Alpha 5 will be launched in August!

I have played alpha 4 with much joy. And looking forward to alpha 5. I liked doing things on my own, but now and then with help from other players. Sometimes the game was very slow and I didn't like that ; But overall I like this game. I want to thank the development team, thanks for all the work and little sleep sometimes ;) 

 Go with the snow!

I started with Alpha 4 and absolutely love the game. Can't wait for Alpha 5! It will be interesting to start again with the hindsight of having built up a kingdom over six months - there are many things I will do differently this time. For example focus on learning techs as fast as possible and not killing myself against dendrogs and skeletons a hundred times before building up a respectable army! My only sticky point is that there never seems to be enough food, especially if you want a good-sized army that is well-equipped. I wish there were more exotic fruits on the map - perhaps there will be another global resource to increase food production in the Renaissance techs? Thanks to the devs for a great game.

Like JayLow above, I too have found it difficult to produce enough food to feed even my peasants, much less an army. This was also the case in A3. 

My favorite aspect of the new things since alpha 3 was the ability to pirate. Even a non-warrior player can join in the attack function without feeling that it will make them a target. 

Really looking forward to 5 and all of the new adventures that it will bring. Great job team, on making a fabulous game!

Overall, I love this game! I experienced MUCH trepidation over the PvP element. Under any other circumstances, I would NEVER play a game where fighting another person was inevitable. However, TT and TTG were on my top 5 list of all time favorite games, so I gave it a shot. It was a bumpy ride getting accustomed to the format. I stopped playing after my first encounter with the bully element, but I'm glad I returned. I have made true friends and allies since returning. If it weren't for that though, I would probably have drifted away again. The community support and education I gleaned from most players was not only something I am grateful for, it was a necessity. And, in return, I truly enjoy helping new players get their questions answered and providing any support I have to offer. Below are a few suggestions that would improve the game for me, and I believe for players coming from a shared perspective.

I would like to see the truce flag that is given to new players up for a longer period. I think Leaderism should still receive the 1 week, however, I think Communalism should receive at least 2 weeks. Along similar lines, I think you should offer truce supplies via your store at a much lower price, say Truce Proclamations for $500 Enkord Cash and Lada Wards for $2000, and make them all giftable between friends and allies.

I suggest that the global resources be labeled to their appropriate regions so as we decide what to study, we know which will not be available due to our location on the map.

I would like to see a limit put to the number of times a player can attack the same player within a 24 hour period. Rather than just march back every 2 hours, give them 1 attack per 12 hours, or something along those lines. There are some players who can only make it into the game for brief periods every day, and they do not have a fair chance against those players that are always online.

I'm hoping eventually there is a stronger focus on the methods for winning the game outside of War Victory. It seems to me this is the current emphasis.

Also, I would like to see a breakdown of how the rankings are formulated. This may exist somewhere in the forum already, if so can someone respond with a link?

Thank you to all the developers who have put together a fantastic game of compromise that truly offers something for everyone. My favorite parts are the adventures and the monsters. I'm really looking forward to the evolution of the story line!

I have played this through Alphas 4 and 5. As on overall view the game is excellently put together and somewhat addictive. I do have the following views though: (Not in any particular order)

1. I think the excavation sites should not become empty so quickly - Having introduced this concept, it was not immediately obvious that the appropriate hero perk should be applied to improve the chances of finding something. Once knowledge of the perk became apparent, I had already dug some sites and found nothing and unable to then return once the perk was applied.

2. Holiday mode/lada's ward idea - I have read some of the comments about inactive heroes and those that wonder what would happen if they go away. How about every player gets a Holiday Lada's Ward for say 21 days which can be deactivated if the player returns from holiday but have the remaining days still available (Like a counter?)

