FE has too much micromanagement!

from Elemental Forums

It's time we faced an unpleasant reality: Fallen Enchantress simply has too much micromanagement, and the UI is completely inappropriate for this type of game.

It is simply beyond imagination that in 2013, there is still a game that makes me design my own units in order to play optimally.  This speaks to the poor quality of the AI as much as anything else.

It boggles my mind that I am compelled, turn after turn, to make decisions about what my cities should be producing, where troops should be going, and in which direction my empire should expand.

I find it maddening that the UI has literally (I counted them, so yes, literally) several dozen places I might click on in any given turn.  Really?  Several dozen?!  Can the designers honestly not think of any way to combine the simple, repetitive tasks of checking budgets and resources, managing troops and cities, research, magical advancement, and diplomacy into a single, or at most a few, buttons?  Recall, I'm going to have to click these buttons for literally hundreds of turns.  It gets tedious.

While we're at it, the concept of things taking whole turns to build borders on micromanagement as well.  Six turns for this, 12 turns for that?  Really, you can think of no better way in the 21st century?  Just have the AI advance the turns automatically, after calculating where I moved my units, what treasure I took, and what battles I won with my predesigned units and how I expanded along my precalculated roads.   You can have that idea for free.

In short, too much effort on my part to play the game, too many decisions, too many things to look at or decide on.  Clean up your act, Paxton.

 

(dedicated to those who think that building roads with engineers is too much micromanagement).

33,989 views 29 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top


I like making decisions; it's what I do. :P    And I like this game. :thumbsup:  

Basher-

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

I too like this game and the decisions that are key parts of it.   People like different things.   It unfortunate that you do not like the game but I do.  Its and execellent example of the 4X type of game.

SoundPackager - Customize the Windows sound scheme
Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

You forgot the /snark

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

I have almost thought you were trolling, Winnihym, but then I thought you are just not considering that some people might be different, compared to you...

This is a turn based game. I don't want a freaking continuous time game, like Paradox games (they are fine btw).

I want to be able to design my own units, because I like that. This is as if you were saying that science-fiction games should not allow you to customize your ships.

 

And so on. YMMV... Try to considers other's opinions!

 

Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top

I agree that there are many foreseeable UI improvements that can be done, but complaining about user customization?



It is simply beyond imagination that in 2013, there is still a game that makes me design my own units in order to play optimally.  This speaks to the poor quality of the AI as much as anything else.

End of quote

This is almost the entire appeal of Fallen Enchantress to me. If anything I want MORE customization options. Such as the ability to modify the facial features and posture of my custom units. To create custom champions. To EDIT factions/sovereigns so I don't have to play with the XML.

Aside from that who ever said you have to play optimally? It's perfectly legitimate to play with the default factions and with their pre-designed units. I've heard some players do that to simply keep consistent with the original design of the factions.

Yeah I know you are likely being sarcastic, at least I hope so when it comes to user customization...

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top


(dedicated to those who think that building roads with engineers is too much micromanagement).
End of quote

I'm guessing this was just edited in, or everybody above missed it.

+1 for engineers.

 

The sad part is, it would be easy to take the OP seriously because contrary to rational thought, it is indeed 2013 and that entire post dripping with sarcasm is in fact the exact mindset of most developers and publishers these days.

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top


I beg to disagree.  I quite enjoy the micromanagement in FE.  I would only agree to a small extend that default units could be better, and the UI needs further polishing.

I am playing a few more games and I will write a detailed review of the game (from the position of a MOM, MOO x and Civ x veteran :-) ).

Reply #8 from Elemental Forums Top

Just give us production spill-over though.

Reply #9 from Elemental Forums Top

What some call micromanagement, others call important decissions and strategy. The micromanagement in FE is adding to the game in my book, and the game would mostly be poorer without it.

When it comes to UI and those kind of things, it can of course always be done better, but never let them go on the expense of good strategical game mechanisms.

