SolidDoc Trying the game again after a few months, one thing I noticed is that there is a lot of visual clutter when units attack, while I would like to know units stats when I am fighting I do not need to know that information every time they attack. An option to investigate your opponent to gain information on them as a result might be more useful and make combat feel less like numbers fighting each other. The other thing I will say is the games prologue explains nothing to me at first but then immediately throws me into combat against more than one enemy without any real indication of why i am doing that who the hell I am and what I am supposed to do. (see attached image) Not saying that as though that is inherently a bad thing but combined with the lack of a tutorial it just makes the game feel like you must fail to win and that can be interesting but only if its made clear that is the intention. (see rouge likes)
Also moving and attacking need to be the same thing, I should be able to click and attack an enemy even if they are a few squares away on the same turn if I have the movement. Currently if I move i must then click the enemy i moved near to attack, instead of just clicking the enemy I wish to attack and having to move there. More importantly though if you click on your character again after moving them that for some reason ends their actions and they can no longer attack.
The use of sprites like you have when the attacks happen as opposed to the pictures of the characters that are used for movement now might also be beneficial if its possible as the units when in the movement feel lifeless.
Also an auto turn pass when characters have no actions could speed up combat considerably and better the flow, ending the turn manually should not be the default as it interrupts the game play loop you are aiming for. With this in mind I would automatically end the turn if the character moved and can not attack or perform and support action this turn.
Also the prologue enemies have a range advantage is kinda silly if the idea is that the main character is supposed to be super good at fighting them. Also the lance enemies are using halberd not lances although that is not really that important. I would say that the main character seems to be using a great sword or long sword so he should have a similar range and or be using it on horseback if he is indeed using a great sword.
Also not being able to attack in all directions is what makes this feel the most like chess and not like a rpg game, i think if you had 360 attacking and just altered range values that might fix the chess like feel. If that is something that you want to do still.
Also Enemy turns unless they are significant to the narrative do not need be shown and instead could just be shown whenever they attack a player unit or shown once for each enemy type. In a similar vein while I understand the desire in a siege battle to have a large and impressive force to face but when the game sort of interrupts the flow in order to make them fight one at a time that feeling is lost, so it might be better just section off parts of sieges and focus on making the individual encounters flow back and forth rather than try to large scale battles.
Finally, the ability to save in battles would help the flow of the game a lot and as I am probably gonna have to leave mid-battle today help with the problem that sometimes you have to leave the game mid-fight.
If you have any questions for me I'll attempt to check up on this later. Like the idea of the game a lot do kinda wish the character was re-nameable.
