Hey man. Still playing your game. I have an urgent suggestion. I think you need to add some sort of artillery unit to the game that deals more damage to buildings but its weak. If someone just builds a fort out of towers and pumps archers. it will take forever to kill him but at the same time you can fortify too. so the game will not end because everyone is fortified and cant kill eachother. Also i think you should add walls to the game because walling with resource camps looks really ugly.
Siege warfare is something we are planning, with siege units and walls, but we have no ETA for this yet. It's interesting that you post this though, because community requests, comments, analytics, videos etc. are the only way for us to know how people play the game. This is the first time we've hard about resource camps being used to create walls. This makes the feature feel more urgent to us, definitely!
Have you tried upgrading Heavy Spearman armour to counter the Bowman and take down the Watchtowers?
Apperantly my friend spent the whole game just fortifying. My whole army died to his bowman spam even though my attack infantry was made out of swordsman. i will try out heavy spearmen and its armour counter next time i play thank you for the suggestion. I think i shouldn't let the enemy fortify and attack before he is able to defend, maybe thats my mistake. I was using houses as walls but i noticed resource camps were cheaper and stronger than houses. Maybe that could use a tweak? I will also try out recording the game for better example.
Hey! Yes, animals is one of the next features we're going to work on. It's becoming an inside joke within the dev team, since "adding animals soon" has been said for a long time. However, it is definitely one of three next big features that we will work on.
Team games are already implemented! In the multiplayer lobby, select different teams. You can even play FFA (4 players against each other). When you create a game, pick large map that supports up to 4 players.
hi there! not sure if this is the best place to ask but here goes. i recently updated my macbook to the most current version of OS Catalina and suddenly the app will no longer open on my computer :( I keep getting an error message because the game isn't from an "identified developer". before I updated my computer I was able to bypass this but now I don't have that option in my settings.. I already talked with apple support and they said it's most likely something in the coding and weren't able to help. this game has been getting me through quarantine and i'm able to play with my brothers who live in a different state which has been really nice :) if anyone has any ideas that might make it work I'd be super appreciative !!!! thx
Hi ohkaterose, I'm sorry to hear that you haven't been able to open the game.
There is a problem for everyone with Catalina when unzipping game files, because of new security measures added.
Here is the guide to open it:
1. Control + mouse click The Fertile Crescent 0.5.4 executable and pick Show Package Contents. 2. Open Contents and control + mouse click MacOS folder and pick New Terminal at Folder (bottom of list). 3. Type "chmod +x The\ Fertile\ Crescent" 4. Close terminal and Control + mouse click executable icon again, and pick Open. 5. When asked about being an unidentified developer, click Open. 6. From now on you can double-click the executable icon whenever you want to play.
Hey thanks so much for responding so quickly ! Was able to make it work finally so I very much appreciate it. I'll be back to playing with my dad and brothers this evening. Really enjoy the game! :)
Thanks for sharing! I'm glad you got to explore more of the game in a more stress-free Sandbox environment. We are currently working on multiple additional ways to ease new players into the game.
Hi guy congratulation for your job! I discover this page/game recently and after saw your github and discovered that you made this game with unity and csharp, nice! But I saw that the source code in your github is older, do you think to do this game open source sometime?
Oh wow, I totally forgot that I had this project open on github in the beginning! I'm not sure how much of the code is the same anymore. At this point we don't have any plans to make the current code open source, but will keep the code that's on github open. :)
Okay man, if you accept private fork tell me, I want learn about Unity and your project look likes very nice to make some experiments, something like Rise of Nations do you know ?? Anyway you are doing a great job!
I played a couple hours withThe Fertile Crescent. I really enjoy playing this game, thank you ! Graphics and musics are really awesome.
I spotted two little bugs:
one with selection (spamming double click with shift pressed)
as you can see on the screenshot, the selection bar indicates that I have 61 selected units.
Also when I enter construction menu and select a building with a villager then switch to a idle villager (with tab)
I am forced to build the previously selected building.
I also came across 2 others problems:
- at some point in-game, I failed to select anything. The game was acting like I am pressing left click. Pressing escape and navigating in the menu does not solve the problem. I don't know how to reproduce that bug.
- I failed to use control group hotkeys, I am using a MacBook laptop (with no keypad).
My most wanted features:
- queuing actions with shift
- fight sound effects
- larger map in solo (FFA mode?) + slightly improved AI (scout, build, attack base from different angles)
Hi simbass, thanks for commenting, and especially for pointing out the bugs! We'll work on fixing them for the next build.
Queuing actions with shift is definitely something we want (and really need) to add. However, it requires a lot of code to be refactored, with the potential to cause a pandora's box of new bugs to test for, so we're careful about when we do this and can't provide an ETA. The only thing we can say is that it's 1 of the 3 most wanted features that we want to work on soon.