And: The thread poster are obviously being sarcastic, making a point towards people that think road building will be too much micro. I agree.

I think this game could benefit from having some kind of worker system for roads. The best would be pioneers building roads, so they also had one other use then just spamming cities and outposts. Combine this with no growth in city while building the pioneer, and you have a brand new set of strategy arround when and how many pioneers to build, where to build roads first, should I secure this area for a road to be built , or go for a quest somewhere? Etc etc etc.....

And of course the best part, these annoying automatically built roads would be gone. Of course this system need an upkeep cost per road tile to prevent spamming.

Reply #10 from Stardock Forums Top

Streamlining some repetitive task, yea I agree that would be a good thing.

But I like customizing units and micromanaging, and I don't care for RTS games.

I would also like to see some buildings be more powerful/relevant.

Adventurer's guild right now is pretty usless, and Erog's tower is very underpowered for a "world wonder".

 

Reply #11 from Elemental Forums Top


I've been trying to get us a way to turn part(s) of our Empire under ai control - this helped considerably in games like Romance of the Three Kingdoms/Nabunga's Ambition/etc. where the avg. battle can take @ an hour, you simply assign all units in 'these' areas under so & sos command, now unlesss you choose to handle something personally then your new 'General' of the South with handle those long *ss battles in seconds, allowing you to easily manage your entire Empire in a sec or two.

Some people like to spend energy clickin a hundred times a turn, I got tired of that back in tha 80's

Reply #12 from Elemental Forums Top

(dedicated to those who think that building roads with engineers is too much micromanagement).

End of quote

Ahem.

Reply #13 from Elemental Forums Top

It's time we faced an unpleasant reality: Fallen Enchantress simply has too much micromanagement, and the UI is completely inappropriate for this type of game.

It is simply beyond imagination that in 2013, there is still a game that makes me design my own units in order to play optimally.  This speaks to the poor quality of the AI as much as anything else.

It boggles my mind that I am compelled, turn after turn, to make decisions about what my cities should be producing, where troops should be going, and in which direction my empire should expand.

I find it maddening that the UI has literally (I counted them, so yes, literally) several dozen places I might click on in any given turn.  Really?  Several dozen?!  Can the designers honestly not think of any way to combine the simple, repetitive tasks of checking budgets and resources, managing troops and cities, research, magical advancement, and diplomacy into a single, or at most a few, buttons?  Recall, I'm going to have to click these buttons for literally hundreds of turns.  It gets tedious.

While we're at it, the concept of things taking whole turns to build borders on micromanagement as well.  Six turns for this, 12 turns for that?  Really, you can think of no better way in the 21st century?  Just have the AI advance the turns automatically, after calculating where I moved my units, what treasure I took, and what battles I won with my predesigned units and how I expanded along my precalculated roads.   You can have that idea for free.

In short, too much effort on my part to play the game, too many decisions, too many things to look at or decide on.  Clean up your act, Paxton.

 

(dedicated to those who think that building roads with engineers is too much micromanagement).
End of quote

This appears to be a troll post because all these points are exactly the reasons why I appriciate this game so much. Games these days are dumbed down far too much, so much so that the story is played out in front of you as if it were a movie. I love that FE actually gives the player this much control. Makes you feel your actually playing A GAME!

Reply #14 from Elemental Forums Top

Wow. I'm so on the other side of this.

I so much want there to be more decision making.  If I were emperor of FE, I'd have more sliders (not just taxes) and I've had city terrain matter a lot more. Probably a good thing I wasn't the designer. ;)

Reply #15 from Elemental Forums Top

Interesting. I had a reply all set to go shortly after this was first posted. Then I looked again, and I concluded everything the OP was saying was said tongue-in-cheek in order make the point that manual road building wasn't micromanagement any more than any other aspect of the game he was supposedly "attacking."