3. I don't think that buildings that will become obsolete at a later stage should require a blueprint in the first place. This only relates to those buildings that don't ever have the ability to upgrade to the next age (Eg Hunters Hovel, Totem Pole) I have no issue with the Chieftan hut building needing a blueprint as these can be upgraded to the next age withou becoming obsolete

4. The unit selection screen could do with a little tweak to select all of the same type of unit simpler (but you already know this so I won't dwell on it

5. I liked the caves, that was a very good addition to the game and offered a suitable distraction for your hero/army.

6. But the Stalagmites - Impossibly difficult to the extent that after some time, I didn't bother to even look for them

7. I have no issue with food production/storage - This adds to the requirement to plan your town buildings and population control with full efficiency.

8. The upgrade to maximum level in one click is a very welcome addition and I think this works rather well

9. Zweisten telling me my science spending is too low is an unnecessary nag to have, especially as the choice to research technologies is down to the player

10. I think the achievements page interface could be tweaked to perhaps show the most recent first in the list and also scrolling back to the top when you change achievement category

11. I understand the concept of having to fight against a hero in the age above you. But... how does the first person manage this?

12. Following on the fighting theme, perhaps a 'morale' system could be introduced which accounts for realm/hero level for each player during battle. So if 1 player attacks another player of 'equal' standing the morale ratio is 1 and the battle happens as it stands. However if that player attacks someone who is for example 5 times smaller than they are then the effectiveness of their army is reduced by 5  times too. This is similar to the collectivism/leaderism except that it is done on a per player basis rather than  a group basis. I think this would encourage the larger players to target similar level players rather than pick off the smaller opposition

I play now since alpha 3, and be amazed how much things has been implemented into the game in one year. You and your team make an excellent job, I know that it takes much time and patience to program such games. And that under such circumstances in your country.

I like the caves despite I couldn't finish all, it depended on hero level and tools which I didn't found. Also the excavating is very nice, hero has something to do when waiting on new monsters. The dragons are very cute and make a funny noise when they die.

I also enjoy to do the quests and look forward to the puzzles which will come, and I always wanted to see the tundra. The towns must be very nice there. Ah, and I love harbour-towns, they have very nice coasts and I like all kinds of ships. Be very pleased for the new ones in alpha 5.

And in each stage I met very nice people from all over the world and got new friends.

What I don't really like are the long wars. They interferes by playing. You must have army and hero always in standby and can't fight monsters, or explore caves or do other things. You must always count with an attack. There should be something to stop it after an adequate time.

I don't have much time to play, real live comes always first but I enjoy it and I look forward to alpha 5.

I would like to second every point TheTraveller brought up!

Even a veteran player like myself can still learn about strategies and research paths to take in this increasingly complex game. It was good being in a large alliance with active players contributing their tips and hints. The support of this alliance was very much appreciated.

I was a little surprised that so many buildings were just disabled and not upgradeable on the same site. After demolishing these now useless buildings I noticed that some of the more modern ones I tried to build on these vacant sites did not always fit there.

The caves were a bit disappointing as I could complete only part of a cave with any of my heroes. The biggest problem was not finding the correct tool - to cut down the strong thorns, for example. But I became very good at finding hidden objects in the caves, including those pesky stalagmites, and I did find one 'secret' item quite by chance.

A nice touch was the introduction of the excavation quest. I enjoyed the digging and the possibilty of finding some cool gear or an enhanced item. My heroes became very well dressed for their levels with some of the gear I found. My last hero was lucky enough to see a bigger variety of dig sites in all her towns. The treasure perks were a great help by increasing the chances of finding something after all that digging.

The idols were fun to test and I chuckled at the way each idol did its job. I had moderate success with repairing gear and disassembling surplus items into more useful ones.

Keep up the good work team! You are doing a great job with so few members tackling such a complex project.

