The Developer did RADIO COMMANDER a game that I liked, concept and all.
You had to track movements of enemies AND friendlies yourself via tokens on a board and try to build yourself an accurate picture of the battlefield, to then make decisions.
For the price it was an entertaining game.
King's Orders however is lacking for me. Even for the price at a sale.
It is too big of a map to keep track of all tokens yourself, so the RADIO COMMANDER approach can't be realized.
Instead, all your orders are just delayed.
Or worst case scenario need to be sent repeatedly as they may be intercepted... however... I can send the order 3 times in a row no problem, at virtually no cost.
Chances of them all being intercepted I believe are miniscule.
When it really matters, I change my capital (at no cost and consequence?) and my letters are being sent from closer to the frontline.
In the end, the letter aspect of orders has not influenced my game play a single bit.
The gameplay loop for me was: Survive by diplomatic or defensive means (can be hard0->Build Economy (can be figured out with math)->Print units->Steamroll everything.
If you enjoy THAT gameplay loop I recommend to instead play any total war game.
At least there you get to play out some pitched battles, and the UI is not trying to drive you nuts.
On that topic, the UI is really infuriating.... for like ...no reason?
If I want to build a building in a city...
1) I look at the building menu to see what can be built, what has been built already, what can be upgraded, what is being built right now.
2) Then I need to open the letter writing function and write to the city.....
RIGHT CLICK CITY
Hit 1 for Region
Hit 5 for Build
Hit 1 for Economic
Hit X for building I want
Hit X for build or upgrade
(THEN I THROWS ME OUT OF THE ECONOMIC BUILD MENU AND I GET TO CLICK 5 AGAIN, THEN 1 AGAIN, then X again.... so its a pain in the *** to give a city multiple build orders at the same time... .(same for sending or recruiting units btw...)
finally Hit B to send the letter.
... Dear Devs... the build menu is right there and open so I know what it build at what cost for what reason ....
... why cant I right click the symbol, select build/upgrade and the letter writes itself from there?
Then the stewards.
If you want me to give control to the stewards... then why limit it so much?
I want to control which units they are allowed to build.
And the order in which to build economic buildings......
And what takes priority (recruitment or development or upgrades?)
I use the same build path in the cities 90% of the time. I have to repeat the damn letters over and over again... because the buildings are only built if I have gold in the treasury. There is no option to tell them "build this when you have money"
TLDR:
By the time I figured out it plays exactly like total war and the letter mechanic can basically be ignored, it was too late to refund it.
Constructive Criticism aka my dumb 2cents:
- The UI needs to be reworked.
All orders are letters, yes we know, but there is no reason you need to simulate me writing them from scratch.
- Give more control to the player for the stewards and regions.
As in, let the regions follow a build path.
Let regions PLAN so they can follow the build path in the future even if there is no money in the treasury NOW.
There are mechanics to let me me assign budgets to each region, and divide it into:
Recruitment Budget (and let me control what we recruit)
Building Budget (and let me give a build path)
Upgrade Budge (same as above)
When enough money is in their relevant budget they action it.
The game play loop would still need SOMETHIGN to make letters more relevant... and I have no idea what that could be.
But at least with above 2 changes the game would be more pleasant to play.
Giving orders once and seeing your stewards execute them is its own satisfaction.
