Even for an idle game, this game is very slow. You're getting tiny amounts of troops/sec and tiny amounts of gold/sec, balanced against massive piles of enemies and very steep cost curves. The territory bonuses do not scale relative to the enemy troop increases and cost curves. Gold can be used for mercenaries, but the cost is seemingly random and the number of mercenaries is capped (why?). You eventually unlock the power to draft troops by clicking a random pop-up, but the quantity of troops you draft declines as the game goes on (why?). Halfway through the second map you have enough achievement points to buy an upgrade, but it's just +10% to camp recruitment. You cannot replay earlier levels for additional achievement points (why?). Offline time caps at 2 hours and the game appears to toggle to offline mode if you leave it idle.

The biggest flaw, in my opinion, is how weak territory bonuses are. In real warlight the bonuses are the whole ball game. Here they contribute pennies. On my current map I can spend 500k troops to get +15 gold/sec. If you assume 1 troop = 1 gold, then I should expect to play this map for at least 10 more hours before that bonus yields a profit. Currently my mercs are 1 troop = 7 gold... I certainly hope I will not be playing this level for 70 hours.

Mostly this is a question of balancing, but the bigger problem might be that gold is too hard to convert to troops. In vanilla warlight, bonuses directly equal troops. In warlight economics mode, gold directly equals troops subject to diminishing returns as you buy more, plus an ability to continuously upgrade gold production. The mercenaries and camp upgrades are similar to economics mode, but merc cost is randomized and merc purchases are capped and camp upgrades have steep cost increases. It might be better if mercs can always be bought, with gradually increasing costs, and merc bonuses on the map that reduce/reset the cost. For camps, maybe we should be able to buy more in new territories similar to economics mode. Maybe gold should let us buy more arena plays, since frankly that is the most fun part of this game. Something to keep us engaged on the map and to produce a feedback loop that meaningfully builds your long term strength.

Warzone Idle is meant to be played in small bursts throughout your day, not in one sitting. Think of it like a multi-day game -- you wouldn't sit on a game waiting on your opponent to enter orders, that would drive you crazy!

"Waiting" is a matter of perspective. The way I play is I just check in every once in a while and re-invest my profits while I'm doing other stuff. I never wait. With this strategy, there's actually no waiting involved in playing Warzone Idle.

I realize it's new, so people are excited and want to play more, but that's contrary to the way it's designed to be played. Take a break, go play Warzone Classic for a bit, then check back.

Edited 7/9/2020 14:24:36

Hi Fizzer. If you play other successful idle games, a very common trait is they start out fairly active and then slow down significantly over time. The early game needs to be engaging enough for players to get invested in the game and care about coming back. This game is very slow from the start and I worry you will have a hard time adding players because of that.

Anyway, I think most of my comments are still relevant even if it is meant to be played very sporadically.

+1

There should be a level in between tutorial and Huruey's Castle that is very active and can be beaten in 2-3 hours

I completely agree with arigold. The speed early on is just too slow to get hooked. If it's only thought as a side game and not to get some money (which it obviously is for), then it'd be much more effective if players didn't have to wait too long after the first few clicks already.

Warzone idle should allow access to non warlight players and not just use the already existing playerbase. If fizzer wants to reach a new playerbase then it'd be in his interest to get them into idle as quickly as possible.

My point of view:

I am on the Final earth level, so have played quite some levels already.

The levels get slower, but not too much actually. Like for me it feels like final earth is not much slower than floating rocks. and it is okay for level 5 to be at this speed, its just for the first (castle) level that it should be faster.
From Fizzers perspective, the first fast level is probably the tutorial, but lets be honest, we all had no idea what we were doing in the tutorial. we just clicked what the tutorial told us to click. that is not a real level experience

Edited 7/10/2020 10:51:01

It's not necessarily too slow, but the two hour cap on idle time is far too restrictive. Increasing the max idle time requires a huge amount of points.

That's part of the income of the game though. You can spend coins to play faster and playing faster lets you spend AP on increasing the idle time limits.

Even though it's technically a free game to play people will buy coins and increase their speeds, etc. He's gotta make money somehow here :)

I don't think most idle games have such a low limit though. If it wasn't during lockdown where I can check in regularly, the game would take forever.

Take a break, go play Warzone Classic for a bit, then check back.

Is that like Warlight?

I think some territory should always be easily conquerable, so if you want to click, you can take 3 or 4 terr that brings you 4/8 coins/sec.

^ well that is the intention behind the permanent arena request that some players have made.