As with previous Alphas, I commend the team on a job well done and all the hard work they put into making this game come to life.  :-)

Bers, you wanted thoughts, so here they are:

 Food:  Food will forever be an issue, even with building towns on fertile plains for a number of reasons.  First, the population of the towns themselves keeps growing and growing, primarily due to the number of people in the military and defensive buildings.  I notice there are 10 people in each level 5 oil tower. If you have all 30 towers maxed that is another 300 people per town, and if you are leaderism you had better have all 30 towers maxed.  Next stage, if you add more people (even five per tower) you will increase town population by another 300 for a total of 600 additional people just to defend from towers.  Add to that the number of people in lighthouses (really?) and in the windmills and military buildings and you've got a population that does not quit.  And, you need an army to defend yourself even if you are collectivism.

This stage, Diana quickly reached 900 people per town just building towers and an army.  Fortunately, she has some tropical fruit in her domain and on loan, not to mention hero food perks, otherwise her people would starve.  As it is I have had to buy plows by the dozen just to keep my people alive.  I tend to build my secondary towns where certain resources are plentiful because we need stone for the forge unit upgrades and iron to upgrade the forge itself.  We need wood by the boat load for everything else, including, yes, boats.  As a result, I can't make every single secondary town on a fertile plain though I try.

The second element contributing to the food issue is the corruption factor.  I still think 10% is too high and saw no problem with 7%.  It seems that one can barely survive making 7 towns and 8 is out of the question.  What does this do to the expansion victory to come?  Also, you get socked with 10% corruption if you convert someone's town.  What a punishment!  Yes, I know we have courthouses and they help, somewhat, but the minute I converted a town at Shepherd Book (making town 7) my food went from in the 3 figures an hour to negative.  And, I do have level 9 courthouses in my towns.  Does that seem right to you?

Also, medieval units eat a whole lot.  Do the priests, for example, really need to consume 10 per hour each?  Not only are they expensive to train they are way too expensive to keep!  One may be making a statement with this over-indulgence by the cartoon clerics, but when you add up the medieval porkers they eat you out of house and home.

Build times: Again, it's a population thing.  When I destroyed Diana's military buildings I took over 200% off my build times which were well over 500% and 400%.  I quickly got to those high build times making towers and my army.  Again, it's population control.  I think the military buildings or at the least the towers have way too many people in them.  And, yes, I had the maximum number of cottages at level 5.  It's just when you have everything built up for defense your build time won't be significantly reduced by one more maxed out cottage.

The tech tree needs some serious tweaking if anyone is going to finish this in 6 months, imo.  It takes a whole lot of time and some of the building requirements for the Seminary upgrade are . . . interesting.  One of the things I noticed is that the sisters (if you want them) are in a tech so far removed from one's ability to make witchdoctors, that one can lose all their healers before making any replacement units.  Perhaps the witchdoctors shack can become disabled when the monastery becomes available, which is closer in time to researching sisters than the town hall is.  Also, the order in which advanced storage comes into play seems to be counter productive as it is difficult to upgrade many medieval buildings without medieval storage.

Finally, the adjustments you made to the process of changing politics are quite harsh.  I can take losing a level of each building, but is it necessary to halve production during that 48 hours?  Now, I planned for most of my changes so I had full food storage before I took the plunge but for someone changing on an emergency basis, losing half your food production can be devastating if you have no alliance to help you.  If production has to be affected (which it is when you lose a level from each production facility anyway) can food be left alone?

Lest I sound all negative with nothing positive, let me say that I think the additional content will be a fun addition to the next stage.  We got a lot all at once so I was not able to experience every single cave or dig like I may if I had time to kill.  Oh, and speaking of the dirt piles, once you dig the smaller ones and they are exhausted, can't they just disappear?  I have gone back to some I have already dug because I can't remember which dirt piles are done and which are not. 

I enjoyed experiencing tropical but am looking forward to the new artwork for the tundra!  I am yearning for the desert already though, lol. 

As always, I think you guys have a masterpiece in the making here and intend my thoughts to be constructive only.

