just beat the game after over a week and well over a good amount of hours.
Honestly? Fun game,
Some observations:
Like im sure everyone else has said before, the biggest gripe I have is with selecting units and moving them. It's janky at the best of times and unclear when using an ability if using said ability defaults to moving you. For example Geo Samachurl spike defaults to trying to move him off his pillar.
Food wasn't really as big an issue for me as I've seen everyone else mention in this thread, im just chalking that up to different playstyles, i ended the game turn 178.
It's unclear how much colonizing helps in unit production, I know it's making me mitachurls, elemental hillichurls and slimes but i don't know how much, would be nice to see a number in the weekly wrap up.
small thing, in combat adding a unit name when you hover over a unit in the bottom description would be rather nice, (Was trying to capture and not kill Katarina and had no clue which one was electro cicin)
It looks like the game really encourages aggressive expansion, like a lot. It rewards you with more food, minerals and women to make new hillichurls with and upgrades. Very nice early game like first 50 turns.
The midgame is where I ran into my typical issue of floundering around and trying to see what I can do, what's my biggest bottleneck to expansion, how can i capture more girls etc. It's around turn 70 where i embraced the auto feature in the battle menu. Before then, and heck even on most turns after I would fight battles manually which probably took up most of the time in the game for me. Bright side, my first 70 turns had almost no losses to hillichurls. Downside was no masks to use on the heroines to make more consistent breeders.
Speaking of, I didn't use any of the heroines until my final assault on Liyue, was fun. Morax and Ganyu were killed super easily. shields were a bit chunky but after Morax went down on turn 2 my win was assured.
I agree with everyone Lawachurls are extremely strong, Barbara, Mona, Sucrose and Yelan were pumping out Samachurls and Lawachurls every other turn it felt like, they alone carried me from turn 130 onwards. (Be sure to bring enough slimes to fill their capacity)
The chasm is probably the most important part to get to if you are not planning on corrupting many of the girls like me, the ability to every turn challenge the chasm nets you minimum 12 elemental energy a turn thanks to the fatui there dropping their delusions. Do it over enough time and you will be very easily pumping out higher tier churls.
Lumine in my experience was just completely useless the entire time, I wish i could mask her so I didn't have the cutscene every time I wanted to breed her with something. I think she pumped out like one churl that was actually decent, the rest of the time it was mitachurls and hillichurls.
Unusual Hillichurls + Hydro or Anemo samachurls = a 1k powerhouse that will delete anything that gets within two tiles of it. Seriously, Rosaria, Keqing and an unusual hillichurl fully capped with anemo two turned Morax. Do not underestimate them, use them aggressively.
Alice from my experience after I get Lawachurls was extremely easy, high damage, no HP which was a consistent theme among enemies the entire game. Mondstadt was harder than Liyue because it's designed to just delete your turns. Ended up getting lucky with Lawachurls and did it in one wave after some save scumming.
Elemental reactions, specifically Melt and Vaporize are extremely strong. If you can kit out a kill team appropriately you can clear just about any obstacle with it. Alternatively, consider freeze as it seems to either eat the enemy turn and put them later in initiative or deletes an action. Very worthwhile.
Anemo Samachurl I really wanted to like, however no matter how hard I attempted to use them they just seemed completely lackluster compared to whatever the enemy brought to bear. A part of me wishes they had that vortex that skipped turns as their burst that the eye of storms had, but alas I think the current version is fine. I bet if you're a better player you could absolutely cause consistant reactions with it.
Ice and geo Samachurls are extremely safe options that buff archer units, even if those archers are the secondary unit in your squad. Example: Fire mitachurl and Electro archers on pillar does insane damage. (Drawback is overload but i had an overabundance of electro+fire stuff towards the end of the game) (Also, overload and anemo push can knock units off pillars, be aware for some encounters as they will decimate your battlelines)
Dendro and Geo hillichurls were almost completely phased out of my army by turn 60, they just don't have enough power or defensive ability to justify their existence.
My favorite heroine was by far Rosaria, she just looks so pretty pregnant. Kept her that way the entire game until my assault on Liyue, never corrupted her either. Ice Lawachurls were rare but a nice surprise from her and Shenhe.
Fischl I corrupted first thing and honestly.... I kinda ended up regretting it. I understand you need to have corrupt units in order to capture Lumine but her limit is only noctyl hillichurls and nothing more. Really wish that the girls weren't so limited in what they can breed.
Personally wish that the birth scenes also had just a little bit more, well anything honestly. Expressions, variety in poses but that's extremely niche I understand and probably really hard to do right. Fade to black is probably best.
Fun game, looking forward to future updates.