{"id":2012,"edition":11,"categories":1,"features":0,"size":13311,"name":"Swords & Quills","authors":[{"name":"Tiago Correia","url":"https://dosaki.net/","login":"dosaki","gh":1957450}],"description":"

Swords & Quills is a grand (tiny?) strategy game set in 13th Century British Isles.

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Make your nation the most powerful in the British Isles before the 13th century is over.\nUse your armies and ambassadors to ally or conquer other lands.

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Controls

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Mouse

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Getting started

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Fill out your title, name and nation name. Then pick one of the existing nations.\nPick a large one if you want to have it easier - larger nations have more territories to build Castles, Mines and Farms.

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Strategies

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You can play aggressively, by investing in Farms and Armies and conquering your neighbours.\nOr you can play diplomatically, by placing ambassadors in foreign castles and purchasing their territories, or allying with them.\nOr a mix of both!

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Time controls

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You can Pause/Play/Play faster with the controls on the top right.\nPause the game if it’s becoming overwhelming, but make sure to click Play as some actions only happen when the game’s time is ticking.

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Armies

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When you create an army it appears in the region sidebar as a square with the number of individuals in that army. Clicks it to move the army to another territory.

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To the left side of the army list, you can merge and split your armies further.

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Armies cost gold to train and consume food.

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Ambassadors

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Ambassadors increase reputation with the nation where they’re deployed. They do this by gifting your gold to that nation.

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Ambassadors cost gold and they consume food from both your and the foreign nation resource pool.

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Castles

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Increase the region’s defense, provide seats for foreign ambassadors and tax the land to give you gold.

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Farms

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Produce food to support your (and foreign) ambassadors and armies.

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Mines

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Produce gold. You need this to train units and build buildings.

\n","source":"dosaki/swords-and-quills","stars":0,"comments":[{"at":347327541,"author":"Homer Dilpleu","login":"HomerDilpleu","gh":66157330,"text":"

I liked to play this game!\nThe map is great and I loved the way we can stop and accelerate the time.\nThe controls and the logic are easy to understand, which is not always the case for this type of game!\nI have played several times but I have always been defeated quite quickly :( So, to me, the game is too hard and I would have appreciated the possibility to choose the difficulty.

\n","games":["Cathedral builder"]},{"at":348009577,"re":347327541,"author":"Tiago Correia","login":"dosaki","gh":1957450,"url":"https://dosaki.net/","text":"

Hi Homer, thanks for playing!

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The difficulty depends mostly on the size of your starting nation. There’s a random factor in how much the other nations love/hate you too.

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I’m so glad you thought the controls were easy to understand. That was the bit I was most unsure of.

\n"},{"at":347511007,"author":"CaptainAligna","login":"CaptainAligna","gh":145273384,"text":"

Very solid gameplay, everything is very clear and easy to understand. I had a blast playing it and couldn’t stop until I won!

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I found the game quite difficult if you start with a one region area, but after I started with a bigger region (green at bottom) the game became quite easy… so it serves well as a “choose your difficulty” feature.

\n"},{"at":348009394,"re":347511007,"author":"Tiago Correia","login":"dosaki","gh":1957450,"url":"https://dosaki.net/","text":"

Thanks Aligna!

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The size of your starting nation was meant to act as a difficulty choice indeed.

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I think I should’ve made that a bit more explicit somehow.

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Glad you enjoyed it!

\n"},{"at":347550890,"author":"Chris Glover","login":"madmaw","gh":1129626,"twitter":"mad_maw","text":"

I managed to get a victory after a few goes. I was looking for a bit more strategy in the armies (e.g. trying to get a boost from defending or having a castle for example), but it seems like a straight numbers game. In the end I found just putting all your units into one giga-army was the best strategy for me.

\n","games":["Dragon Simulator"]},{"at":348009315,"re":347550890,"author":"Tiago Correia","login":"dosaki","gh":1957450,"url":"https://dosaki.net/","text":"

Thanks for playing, Chris!

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The castles do give you some advantage when defending but in hindsight, I think I should’ve boosted the amount.