I received the invitation to play in A4 100 days ago!  I really enjoyed TT1 and TTG so i was expecting something quite similar! i was really surprised to discover a game so complexe and so ... GREAT! thanks for giving me the opportunity to play. A mix of farming, puzzles, strategy, pvp...not easy at all but you did it!

I started as a collectivism . Building, upgrading, fighting monsters, fishing ( lol) quests, exploring caves, i was really glad to discover all of those things, they keep me occupied for almost one month, so waiting for researching it wasnt so much difficult. Puzzles are great, keep doing them like this :). but I will always hate stalagmites!!!! lol

And then, i wanted more action, so , i switched Leaderism! The 48h of anarchy, quite tough, hopefully i could count on the advices of the leader of my  alliance ( thanks Timmer ;)and also some threads the forums. I would like to thanks also all the veterans for their help and advices - and their patience ! For new players is really helpfully! I 

So, for 2 months i played leaderism. Sometime pantless (LOL) but then you gave us the idols, so not a problem anymore. Maybe a little more perks by hero's level will helps, i think that we are using a lot for the idols. I am level 50 now, so I got some perks, but when we are on a small level, is not obvious .

Well, as a leaderism, no more time to do something else! All the time out for fighting. So i couldnt dig a lot and even when I tried, I was really dissapointed - too many perks used also - and for things not useful at all - i know that is randomly ;) So I gave up! Not so much time for the caves too, that's why I already said that is better to put more things to do in the main quests. I prefere discover more on the storyline . I enjoy a lot New Kyiv ! 

All the veterans already said how difficult is to feed our army! I completelly agree with them, maybe you can put on the map more tropical fruits or another ressource for food . Gold and silver are really rare and too far in the research tree. 

Now I will speak about the pvp aspect in this game! In the beginning, with the abandoned towns, quite easy and without problems with neighbours:) And then you gave us the Trophy Hall and you where speaking us about the War Victory !!! And the war started  LOL. Like Tuey said, is nothing personnel!  We, leaderism we are fighting, is our way to play this game! Colectivism enjoy farming, we enjoy filling our Trophy Hall. And, with the deleted players, the only way to do it is attacking the active players! Is the game ! Colectivism have bonuses and defenses, all they have to do is using them wisely!   And keeping in their mind that is not a Facebook game where they can play once a week! Yes, we leaderism we are active! And yes, if we have the possibilty to attack 10 times by day, we will do it ! So I attacked a lot, just to see how difficult is to get each type of trophy. Some are easy ( in fact is a question of time) , some are difficult ( spies, cracked wheel). I think in Renaissance we will be able to get more, with new weapons and army. Cogs are not strong at all , waiting for the ships in Renaissance! They looks great , i cant even wait to test them! I really love pirates!

Well, I think that's all I wanted to say! Thanks a lot to the devs for this game! keep going like this, really good  job! 

So much has already been said on this page that I don’t know if I have anything material to add.  I’ve been playing since end of March – 5 months went so fast.  Love this game.  This is the first multiplayer game for me.  It’s an experience.  I like playing with friends and alliances.  Not so much with bullies.  I really want to finish quests and get back to the main story line. 

*The play is so deep, so many ways to play, choices to make, things to learn.  I still feel like a newbie.

*It seems to me that the consumables are skewed toward Leadership.  As a Collectivism player, I have tons of items that don’t help me.  What will happen if I used everything all at once?  Hmm maybe a plan.

*I’m looking forward for the vacation proxy option.  I lost 2 heroes to inactivity (even though and I was away for only 11 days and I was assured by Berserker that my heroes wouldn’t be removed!!). 

*Lack of instructions.  For example, it took me a long time to figure out how to use spies or use the blacksmith.  (Blacksmith was a pain.  I stopped using it.)  Some players might be “shy” to ask in the common chat for help for many reasons including, they don’t want to seem dumb, or draw unwanted military attention.  (Now I’ve admitted both!)  When this game goes live, I bet many people will be using the future “walk-through.”

