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Joined: Jul 2013
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Just played through my first campaign, and this game is great. Very happy with it so far - but I do feel like the RTS combat is just a touch too fast. It reminds me of the spammy RTS days of Red Alert 2, which while still fun, seems at odds with the really deep upgrade system and dragon combat at work here.

I was able to just walk through NPCs using masses of units without worrying about unit abilities I had purchased. I found passive abilities were far more important, because while I could set aside time to use unit abilities, it was never necessary.

I really feel like increasing build/training time and inceasing unit health would do wonders here. I do understand that the RTS portion can't take 30+ minutes a round, or a campaign would never end. Still, maybe decreasing map population cap as well could help, ensuring there are fewer but more useful units on the field.

Adding to the problem was the fact that the only crashes I experienced occurred when I piled in a massive army into one territory (many times some of my units would spawn outside the map or underground as a result). If I was not required to mass spam units this could be avoided.

Anyways just my couple of thoughts, still in love with this.

Joined: Dec 2012
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I really second this!

Right now I have the impression that everything you are doing on the strategic map is easily outdone on the RTS map. So why bother about purchasing expensive units or doing research on the strategic map if this is very very cheap and fast achieved on the RTS map? I had to struggle a little bit at the beginng with the fast pace of the game, but after learning the shortcuts by heart (and being able to slow down the pace of the game in the options, thank you very much for this!) it is very easy to win each combat (against AI) by just spamming units. So, there is sadly no need for any sophisticated strategy at all... It does not even matter how many units you have at the beginning since you can produce really masses of them in no time...

And about the possibility of research on the RTS map... Is it not the idea of the game that you need to think about a strategy und wisely upgrade your units in order to win the game? So, why then enable the research on the RTS map? Right now, every upgrade you have made can be easily outdone by your opponent on the RTS map, and this is in my opinion really frustrating. So, if there is no research ability on the RTS map, then you might encounter an upgrade by your opponent which you can not counter and loose one battle... But is this not the point of a strategic planning ahead? And even if you loose you can research an upgrade for the next turn so that you are not unprepared during the next battle to come. Please, think about the possibility of at least limiting the research possibilities on the RTS map (say just 2 upgrades may be researched during the combat) so that your decisions on the strategic map gain in importance!

Joined: Apr 2013
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While I think the principle is sound I wouldn't like to see the build time increased. A global debuff to resource and resource gathering rates might have this effect but if you debuff build times it just further emphasises needing to constantly be issuing build orders.

If it takes longer to get resource then starting with units and other bonuses will have an increased impact.

Joined: Jan 2009
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Increasing the build time isn't a simple fix-all solution. In the campaign mode, where battles start out with units on the field, the ones with more units get a much larger advantage if the build time is increased - especially if they have more Hunters (or if they have some and you have none).

A debuff to resource gathering has the exact same problem - you get bonus recruits for taking construction points, so the more units you start out with, the bigger your advantage will be.

Decreasing the overall population cap seems like a better idea - the way it is now is too large and encourages longer games.

There's also the problem of the RTS map being able to research anything quickly if you have the base unit, it makes those upgrades from the Campaign map pretty worthless.

That is exacerbated by the inflated population counts, with 7000-8000 Recruits per map, getting all the upgrades is cheap and affordable.

I don't think outright banning research is a good idea either, it means there could be no way to counter. I think the beast way to make research matter is to have counters should come at a hefty cost.

Suggested Improvement: Drastically increase the recruit cost to purchase upgrades in the campaign's RTS mode by something like 5 times, so instead of something costing you only 20 recruits to research, it costs you 100 - a pretty sizable chunk of income. Probably don't increase the research time, just the cost.

That should force you to choose between temporary research and unit production, and it increases the value of upgrades you bought on the campaign map.

Joined: Mar 2003
Location: Canada
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The manual doesn't specifically mention research during the RTS section, so the intention may be to make upgrades available to be tested, but restrict that ability before release (in the campaign modes, at least).

Joined: Jun 2013
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Honestly, I think slashing resource generation, slightly upping build times, but giving players a larger starting resource would be cool. That way there's builds in the sense of, do I rush for a couple of mech units? Do I build lots of troopers? do I skimp on units to cap as many resource nodes as possible? etc. Currently there's not much of this.


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