I actually found the tutorial to be one of the least objectionable parts of the game, and for me it covered everything well enough to understand the mechanics and victory conditions, but even so it does seem to have a couple of awkward language and scripting issues. The tutorial is scripted to move on as conditions are met (player selects two cards, for example), and there are multiple points where it clearly doesn't take into account that a player might try to "break" it by tapping on elements other than the one they have been instructed to select (player selects two cards that weren't the ones they were told to choose), and this can lead to the player entirely bypassing information they were supposed to be learning.
Objection: I think if you read the latest entries over there, there are still a number of unfair bugs and as there is no chat for async nor there is no indication what your opponent(s) have done in the previous turn, Eclipse is fairly broken in terms of mulitplayer at this state. Statement: return to topic. Given my experience with this developer on the original Catan, I am waiting for this game to drop to a dollar before I come in and enjoy the single player experience. Reflection: if you say Playtek never implements any in-game chat as promised, back before the release of SoS, I say it is fair but at least, the polishness of their products overshadow the issues.
Echoing currymutton's statement: I was sadly disappointed with Settlers of Catan. Was super-excited to see it on iOS, then played it a lot, and then ... it was patched and buggified ... and then Seafarers made it all kinds of flawed ... And I started thinking about a big flaw in the Appstore, namely -- what if I like a version of an app and don't want to upgrade to a newer version that the community acknowledges is flawed? (Or another flaw -- the upgrade is a lot larger than the version you installed. Hard to see THAT info in Appstore!) Going to pass for now, and likely for quite awhile. I don't know this game, and the idea of having to click on each card for info constantly -- that sounds like something THEY should pay ME to do, not something I'd pay to do for fun!
Game Impressions Did the tutorial just sort of stop abruptly mid game? I guess it gave me the basics but it sure didn't escort me to the end of my first game. The game's help is really confusing as well. I remember looking up the first hero card I came across and it just gave me a picture of the card (which I clearly could see in the game already) without explaining how hero cards work. I also love how basic stuff like cities and roads, as far as I can recall, are never covered in the tutorial. Lastly, I'm sure a big surprise to anybody who's ever read my previous posts, the lack of any sort of stat tracking was a pisser. I just assumed, since USM had pretty comprehensive stat tracking in Catan, the same would apply here. So good core game with decent AI but an odd interface and lousy in-game rules. 3.5/5
I think that's a fair assessment. Luckily, I've played the physical version, so a quick refresher of the rules from BGG was all it took for me to get into it. I agree though, that the UI and accessibility level for beginners are suboptimal for sure. For me personally, I'm really happy it's out and I can play against solid AI, since that's all I'm really interested in anyway.
The tutorial tells you that you'll be mostly left to your own devices for the remainder of the match, and only pops back up when certain new elements need to be explained. This is a pretty standard tutorial technique and can work well – as long as the fundamentals are explained properly, that is. The tutorial does explain what the hero you play (Candamir) gives you, but does so a bit too obliquely and doesn't clearly explain that the hero cards don't actively do anything else in the game other than reward you with the strength and skill points depicted by the top row of symbols on the card once they are in play. Candamir, for example, gives 5 strength (blue axe) and 1 skill (green harp) in exchange for the resources listed on the bottom row of the card: 1 ore, 1 grain, and 2 wool. The idea is to have a higher number of points in any given category (strength, skill and trade) than your opponent whenever possible in order to get 1VP and a bonus as a result of rolls and events. You also need at least three points in strength or trade to have the "strength/trade advantage", each of which comes into play with certain die rolls and event cards (more so in the expansion/theme decks). The Card Almanac is actually pretty helpful, despite its initial unwieldy half-finished appearance. Not only does it show the full card with all symbols and the card text, the left-hand side of the screen goes into more detail about how the card works and how you might use it. One of the more important things to remember about the Almanac is that if a card is simply listed as a title on the left-hand side without any additional detail, it means that the information on the right-hand side is straightforward and is all the card does, e.g. the heroes, trade ships, and production boosters. I mentioned a couple of pages back that the game is missing a standard manual, but the basic rules and core mechanics of the game are actually very simple and can be summed up in only a couple of lines. The whole game revolves around the various settlement expansion and action cards, and what they tell you to do (part of why spending so much time tapping on cards is such a pain). They're only mentioned a single time as being the centre cards that form the backbone of your principality, but I found them intuitive even though more detail wasn't provided: these cards can only be placed in a horizontal line, a road is required between each settlement but does nothing else, settlements open up new spaces for resources and settlement expansions, and cities replace settlements (worth 2VP instead of 1). The only thing that caught me out in that regard is that cities allow two expansion slots above and below (so four in total), which really should have been explained, although I figured it out when the "valid building space indicator" showed I could place extra expansion cards.
