Castle Raid (single device multiplayer game) by Arcticmill

Discussion in 'Upcoming iOS Games' started by arcticmill, Jun 29, 2012.

  1. oily_chi

    oily_chi Well-Known Member

    Sep 18, 2012
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    game dev
    Hey Arctimill folks,
    This looks awesome. I too have been wanting a single device mp game to share with friends.
    And judging from the comments, the game kicks ass.
    Downloading this today!
    Good luck!
     
  2. arcticmill

    arcticmill Well-Known Member

    Jun 21, 2012
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    Thank you for your feedback Estupendo1! As you already have noticed there are many small things you can do to improve your game. How far have you gotten on the battlegrounds against the built in enemies? Have you beaten Iron King yet? :) Do you primarily play Castle Raid in single or multiplayer?
    We have already started talking about future updates so if you guys have anything in particular you like to see in future versions, let us know!

    Looking forward hearing more on multiplayer when you find the time.

    Glad to hear oily_chi! Please let us know what you think!
     
  3. Estupendo1

    Estupendo1 Well-Known Member

    Feb 10, 2012
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    I managed to now defeat all the iron kings. :)

    I was watching a couple of dvds which turned out to be boring so that gave time to play some more!

    1. Initially I found the Iron King very taxing, particularly as on the early maps he splits his peasants very craftily.

    2. But I eventually got my first prevail against him when after numerous! restarts managed a quick wipe of his peasants due to taking advantage of a random spawn that was inefficient for them to gather wood ie namely a handicap! ;)

    3. I also noticed when battling this top opponent he was very good at targetting my peasants so I made the mistake of trying to maximise resource collection b sending them in 3's = sitting duck for his cannon. I then split them up and that helped although made it more dextrous work to manage x2 "groups of gathers" ie x1 top screen eg and x2 peasants bottom of screen.

    4. Another trick that started to swing things in my favor: (1) sending peasants at beginning to intercept enemy peasants from same wood taking if they had already been committed. (2) sending peasants at extreme limit of green zone to NEAREST trees. :) Getting the higher rate of wood-coin early and subsequent rounds of collecting faster than the AI could manage is the bedrock to defeat the iron king even if his peasants don't randomly fup! which got me my first victory (ie bit of helping hand)!

    5. Also the cannon accuracy is win or lose at this level, so a bad aim lost me the game initially against this top rank opponent. Whereas what did get me my victory was taking out all 3 peasants on one round of gathering AND some bystander foot knights/archers - when that happened it was a MAJOR swing and once you or the opponent get that major swing the game can be played out to win I think - the tipping point is the key.

    6. Since then I've worked out that the other layer of strategy that a Human is better than the AI at is: They send units down lanes in bits which sometimes works if you allow a small break through by accident, but once you know what you are doing, that's just wasting units/resources because of distance/time travelled:

    a) they are isolated
    b) they can't be supported
    c) last resort you have magic to nuke 'em and again that's a cover for the initial/odd break-through.

    Whereas Human can

    a) delay and stockpile resources for defense
    b) Choose archers for defense (these guys seem to be the cornerstone imo)
    c) delay spending and form HERO units (multiply effectiveness).

    7. But the real killer I've found that makes my gameplay defeat all AI opponents now is: #1 strategy: Always have some coin in reserve for returning peasants to spit out the next wave of gatherers ASAP!! - so this builds early game into making units of soldiers and archers so you can churn out the new peasants straight after spending the new coin.

    8. The other thing I've found is forming a pressing army (again archers are more durable because of ranged attacks than soldiers) and then sending knights after a successful cannon attack on the enemy peasants. These are fast so can catch up with the pressing line quickly and then use the pressing line as backup while they take out the enemy archers - if successful the key to winning is then mopping up the new wave of enemy peasants.

    9. To add a final detail, sending a few units in a range of lanes up and down to harass the peasants depending on where they spawn (top or bottom or middle) helps.

    10. Again sending a range of units by themselves top or bottom to break-through and start damaging the magic-tower/cannon is another part of the strategy.

    Sorry for the wall of text, but the above illustrates what a great game this is. Although I feel I've got the better of the AI now. That said my longest game was about 16m 35s - well past sudden death!

    My shortest against the higher AIs was a matter of 3m (when their peasants took a really bad path to wood right at the beginning and I harassed them immediately).

    A. The 2 things I'd suggest on harder AI: 1) Their peasants more efficient at collecting (pathing) 2) Splitting peasants so I can't nuke 'em 3) AI more efficient at taking out my peasants if I group them (easier to handle if you group them is tempting to fall back on).

    B. The foot soldiers, I'm still not sure what their best use is? Possible as cheap units and as defenders against stray enemy that start attacking the walls of your keep/towers??

    Initially the game felt like a brick wall, but definitely due to AI's handicap to the human player plays much easier now I've worked out all the above. :)

    ===

    Due to my current job's location, I don't get much opportunity to play multiplayer (no gamers around!) so I can't unfortunately give feedback atm. However given all the above, I think multiplayer would be much tighter! Probably things like a bad aim on the cannon or a bad peasant run (they change course when the wood they were getting runs out, sometimes just bad luck) I can see those being big deciders between equally skilled/matched opponents.

    The game time is excellent, controls are excellent and challenge curve very suitable.

    The maps I feel are interesting, but I wonder if you have any way to add obstacles or height(tower) for archers to secure and shoot from?! Some sort of no-man's land with strategic positioning?

    I'll think up some more...

    A 3-way battle is obviously amusing. Also a Monster unit eg a Dragon as most expensive might be fun. :)

    Skal!

    ps: I'll play my bro on his iPad version when I visit again.
     
  4. Hero211

    Hero211 Well-Known Member

    Sep 18, 2012
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    This game would be amazing with online multiplayer support an more maps an units types
     
  5. Estupendo1

    Estupendo1 Well-Known Member

    Feb 10, 2012
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    OK a few suggestions:

    1) Perhaps hills - slow down units going up and down (archers shoot further at the top) easy to "draw on the map".

    2) Forests - cavalry cannot go through.

    3) A resource that if collected can add a new unit type?

    ---

    A few idea, although tbh, I really like the synergy between everything as it currently stands - just more maps would be swell!
     
  6. arcticmill

    arcticmill Well-Known Member

    Jun 21, 2012
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    A very nice summary of the game. You clearly illustrate that although the game is made to be simple to play, there are still a lot of strategy involved, especially against the harder enemies. We have written down all your feedback and are analyzing it in our lab ;)

    I like the feedback on how to change the AI. Most people seem to think the harder enemies are a real challenge, but there are always player that want it to be even harder! :D In case we decide to make even harder enemies in future updates this feedback will be of great use.

    About the foot soldiers. I think they are a really good all around unit. They can soak up more damage than archers and they can cross the battlefield faster. Also they have a higher chance of surviving a canon tower attack.

    We will bring more content in future updates. Online multiplayer might be a possibility in the future but we can't make any promises about this just yet as it would take a lot of time to implement, time that could be spent on bringing more content to the game.

    Great feedback! However I am not sure about implementing hills since it might affect the game balance a bit too much. Archers could be too powerful if there was no easy way to get to them :)

    Also having things that block the units from moving could also be difficult since they would be stuck until killed, since you don't control their movement yourself.

    We are however very interested in ideas for different map layouts etc you guys would like to see. Having a special resource also sounded interesting!
     

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