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After playing the game I have a couple of suggestions. There seem to be some random elements that can really affect a game, I'm not sure if this design is intended or not but I figured I'd mention it anyway.

1. Depending on the location of the starting trading house sometimes it can be accessed without having to walk through fog of war. This means one player can get a small advantage very early by essentially gaining one free action point (as they only spend one AP burgling the trading house instead of two scouting the trading house then burgling it.

2. The spawning of gems in estates can give players a big advantage. I have had games where gems spawn on my opponents turn four or five times in a row and instead I get paintings spawning on my turn four or five times in a row. In the mid to late game where lanterns become less relevant this can determine games.

3. The starting location of the bank can be too favorable to players. If one player has the bank right next to their starting location they have a massive advantage over their opponents. 3 gold per turn that is difficult to contest if the bank is on your opponents side of the map is too strong. I have some suggestions: 2 banks spawn on each map at opposite ends, the bank's starting location is set to a specific neutral location or a random allotment of neutral locations, or the bank only awards 2 gold per turn when fully infiltrated.

I also think the ability for urchins to evict other urchins from buildings should be a starting ability of theirs and not only available to the person that has fully infiltrated the orphanage. Gangs are not very effective as eviction tools as doing so exposes your gang to your opponent which means your gang dies and theirs snowballs. Therefore gangs are most effective at contesting your opponents gang or farming gold. This leaves only truant officers which are quite far down on the perk tree and are only cost effective when removing 3 urchins at once. Thus there are only very inefficient methods to evict buildings with 1 or 2 urchins in them. Allowing urchins to start with the ability evict others will assist this, otherwise it might be good to create a new unit entirely for this, like a mini truant officer.

A final suggestion. I understand that this one will most likely only be viable much further down the development line. A mode that has round timers to ensure turns are played consecutively would be good. This eventually could be turned into a ranked mode if there is any interest in running something like that.

Thank-you. Really enjoying the game.

Huge thanks for this feedback! Certainly appreciate you taking the time to both play and share this.

1) Agreed, something we need to look at to ensure fairness.

2) Also something we need more data to accurately determine what work's best. The maps and estate locations also greatly impact how the Gems/Paintings come in to play and when.

3) Agree to an extent, but nonetheless something we need to evaluate for fair play. If one person has a clear advantage to the bank, then the other play should have something on their side of the map to balance it out (in theory).

4) Urchins and Evicting -- This is an area I've been tinkering with as well, and it may well be the fact that evicting only currently works well when someone is way head. Like you said, maybe urchins should have this ability from the start or perhaps it's an upgrade in the skill tree. This is an area I'm particularly interested in exploring more as I find evicting a somewhat tedious task currently.

Thank-you for the reply.

Totally understand that balancing a game takes time. Just wanted to throw in my 2 cents for what I had noticed so far but I understand that you need to gather enough data to ensure that my experiences are reflective of all games.

Forgot to mention your comment on turn timers - we're actually working to release a mode where there are turn timers and it functions much more like a live game.

That's great news.

About turn timer : I haven't tried live games yet. But it could also be casual game feature, with long turns (12 or 24 hours). But, if a player does not connect, the AI would take over for 1 turn (until the player connects)