Against the Storm - Fantasy roguelite city builder

[jackofshadows]

So this would inadvertently increase the game difficulty.

Not sure about that. When you level up and get more and more alternative buildings so to say like **/**/** instead of ***/*/* and then you thin shit down you actually improve your chances I'd say.

 

[Dr Skeleton]

Tying buildings to races like this seems odd given that buildings provide multiple services/formulas for multiple races. Yeah, this or that building might be a human or harpy building aesthetically, but it’s still perfectly usable if you don’t have that race, outside of very rare cases where you’d be desperate for some service building for its special bonus (which you shouldn’t rely on), you don’t ever need a specific building to win, you just need one of the buildings that provide the thing you need, it doesn’t need to be 100% optimal with 3 stars. We’ll see how it plays.

Not sure about the ponds. Fishing is a good idea, but I thought they’d rearrange map generation to have more map’s edge access or have some flooded glades/canals that connect to the edge of the map. It would’ve also made discovering glades more interesting if some of them made impassible barriers and shaped the map that way. Having it essentially as nodes in glades is too similar to other resources.

 

[PlayerEmers]

Tying buildings to races like this seems odd given that buildings provide multiple services/formulas for multiple races.

Im not sure about that either.
You will have a smaller blueprint pool that gives you bigger chances of getting something you want, but this will also restrict player builds. Imagine getting lucky with multiple cornerstones that enables a niche strategy, but you can't do it because the buildings you require are race specific and your colony lacks said race. Big potential for getting cockblocked big time.


Maybe i'm overreacting, but this feels like:

Reminds me of other roguelikes where devs do arbitrary decisions that nerf/restrict strategies just BECAUSE.

 

[jackofshadows]

Yeah it's an odd decision. However I imagine you can still buy those blueprints or find a ruin, that'd make sense to me. At the very least buy/take wild card.

 

[Elttharion]

French civ DLC is out

 

[jackofshadows]

So here my impressions after single run on the new biome with frogs, too.

Meh.

Sure the biome looks nice but for the love of fuck, why didn't they let us just fish in the ocean? It's not biggie, just some basic food and you need parts for that as for any other camp. So you got ponds. Again, for some fucked up reason you can only farm them once and at one sitting so to say. You can pull out the nets earlier but you won't be able to set them again. Like, why? Just so it would feel as a fresh mechanic? Jesus. Oh and after you fish enough (150 baits) you're allowed to burn algae for -hostility almost just like wood. Again, why not right away? Why it must be convoluted as shit for no reason?

Then you've got the expeditions: random blueprints and random "boxes" (just like a specific trader offer and by the way haven't seen him for a long time) in exchange for food. Cool, right? Not really. First off, for this biome feature you're missing a lot of blueprints for rep (you get 5 instead of 9 or something). Then, even if you choose which category blueprint are you looking it's still very random obviously and worse than the ability to reroll for money imo and choose from two. And you won't get a blueprint every time, too! The boxes are total random, I got almost completely useless ones for my run.

Then I noticed since I got a maphack cornerstone even if they tell you the new biome gets average amount of fertile soil I think there's more than that.

They also reshuffled a lot of stuff like needs, goods in production buildings and so on also as if for no apparent reason other than to fit new stuff. For example, Forum previously was about education (which makes sense) and ale and now it's about kicking ass (brawling) and drinking wine. Wtf even (that's actually because it's now a frog building and more like a theater).

As for the frogs, eh nothing too special except the fact they won't use basic shelter makes it kinda awkward since it's harder with them to upgrade hearths if you didn't get brick production as I have, ended up just buying a lot of bricks later in the game.

So again, meh. The only big question remains: what did they do to Queen's Hand challenge but I'll check that sometime later.

The new biome at night. Cute.

Lucky, right? I already restored it.

The (impressive) amount of recourses from one big pond. That's with bait though (you need to supply fishers with pack of crops). Also I'm not sure but I think there's no means to increase the amount of gaining fish etc unlike every other recourse like when you get +1, then again and end upo with obscene amount of production at your hand.

 

[PlayerEmers]

First impressions about the DLC: I think the value proposition is bad (my regional price is about half the 14.99USD price and I still think its bad value) for the content you get. The frogs are kinda nice for their starting "reveal a ruin" passive and their houses that can boost overall production. I still need to play on the new biome so cant say anything about it. But overall, i still not sure if the DLC is worth the asking price. Maybe with more updates to flesh out the DLC will fix this. IDK.

First impressions about the 1.4 update (and 1.2/1.3 updates that i have not played): I think they made good changes, added and changed a few things that gives the player more options to deal with things (mainly the many upgrades that some buildings got like houses and the blightpost). I think the game got a bit easier but you can still mess up and get fucked. I still find odd that some blueprints are now locked behind species (and still think you can get cockblocked by that restriction) but after playing 2 colonies, I dont think this change is that impactful (smaller blueprint pool has way more impact I think).

