the experience. I know there’s a few spots where the SK sends units against you, but I’ve always found that those can be dealt with via whatever default garrison I have and prodigious mana use; My main stack rarely gets involved.[/li][/ul]
Full disclosure: I’ve played way more Star Control 3 than 2, because, for whatever stupid reason, I actually really loved that game. Hell, I actually probably played more total hours of Star Control1 than 2, since it was one of the only games I had on my Sega Genesis for the longest time. So, if my ideas about what Star Control is/should be seem utterly off-base, well, that’s why.
I think the idea of building out a fantasy StarCon is actually sort of fucking amazing, and now that you make the statement, some decision decisions and elements of Sorcerer King make a lot more sense, or make sense in new ways. Ah, alright: there’s a massive, all-powerful force, plus said force’s lieutenants, and I have to travel around the map (albeit randomly generated) collecting allies by performing quests and snagging Foozles so that I’m strong enough to take on the SK himself. And, of course, since it’s a game designed around a much higher level of replayability, it’s got a lot of 4X blood mixed into it: the “plot” as it were is pretty threadbare and the game sort of relies on you to make it up, and there’s more “stuff” on the map to deal with, and the SK himself is defeated in ritual combat rather than via yet more goofy Foozles. But, there’s still the humor, and the backstory of defeat, and the aggregation of weaker forces around a singular (or sometimes slightly more than singular) uber-unit with all sorts of unique abilities that can be upgraded and improved over time. There’s even resources to collect (can we consider “random” map encounters for crafting goods to be the SK equivalent of StarCon’s planetary shmup missions?), albeit on a more concrete and deeper scale.
So, having said all that, I’m actually (just a little) disheartened to hear that the game might move further into 4X territory. I guess the StarCon-y elements that are already there will stick around, and of course you guys are theoretically developing an actualStar Control of your own to whet that particular desire more thoroughly, but if anything, I wish that SK was moving more in the adventure/RPG direction. . . and that you guys had had more success (by whatever means) in conveying that element of it in the marketing/leadup to the game. I think (strongly suspect) there’s a lot of people like me who find the idea of a fantasy StarCon to be absolutely intoxicating.
So, you know, if I had my druthers, it’d be:
[ul]
[li]More complex faction quests than just “Go here, click topmost option until Rep Goes Up”
[/li][li]More in-world indicators of plot and even some more plot generation/remix engines (e.g., SK’s power has more obvious and direct influences in the world than just shards blowing up and minor civs dying, and these effects on the gameworld might be randomized each time so that you don’t always see the same ones, or in the same order, but nonetheless get the distinct and obvious impression that the game-world is dying–maybe this is the stronger midgame someone else mentioned on another page)
[/li][li]More gameworld “secrets” to uncover and gain power or insight or even just goofy FMV sequences from (to be fair, the default SK campaign sort of does this, but I’d love to see “secret” areas seeded into the random map generator, too)
[/li][li]More in-depth conversations with the minor factions, and the ability to feel their alliance more once it’s occurred (a’la getting to build Spathi/Pkunk/etc. ships in StarCon), rather than that just being the “end” of that little sub-section
[/li][li]A little more “depth” to the SK and his empire/minions (this is already pretty good for a 4X, don’t get me wrong–the keys, the weird spires in his territory, the obvious terrain warping, and of course all the goofy conversations with the SK). Maybe signs of his spreading influence in dynamic terrain events, or a little more personality for his lieutenants (e.g., the Red Guy really loves killin’ people, but the blue dude really loves blowin’ stuff up, and they both inform you of these preferences in sufficiently stupid-henchman dialog)
[/li][/ul]
And, I mean, I say all that because I already feel like we’ve got a bewildering array of great fantasy 4Xs (and a few less-than-great-but-apparently-still-tolerable-because-they-have-40-page-threads-on-Qt3-somehow fantasy 4Xs), but the RPG/adventure elements that SK infused into the genre are a really neat trick that I like a lot. Honestly, the 4X stuff is oftentimes my least favorite part of the game: the stack-building, the city-management, the “research” tree, etc. are all a lot less engaging than the RPG-DNA glimmering through underneath.
Anyway, I mean, you know, it’s your company and you all are probably waaaaay smarter than me about this stuff, so the decision to go in a different direction is what it is. . . but after reading your post and reflecting on my SK games some more, man, I can’t help but daydream. . . and then type a small novel in response :-D
I agree on the RPG DNA and the building of your stack being the soul of the game.
I just wish there was more challenge- the only way to really get a challenge is fast doomsday, and then that sort of challenge is more cheap than fun. Insane just makes you gotta take things more slowly, and insane+fast is probably mathematically impossible without a really dumb exploit.
Ugh, sounds like it’s only gonna get harder. . . haha
Glad to see it’s still being patched despite (what are rumored to be) less than stellar sales, but I do worry about its DLC/X-Pack longevity now. Haven’t heard nearly as much about that stuff as I have with GalCiv3, but maybe I’m just not paying attention in the right places.