Improved AI is probably the largest task we have ahead of us. There are very few RTS games (even AAA) with decent AI, and we're a small team, so it's going to be a big challenge. We are definitely going to tackle this challenge at some points, but we can't promise an ETA.
What do you mean by acting effectively against towers? Most melee units deal a fair amount of siege damage against them. Down the track we'll add siege units as well.
When it comes to food and dying a lot earlier, I'm pretty sure that not much has changed since you played last, so I believe you've just become better at the game! ;)
Hey again! I'm loving the update! Sorry I never responded long ago about giving feedback.
I'd say one small improvement I'd like to see is the villager's prioritizing chopping trees that are on or near water tiles. Sometimes I find them running off to chop down some trees in the middle of nowhere.
Also, when I beat the computer player I get bummed that there's nothing else I can do. It would be great if the map was much larger and there were other enemy villages I could attack and defend against in a long-form campaign.
That is a good suggestion. Right now they find the next tree closest to where they left off. Maybe they should instead find the next tree that is closest to the initial order, so it doesn't feel like they're ending up in the middle of nowhere. Then if you order to chop in an area of marshland, they will at least stick around in that area.
We're prioritising the foundation over content for now, but when we've reached a certain point in development, we'll definitely focus on adding more content!
Save feature is not implemented yet. We hope to add this when we're further into development.
I saw your post about map editor. Making a map editor from the ground up will require effort. We want to try to finish this game first, and then we'll see what happens. :)
Hi, it's great to hear that the game worked flawlessly for you.
We have queuing commands with shift in our backlog, so it will definitely be added at some point. Will add your second point to the backlog as well. Thanks for commenting!
I don't agree with that tracking, but you're doing it without my consent. At least for this game you're telling us (most don't…).
How can I disable this ? In the absence of a way to opt-out…
It should be opt-in by default… I'm not willing to play a game that track me against my consent (and I'm not sure it's legal in the UE by the way, GDPR says it's opt-in by default, always).
edit: I'm using linux. If it's not possible to opt-out, then just disable it instead of violating user consent.
Hi, Unity Analytics is enabled from the Unity dashboard. If we disable it, it will be disabled across all platforms. So either we don't use it at all, or we don't export a version at all for Linux, since Unity's opt-out plugin is only supported on Windows and macOS. We are aware of GDPR and have worked with lawyers on this for other products we've worked on. For now you will just have to not play if you don't want any data collected, and then we have to consider if we need to disable Unity Analytics, which is a shame, since it provides us with important error reports. Linux users are ~15% of our current user base. We have to make a decision between supporting Linux or receive important information about how the game is played and performs. Or alternatively, wait for Unity to support Linux with their opt-out before continuing Linux development.
Edit: I will try to have a meeting with my partner soon so we can resolve this. Thanks for your patience.
I'm not sure if "not playing the game" is a valid GDPR consent thing, especially as this analytics starts with first launch of the game, and users are not aware of it. That thing put apart: is there no way to opt-in for this analytics ? Is there any other tool that would be more privacy/consent-friendly that you could use ?
I'm not against it if it's opt-in, especially if it's only for errors and bugs report (as long as this doesn't contains personal information), and maybe I would activate it, especially if it helps you to support Linux (which is great ! And thanks a lot for that :). Maybe I'd prefer to send a bug report in another way if I find a crash/bug.
Especially on Linux I'd think people will be willing to help with bug reports and logs if they encounter some issues.
We figured that the opt-out isn't necessary for Linux users since all personal data gets deleted straight away on unsupported platforms. We'll definitely need an opt-in though!
Hi and thanks for commenting. Being used to GDPR from developing apps in Europe, we take data privacy seriously.
What platform are you on? On Windows and macOS there is an option to opt-out at the bottom of the main menu. Sadly, the opt-out is not supported for Linux by Unity. I hope they change this soon. If you’re on Linux we’ve included a link to Unity’s privacy policy instead. You must decide if this is sufficient and if you want to play despite this limitation or not. Our apologies for the inconvenience.
Once I figured out what I was doing, this was a lot of fun. The added survival game element (your civilization needing food to avoid starving) at first was really annoying, but once I got that under control it was RTS business as usual. Food is very important in this game. (The survival aspect does make the game more realistic than Age of Empires).
The automatic generation of villagers from the Tribe Center is interesting - for beginning players like me, it made it seem like I was contending against not just the enemy, but life itself. I had to keep on eye on that early in the game in order to maintain a strat that didn't involve starvation and rebellion even before an enemy was sighted.
I think the overall aesthetic is great - and the camera angle / map is perfect. Good functionality in click-to-send both on the world screen and the corner map. I did have a little lag upon the final takedown of the red-colored CPU tribe (beginner mode) but other than that everything else was smooth the whole time (MacOS).
