Hello my lords! Made some notes on what is going on, enjoy!
Orchards
Was going over my notes of complaints, and food is something a lot of players struggle with. I had to own up to the fact that it is a mechanic that doesn't work. I had a long talk with my friend Daniel (from the videos) and discussed different ways to get rid of it. I decided on trying farms that make food directly without cooking. The old food system is locked behind a "manor lord" house, for those that want to optimize a bit more food out of their city - but that is completely optional.
I added parts of my problem-notes further down the post.
Too much water
Because water is the game limit (the water crafting resource), people hyper focus on it as a "problem in their way" and then over report it needing to be increased. And now the game has become this, horrible to play after a while because the map is swarmed with units.
I had water amount option in beta, but that was just a total disaster. No matter the warnings I added, everyone just maxed it out and forgot about it. I spent many hours trying to figure out why their games ran slow before I caught on.
All games must have some type of unit limit, I don't understand why mine gets so much hate.
Winter sales flop
I just learned that the big sales are too crowded for small indie games. So I am changing my tactic, and will no longer care about the Steam sales. From now on I will just release the updates when ready. One less thing to stress about, so that is actually kinda nice.
High level design challenges
The price of trying something new is inventing new problems - but at least it is fun and interesting problems.
The largest design problems with the game
The worker system is off-putting to many players, and the main reason people give up. Dwarf fortress players are used to suggest-like controls, but most other strategy games have a very direct line of order and action.
Defeating opponents will force growth and don't let players to play tall (turtle).
War becomes blob against blob. You barely care to even watch the fight.
Many new players farmer rush, grab a lot of land and when everything crumbles, they don't see the connection. Similar issue with new players that keep building until everything crumbles.
City building is just drawing rectangles of buildings, with very little care for the layout.
Money seems pointless.
Players love the thrill of grabbing a lot of cities (on easy) but don't like the increased management.
Food is meant to be a cap that represents how many units one city can support. But for many players this becomes pain point, and they expect endless growth for some reason.
Some extras
I participated in this video:
Also made a video about programming: