Hello I've spent around 60-80 hours playing your game and as far i can say it's still far from being polished, and later game "chapter" is almost non-existent. Pop limit makes playing after day 100-150 almost pointless, and there is still bunch of techs to discover, but it's rather boring to do so. At this time map is mostly explored, and colony is mostly quite safe and self sufficient, what cannot be produced can be traded. I think there is huge space to add some innovating, challengeing later game stuff.
But let's start with minor things.
outposts - From the three i actually use just one, research, and two other seems pointless. At the time i had free specialist i was willing to sacrifice to recruit new survivors i was pretty close to pop cap, and that happened my every playthrough. The only way it may be useful is if you actually loose a lot of them in some disaster, so for any game below hardest difficulty (when you know how to play) it's kinda useless. The second one, logistics - i actually never, ever built one, and I don't see reason to do so. It says i can unload goods, but the main problem of specialists is health, not burden, and they have to come back to main base to restore anyway. Unless this outpost start to heal them there is no use for it. The second part is - map is really not that large - there is enough cars to fast travel, so this outpost kinda suck.
World map can, should be, a litter bigger for later game (a minimap could also help), and I also see a way to do so without destroying current balance. I still haven't figured what use is for camp main area upgrades but it could have a radio that helps specialist to "stay in touch" on larger distances therefore explore further. First upgrade could open map to the current size, but the last one could expand it little further making it larger. The 900 research points upgrade could do that, considering the cost and time, and that would be awesome. Maybe even if outpost could heal and refill cars at this bigger map it might become a very useful one - but only for bigger map.
Later game challenge, weapons, and defense.
Game kinda sucks above day 100, and this is couple of reasons and solutions.
As for now weapons seems actually pointless beyond killing couple of creatures on camp map, but specialist could also do that, and even six guys with crossbows, so really weapons usefulness is close to zero. At the later game stages i could even had 20-30 idling survivors. Of course when i unlocked most of the techs i had jobs for them, but that number of idle survivors would stay, or go higher if pop cap were higher, Militia (army) barracks, new defenses would be adequate way to use this workforce. Do you remember old Ceasar, Pharoah, Zeus games? They solved the problem of big population either giving them work at building monuments (and i don't think that solution fits here), or by making them a part of the army, city defenses - and that solution fits perfectly in postapo world.
Let's say that around day 100 new, huge threat endanger the colony, not even just ours but all the colonies in the world map. It could be a horde of mutants, a huge slaver tribe that invaded our land, raiders "nation" , whatever, just not zombies, that would be a little cringe in that game climate XD. If you already built defenses then you have chance to survive, if you have army barracks and weapons you could even fight back. And if by any luck or skill you defeat them, and defend the land, unite separate colonies under your banner or in other federation then maybe the game could declare you finished it, and ask fundamental question if you like to play further or start a new one.
So yeah, there should be a new defense system for that threat and the minor ones (bandit raids) earlier that would use weapons, survivors, fuel for flaming traps, wood for stakes etc. A little "tower defense" system with something like minigame where you could command what fuel trap to blow first - i know it's a huge thing but i feel that would make this game much more awesome, and give the constant feel of danger, maybe force you to have one or two specialists in the base therefore slowing depletion of the map.
What is the use of army if no diplomacy system is implemented. After all war is just one of diplomatic options. The colonies could have various requests for you that could boost or hindered your (like materials or armed survivors for their defense) diplo rating with them (along with the gifts, you could make), if low enough they could raid you, if high enough - propose alliance. Old city builders like i mentioned before had similar system, even if it was very primitive it added depth. The goal would be either crate alliance with them to fight common threat, or subjugate them for the same reason. At first they could just ask randomly for some basic resources sporadically (giving you time to collect them) and later they could ask for men (your armed militia) to help them defend themselves and at the late game period to fight the new threat mentioned before.
For the final task you would either need to reclaim all regions stolen by this new danger force and destroy their base, or make coalition of all colonies, or subjugate all. Stolen regions could be reclaimed only by sending militia, army accompanied by specialists but not specialist themselves. The same goes for attacking other colonies. Specialists could have another skill "leadership" that would be used during such raids, attacks, base defense.
Use or don't use those ideas, but really consider two things - weapons do suck big time, and game above ~100 day, when you already know how to play is just terribly boring - maybe on highest level of difficulty not so much. And at day 100 there is still a lot of tech to discover, but map is explored, specialist are just gathering scraps, for the sake of it, and challenge is minor. It's just waiting for the techs, and sending specialists on repetable quests and gathering. Boring.
Last but not least. Balancing the current game.
Metal is the resource that is needed the most for later game development and there are two ways to obtain it faster above the normal limit. Either by trading - but that require someone who trades metal, and that's not always the case, and second by having certain tech of sending two specialists to extractors which is "special" tech of architect. So the game is little unbalanced here. Either consider giving someone who trade metal always on the map, OR give other two choices something that reduce it's consumption. Tools are huge factor that depletes metal, so maybe one could get tech that produce tools with less metal, and the other a tech that increase a little amount extracted. To balance things a bit. And maybe 3-5 more zones with metal on world map instead of.. food in cans or candy bars. Even 200-300 metal more there could help.
I'm unsure if there is such possibility that no one trades fuel or components but i always traded quite a lot of those, fuel is fairly easy to develop on your own, but if there would be no component trader then player would be really doomed, and frantically on search for those. I think there is no such possibility, but maybe with bad luck. For now i'm pretty sure i had situations that no one traded metal, and such games were hardest, sucked a little.
Thanks for a fine game. But as far as it started awesome the more developed colony is the more boring the game becomes, and as for current state it's overall maybe 6/10 - i really do expect more in the future, because it feels good, awesome at start but still unfinished.
But let's start with minor things.
outposts - From the three i actually use just one, research, and two other seems pointless. At the time i had free specialist i was willing to sacrifice to recruit new survivors i was pretty close to pop cap, and that happened my every playthrough. The only way it may be useful is if you actually loose a lot of them in some disaster, so for any game below hardest difficulty (when you know how to play) it's kinda useless. The second one, logistics - i actually never, ever built one, and I don't see reason to do so. It says i can unload goods, but the main problem of specialists is health, not burden, and they have to come back to main base to restore anyway. Unless this outpost start to heal them there is no use for it. The second part is - map is really not that large - there is enough cars to fast travel, so this outpost kinda suck.
World map can, should be, a litter bigger for later game (a minimap could also help), and I also see a way to do so without destroying current balance. I still haven't figured what use is for camp main area upgrades but it could have a radio that helps specialist to "stay in touch" on larger distances therefore explore further. First upgrade could open map to the current size, but the last one could expand it little further making it larger. The 900 research points upgrade could do that, considering the cost and time, and that would be awesome. Maybe even if outpost could heal and refill cars at this bigger map it might become a very useful one - but only for bigger map.
Later game challenge, weapons, and defense.
Game kinda sucks above day 100, and this is couple of reasons and solutions.
As for now weapons seems actually pointless beyond killing couple of creatures on camp map, but specialist could also do that, and even six guys with crossbows, so really weapons usefulness is close to zero. At the later game stages i could even had 20-30 idling survivors. Of course when i unlocked most of the techs i had jobs for them, but that number of idle survivors would stay, or go higher if pop cap were higher, Militia (army) barracks, new defenses would be adequate way to use this workforce. Do you remember old Ceasar, Pharoah, Zeus games? They solved the problem of big population either giving them work at building monuments (and i don't think that solution fits here), or by making them a part of the army, city defenses - and that solution fits perfectly in postapo world.
Let's say that around day 100 new, huge threat endanger the colony, not even just ours but all the colonies in the world map. It could be a horde of mutants, a huge slaver tribe that invaded our land, raiders "nation" , whatever, just not zombies, that would be a little cringe in that game climate XD. If you already built defenses then you have chance to survive, if you have army barracks and weapons you could even fight back. And if by any luck or skill you defeat them, and defend the land, unite separate colonies under your banner or in other federation then maybe the game could declare you finished it, and ask fundamental question if you like to play further or start a new one.
So yeah, there should be a new defense system for that threat and the minor ones (bandit raids) earlier that would use weapons, survivors, fuel for flaming traps, wood for stakes etc. A little "tower defense" system with something like minigame where you could command what fuel trap to blow first - i know it's a huge thing but i feel that would make this game much more awesome, and give the constant feel of danger, maybe force you to have one or two specialists in the base therefore slowing depletion of the map.
What is the use of army if no diplomacy system is implemented. After all war is just one of diplomatic options. The colonies could have various requests for you that could boost or hindered your (like materials or armed survivors for their defense) diplo rating with them (along with the gifts, you could make), if low enough they could raid you, if high enough - propose alliance. Old city builders like i mentioned before had similar system, even if it was very primitive it added depth. The goal would be either crate alliance with them to fight common threat, or subjugate them for the same reason. At first they could just ask randomly for some basic resources sporadically (giving you time to collect them) and later they could ask for men (your armed militia) to help them defend themselves and at the late game period to fight the new threat mentioned before.
For the final task you would either need to reclaim all regions stolen by this new danger force and destroy their base, or make coalition of all colonies, or subjugate all. Stolen regions could be reclaimed only by sending militia, army accompanied by specialists but not specialist themselves. The same goes for attacking other colonies. Specialists could have another skill "leadership" that would be used during such raids, attacks, base defense.
Use or don't use those ideas, but really consider two things - weapons do suck big time, and game above ~100 day, when you already know how to play is just terribly boring - maybe on highest level of difficulty not so much. And at day 100 there is still a lot of tech to discover, but map is explored, specialist are just gathering scraps, for the sake of it, and challenge is minor. It's just waiting for the techs, and sending specialists on repetable quests and gathering. Boring.
Last but not least. Balancing the current game.
Metal is the resource that is needed the most for later game development and there are two ways to obtain it faster above the normal limit. Either by trading - but that require someone who trades metal, and that's not always the case, and second by having certain tech of sending two specialists to extractors which is "special" tech of architect. So the game is little unbalanced here. Either consider giving someone who trade metal always on the map, OR give other two choices something that reduce it's consumption. Tools are huge factor that depletes metal, so maybe one could get tech that produce tools with less metal, and the other a tech that increase a little amount extracted. To balance things a bit. And maybe 3-5 more zones with metal on world map instead of.. food in cans or candy bars. Even 200-300 metal more there could help.
I'm unsure if there is such possibility that no one trades fuel or components but i always traded quite a lot of those, fuel is fairly easy to develop on your own, but if there would be no component trader then player would be really doomed, and frantically on search for those. I think there is no such possibility, but maybe with bad luck. For now i'm pretty sure i had situations that no one traded metal, and such games were hardest, sucked a little.
Thanks for a fine game. But as far as it started awesome the more developed colony is the more boring the game becomes, and as for current state it's overall maybe 6/10 - i really do expect more in the future, because it feels good, awesome at start but still unfinished.
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