Larian Studios Forums Dragon Commander Dragon Commander - Beta A Noob's Thoughts so far

I have played a few games for a few rounds. Every game has crashed either before the first combat or after the first combat is completed so I will give my impressions based on being a new player.

Here are my thoughts/errors discovered so far.

1) The help videos are a nice idea but need some reworking. I believe that the person who wrote the script for the help videos has played the game too many times and uses terms that aren't familiar to a new player. For example, the video on how to move the camera around doesn't tell you which buttons to push to move. You instead say something like "push the direction keys." I assume you say direction keys instead of WASD because people can possibly remap the keys. This video is for new people. They aren't going to have remapped the keys. Just say push A to go left, W for forward, D for left and so on.

The worst case of this was in the dragon transformation video. At the end it tells you to exit dragon form by pushing the transform button. What is the transform button? I had a long unpleasant time trying to figure that out. I kept trying to find a button on the screen to push, but you can't click screen buttons in that form. Very frustrating.
My suggestions:
1) in the video say "push R to exit dragon mode" and
2) Please put a pop up window in the bottom corner (let advanced players turn it off) that says "push R to exit dragon mode, push 1 for dragon power XXX, etc."

2) The help videos do not play when you click the Play triangle on the line that tells you you have a new help video. In order to get them to play you have to click the line of text.

3) Perhaps this is in the single player campaign, but you need to have a help video at the very beginning that goes over the basic ideas of the game. "you are the blue guys. You win by destroying the green base. You start with these units, which are the ones you moved onto the map area. You can build more by taking over certain areas and building bases. They look like this, etc."

One of the basics of the game that isn't immediately obvious is about building units. How do the units on the strategic map relate to the units on the local combat map? Please give a help video or text box or something that explains this concept.

For example, here are the thoughts going through my mind as I was about to play my first combat. There was no explanation, so I had a lot of wrong assumptions. Here is my train of thought:
I just spent a long time on the big strategic map building units and moving them around on the map to start a fight. I have 8 guys in this zone and the bad guys have only 1. Don't I just automatically win? Isn't this going to be a lame fight?

Wait a minute, why do I need to build more units? I was just told on the strategic map that units cost $3 or $4 each. I am out of money. Should I have saved money to buy more units?

Why do I build units on the big strategic map when I can just build a ton more on the small local map? What happens to all of those units on the small map when the fight is over? Do they carry over to the strategic map? It's super easy to build a ton of units on the local map. Why can't I just make a monster huge army there and then dominate the strategic map? If it costs a bunch of money on the strategic map to build units, why can I build them on the local map for free? Why have the rules of unit creation changed? How have they changed?

Yes, if you have 8 units on the map and the bad guys only have one, then it probably will be a lame fight, best to auto-resolve it. It depends on the match up, though.

The units you build on the RTS local map are not carried over, they're gone at the end of the fight, however, the better your efficiency at keeping your troops alive, the more of your troops from the big map will survive.

Another non-obvious thing Larian should probably explain better is that a War factory can only produce a number of units equal to the gold income of that country. Why? I don't know? It doesn't matter how much gold the units actually cost. So place your factories on the 2 and 4 countries on the strategy map.

I must agree with this. Also, the Dragon Morphing video just said, 'For example, I've just issued order to these units in Dragon Form. There are many hotkeys in D:DC.' - but the method on how to issue that order was not described in any form.

Considering it is a tutorial, it is always nice including how you did what you did in the video.
Also, thanks for writing down that the transform button is R, you have saved me from a lot of pain figuring it out
(The tutorial videos should mention the default settings.)

as an experienced RTS "noob" I would like to insert my perspective; I didn't see any of the tutorial videos because I never figured out how to open them. I tried once, I clicked it when it popped up, it didnt do anything, I never bothered to investigate further. I've played for roughly 5 hours in one sitting and I feel like the interface is intuitive and worked a lot like existing RTS games, in some cases better - some worse.