I am finishing Floating rocks level right now. I found all camps, caches etc on map and all what is left is are territories without special items and waiting for camps to deliver armies. There is no point in doing any economy, as army costs rose so high that it is pointless to sell anything and gain more money as I have no effective use for them.
All can I do now is check every two hours, conquer one of two territories with and wait two hours again. This is really not enjoyable in the slightest.

I am finishing Floating rocks level right now. I found all camps, caches etc on map and all what is left is are territories without special items and waiting for camps to deliver armies. There is no point in doing any economy, as army costs rose so high that it is pointless to sell anything and gain more money as I have no effective use for them.
All can I do now is check every two hours, conquer one of two territories with and wait two hours again. This is really not enjoyable in the slightest.

A common mistake players make is buying mercenaries too early.

Think of it this way: You're spending some money on mercenaries and some money on army camp upgrades. Buying mercenaries gives you armies immediately, but buying army camp upgrades gives you armies over time. Therefore, it's far better to do those army camp upgrades first and buy the mercenaries later, so your camp upgrades have more time to produce armies. Upgrading army camps when a level is almost complete is not an efficient plan.

When to buy mercenaries is a balancing act and there's no sure-fire rules on when to do it. Ideally, you want to be purchasing your last mercenaries to conquer the last territory on the map.

The speed at which you progress through Warzone Idle is based on your strategy, so if things are going too slow you should try revisiting your play style.

Hmm I don't agree, I've had games with maxed army camps before I bought any mercenaries and still had to wait a long time to clear up. The only proper way of getting armies is by the army draft. Think that should be reworked a bit.

I've had games with maxed army camps before I bought any mercenaries and still had to wait a long time

You were likely in one of the older versions of the app. This was fixed a couple updates ago, so you won't see this anymore. If you do, please send me a screenshot.

After playing a bit I think there is something wrong with the territory bonus. it's too low to matter.
I start exploring the map and i find all the valuables. then I'm left with a bunch of territory to conquer.

Maybe it's wrong strategy but I enjoy exploring the map instead of taking territory that seems unimportant.
I think completing bonuses should unlock new part of the maps, so the player is not able to move around seeking chests and mines.

another point I would like to review are the smelters. moving from one to another production i can maximize the outcome and the efficiency. But this means I'm playing a managerial game more than an idle game ( I start checking every 3 minutes to see if I can switch barrels production, which is not very "idle").

just my 2 cents

@Fizzer

Think of it this way: You're spending some money on mercenaries and some money on army camp upgrades. Buying mercenaries gives you armies immediately, but buying army camp upgrades gives you armies over time. Therefore, it's far better to do those army camp upgrades first and buy the mercenaries later, so your camp upgrades have more time to produce armies. Upgrading army camps when a level is almost complete is not an efficient plan.

Except the problem is that the army camp upgrades are horrendously under scaled. Right now, I'm 50% of the way through Far Land by territory, and the cheapest army camp upgrade for me is 1.1B for only an extra 108 armies/second. At that rate, even the most expensive mercenary camp I've found so far (76 per army) would require there to be over a day and a half of play left for the army camp upgrade to be worthwhile instead of buying the mercenaries. The next cheapest requires nearly 8 days of play left for the army camp upgrade to be worth it. And I've got two other cheaper mercenary camps to max out before that and I'm sure more to discover.

If you want the players to be buying their mercenaries later than they are, you need to make it worth it for them by scaling up the army camp upgrades along with their costs.

Ideally, you want to be purchasing your last mercenaries to conquer the last territory on the map.

Here's a situation I had last level, the Netherlands, so I'm not sure if what you're saying applies at higher levels:

Cheapest Army Camp upgrade: ~1 Trillion Money for ~400 armies/sec
Final Mercenary Camp: ~20 Billion Mercenaries for ~250 money/each

5 Trillion for 20 Billion armies or 1 Trillion for an extra 400 armies a second? For that army camp upgrade to pay off it would take over 115 days. Of course I choose the Mercenaries first.

Benjamin's situation is true of pretty much every map. You're using the mercs to conquer stuff right now. It's not just waiting days to catch up in armies, but also days without the benefit of the caches, mines, bonuses, etc. that the mercs let you take. It's very obvious that the mercs are better in many situations.

Anyway, I started this thread a month ago and I feel very vindicated about the issues I raised. Just look at the other thread with the expected play times for later levels... you just aren't going to get a lot of players interested in playing this as currently designed. This thing needs to go back to the drawing board in terms of balance and user experience.