I like the tech upgrade system and that it costs nothing (except time). This game respects time as a resource more than AoE in that regard. I can't say I've figured out a good strategic order for upgrading in the tech tree, but I think it's a good system nonetheless.
The tower system is better than AoE in that it explains what manpower is behind them in the first place since you have to stock them with a unit in order to attack from them. I like the way that it affects unit attack.
Idle Villager functionality is also very well-built. Reading the comments, I see that "I" is a hotkey for idle villager, and I'll definitely use that from now on.
Everything that is built and in the game is built well. The absence of half-formed or half-working systems makes for a very enjoyable demo (it acts as a full game).
Also, music is good. Never got sick of it, left it on to write this comment.
Cheers on your development, thanks for the dev and updating this project! Lot of fun and it's awesome to see this kind of RPG in live production again!
hello,i have old laptop inter core2duo with mobile family chipset.in game the buildings are color black,villagers is fine.i hope yu fix this soon.thanks
Hi and thanks for the encouraging comment! It definitely motivates us to read that people are playing the game.
Progress on the next update has been slow lately due to demanding deadlines within our paid jobs, however it shouldn't be too long until we're able to publish the next version.
Feel free to share all your feedback! No matter how long, just post here if you want to. It's great to receive data on your experiences with the game and what you want it to be.
We're working on a new update, and we're around 70% finished with it based on task count.
That is the newest and we exported the build for it, so that is odd. We’ve had 100s of Mac users download without issues. Are you able to unzip the file at all before you try to open it?
What about adding an a small chance for enemies to drop equipment on death? Then villagers can equip that loot and be instantly upgraded to light spearmen or something, I don't know if it would cause problems with balancing but I feel like it would be cool :P
Great game so far, but I would love it if I could use get an option to use wasd. Seriously it's actually annoying to use the arrow keys with shortcuts on the keyboard. Can't wait to see what else would come.
Thanks for commenting. Unfortunately, it's challenging to not to use WASD for hotkeys for other aspects of the game. We are thinking about how to solve this. In the meantime, you can also move the mouse to outer edges of the screen, or use the middle mouse button, to move the screen as well.
So, I really do love your game, and am impressed by how well everything feels balance-wise. I played my first fifteen minutes, and the result is what you see below:
Thank you for making this fun game!
(P.S., the video will go live at 12pm PST, thanks for your patience with an amateur like me!)
Thanks a lot for posting! It's very useful for us to watch videos like this, to see how first-time players play the game. Quite a lot of changes we've made has been because of these kind of videos. :)
I am glad to hear that. I am happy to be of help, I love playing games like this and seeing what's on the horizon of Indi gaming. Thank you for putting your work out there and letting me play it!
Hi, amazing potential for your game! Even in the alpha stage does the game have pretty good feel to the original AoE. However, I have quite a few suggestions that would be useful to the players of this game:
Food consumption: For this, instead of showing the gross number of food being consumed, show the net difference between the amount of food produced and consumed - this will allow the user to gague how important their food stocks should be managed.
Attack move: For ranged units like slingers and archers, it would be effective if A-moving them would attack enemy units from maximum range. I'm not exactly sure if this was implemented, but I've seen archers walk right towards watchtowers etc. to attack them.
Allow construction of more than one settlement: Or at least give the option to produce workers from dwellings. In an expanding city, one of the major rate-limiting factors would be the fairly low rate of worker production, and that they need to be produced at one localized point.
Content Suggestions:
Orchards and Animal farms: Orchards can grow food, but can also be cut down for extra wood.
Animal farms: Farms can be used to raise animals for either:
Slaughtering for food.
Creation of wagons with wheel upgrade for faster/better transport of materials of villagers.
Riding for the more elite chariots and horsemen.
Temple: Increases productivity and dps of all citizens.
Foresters: Replanting trees after cutting them down would allow a more renewable source of wood.
Thanks for your comment and all your suggestions: - The net difference is hard to calculate because of walking distances etc., but we'll at least try to show the number of villagers harvesting food. - The attack move suggestion sounds like a bug that we need to investigate. Other than that, we consider all ideas we receive!
Hi. There's a bug regarding the watchtowers. Any ranged unit, including villagers, can shoot the enemy settlement from across the map, completely ignoring the tower range, even if there isn't any allied unit near it (it can be 'fogged' and they will shoot it anyway) However, great game, i've really enjoyed it. Thanks
Have you played the latest version of the game? It works fine for me... As a game developer myself I can confirm that there is no bug as the one described aboved. Please go to The Fertile Crescent Folder and open a sword icon, named The Fertile Crescent.exe
Really promising game ! I'm searching for games like this, I don't find many...