This looks like a wait and see game for me. This developer has never failed to disappoint. Amazing how viewpoints differ. I can't think of one aspect of Eclipse that BDC did a "fantastic" job on. The app is a full-on unplayable disaster in my opinion.
The game itself is great ... the tutorial is ... ok, Forget about it! If you want to learn the game, try this: http://www.catan.com/service/prof-easy/prof-easys-interactive-tutorial-rivals-catan
Not more than three resources on any given region, but to be fair to the app the tutorial does tell you this; you can also have more than three of a resource if you have duplicate regions (so each forest you have can hold three lots of lumber, and so forth). In the physical game you rotate the region cards so the number of symbols printed on the edge (0-3) represent how much of the resource you currently possess in those regions, hence the limitation. The app still performs that cosmetic rotation, but replaces the edge symbols with a number in the lower right-hand corner. However, if you have more than seven resources (assorted) and roll a red club on the event die, you lose all your gold and wool unless you've played cards to prevent/reduce that.
-- I learned the resources thing from the manual you linked To be fair, I think the PDF manual you sent was pretty comprehensive and let me learn the game. I was playing the tutorial and felt like it was just hand-holding, after reading the PDF. Game manuals should make a comeback I didn't find the game to be that bad so far, but I'll see how it goes. So far I'm going through the tutorial - maybe the UI gripes will hit me soon (they certainly were one of my main problems in Catan, not knowing what I needed to build what...).
The tutorial may have, to be honest, but I just never caught it. So are those extra slots from a city still considered adjacent to resources immediately right and left of them? I was initially worried putting a storehouse, for example, in one of those city expansion spots would go to waste since the card would not actually be adjacent to the resources on either side. Oh, Mythbuster, that interactive tutorial, while at times groan worthy in its attempts at humor, was amazingly thorough. So what's with the bandit's obsession with wool? I mean gold I get, but are these guys medieval fashionistas or something?
has anyone figured out the easiest AI? i'm not clever enough to decipher the descriptions to find out who's the pushover. do you think it goes top to bottom? easy to hard? i don't play online and i'm beginning to like the gameplay but what to learn a little more playing an easy AI. thanks.
Yes. Well, in-game the resource is wool, but technically they're just taking all your sheep, which does make more sense in context. I think Candamir is supposed to be the easiest AI opponent, based on his description and the way he plays.
Have others noticed, even in games just vs. the AI, that if you exit the app mid-game and then come back later with the "Continue" button in Single Player, the game crashes?
thanks! i'll read the descriptions again and try and read between the lines. dunno why they have so many AI's and make their "challenge factor" a riddle that you need to take a best guess as to what it means. anyone else discover who's the easiest AI to use for some practice? well, sorry to say i've done this countless times with no problem. ipad 2, latests OS.
Very cool. I wonder why this only effects some of us. The original guy bringing this up was playing on an iPad 2 as well. Maybe it is based on which opponent one chooses or when exactly one quits out of the program.
does it save ok if you 'Exit to Menu' in the middle of a game? i usually just minimize the game then kill the background process.
