Blayze99
Private
Proposal: To create an in-game tutorial/Guide/beastiary to assist players with learning the mechanics of Ancient Egypt's combat system
Have you checked for similar ideas?: I searched for 'Ancient Egypt' in general which had very few hits with none related to this
Reason: Many players are having unsatisfactory game experiences due to the steep learning curve on the combat system. The combat system in Ancient Egypt has several unique mechanics that players need to learn before they can fight battles effectively. This includes:
- Each units' special ability (I understand that a few of these appear in the main game like retaliate, however players still need to learn which unit has which ability here)
- Which units counter which other units (stacked with that each unit counters and is countered by 2 units instead of 1)
- Terrain bonuses for each unit
- Exactly how well each units counters its counter as well as exactly how important each of the terrain and special bonuses are
All of these feature are in the standard game, so why are they an issue here? For a few reasons. First, there is simply more different things put in all at once. This means that players have more to learn at one time, which can be very overwhelming. Second, some of the bonuses are not intuitive. Why do Nubian Archers get increased defence on rocks? Why do chariots get increased defence in forest? Why are chariots weak against melee infantry with swords? Due to this, it can be very easy to forget about abilities and make crucial mistakes.
Why does making mistakes matter here so much? Since everything has two counters and high damage so that every unit gets 2 shot by its counters, it is an unforgiving environment for mistakes. Lastly, and this is the big deal, losing a battle feels bad. Really bad. This is because you can't do anything in the settlement without winning fights. This is also because you are on time pressure, and it feels (and is) a massive set back to lose fights early and miss goods productions. If you lose your army, it can also be very expensive and take a long time to retrain them early in the settlement. This is especially relevant since the stages where you will make the most mistakes is at the start where you are still trying to learn the system.
Also yes, I know that Nubian Archers are strong, and you can easily win fights with them, but that still doesn't help the issue of people being turned away before they can even get going.
Details: I think that creating a guide/tutorial/beastiary could strongly help to curb this early learning curve to the settlement. Details explaining core concepts, such as the terrain boosts, counter abilities, special abilities, volatility of combat as well as a few general tips for playing units would go a long to way helping out the players who are either a) not combat players or b) have difficulty learning the new system.
Balance: This does not affect any mechanics and should have no impact on game balance.
Visual Aids:
- Beastiary - would be a button by itself, from the bottom menu. Maybe have a shortcut to it in the army management screen
- would have one page per unit and display their stats, as well as strengths and weakness. Basically what shows when you click the unit.
- potentially could have a combat pentagon. Each corner would be a different unit with green/ red arrows to the other corners indicate strong/weak against.
- could easily incorporate historical info here
-Tutorial - should be optional
- would talk through each of the relevant details, emphasising the aspects of the system that are different to normal
- would pop up upon unlocking the siege camp as a 'Do you want to complete the tutorial' sort of message
-Guide - Would be likely visible as a question mark on each unit, or as multiple pages from the Siege Camp's blue question mark button
- state many of the same things as the tutorial
- would focus on concepts rather than stats. Such as that every unit (generally) 2 shots the units it counters
Have you checked for similar ideas?: I searched for 'Ancient Egypt' in general which had very few hits with none related to this
Reason: Many players are having unsatisfactory game experiences due to the steep learning curve on the combat system. The combat system in Ancient Egypt has several unique mechanics that players need to learn before they can fight battles effectively. This includes:
- Each units' special ability (I understand that a few of these appear in the main game like retaliate, however players still need to learn which unit has which ability here)
- Which units counter which other units (stacked with that each unit counters and is countered by 2 units instead of 1)
- Terrain bonuses for each unit
- Exactly how well each units counters its counter as well as exactly how important each of the terrain and special bonuses are
All of these feature are in the standard game, so why are they an issue here? For a few reasons. First, there is simply more different things put in all at once. This means that players have more to learn at one time, which can be very overwhelming. Second, some of the bonuses are not intuitive. Why do Nubian Archers get increased defence on rocks? Why do chariots get increased defence in forest? Why are chariots weak against melee infantry with swords? Due to this, it can be very easy to forget about abilities and make crucial mistakes.
Why does making mistakes matter here so much? Since everything has two counters and high damage so that every unit gets 2 shot by its counters, it is an unforgiving environment for mistakes. Lastly, and this is the big deal, losing a battle feels bad. Really bad. This is because you can't do anything in the settlement without winning fights. This is also because you are on time pressure, and it feels (and is) a massive set back to lose fights early and miss goods productions. If you lose your army, it can also be very expensive and take a long time to retrain them early in the settlement. This is especially relevant since the stages where you will make the most mistakes is at the start where you are still trying to learn the system.
Also yes, I know that Nubian Archers are strong, and you can easily win fights with them, but that still doesn't help the issue of people being turned away before they can even get going.
Details: I think that creating a guide/tutorial/beastiary could strongly help to curb this early learning curve to the settlement. Details explaining core concepts, such as the terrain boosts, counter abilities, special abilities, volatility of combat as well as a few general tips for playing units would go a long to way helping out the players who are either a) not combat players or b) have difficulty learning the new system.
Balance: This does not affect any mechanics and should have no impact on game balance.
Visual Aids:
- Beastiary - would be a button by itself, from the bottom menu. Maybe have a shortcut to it in the army management screen
- would have one page per unit and display their stats, as well as strengths and weakness. Basically what shows when you click the unit.
- potentially could have a combat pentagon. Each corner would be a different unit with green/ red arrows to the other corners indicate strong/weak against.
- could easily incorporate historical info here
-Tutorial - should be optional
- would talk through each of the relevant details, emphasising the aspects of the system that are different to normal
- would pop up upon unlocking the siege camp as a 'Do you want to complete the tutorial' sort of message
-Guide - Would be likely visible as a question mark on each unit, or as multiple pages from the Siege Camp's blue question mark button
- state many of the same things as the tutorial
- would focus on concepts rather than stats. Such as that every unit (generally) 2 shots the units it counters