The design, the gameplay, I find it very simple and very good !
Of course for now, there are not many different units. But still, it is really pleasant to play !
Is it possible to have a rough counter that tells, approximately, how much food we are getting per unit of time ? just to have an idea. Or an exact counter that considers the distance the villagers are from a granary :P
I'm asking, because I felt a little lost at first, and I still don't know exactly how much food a farm gives over time, and I have problems comparing that to the usage of food.
But, well, it's not totally needed, it can be learned over time I guess, if it is what you intend to do !
It is a VERY good game for now. I hope seeing it evolve :)
I'm pretty sure every unit in the game consumes 1 food per 10 seconds at the moment.
Thanks for your suggestions. We're adding all suggestions in a backlog to consider, and we'll at least consider adding a tooltip that tells you how much food all your villagers versus your army are consuming. We might also look into how we can better show what the difference food production ratios actually means.
Love this game. So nice. Had a true pleasure playing. Thank you. I'm an experienced fan of RTS, loved AoE1&2 in my teenage years. Thing I really miss is hotkey for quick selection of a free villager.
Just started this game. It's hard at the beginning but got the hang of it. My main problem was starvation hahaha. Though, I like a good challenge. Love the style, this game is amazing!
could you add the option to organise the soldiers into groups? likefor example. when I press ctrl+1 with the soldiers selected, I could select the same soldiers again just by pressing 1.
there's a limited number of soldiers that can be selected at once and it's a little clunky moving them around when there's a lot of them.
Hy, the simple and straightforward pixel art graphics are really good, old school and smooth, like the 1990's. And the gameplay is promising.
Will you add walkable walls that infantry can't destroy ? This feature is missing in most games. Some of them that include it are awesome, like Stronghold or Civilizations ar War. I thought trying to make a prototype once, but never got time for.
It will require to implement pathfinding solutions and tweak ai targeting and taking decisions. Some work !
This would be a great addition ! Please, consider.
We've thought about walls that units can walk on. There are some issues with this that we haven't overcome yet, that is mostly due to the fact that you can't rotate the camera. So at this point we'll have to say 'probably not', but we still want to do some experimentation and see what we can come up with.
Maybe have walls as discrete but chainable buildings? so each wall section would be like a long watchtower which you can garrison with units and they only guard that one section. If you want to extend the wall you add another section but you have to garrison the second wall separately
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Hey man. Still playing your game. I have an urgent suggestion. I think you need to add some sort of artillery unit to the game that deals more damage to buildings but its weak. If someone just builds a fort out of towers and pumps archers. it will take forever to kill him but at the same time you can fortify too. so the game will not end because everyone is fortified and cant kill eachother. Also i think you should add walls to the game because walling with resource camps looks really ugly.
Siege warfare is something we are planning, with siege units and walls, but we have no ETA for this yet. It's interesting that you post this though, because community requests, comments, analytics, videos etc. are the only way for us to know how people play the game. This is the first time we've hard about resource camps being used to create walls. This makes the feature feel more urgent to us, definitely!
Have you tried upgrading Heavy Spearman armour to counter the Bowman and take down the Watchtowers?
Apperantly my friend spent the whole game just fortifying. My whole army died to his bowman spam even though my attack infantry was made out of swordsman. i will try out heavy spearmen and its armour counter next time i play thank you for the suggestion. I think i shouldn't let the enemy fortify and attack before he is able to defend, maybe thats my mistake. I was using houses as walls but i noticed resource camps were cheaper and stronger than houses. Maybe that could use a tweak? I will also try out recording the game for better example.
Preventing your enemy from fortifying sounds like a good idea. Try to apply pressure on him earlier.
We're going to make a few changes to Watchtowers and ranged units overall for the next update that we are excited about.
Hello i have a question when will the animals gonna be added ? and team match ?
Hey! Yes, animals is one of the next features we're going to work on. It's becoming an inside joke within the dev team, since "adding animals soon" has been said for a long time. However, it is definitely one of three next big features that we will work on.
Team games are already implemented! In the multiplayer lobby, select different teams. You can even play FFA (4 players against each other). When you create a game, pick large map that supports up to 4 players.
Any plans fro make it multi-language feature?
It's not a priority right now, but at some point we will work on adding more content, and adding languages will be part of that process.
hi there! not sure if this is the best place to ask but here goes. i recently updated my macbook to the most current version of OS Catalina and suddenly the app will no longer open on my computer :( I keep getting an error message because the game isn't from an "identified developer". before I updated my computer I was able to bypass this but now I don't have that option in my settings.. I already talked with apple support and they said it's most likely something in the coding and weren't able to help. this game has been getting me through quarantine and i'm able to play with my brothers who live in a different state which has been really nice :) if anyone has any ideas that might make it work I'd be super appreciative !!!! thx
Hi ohkaterose, I'm sorry to hear that you haven't been able to open the game.
