Just picked it up this week and on paper it's right up my alley. In grand strategy games my favorite method of playing is to project soft power and use political/economic/covert/etc influence to affect the work. The Cold War is one of my favorite historical eras. And I love games complex enough to require a bit of a learning curve.
But the utter lack of any tutorial - or even adequately explaining the many different variables in the game and how they interact - is inexcusable. One can read the manual start to finish, watch those totally inadequate video clips (which give little info not imparted in the manual), and muddle around in the game for hours without really understanding what's going on. The information is presented haphazardly (the lack of overall summary screens for the various aspects of your region is ridiculous), the GUI is utterly non-intuitive and confusing and often difficult to navigate via mouse, and the interaction between various elements isn't always made clear even with hours of playtime. And if you just decide to bring the hammer down, warfare is sloppily executed and presented. For specific complaints there are too many to list really.
Some complex strategy games become more enjoyable once you get a grasp of their deeper nuances through play, but SRCW somehow became less satisfying the more I learned. Again, the clumsy GUI is party to blame. And the relatively dead forum (even back when the release was newer) would indicate I'm not alone here.
My impression is that the developers got waaaay to far into designing this framework before they realized it just wasn't a fun & playable system (if they realized this at all), but decided to forge on ahead anyway. Huge missed opportunity there, as I believe it had potential at some point. IMO the sooner they realize this by scrapping future products of the system (like the 1936 version), and build another one from the ground up - maybe bringing someone on the team who understands GUI and the player experience, so it doesn't have such a sprawling and unfriendly Aspergers feel.
Sorry to be so harsh. I only take the time to write this because the game had great potential, and I'd like to see a re-try from Battle Goat on a new system, with lessons learned from SR.
But the utter lack of any tutorial - or even adequately explaining the many different variables in the game and how they interact - is inexcusable. One can read the manual start to finish, watch those totally inadequate video clips (which give little info not imparted in the manual), and muddle around in the game for hours without really understanding what's going on. The information is presented haphazardly (the lack of overall summary screens for the various aspects of your region is ridiculous), the GUI is utterly non-intuitive and confusing and often difficult to navigate via mouse, and the interaction between various elements isn't always made clear even with hours of playtime. And if you just decide to bring the hammer down, warfare is sloppily executed and presented. For specific complaints there are too many to list really.
Some complex strategy games become more enjoyable once you get a grasp of their deeper nuances through play, but SRCW somehow became less satisfying the more I learned. Again, the clumsy GUI is party to blame. And the relatively dead forum (even back when the release was newer) would indicate I'm not alone here.
My impression is that the developers got waaaay to far into designing this framework before they realized it just wasn't a fun & playable system (if they realized this at all), but decided to forge on ahead anyway. Huge missed opportunity there, as I believe it had potential at some point. IMO the sooner they realize this by scrapping future products of the system (like the 1936 version), and build another one from the ground up - maybe bringing someone on the team who understands GUI and the player experience, so it doesn't have such a sprawling and unfriendly Aspergers feel.
Sorry to be so harsh. I only take the time to write this because the game had great potential, and I'd like to see a re-try from Battle Goat on a new system, with lessons learned from SR.