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Originally I had 3 different kinds of war units and they became stronger as they won battles but I had to remove that because I ran out of space 😞

\n"},{"at":347763563,"author":"Leo Kuo","login":"leokuo0724","gh":40346834,"url":"https://medium.com/@leokuo0724","twitter":"leokuo0724","text":"

Great job! I always love strategy game and this game reminds me of the Civilization series. It give me a sense of achievement of conquering lands. Also, the game provides pause and speed up, it levels up the experience!

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In the game, I’ve been adopting a conquest strategy to achieve victory, and I find it a bit challenging to understand the purpose of the ambassador. Perhaps adjusting the game balance to make the ambassador’s importance more significant could be helpful!

\n","games":["Mongol March"]},{"at":348009121,"re":347763563,"author":"Tiago Correia","login":"dosaki","gh":1957450,"url":"https://dosaki.net/","text":"

Thanks Leo, I’m glad you enjoyed it!

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The ambassador used be way overpowered so I took the easy way out and had to bring it down a bit.

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There’s definitely more balancing to do!

\n"},{"at":348006170,"author":"Roman Miniv","login":"RomanMiniv","gh":50551993,"text":"

Good game! I actually played a bit!

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The speed up time button came in very handy as normal time is a bit slow for me. In the end, I managed to win only in the largest nation, I tried in others, but there it is worth a lot more effort and time :).

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When the result is shown and I resize - everything disappears.

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Congratulations!

\n","games":["Crusaders and their Journeys"]},{"at":348008990,"re":348006170,"author":"Tiago Correia","login":"dosaki","gh":1957450,"url":"https://dosaki.net/","text":"

Thanks for playing!\nLarger nations have a much easier time playing.

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There’s a degree of randomness in the level of relationships between the nations so you may end up being unlucky and everybody hates you.

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I never tried resizing the game after the score screen appears but now that you mention it, I know exactly what’s happening! 😅

\n"},{"at":348115173,"author":"Christoph Schansky","login":"DerBenniBanni","gh":5499976,"text":"

What a joy to play this game!\nI like the zoom- and dragable map, and that you can choose the diplomatic way or the warriors path.

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Had fun playing

\n","games":["WitchCup1276"]},{"at":348121724,"re":348115173,"author":"Tiago Correia","login":"dosaki","gh":1957450,"url":"https://dosaki.net/","text":"

Thanks for playing Christoph!

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I was afraid the zoom felt a bit weird!

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Hope you didn’t find it too hard!

\n"},{"at":348225115,"author":"Ryan Tyler","login":"tyler6699","gh":50468,"url":"https://carelesslabs.co.uk","text":"

The UI and map all look really good, I like that you added the time speed up and slow down and even pause.

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I tried playing as a small and large area but had some difficulty making any progress.

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Once I bought a farm and a mine my resources would go up very slowly, I had a small army which just about kept my land, it kept getting defeated.

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I struggled to get the ambasadors to do much for me so need some help understanding how to use them.

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Would be good if the first few minutes had some tips so i knew what to do, I kept restarting; placing a farm but never really gaining any food?

\n","games":["Fort Knight"]},{"at":348226385,"re":348225115,"author":"Tiago Correia","login":"dosaki","gh":1957450,"url":"https://dosaki.net/","text":"

Farms give you food which works like a population cap.

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My best strategy is to buy 2 Farms for the capital territory and get an army going as fast as possible, then a mine if I have another spare region. If not, another farm.

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Ambassadors will increase reputation with the nation you palce them in, reputation can be used to establish alliances and/or buy regions from other nations.

\n"},{"at":348281582,"author":"Nathan Long","login":"nathanlong","gh":623568,"text":"

Very thematic and fun strategy game.

\n"},{"at":348375343,"author":"João Lopes","login":"lopis","gh":2715751,"url":"www.jlopes.dev","text":"

This game looks fun but I couldn’t figure out how to play. I tried 4 times and always die super fast. I wasn’t able to have an army fast enough before they enemies started attacking.

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The UI was constantly blinking. It was hard to read the hover tooltips because they kept blinking so intermittently.

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I strongly recommend you improve the balance of the game and the UI and release a new version because I think this game has a lot of potential.

\n","games":["Market Street Tycoon"]},{"at":348608890,"re":348375343,"author":"Tiago Correia","login":"dosaki","gh":1957450,"url":"https://dosaki.net/","text":"

If you’re having trouble staying alive, I recommend starting with a larger nation and regularly pausing the game so that you have time to take your actions.