There is a problem for everyone with Catalina when unzipping game files, because of new security measures added.
Here is the guide to open it:
1. Control + mouse click The Fertile Crescent 0.5.4 executable and pick Show Package Contents.
2. Open Contents and control + mouse click MacOS folder and pick New Terminal at Folder (bottom of list).
3. Type "chmod +x The\ Fertile\ Crescent"
4. Close terminal and Control + mouse click executable icon again, and pick Open.
5. When asked about being an unidentified developer, click Open.
6. From now on you can double-click the executable icon whenever you want to play.
Hope that works for you!
Hey thanks so much for responding so quickly ! Was able to make it work finally so I very much appreciate it. I'll be back to playing with my dad and brothers this evening. Really enjoy the game! :)
Glad to hear you're enjoying the game! Thanks for playing it. :)
thank u so mach
Thanks for sharing! I'm glad you got to explore more of the game in a more stress-free Sandbox environment. We are currently working on multiple additional ways to ease new players into the game.
Hi guy congratulation for your job!
I discover this page/game recently and after saw your github and discovered that you made this game with unity and csharp, nice!
But I saw that the source code in your github is older, do you think to do this game open source sometime?
Oh wow, I totally forgot that I had this project open on github in the beginning! I'm not sure how much of the code is the same anymore. At this point we don't have any plans to make the current code open source, but will keep the code that's on github open. :)
Okay man, if you accept private fork tell me, I want learn about Unity and your project look likes very nice to make some experiments, something like Rise of Nations do you know ?? Anyway you are doing a great job!
Yeah, loved Rise of Nations! We won't be sharing the code as for now. My apologies for the inconvenience.
I do want more developers to make RTS games, so maybe one day I will talk more about how we developed the game, share tips for developing them etc. :)
I love this game so much, thank you.
Thanks for playing it!
this game will be added to steam?
Maybe, if we decide to commercialise the game. :)
Hello I really love this game but the problem that I can't save my game when I play, I hope you read this comment and improve it
Hi, glad to hear you're enjoying the game. We haven't added save games yet and we hope to add this in the future.
Okay thank you I didn't know that, even though thanks for the information, I hope that you will add it soon
Thanks for responding
Hello,
I played a couple hours withThe Fertile Crescent. I really enjoy playing this game, thank you ! Graphics and musics are really awesome.
I spotted two little bugs:
one with selection (spamming double click with shift pressed)
as you can see on the screenshot, the selection bar indicates that I have 61 selected units.
Also when I enter construction menu and select a building with a villager then switch to a idle villager (with tab)
I am forced to build the previously selected building.
I also came across 2 others problems:
- at some point in-game, I failed to select anything. The game was acting like I am pressing left click. Pressing escape and navigating in the menu does not solve the problem. I don't know how to reproduce that bug.
- I failed to use control group hotkeys, I am using a MacBook laptop (with no keypad).
My most wanted features:
- queuing actions with shift
- fight sound effects
- larger map in solo (FFA mode?) + slightly improved AI (scout, build, attack base from different angles)
I hope new releases are coming soon ! :D
Hi simbass, thanks for commenting, and especially for pointing out the bugs! We'll work on fixing them for the next build.
Queuing actions with shift is definitely something we want (and really need) to add. However, it requires a lot of code to be refactored, with the potential to cause a pandora's box of new bugs to test for, so we're careful about when we do this and can't provide an ETA. The only thing we can say is that it's 1 of the 3 most wanted features that we want to work on soon.
Improved AI is probably the largest task we have ahead of us. There are very few RTS games (even AAA) with decent AI, and we're a small team, so it's going to be a big challenge. We are definitely going to tackle this challenge at some points, but we can't promise an ETA.
Hi SGP, thanks for sharing your video!
What do you mean by acting effectively against towers? Most melee units deal a fair amount of siege damage against them. Down the track we'll add siege units as well.
When it comes to food and dying a lot earlier, I'm pretty sure that not much has changed since you played last, so I believe you've just become better at the game! ;)
Hey again! I'm loving the update!
Sorry I never responded long ago about giving feedback.
I'd say one small improvement I'd like to see is the villager's prioritizing chopping trees that are on or near water tiles. Sometimes I find them running off to chop down some trees in the middle of nowhere.
Also, when I beat the computer player I get bummed that there's nothing else I can do. It would be great if the map was much larger and there were other enemy villages I could attack and defend against in a long-form campaign.
Thank you for taking my feedback <3
Thanks for commenting and your feedback!