 

[PlayerEmers]

I wonder what are the odds of getting 4 rain spirit totems back to back.

 

[jackofshadows]

Man I love this map mod. Very fun indeed.

 

[axx]

How the heck do you not get a seizure just by looking at this? Where do you even begin to watch?? Looks like a bunch of early 2000s Internet explorer spyware toolbars.

 

[jackofshadows]

How the heck do you not get a seizure just by looking at this? Where do you even begin to watch?? Looks like a bunch of early 2000s Internet explorer spyware toolbars.

What do you mean, exactly?

 

[PlayerEmers]

How the heck do you not get a seizure just by looking at this? Where do you even begin to watch?? Looks like a bunch of early 2000s Internet explorer spyware toolbars.

to be fair, he is fairly late on the colony so his cornerstones perks are taking the entire bottom left and he has expanded the races resolve menu(taking the entire top left)

the game is pretty much a puzzle game all about supply chains and numbers, it has things and menus taking screen space most of the time

 

[jackofshadows]

Yeah the cornerstones could be also reduced to just one line at the bottom. The whole UI is also scalable.

 

[PlayerEmers]

After 50 or so hours playing the DLC, I think im done with it. There are cool changes from the patch, frogs are fine. But the asking price made me a bit salty and there is not much new going on to make me put another 300+ hours on this.
Also hands trial is still the same shit.

 

[jackofshadows]

Also hands trial is still the same shit.

Really? I was always forgetting to check that. A shame.

And I was playing another run on the new biome and new mechanics were starting to annoy me even more. For instance, why do I have to stock specific food for the expedition? Just why? And other stuff again which I've covered already in a previous post.

Overall yeah, even though not being too expensive DLCs is still add not enough changes and content for its price.

 

[PlayerEmers]

Also hands trial is still the same shit.

Really? I was always forgetting to check that. A shame.

Yeah, like nothing changed at all on the game mode.
The problem I have with the trial is: there is no flavor to it. Its just base game mode but you are on a timer to meet requirements for the seal. No upgrades from the start justs make the journey painfully miserable, while the rewards you get from completing cities are uneven and the modifiers that give thoses rewards are very RNG based scattered around the map.

I bet the analytics they collect from players indicate less than 0.1% players play this game mode on a constant basis. Only the turbo autists care about it (i've seen people that played prestige 20 all the way through the trial, those kinda of turbo autists).

 

[Dr Skeleton]

That it is.

The DLC is alright. Frogs are fine, the coastal grove is interesting, it plays differently to other terrain types because of the settlement shape and expeditions. It also reminds me that all settlements should start on the edge of the map and not in the middle of it surrounded by unexplored terrain. Fishing is very strange. Mechanically, it's a little different to other nodes, but it feels forced. You gather all resources to the fishing hut and only after the pond is depleted, they're transported to a warehouse. Ok, but why? How does that make sense? Are algae going to escape if we take only some of them to the warehouse first? Are fish going to escape? Where to? They're in a pond. If anything, ponds should work more like farms, where resources regenerate over time, but only if you DON'T drain everything.

And yes, there's some cool new stuff, but the core game is essentially the same, I don't think they're interested in developing the overworld map progression anymore, I don't know why. Is calling things a roguelike/lite a substitute for finishing games these days? It wouldn't be that difficult to add more story progression and an ending to the game and still let weirdos play some sort of "ultra queen challenge expedition prestige level 9000" post ending mode. The game is still good and addictive, I started a new profile with the DLC after not playing for a while and now I do 1-2 settlements most days, but it feels like they could've done more with this concept.

 

[jackofshadows]

Yeah man despite the game being very, very good it still feels like wasted potential all over. Fuck.

 

[Jonathan "Zee Nekomimi]

game is boring as fuck, dunno how you guys play this shit.

 

[PlayerEmers]

Forgot to post
they will add a new biome for the new dlc on the upcoming update + balance changes and few more additions

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1336490/view/4485117301459255577?l=english

game is boring as fuck, dunno how you guys play this shit.

Its a mix of roguelike shenanigans and production chain and efficiency autism. It tickles both things extremly well: the game feels just right if you like those things.

 

[jackofshadows]

So guys. Players refuse to open small glades (for obvious reasons). What to do, what to do. Let's practically force them to do it then!

Fuck me sideways. Even if they'd lower hostility gain from 15 to 10 I'd still think thrice before opening them. They're borderline useless.

That said, there's still possibility this was procced that way merely and I rage for nothing. First time playing on the new biome.

 

[jackofshadows]

So uh... get fuel for sacrificing fuel! (while temple continues to improve). Jeez this new addition is wonky.