itch.io

I finally won a couple games, but I had to drastically change my strategies and tactics to less intuitive ones:

1) I noticed that the AI does not actually build anything beyond what it is given at the start (town hall, 2 houses, 4 towers, barracks, and archery range), harvest resources, research technologies, etc. Instead, the game just gives it/builds stronger combat units at regular intervals--without regard to housing or resources available. To me, this is "cheating" and makes it more of a "Tower Defense" type game.

2) As a result, I changed my strategy to a simpler one... Do the same as the AI is doing--quickly build an army and rush the enemy location to destroy it's archery range and then barracks. I lose a part of my army from the enemy towers, but since the AI is not rebuilding the range or barracks, it does not matter; Once both are destroyed, I can send in smaller groups to destroy the towers (and soldiers in them) at my own leisure.

The downside of all this is that:

A) It pretty much eliminates any real depth to strategy; As I stated, it is more of a "Tower Defense" type game.

B) It greatly eliminates the game's replayability. There is almost no reason now to vary my strateg(y/ies) according to the map/terrain. After a couple games, I have now lost interest in the game.

C) It limits the usefulness or need for much of the game infrastructure. Why waste time with all the research? You only need a minimum of research to be able to neutralize the AI. And there is little reason to even fight the AI over control of "limited resources".

D) The enemy grows unchecked. In one game, I destroyed the enemy archery range but not barracks. After awhile, there was a large swarm of dozens of enemy barracks units running around damaging or destroying my structures as fast as I could rebuild or repair them. While that was kind of fun, it sent my CPU usage to 100% and I had end the process.

My suggestions:

1) Make the AI follow the same rules as the player, so it has to produce villagers to gather resources to build structures and units. You can adjust AI difficulty by other means, possibly even under player control, such as "Villager Move Speed * 1.5", "Villager Gather Amount * 1.5", "Villager Carry Amount * 2.0", etc.

2) Create "infinite resource" items in some locations. Deep copper mines, trees and berry bushes that regrow, animal spawn points, etc. Give players and the AI something to fight for control over.

Those two suggestions would affect and improve  most or all of the game downsides. Of course, you would have to implement a "real" AI instead of the simple one used now (no build/rebuild, unlimited housing and resources, etc).

Lastly, just to note, I did see one thing I liked: Villagers trying to slay and gather meat from Boars... Having the Boars gang up and try to fight back was a nice twist!