A few days of Collectibles

Collectibles have been live for a few days now, and I must say I'm pretty happy with them. They haven't fixed any of the issues from test with regards to them occasionally being hidden behind or in objects, but so far I've had greater than half each time being out in the open and relatively easy to find.

If you're extra bored, you can zoom in on an area, and wave your mouse over the objects in the zone looking for the popup of the name of the item, which is certainly easier once you recognise what the meat deposits name looks like and can phase it out.

Here's an example of an entirely obscured Scarecrow behind some trees.

 

You'll also have instances where the items kind of blend in nicely with the buildings, so while they are perfectly visible, you may overlook it as looking somewhat normal, a bit like this Banner that blends in nicely next to the storehouse.

 

Since there's no reward for finding them, I still wouldn't get too excited about searching unless you really fee like it, but if you do feel like scouring the map, it is somewhat satisfying to have the popup advising you that you've found them all, and certainly will be worthwhile during Halloween when you'll want to find all potential pumpkins (which will be worth quite a bit)

 



 

While the collectibles are a nice distraction, the buffs you can make with them aren't so amazing that you should consider it necessary to scour the map if you don't feel like it.

 

Of the six buffs, you've got

"Country Saying: Adds 200 Wheat units to a Wheatfield", which is just terrible, you can place a wheat field if you want some that badly, +200 is mediocre.

"Harvest Ritual: Boosts the production of a Farm up to 400% for 12 hours", not entirely terrible, but even a level 5 Farm produces about 290 wheat over 12 hours, so the buff will give you an extra ~870 over that amount of time, which is worth maybe 20 gold, hardly impressive.

 

 "Whips and Carrots: Boosts the production of a Stable up to 400% for 6 hours" Pretty bad, no one needs horses that badly.

 

 "Drill Sergeant Skunk: Boosts the recruitment speed of Barracks up to 300% for 12 hours" Pretty good, worthwhile getting, useful for replenishing your forces.

 

"A Sip From the Kettle: Boosts the population growth up to 300% for 8 hours." Not great generally, but during some events there are quests to increase your population by some quantity of settlers, and for these quests adding settlers that you created with Bread in the Provision house doesn't count, so you'll want items like this to increase the 'natural' rate your settlers grow to get the quest done quicker.

 

 "Potion of Endless Energy: Boosts the production of a work yard up to 300% for 12 hours." Quite nice, probably what you'll be going for usually, and the only item that needs Cauldrons (gotten from adventures, or from the Trade Office).

 

So far people seem mostly positive, and beside some of the slight issues with them occasionally getting trapped behind rocks, seems to have been one of the better and smoother implemented components to the game to date.