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My go-to strategy with a large/medium nation is opening with a mine, then a farm and then sending an ambassador to a medium/large nation to increase reputation with them so that we can become allies (they’ll help defend you).\nThen it’s getting another farm and building an army as soon as possible.

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The blinking UI is a bug I noticed a bit too late (particularly prominent when you speed up the time) and I didn’t have the time to sort out :( Sorry about that.

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Thanks for the encouraging comment!

\n"},{"typ":2,"at":348691635,"author":"Noël Meudec","login":"Noel-FB","gh":71314518,"url":"https://facebook.com/instantgames","text":"

I quickly got stuck with no idea what to do.\nI cannot really judge this game based on my experience with it.\nA tutorial would definitely be great.

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Note: I have read the description of the game with the explanations on the strategies to use, but yet I was confused and things were a bit too slow for me.

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Overall, I see potential for this game, but I sadly couldn’t explore it enough as it is not really beginner friendly. I am sure other experts will have a much better experience with it.

\n"},{"at":348814170,"re":348691635,"author":"Tiago Correia","login":"dosaki","gh":1957450,"url":"https://dosaki.net/","text":"

Many things aren’t immediatelly obvious and I sacrificed the tutorial for some features. I relied on people having played similar gamescom in the genre.

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I’m quite surprised with how the majority of players have figured it out - I knew it’d look a bit daunting for many others though.

\n"},{"at":348739276,"author":"Mefistofel","login":"mefist0fel","gh":1374506,"twitter":"Polar0cean","text":"

Well, small, but proud strategy game.\nIt’s not so simple to play, but there are all main mechanics - gold, food, diplomacy and war.\nAlmost true 4х (2.5 x)\nGood Job!

\n","games":["Castle wars"]},{"at":348814243,"re":348739276,"author":"Tiago Correia","login":"dosaki","gh":1957450,"url":"https://dosaki.net/","text":"

Cheers, thanks! Definitely needs to be a bit mire forgiving though

\n"},{"at":348753199,"author":"stxtus","login":"stxtus","gh":79226770,"text":"

Good maps and i like the style of the graphics themself

\n"},{"at":348814205,"re":348753199,"author":"Tiago Correia","login":"dosaki","gh":1957450,"url":"https://dosaki.net/","text":"

Thanks! Wish I could’ve had a larger map though!

\n"},{"typ":2,"at":348781654,"author":"Ania Kubów","login":"kubowania","gh":51362610,"url":"javascriptgames.online","twitter":"ania_kubow","text":"

You can tell a lot of thought went into the game play of this submission and I am happy to see that the theme was stuck to!

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It took me a while to figure out how to play this game and I am wondering if the game play instructions could be worked into the game play somehow? Either through pop up’s or a run through performed by the computer?

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Overall great work!

\n"},{"at":348814686,"re":348781654,"author":"Tiago Correia","login":"dosaki","gh":1957450,"url":"https://dosaki.net/","text":"

Thanks for taking the time to play my game!

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Initially I had a tutorial like in last year’s entry but I had to remove it due to lack of space 😭

\n"},{"typ":2,"at":348782837,"author":"Frahaan Hussain","login":"SonarSystems","gh":6967779,"url":"https://sonarsystems.co.uk","twitter":"SonarSystems","text":"

More instructions in game would help a lot, but an interesting concept.

\n"},{"at":348814852,"re":348782837,"author":"Tiago Correia","login":"dosaki","gh":1957450,"url":"https://dosaki.net/","text":"

Agreed on the instructions!

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I had to remove my step-by-step tutorial (like I did last year).

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Thanks for playing my game!

\n"}],"results":{"theme":{"rank":17,"min":1.08,"score":3.89,"max":4.38},"innovation":{"rank":58,"min":1.12,"score":2.94,"max":4.43},"gameplay":{"rank":70,"min":1.24,"score":2.83,"max":4.34},"graphics":{"rank":82,"min":1.21,"score":2.94,"max":4.73},"audio":{"rank":85,"min":1,"score":2.06,"max":4.32},"controls":{"rank":68,"min":1.29,"score":2.94,"max":4.23},"primary":{"rank":64,"min":7.57,"score":17.61,"max":24.7},"label":"Overall"}}