That is a good suggestion. Right now they find the next tree closest to where they left off. Maybe they should instead find the next tree that is closest to the initial order, so it doesn't feel like they're ending up in the middle of nowhere. Then if you order to chop in an area of marshland, they will at least stick around in that area.
We're prioritising the foundation over content for now, but when we've reached a certain point in development, we'll definitely focus on adding more content!
That is a perfect solution!
Looking forward to more updates
muy buen juego gracias
Gracias por tu comentario. Muy apreciado!
I haven't had much time to play the game yet but right away the only problem I see with the game is no way to save.
I'm about to sit down and play a bit more of the game now that I'm back home.
I look forward to seeing where this game goes. not sure if you seen my reply to another post but a map editor would be cool.
I think it would be a pretty cool addition between random gen maps and custom maps I see good things in the future for this game.
good luck and I hope to see how this goes.
I've just noticed most of these messages are over 2 years ago so this game has been in development way longer than I realized.
am I missing something because I can't seem to save my game?
Hi, thanks for commenting!
Save feature is not implemented yet. We hope to add this when we're further into development.
I saw your post about map editor. Making a map editor from the ground up will require effort. We want to try to finish this game first, and then we'll see what happens. :)
I played yesterday with my friend, me on Linux, her on Mac.
It worked flawlessly and it was easy to understand how to play the game.
Well, I still lost the two first games to starvation/revolt. Units do eat a lot… ^^'
That what's make the game fun, thanks a lot for developing it!
Here are a couple of suggestions:
Thanks again!
Hi, it's great to hear that the game worked flawlessly for you.
We have queuing commands with shift in our backlog, so it will definitely be added at some point. Will add your second point to the backlog as well. Thanks for commenting!
How do we disable Unity Analytics ?
I don't agree with that tracking, but you're doing it without my consent. At least for this game you're telling us (most don't…).
How can I disable this ? In the absence of a way to opt-out…
It should be opt-in by default… I'm not willing to play a game that track me against my consent (and I'm not sure it's legal in the UE by the way, GDPR says it's opt-in by default, always).
edit: I'm using linux. If it's not possible to opt-out, then just disable it instead of violating user consent.
Hi, Unity Analytics is enabled from the Unity dashboard. If we disable it, it will be disabled across all platforms. So either we don't use it at all, or we don't export a version at all for Linux, since Unity's opt-out plugin is only supported on Windows and macOS. We are aware of GDPR and have worked with lawyers on this for other products we've worked on. For now you will just have to not play if you don't want any data collected, and then we have to consider if we need to disable Unity Analytics, which is a shame, since it provides us with important error reports. Linux users are ~15% of our current user base. We have to make a decision between supporting Linux or receive important information about how the game is played and performs. Or alternatively, wait for Unity to support Linux with their opt-out before continuing Linux development.
Edit: I will try to have a meeting with my partner soon so we can resolve this. Thanks for your patience.
I'm not sure if "not playing the game" is a valid GDPR consent thing, especially as this analytics starts with first launch of the game, and users are not aware of it.
That thing put apart: is there no way to opt-in for this analytics ?
Is there any other tool that would be more privacy/consent-friendly that you could use ?
I'm not against it if it's opt-in, especially if it's only for errors and bugs report (as long as this doesn't contains personal information), and maybe I would activate it, especially if it helps you to support Linux (which is great ! And thanks a lot for that :). Maybe I'd prefer to send a bug report in another way if I find a crash/bug.
Especially on Linux I'd think people will be willing to help with bug reports and logs if they encounter some issues.
By the way I found a way to disable Unity analytics by hand (https://www.reddit.com/r/linux_gaming/comments/eb3y7q/if_youre_the_kind_of_person_that_doesnt_like/) so I played to your game: still a bit basic (that's understandable) but already quite funny, I like it, well done.
We figured that the opt-out isn't necessary for Linux users since all personal data gets deleted straight away on unsupported platforms. We'll definitely need an opt-in though!
Hi and thanks again for raising your concerns. We have decided to disable Unity Analytics completely. We will write a post about this.
Ok, thanks for disabling it, and I'm sorry if it makes bug reporting harder. I'm happy to help testing things on Linux if needed.
A blog post would be a good thing for transparency, thanks for that.
Thanks, we'll rely om bug reporting until we have a new solution for opt-in in the place. :)
Quite minor but worth mentioning: There needs to be a setting in-game to be able to turn off Analytics.
Hi and thanks for commenting. Being used to GDPR from developing apps in Europe, we take data privacy seriously.
What platform are you on? On Windows and macOS there is an option to opt-out at the bottom of the main menu. Sadly, the opt-out is not supported for Linux by Unity. I hope they change this soon. If you’re on Linux we’ve included a link to Unity’s privacy policy instead. You must decide if this is sufficient and if you want to play despite this limitation or not. Our apologies for the inconvenience.