*The model for a male hero seems more feminine than masculine.  Adding facial hair and widening the jaw makes it look like a female in unsuccessful male drag.  Unimportant, but it’s why I only have female heroes.

*I hate entering in the middle of a chat thread and have no idea what these people are nattering about.  I want to be able to see history of chats.  Was it an important clue or how-to? and all I see are the “good job, lol, way to go.”

*The caves drove me crazy.  I couldn’t find many.  The payoff was weak.  I spent too much time looking for stuff that was unfindable.  I actually used a magnifying glass to examine the screen!  Talk about eye strain!

*Sometimes I wish for an undo button!

Sorry I didn’t find more bugs.  I really do love testing!

Any change in the plans for Alpha 5 in August?

I have only played about 3 months and am at level 17. The game is very addictive, and with several towns and a couple of heroes I keep pretty busy.  It still has been hard to wait on the research as the levels increase. I wonder if there might be more ways to speed that up, like the petroglyphs.

I have gotten frustrated at times with the layering of restrictions for building, such as not being able to totally upgrade science or residence buildings until certain research is achieved. Also, someone encouraged building huts/houses to speed up building in general, but there are restrictions to adding houses so that I find my building times have risen to over 200% even when I tried to  keep it down. I guess I understand the thought that the restrictions keep the game more even.

The graphics are amazing and the animals fun. I hate to tame some animals unless they have a specific purpose, like scout or spy, because they seem so happy out in the wild. It will be interesting to see the new animals on the Tundra in A5. 

Someone else mentioned the randomness of receiving items to move the game forward. I had one hero that found water bucket early on and was able to utilize it in NK. Other hero didn't get it until level 7 and well past NK.  The chests are fun, though, because you never know what great item you might get. I wonder if there is a way to consider hero level and maybe not gift someone who has leveled up considerably with items like clubs or ancient clothing items.

I loved the idea of treasure hunting, but many of the items received were 'absolete' for my hero level. I added treasure hunter perks because I was excited about excavating the buildings in my towns, but I never got the tools needed for that level of excavating. In the end, I gave up treasure hunting and used my perks for other purposes.

With an ocean location, I loved the idea of getting ships and sailing the world. I finally got a cog ship and am just learning how to use it. Looking forward to more ships in A5!!

Thanks for all the hard work on this great game!!

The Alpha 5 will be launched on August 31th.

Woo hoo :)

Love the game! Can't wait for Alpha 5. Keep it coming!

Have been here since alpha 3 and love the game. I think it is getting better and better. A lot of my thoughts have already been expressed in other posts especially about the food situation. I was glad to hear that the tower population will be reduced for next alpha which may help but with no tropical fruit in the tundra I think it's going to be a challenge.

Pluses for me this alpha were graphics, superb as usual, introduction of excavation and the idols ( just love watching them work), being able to sail and piracy.
I was in a large and active alliance and found the interaction between members helping each other out and working together to be one of the most enjoyable aspects of the game. I hope there are some more alliance abilities coming next alpha.

Caves I am not too sure about. I was very excited when they first came out but quickly found them much too frustrating trying to search for things and then not being able to procede because you need a better tool to remove an obstacle !

Negatives were the surprise of having buildings made obsolete, but we will expect that again I guess, and the very long build and research times.
I know you can decrease the build times with houses/ cottages but building all those up to maximum numbers and levels was actually boring for me and much more of a chore than enjoying playing the game. The same with the towers. I fear it is going to be worse next alpha with more housing and possible more towers.

A suggestion, as excavation sites can only be excavated once or a few times before they are finished, unlike fishing, it would be nice if you could almost guarantee you will get something as long as you have the perks maxed. You have to spend a long time excavating as the perks don't speed things up.

