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Decent Resource Management Game

  • Dyluck
  • 07/18/2018 11:21 PM
  • 3045 views
Castle Warfare is more of an economy sim type game rather than a tower defense game. As I understand it, tower defense is more about placing your units in the right place on a map, while this game is more about just resource management.

The first level does a very good job of walking you through the commands, so that you understand the flow of gameplay. There are only a few commands in the beginning, which are the only ones you need at this point. This is good because it doesn't overwhelm the player with too many different things at the start. Most of the commands and building usage is pretty simple and intuitive, so the flow of the game is pretty fun to play. Everything was cleanly presented and fairly consistent as far as I could tell.

The game revolves around harvesting resources, building more structures to harvest more resources, and upgrading your defenses, so that you can survive upcoming attacks. There are usually around 30 turns per level, and you get attacked about maybe 5+ times, with a 2 turn warning for you to prepare. As you progress through each level, there are new buildings that become available, and new obstacles or features that require you to adjust your strategy accordingly. I liked the aspect of the ship trading in different amounts, so that you can either get what you need for the short term, or wait to get a better long term deal. I also liked that some levels gave more of some resources, while sometimes none of another, forcing you to make some good trades.

One of the things that makes this game harder than it should be, is the lack of information. For example, you don't know exactly how much damage an enemy attack does, and how much it will be reduced by if you build a X building. So while an important part of the game is to make decisions about whether or not to build something for an upcoming attack or do something else, you don't actually have enough info to make an informed decision. That means that the strategy comes down to more of trial and error situation, rather than meaningful decisions.

Another piece of useful info would be to know how many turns each level lasts. That would make planning for the short term vs long term a more informed choice.

Another example of the lack of information is the spells. Firstly, it is not explained what Smokescreen or Tornado even does. Secondly, when you cast those 2 spells, only 1 single icon displays on your Castle, leading you to believe only 1 spell can be active at a time, which is not true. On the level with the dragon attack, I maxed all the buildings and had Tornado, and I still died to the dragon. I tried twice and was ready to give up, but I gave it one final try before realizing that 2 spells can be active at the same time, and that was the only way to win. (EDIT: I've been told that only 1 spell can be active, so I may have mistakenly not maxed my defenses as I previously thought)

The game's difficulty was pretty fair for the most part, up until the aforementioned dragon level and the one after that. I tried 2 of 3 times, but this was as far as I got. It seemed that at this point, you couldn't make a single wrong turn, and the only way to win was to have the foresight to accumulate lots of crystal ore early on.

Overall, this was a decent game to play if you like resource management. The gameplay was intuitive and enjoyable for the most part, but it does get a bit too difficult near the end. The biggest weakness is the lack of some important information displayed, which made your decisions less strategic than they could have been. I do appreciate the effort put into making this game, and I think it already has a very good foundation that can be built upon, and the basic premise of the game itself was pretty enjoyable.

Posts

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Hello Dyluck.

Thank you for taking the time to write this detailed and kind review. I am really happy that you enjoyed the game and that you had fun with it.

Every spell (except for the healing spell) reduces the opponent's attack power by a certain amount. You're right that it would be better if I added some additional information per spell here, which explains more exactly what each spell does. By the way, your first impression is true: only one spell can be active at a time.

If I understand you correctly, you're stuck in level 8. You can gain an advantage here by quickly building a church to get to the other resource buildings you need. Then you should mainly focus on building watchtowers as they bring you the highest Defense Boost to ward off the first weaker attacks. 3 watchtowers mean you are well protected from TS-4 and TS-5-attacks. In turn 36, make sure to have full condition and an active tornado to survive the final TS-7-attack.



Greetings,
Tw0Face
Dyluck
For thousands of years, I laid dormant. Who has disturbed my slumber?
5184
I could have sworn that during the Dragon Attack, I had all maxed buildings, full health at 150, and Tornado, but the Dragon did 160 damage to me. I could be mistaken maybe. Are you sure the 2 spells don't stack? Or maybe either the attack numbers or the spell effects have some kind of random variance?
I've just calculated that. The maximum damage you can get from the dragon if you have all the defenses and Tornado activated is 149. The minimum damage is 142, so 160 damage should not be possible in this case. I can only imagine that you accidentally forgot a building (for example the fifth military base, which has +15 defenses)? Do you still know if you also had a defense of 325 when the dragon attacked you? Or was it perhaps a lower value?

Greetings,
Tw0Face
Dyluck
For thousands of years, I laid dormant. Who has disturbed my slumber?
5184
If +15 def is exactly -15 damage, then I guess it's possible that I just forgot to build the 5th base on the final turn maybe. Or maybe I still thought the spells stack at the time and cast Smokescreen after Tornado. Anyways, thanks for checking it though!
You're welcome. :)

Greetings,
Tw0Face
There are usually around 30 turns per level


Yeah, but level 13 has over 50 turns and I imagine level 14 is similar.

The game's difficulty was pretty fair for the most part, up until the aforementioned dragon level and the one after that. I tried 2 of 3 times, but this was as far as I got. It seemed that at this point, you couldn't make a single wrong turn, and the only way to win was to have the foresight to accumulate lots of crystal ore early on.


I've already covered both of those scenarios in my Let's Play at this point. So you'd could copy my strategy if you wanted.

Though, I imagine scenario 13 would be worse since you need to do some short term trading in order to beat that one.
Thanks for adding a complete walkthrough. This will certainly help many players in case they get stuck. You're doing a great job and I appreciate that.

As far as Dyluck is concerned, I know that he was playing and reviewing an older version of this game, in which the combat levels did not yet exist and in which the balancing was different as well.

Greetings,
Tw0Face
Dyluck
For thousands of years, I laid dormant. Who has disturbed my slumber?
5184
I played a bit of your newest version, and I'm glad that you provided more info on some of the things I mentioned. It was also nice to see you added some new stages, and it was a neat way to use the combat screen. I like the improvements you've made, so I've increased my rating by half a star, which should reflect in the overall rating after the website updates overnight or so.
Thank you, Dyluck. I hope you'll enjoy the rest of the game as well. :)
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