Hi and thanks again for raising your concerns. We have decided to disable Unity Analytics completely. We will write a post about this.
Once I figured out what I was doing, this was a lot of fun. The added survival game element (your civilization needing food to avoid starving) at first was really annoying, but once I got that under control it was RTS business as usual. Food is very important in this game. (The survival aspect does make the game more realistic than Age of Empires).
The automatic generation of villagers from the Tribe Center is interesting - for beginning players like me, it made it seem like I was contending against not just the enemy, but life itself. I had to keep on eye on that early in the game in order to maintain a strat that didn't involve starvation and rebellion even before an enemy was sighted.
I think the overall aesthetic is great - and the camera angle / map is perfect. Good functionality in click-to-send both on the world screen and the corner map. I did have a little lag upon the final takedown of the red-colored CPU tribe (beginner mode) but other than that everything else was smooth the whole time (MacOS).
I like the tech upgrade system and that it costs nothing (except time). This game respects time as a resource more than AoE in that regard. I can't say I've figured out a good strategic order for upgrading in the tech tree, but I think it's a good system nonetheless.
The tower system is better than AoE in that it explains what manpower is behind them in the first place since you have to stock them with a unit in order to attack from them. I like the way that it affects unit attack.
Idle Villager functionality is also very well-built. Reading the comments, I see that "I" is a hotkey for idle villager, and I'll definitely use that from now on.
Everything that is built and in the game is built well. The absence of half-formed or half-working systems makes for a very enjoyable demo (it acts as a full game).
Also, music is good. Never got sick of it, left it on to write this comment.
Cheers on your development, thanks for the dev and updating this project! Lot of fun and it's awesome to see this kind of RPG in live production again!
-Dandin
Hi and thank you for taking your time to provide this feedback. It's deeply appreciated!
Love this take on RTS, shift+clicking to queue commands to units/workers would be my #1 desired feature for 0.5.4 or 0.6.0
Thanks for commenting. After playing other RTSs lately and going back to play TFC, I've really missed this feature myself. We'll see what we can do!
hello,i have old laptop inter core2duo with mobile family chipset.in game the buildings are color black,villagers is fine.i hope yu fix this soon.thanks
Hi, this has never been reported before and I'm not sure what the cause is.
Really looking forward to seeing the game progress :)
Good Job so far!
Thanks!
Awesome layouts and inventory systems. I will try the game out shortly (macOS)
Still waiting for updates man. The game IS being played so don't lose your motivation.
Hi and thanks for the encouraging comment! It definitely motivates us to read that people are playing the game.
Progress on the next update has been slow lately due to demanding deadlines within our paid jobs, however it shouldn't be too long until we're able to publish the next version.
I LOOOOOOOVE this game! Can't wait for more updates.
I would love to be able to zoom in and out and maybe have a technology that increases the speed the villagers walk?
Also, my friend and I would like to take on a computer player together in a co-op type scenario.
Thanks for making this game!
Thanks for posting! We consider all feedback we receive. :)
Thank you for being so open to feedback. I have a lot more suggestions but I shouldn't be too greedy. Are you still working on updates?
Feel free to share all your feedback! No matter how long, just post here if you want to. It's great to receive data on your experiences with the game and what you want it to be.
We're working on a new update, and we're around 70% finished with it based on task count.
The game does not work with MS Windows Millennium Edition and Debian 8 32 bit. I can not play this game.
The game is currently only playable on 64-bit Windows.
Would love to play it, sadly i cant. i have 32 bit windows.
Hope the support for it will be soon added
Will consider this for the next update.
Doesnt work on mac?
It should work on Mac if you download the correct file. Can you explain what happens if it doesn't work on yours?
"unable to open"
What is your macOS version?
10.15.1
That is the newest and we exported the build for it, so that is odd. We’ve had 100s of Mac users download without issues. Are you able to unzip the file at all before you try to open it?
What about adding an a small chance for enemies to drop equipment on death? Then villagers can equip that loot and be instantly upgraded to light spearmen or something, I don't know if it would cause problems with balancing but I feel like it would be cool :P
Thanks for posting your idea! :)
Great game so far, but I would love it if I could use get an option to use wasd. Seriously it's actually annoying to use the arrow keys with shortcuts on the keyboard. Can't wait to see what else would come.
Thanks for commenting. Unfortunately, it's challenging to not to use WASD for hotkeys for other aspects of the game. We are thinking about how to solve this. In the meantime, you can also move the mouse to outer edges of the screen, or use the middle mouse button, to move the screen as well.
So, I really do love your game, and am impressed by how well everything feels balance-wise. I played my first fifteen minutes, and the result is what you see below:
Thank you for making this fun game!