keybindings:
I always go into the options and set video options and review keybindings (usually use defaults unless I see a poorly placed key that sounds important). Controlling your troops while in dragon form is/was the most confusing aspect and needs some work accurately selecting units (control groups can't be selected? What about Alt+1 to select them in dragon form or Alt+1 to activate a dragon ability and leave control groups on the same keys), but dragon form turned out to be useful for controlling attacks/defense once the controls were down for it. I see this specific mechanic as the more confusing part in the interface as its not very "obvious" about how to control troops in dragon form. Why cant you access your buildings and build with hotkeys in dragon form? It should be more streamlined. Its also difficult to add new units to an existing control group. It would actually be nice if you could designate/hotkey buildings to automatically add to specific control groups.
Example: basic infantry buildings on the north of the map are designated to Control 1. All units built from these buildings are automatically assigned to group 1.
Then it would be easier to control different sections of troops (on different sections of map) and keep them together and limit strays.

It took about 5 smashings from a normal AI before it became routine to defeat it. It seems easy to expansion rush (start with hunters every time) and dig in on over half the map by the time the AI decides its a good idea to build a naval base and some transports (its never a good idea early game, not for the AI anyway... AI shouldn't do this as the way it does it is a waste of time and resources and allows the player WAY too much time to control the map)

I played campaign against 3 or 4 AI (no alliances) campaign mode. I do not know what popularity does, I do not know what entrenchment does (something about defense?), and I do not understand what support does. The interface does not explain these things or their importance or how to manipulate them... but I managed to beat the other AIs oblivious to their effects (they don't seem very important or are normalized?)

and FINALLY... the cards. I hate this card crap in video games (I really find it gimmicky and boring), BUT! Its here... I digress.
The interface for the cards is bad; I ended up with so many cards I stopped caring about them because I didn't even know what I had and the few times I tried to get the interface to organize them it didn't seem to do anything useful - eventually I found the best use for the cards is to merely impact auto-calc odds save for the select few cards that were grossly overpowered.
as a side note: it would be great (although I understand unlikely) if cards could be turned off and if the buildings that produce cards converted into a more standard resource or provide other bonuses.
Like a metal mine for advanced units or upgrade buildings that improve a type of unit by 10% (stackable?)
I found the number of buildings I wanted to place on a territory to be limited to gold mines and factories.

ANYWHO - thats my 5 hour impression.

It probably would be helpful to use Alt + 1-9 to select control groups in Dragon form, it is indeed awkward having only a few generic options. Even that limited amount of control in Dragon form was added pretty late.

It is intentional that you cannot build troops while in Dragon form for gameplay reasons. Larian doesn't want you to be able to stay in Dragon form and do everything easily. The Dragon is intended to be one tool in your arsenal, but not one that can do everythign.




Currently the AI doesn't do much with naval units at all, except maybe occasionally send a single transport with a couple units in it to capture your shipyard (which you left unguarded because there's not really any point in you doing much with naval units either).



Popularity is for the single-player campaign and probably affects the support cap you have in the country, but it has no effect on multiplayer. (It probably shouldn't show up in the mouse-over for multiplayer.)

Entrenchment is a measure of how well a country is defended, but it is unclear to me what that does and it works

EDIT: According to the manual, it says it influences the starting position on RTS maps, whether you have any defenses already built or buildings up, have any units ready for battle. No defense, and you start out with just the Recruitment Citadel.




I think the auto-calculation is supposed to take unit matchups into consideration, so hunters against a mix with lightground units will move the meter more than hunters against Armour will.

The cards also don't take the map into consideration, which is a problem with naval cards on a non-water map, and cards also seem to ignore whether a unit will be useful, like an Imp Fighter who can't attack ground against an enemy who has no air units or capability to build any, but still boosts the odds of winning anyway.

I actually think this is a great feature that actually adds strategy to the turn map. Yes it is subtle and when you bump into it you'll be say ..."huh...?"

But it prevent me from taking one nation close to your capital, and pumping out 60 gold worth of units and crushing your capital. Think of the gold income on the map as any one country's productivity/economy. Crap economy = crap production capabilities. It makes the regions on the map with 4 or 5 gold income a place to dig in and have a forward base of operations as you can produce enough units to be threatening or to keep your expansion pace up.