Most of this game I found quite neat and intuitive, but an aspect that I found rather annoying is having a clear idea of where I can or can’t build or how. I love how beautiful my village is but during building I’d like the UI help a bit more making it clearer what I’m doing.
When placing buildings, the grid you get doesn’t go far enough, the color on buildings that will be collided with is too faint, and when placement is invalid, the whole grid of the potential building is highlighted, so it’s hard to tell where the collision point begins. This is especially annoying near water.
“Slope too Steep” can be completely infuriating. I have a spot with sand. I want to build a Sand Pit there, but the whole location says “Slope too steep”. I’ve asked for that area to be flattened about 4 times and the slope was still too steep. Suggestion: just make the buildings auto-flatten the terrain they’re being placed on and add the extra cost of flattening to the work amount.
The 2 points above are handled fairly decently in AoE IV, as a reference.
Diagonals. The game seems to be kind of in the middle in terms of whether it wants to promote a straight grid or also support diagonals. Roads often want to go diagonal, but buildings do not rotate diagonally, which seems to lead to waste of space.
In general, would love to have a collision overlay. I.e., show where the empty tiles are vs the occupied/invalid tiles.
Roads go through farms, and farms are not clearly highlighted when building roads. I wouldn’t want to put a road in the middle of my farm on accident.
I agree with #3 there. I should be able to place the building on the side of the road whether it is 90 degree or 45 degree. I shouldn’t have to place a house at 45 degrees to the road so it sets at 90 degrees. If I choose to place houses, why do I have to place them facing in a square. Why can’t I place them in a triangle (45 degrees)… Houses face North, South, East and West… Roads can go North-South, East-West, North East-South West and North West-South East… So why can’t houses face the other directions also?
Absolutely right for all points.
I just placed a sand mine on a hill, after I flattend 8-10 times, which is really annoying and tedious.
For 3.
I found in the settings the option to rotate - no key is set, its empty. And when I click itsays choose a key, but nothing happens. Is this a bug? Or ment to rotate a building?
#2 : it is pretty infuriating indeed. I’ve spent 15 to 20 times using the flattening tool, just to eventually give up, the slope wouldn’t go away. I like your suggestion of adding the flattening cost to the work amount. You’re citing AoE IV, I’ll cite Workers & Resources : Soviet Republic, which is doing the same, as long as you can pay for it.
#3 : that’s something that striked me when I first saw playthroughs of the game. Buildings should be able to rotate/be placed diagonally. Additionally, I’d love to see curved walls. It’s such a pity to have roads weaving around the town center, and suddenly, we’re locked with right angles when we want to wall our gorgeous city. It does brake the immersion quite a bit !
I’ve commented on this in another related thread : Diagonal und Rund bauen! build diagonally and round!
If possible, I would like to be able to set up walls like the medieval style fortified city as shown in the concept art. I am not a fan of castle walls with only right angles.