(P.S., the video will go live at 12pm PST, thanks for your patience with an amateur like me!)
Thanks a lot for posting! It's very useful for us to watch videos like this, to see how first-time players play the game. Quite a lot of changes we've made has been because of these kind of videos. :)
I am glad to hear that. I am happy to be of help, I love playing games like this and seeing what's on the horizon of Indi gaming. Thank you for putting your work out there and letting me play it!
Hi, amazing potential for your game! Even in the alpha stage does the game have pretty good feel to the original AoE. However, I have quite a few suggestions that would be useful to the players of this game:
Content Suggestions:
Thanks for your comment and all your suggestions:
- The net difference is hard to calculate because of walking distances etc., but we'll at least try to show the number of villagers harvesting food.
- The attack move suggestion sounds like a bug that we need to investigate.
Other than that, we consider all ideas we receive!
Hi. There's a bug regarding the watchtowers. Any ranged unit, including villagers, can shoot the enemy settlement from across the map, completely ignoring the tower range, even if there isn't any allied unit near it (it can be 'fogged' and they will shoot it anyway)
However, great game, i've really enjoyed it. Thanks
Can't reproduce this issue. The game runs perfectly. Someone seriously needs to learn how to play... git gud son.
Have you played the latest version of the game? It works fine for me... As a game developer myself I can confirm that there is no bug as the one described aboved. Please go to The Fertile Crescent Folder and open a sword icon, named The Fertile Crescent.exe
Thanks, batonpass. I re downloaded the latest version (0.5.2C) just in case and it still occurs.
I recorded a short video:
I just tested the same thing and got the same results. Watchtower rush == gg
This is a confirmed bug and we will fix it for the next version.
Thanks!
I've played about 6 hours in the last day. How do i send you money because I'm addicted
If we ever commercialise the game you can support us by buying it! ;)
(sorry in advance for my bad english)
Really promising game !
I'm searching for games like this, I don't find many...
The design, the gameplay, I find it very simple and very good !
Of course for now, there are not many different units. But still, it is really pleasant to play !
Is it possible to have a rough counter that tells, approximately, how much food we are getting per unit of time ? just to have an idea. Or an exact counter that considers the distance the villagers are from a granary :P
I'm asking, because I felt a little lost at first, and I still don't know exactly how much food a farm gives over time, and I have problems comparing that to the usage of food.
But, well, it's not totally needed, it can be learned over time I guess, if it is what you intend to do !
It is a VERY good game for now. I hope seeing it evolve :)
Hey, we're happy to hear you enjoy the game!
I'm pretty sure every unit in the game consumes 1 food per 10 seconds at the moment.
Thanks for your suggestions. We're adding all suggestions in a backlog to consider, and we'll at least consider adding a tooltip that tells you how much food all your villagers versus your army are consuming. We might also look into how we can better show what the difference food production ratios actually means.
Thanks again!
Love this game. So nice. Had a true pleasure playing. Thank you. I'm an experienced fan of RTS, loved AoE1&2 in my teenage years. Thing I really miss is hotkey for quick selection of a free villager.
Glad to read you like it!
Quick selection for free villagers is 'I'.
Just started this game. It's hard at the beginning but got the hang of it. My main problem was starvation hahaha. Though, I like a good challenge. Love the style, this game is amazing!
could you add the option to organise the soldiers into groups? likefor example. when I press ctrl+1 with the soldiers selected, I could select the same soldiers again just by pressing 1.
there's a limited number of soldiers that can be selected at once and it's a little clunky moving them around when there's a lot of them.
Hi, you can do this now! Also, if you hold SHIFT + NUM you can add units to existing control groups.
ah, I only tried it on numpad, thanks
Adding numpads to backlog. Thanks again for commenting.
it will be better, yeah i agree with you
Played around with it for a bit. My people starved. Gonna try it some more. It's great!
Hy, the simple and straightforward pixel art graphics are really good, old school and smooth, like the 1990's. And the gameplay is promising.
Will you add walkable walls that infantry can't destroy ? This feature is missing in most games. Some of them that include it are awesome, like Stronghold or Civilizations ar War. I thought trying to make a prototype once, but never got time for.
It will require to implement pathfinding solutions and tweak ai targeting and taking decisions. Some work !
This would be a great addition ! Please, consider.
Hi Nabu, thanks for your comments.
We've thought about walls that units can walk on. There are some issues with this that we haven't overcome yet, that is mostly due to the fact that you can't rotate the camera. So at this point we'll have to say 'probably not', but we still want to do some experimentation and see what we can come up with.
Maybe have walls as discrete but chainable buildings? so each wall section would be like a long watchtower which you can garrison with units and they only guard that one section. If you want to extend the wall you add another section but you have to garrison the second wall separately