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Hi Dale, hex. Nice alpha game. I have a few comments.
The most important one:
Don't use a .doc for the manual. It is huge, I mean really huge, because of the screenshots I guess, and it takes forever loading in StarOffice (I don't own and won't get legally or otherwise MSWord). I am afraid downloading the full manual when it is done will take more time than the game unless you can reduce the size of it (what format do you used for images in the .doc?) Whatever else (html, pdf, txt) would be better from my point of view.
On the game itself:
I ran the game without a problem on XP.
The game is nice looking. The graphics are really good, although units might look better sharpened a bit.
The combat display screen is something I like. Seeing the numbers change is a good interface for me. Reminds me of MOO ground combat.
Your last post shows you know what you need to do next (highlighting selected unit for instance). Here are a few critics:
You should not sport ai labels in the opening screen if you have no ai. That's cosmetic but puzzling if you read the manual too fast.
You shouldn't put the End button near a corner since I may scroll instead of ending my turn or vice versa. Put it somewhere there is no risk of confusion, like in the middel bottom of the screen.
Iron and stone icons look like too much one another. I tried building units with stone thinking it asked for stone.
Moving units is a lot of guess-clicking for now. It looks like units remember move orders from one turn to another but you have to click on the boot icon to make them move, which means you have to select each of them every turn for them to move. No point remember move orders in that case. I once managed to get a unit moving in the exact opposite direction of what I wanted through some clickfest.
Combat needs a model in which 500 + 250 + 50 units don't lose 104 units to 50 pikemen. Building archers should result in archers instead of pikemen, too. I guess all that is to be developped.
The most important one:
Don't use a .doc for the manual. It is huge, I mean really huge, because of the screenshots I guess, and it takes forever loading in StarOffice (I don't own and won't get legally or otherwise MSWord). I am afraid downloading the full manual when it is done will take more time than the game unless you can reduce the size of it (what format do you used for images in the .doc?) Whatever else (html, pdf, txt) would be better from my point of view.
On the game itself:
I ran the game without a problem on XP.
The game is nice looking. The graphics are really good, although units might look better sharpened a bit.
The combat display screen is something I like. Seeing the numbers change is a good interface for me. Reminds me of MOO ground combat.
Your last post shows you know what you need to do next (highlighting selected unit for instance). Here are a few critics:
You should not sport ai labels in the opening screen if you have no ai. That's cosmetic but puzzling if you read the manual too fast.
You shouldn't put the End button near a corner since I may scroll instead of ending my turn or vice versa. Put it somewhere there is no risk of confusion, like in the middel bottom of the screen.
Iron and stone icons look like too much one another. I tried building units with stone thinking it asked for stone.
Moving units is a lot of guess-clicking for now. It looks like units remember move orders from one turn to another but you have to click on the boot icon to make them move, which means you have to select each of them every turn for them to move. No point remember move orders in that case. I once managed to get a unit moving in the exact opposite direction of what I wanted through some clickfest.
Combat needs a model in which 500 + 250 + 50 units don't lose 104 units to 50 pikemen. Building archers should result in archers instead of pikemen, too. I guess all that is to be developped.
I know it's a crap way to do it. Next time I'll organise a nice little .pdf instead. 
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