 

 

Reply #16 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting coyote303, reply 16
Interesting. I had a reply all set to go shortly after this was first posted. Then I looked again, and I concluded everything the OP was saying was said tongue-in-cheek in order make the point that manual road building wasn't micromanagement any more than any other aspect of the game he was supposedly "attacking."
 
End of coyote303's quote

Yea, I thought this was real. Serves me right for taking people seriously. <_<

Reply #17 from Elemental Forums Top

the weird thing is that FE has manual road building if you want it.

Reply #18 from Elemental Forums Top

I'm a mix, I love having a lot of micromanagement, but then I think about games where I have to manage trade routes, and it drives me crazy.  I can play a game like space empires where I am constantly moving populations of people to to different planets to maximize growth based on the air and type of planet they need to thrive, but the idea of managing a trade caravan in a game sickens me.  

Reply #19 from Elemental Forums Top

Hunh.  Next time, more hyperbole, there clearly wasn't enough.


 Just have the AI advance the turns automatically, after calculating where I moved my units, what treasure I took, and what battles I won with my predesigned units and how I expanded along my precalculated roads.   You can have that idea for free.
 
End of quote

Really thought I teed this up for discussion, did you?  Oh, Xia.  *sobs*

Reply #20 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Lord, reply 19
I'm a mix, I love having a lot of micromanagement, but then I think about games where I have to manage trade routes, and it drives me crazy.  I can play a game like space empires where I am constantly moving populations of people to to different planets to maximize growth based on the air and type of planet they need to thrive, but the idea of managing a trade caravan in a game sickens me.  
End of Lord's quote

Probably because you want the micromanagement to feel important ;)
Usually if ever I was able to micromanage a trade route, the gains would be insignificant...

For the OP, remember, sarcasm translates extremely poorly to text...

Sincerely
~ K

Reply #21 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting sweatyboatman, reply 18
the weird thing is that FE has manual road building if you want it.
End of sweatyboatman's quote

...and you put a hero on Path of the Governor and then drag him around and level him up several more times until he randomly gets the Rare (or is it Uncommon?) "Road Building" trait, which, for me, usually seems to only happen after I've taken over half the map and the game is already over except for mopping up.

There should be trainable road-building units available to all factions, rather than restricting manual road building only to a single, fairly specific hero build.  (Or a specific race, I guess.  I've heard mentions here in the forum of one of the default factions having a trainable road-building unit, but I've never seen it in-game.)

Reply #22 from Elemental Forums Top

This is really depressing. Just goes to show how many people don't finish reading a post before replying. Even Frogboy.

 

Quoting Kongdej, reply 21
For the OP, remember, sarcasm translates extremely poorly to text...
End of Kongdej's quote

 

That's why he put a very clear "this was all sarcasm" disclaimer right on the bottom. I guess you have to put that kind of thing on the top of the post in giant bold text for most people to read it though.

Reply #23 from Elemental Forums Top

I like to make my own decisions, I like to create my own units and micromanagement, I don't see really a lot of micromanagement in this game, but I am also an dwarf fortress player so micromanaging is my second name.

And the most important I like to play games and not watching the computer playing it for me.

Reply #24 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting nDervish, reply 22
I've heard mentions here in the forum of one of the default factions having a trainable road-building unit, but I've never seen it in-game.)
End of nDervish's quote

Capitar has road-building available on pioneers by default, and can train units with the ability as well.

Reply #25 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Frogboy, reply 15
Wow. I'm so on the other side of this.

I so much want there to be more decision making.  If I were emperor of FE, I'd have more sliders (not just taxes) and I've had city terrain matter a lot more. Probably a good thing I wasn't the designer.
End of Frogboy's quote

 

You are telling me... if you were the designer, you'd make it have EVEN MORE DECISION MAKING???

Wheres the ballot to put you on the design team???

 

Quite frankly, I don't believe Fallen Enchantress has even close to enough choices!

I can think of at least 10 things I want to decide on in the game that simply isn't there. :/