I have been playing this game for more then half a year now, and I do enjoy it a lot. I like the graphic details, the way your little village is actually growing and changing its appearance. I like my scouts wandering around to clear fog and finding out who and what is surrounding you. Investigating your neighbours a bit, and see with whom you can build up a good partnership to help each other. That are the things I like most. Exploring, building, growing and trying to have some fun with neighbours, making friends.

At first, the long waiting for building and researching surprised and irritated me. Being used to TT1 and TTGold I missed the possibility to line up building-steps. Even it is limited to once in every 24 hours, or just two in a row, it would be nice if you can line up building without having to use Paton's Hamer. It would make it easier to follow a certain plan.
At the beginning I made the mistake a lot of starters in this game do; starting to play with several heroes, and then getting too busy when you hero develops and there is so much more to do. At the time I realized that, the caves were introduced, and later the treasure hunting, so it even became more busy. I must say I like treasure hunting, but I am not a great fan of the caves. Searching for hours for a stalagmite between stalagmites, is just not my idea of fun...
But that is why I like this game the most. Every player can make his own choices and will play a different game. There is no standard way to walk through this game from A - Z. You really have to figure out your own way of playing it. Sometimes it is hard to oversee the consequence of certain choices, therefor it does take quiet some time and experience to understand the depth of the game.

There is a lot of discussion about the PvP/war-thing. I know it is not personal, but very early in playing the game I was attacked a lot, without understanding why (there was no fight over global resources nor any territorial issues) and I was not able to defend myself against a player with an army so much larger then I ever could imagine at that stage of my game. There I was; a newbie level 4 getting my towns completely destroyed by a level 30-or-more-player... Is that really the way this game is supposed te be played? It made me seriously doubt wether I should continue to play.
Don't get me wrong; I am not totally against PvP; it has its pro's and con's. And I do think that collectivism-players should work hard on their millitary-skills and buildings to defend themselves, and not just being focused on growing culture. But maybe a sort of "moral system", like The Traveller is suggesting above, is not a bad idea!

The introduction of the removal of inactive players during summertime, the time of year when a lot of players go on holiday, was a bit sudden. At least, it got me by suprise, finding out my hero had been removed twice. Maybe it needs a little bit adjusting, for being on a holiday for 10 days is not that long... Well, at least I have been praticing a lot with starting the game, so this might come of use when starting over in Alpha 5 :).

I want to finish with thanking all the developers of this game. It is a lot of fun. Great job!

As a devoted fan of TT and TT gold, Jotun was a completely different way of playing for me.  It was my first PvP and I admit I didn't like watching my little town get destroyed by one of the top alliances.  Hated it that much that I deleted that hero, left the game for a month then came back.  I soon learned defence, defence, defence but at one point even that wasn't enough as my level 10 walls and 20 odd archery towers got busted down to level 1's or even destroyed.  I did think what is the point as there seemed to be no way to defend against 90 odd catapults, battering rams and a HUGE army so I left.....again.

I didn't leave altogether as I read the forum every day and I missed it, especially when the caves and treasure hunting was introduced so I started again and enjoyed the gaming experience more this time around as everyone was too busy trying to beat the caves and dig up treasure.  The warfare tweaks certainly helped but it still takes a lot of  time and resources to build up your defences along with building up your town(s).  I hate using a Blue print to upgrade the Stash to level 10 as to me this is a total waste of a blue print seeing as the stash is not indestructible during a raid.

The 'holiday' mode should be longer as 14 days is not long enough.  You could return after 15 days to find that your hero has been deleted and have to start all over again.  Also I am not lucky enough to have someone log in by proxy, may I suggest something like a Lada's Ward specifically for holiday absences that can only be used once per 6 months and if you  log in set a build or do anything then the ward would be automatically cancelled.

I do thoroughly enjoy the game as frustrating as it is at times buy hey nothing is meant to be easy. I think the developers have done a fantastic job so far and I cannot wait to see the treats in store for all of us in Alpha 5