Hello fellow Thardferr enjoyers. You may remember me as the gnome, Three of Threedom. The last round (kind of including the mini I guess) was my first foray into what I have been told is this decades old text based strategy game. It's been said that there's only a new player like every ten years or something, so here I am.

I was introduced to the game by Trupheus who felt my enjoyment of efficiency and strategic building games would fit right in here. He was not wrong, however, I would like to give some feedback as well as my thoughts on my first round in hopes the game continues to grow and improve.

First off, apparently my choice of gnome as a race was a rough one. Apparently it is a tougher race for new players with no knowledge of other races and mechanics. I was able to pick up on various tips and tricks of running a gnomish kingdom as time went on, but by then it was mid round and every other kingdom was in full swing and familiar with their path forward. So really, all this to say, please rebalance wood expenditure for gnome. Most of gnome felt great. It was fun, thematic, and straightforward, but the cost of machines was brutal and made it damn near impossible to build an offensive military let alone a defensive one. Unless I was suiciding my troops, machines just felt wasteful and took too long to get up and running. Outside of that though, gnome was a ton of fun. I didn't get to experience it with the new UWDA preferences, but I would love to play with that even more so, I've been told it helps a lot. Regardless of military strength, I ask the devs to please reevaluate the wood costs for gnome machines.

Secondly, castle passing and CLI. I know in the second round, these mechanics have changed significantly, but with the state of where they were I'd still like to mention them. They were just straight up not fun. I do not like the idea of CLI. If you win a castle battle, you should not be protected. Thematic it doesn't make sense to me. You took the risk to attack, so you get the consequences. It's my initial opinion as a new player to remove CLI entirely. This moves into castle passing and the protection mechanic. Mid round into Kate round was nothing more than a slot machine of trying to find someone not in protection to attack. That just comes off as way too much risk and discouraged me from attacking, ESPECIALLY due to the limited range of attacks. You're either hitting up or within 70% of yourself and that's just such a narrow window as kingdoms continue to grow. I can expand more on this if needed, but CLI, castle passing, and protection are feel bad mechanics that I think need to be completely overhauled and reevaluated.

Lastly, I'd like to touch on alliances. From the 2-3 person alliances, to the 12 person MEGA alliance, to the Cyber multis that plagued the early round (/s at the latter), alliances are going to be a thing, people are going to play with their friends. I accepted it because, well I play with my friend. There should be a way to counter larger alliances, or ways to prevent 6 way gang bangs. As fun as it sounds, it's an awful feeling. I have ideas and suggestions for this, but I'm still new so I won't throw them all out there in this post, but may in the future present them with more information and knowledge as it comes.

In conclusion, I know this is a bit long, but I really enjoy the game as a whole and look forward to returning for future rounds. I think if the proper dev work gets put into the future beta testing of systems and mechanics, this game can go far. Especially if the proper growth and recruitment is in place. I have a ton of niche thoughts on the first round so if anyone wants to ask specifics of my experience feel free.

Thanks for reading!
-Three

PS. Please remove hidden from player variables or have a complete guide in the game info section. I don't want to scour forums for information that should be plain in a game guide!