Yes, it's a beta, but it's basically the same underlying mechanics that were shown in videos by the devs 15 months ago?

1. The tutorial seems to be a last minute addition and is very "clunky" feeling with the instruction screens (including replicated images of supposedly different things that are meant to be helpful).
2. It seems the tutorial only covers the very basics, and 90% of the tutorial(s) is/are yet to be created? Why are 2 of the 5 tutorials not available to the beta test? They aren't written, or they are above us? Exploration and advanced would seem to be things we should get to see?
3. The very basic stuff is sort of covered in the tutorial, however so much more of the gameplay needs to be in a tutorial! e.g. How to find the basic resources - Zoom out doesn't zoom out far enough, and panning the map is slow and awkward with the WASD keys (especially when you bump the Q or E key and manage to spin the map and totally lose your bearings, whilst the middle mouse is the reverse of what I expect, all while trying to see areas for the engineers to survey, and stands of trees for timber harvesting; How to protect a coal and an iron mine long enough for them to give me enough coal and iron so that my blacksmith gets to hammer out his first sword;
4. After going through the process of engaging engineers to do the building in the tutorial, it seems things are more automatic with them engaging in building in the "skirmish" (real gameplay)? I much prefer them engaging and doing things automatically!
5. Road building gets confused when the end points of both building to connect are already in the same hexagon. Clicking that hexagon should cause a road to join the two buildings, but the road doesn't connect them unless I make it longer than one hexagon.
6. The maps I have seen in my 5 or so attempts at 1vs1 skirmish are very sparse with the required resources to build an economy, so military and engineers are all killed off before I can even get close to generating replacements / reinforcements. I HATE TRYING TO BUILD AN ECONOMY THAT I HAVE NO WAY TO DEFEND FROM GETTING OBLITERATED! The game quickly becomes frustrating as there is no way to fend off the constant attacks on multiple fronts whilst also attempting to get resources from an area too vast to defend with minimal military.
7. In the screenshot (refer minimap), that is the nearest coal and iron deposits to where the camp is. There is NO way to achieve an iron supply chain in order to make swords and thereby create military units, as now that it has been just found, the local timber supply has dried up and I cannot build a means of extracting it as well as defending it until I find and extract another source of timber. In the meantime, I am down to 5 military units.....
8. Some swords, etc would be handy in the storehouse, so that some military could be created before so many other buildings are needed just to create a sword, let alone train one soldier.
9. Demolishing a building returns none of the resources, so if you run out before a key building in the supply chain is built, or one gets destroyed, there is no way to scavenge resources to build/rebuild it. I want a means of being able to play where I can rise from the ashes, rather than having to throw it all in the bin and start again!
10. The forest areas are too sparse and too slow growing to supply sufficient timber for the number of buildings required without there being a forester to boost that timber recovery. The engineers are able to survey and find ENDLESS iron, coal, gold, gems and even stone to mine, but trees are not deemed necessary by your devs? Perhaps there's a huge part I am missing in how to manage the extremely limited timber resource?
11. Managing the military is awkward. I tried to assign different groups, but still found that clicking "1" selected all troops. Super hard to defend multiple fronts with so few attacking units. The towers take a lot of resources. The scarecrows seemed ineffective. The military take 6 or more buildings in order to create, and one or more of those get obliterated by the bandits before those buildings get to assist in the gameplay. Then I run out of basic building materials/resources before being able to rebuild. Way too frustrating for me, I'm sorry!
12. The graphics, sounds, and the basics of gameplay all seem fine. Perhaps the AI aggression is accelerated for the beta, but I prefer a game I can work on growing an economy in rather than watching as 15 military units get splattered and then any chance of further advancing my game also disappears.
13. Also, not so keen on the mouse bumping the edge of the window and moving the area being viewed. Almost every time I went to click the build menu, I bumped the bottom of the screen, and the view scrolled up. When I tried the game windowed rather than full screen, and used Alt+Tab to go to another window, the mouse position still pulled the displayed area in the game window across and I got to listen to the ocean sounds and see water rather than what was happening with the settlers. Not sure how useful others will find that feature, but have since turned it off in the settings.
14. Ah, just found the harbour and ability to trade excesses for gold and perhaps buy the stuff I can't get to make...
15. Defeated yet again, and found the screen locked up when choosing the exit the game..... Needed the 3 finger salute and task manager to shutdown the beta test.
16. Confused with reading other's comments where they mention "winning".... I must be missing something vital as I cannot see how winning would be possible at all!
17. I want a setting to be able to turn OFF the AI and just go about learning the infrastructure and trade stuff.
18. I did get to build a second storage unit (which is where the donkey carts finally get some use in transferring between them), and I can vaguely understand the dev's desire to get us to manage where items are stored, but in a game where the AI seems to already have a substantial infrastructure across many locations allowing for an army with attack waves which come way too frequent when you are trying to learn the game mechanics and not really wanting to have to micro-manage which storehouse contains which goods..
19. The AI's engineers had about a dozen troops shadowing them as they expanded the territory pushing back my borders. Is there a setting somewhere for troops to be able to automatically shadow the erratic movements of engineers tasked with claiming or surveying? (Not that I would ever get as far as creating a few dozen troops to do that, but if I could ever get that far, is there such a setting, or it's only an AI feature?)

Tried all I can find, including the logout and in again and closed-beta link, but it only allows me to view existing posts and not post anything new in those specific forum areas. Am I missing a setting somewhere, or just not picking up on something subtle?

Appreciate a pointer / advice on how to be able to post thoughts, findings, suggestions and feedback in the right area please.

Interesting. The default download location the game chose for itself was in the 32-bit pool?

C:\Program Files (x86)\Ubisoft\Ubisoft Game Launcher

I suggested it head over to the 64-bit puddle instead.

C:\Program Files\Ubisoft\Ubisoft Game Launcher\games\TheSettlers_ClosedBeta

Ah the link in my email now takes me to where I can post... All good!

The email link now takes me to where I can post, so all good....

The email link now takes me to where I can post, so all good....

Ah the link in my email now takes me to where I can post... All good!

Tried all I can find, including the logout and in again and closed-beta link, but it only allows me to view existing posts and not post anything new in those specific forum areas. Am I missing a setting somewhere, or just not picking up on something subtle?

Appreciate a pointer / advice on how to be able to post thoughts, findings, suggestions and feedback in the right area please.

After watching chunks of other's gameplay videos posted on YouTube (thanks to the posters!), I made better headway in my last attempt at a 1:1 skirmish against the AI.

1. Never ever would have guessed that the engineers get created from the guild hall (as guild buildings are benign in TSO unless you want to run your own guild!) so seeing this in someone else's video helped with info that was missing from tutorials
2. I successfully got 3 storehouses basically running and a decent supply chain such that I was able to create quite a few more military. However, controlling them and getting them to suitably defend things particularly against large enemy waves was another matter. I did not discover any source of gems to mine, or get very far with the gold coin minting, so research never happened, and minimal benefit was achieved from the tavern.
   1. Troop management and getting the right combination of them to strategic locations defied me. I simply could not figure it out, apart from one unit at a time, or a broad brush selection (which was not what I wanted). Detailed tutorial on HOW to manage and position and task troops needs to be added please!
   2. I couldn't find any means of creating a formation
3. There is just too much to tweak and massage across the multiple resource chains, and I struggled WASDing around the map as I shuffled engineers and troops left and right in between trying to continually build the 4 person residences so I could generate more troops.
4. Various buildings were a waste of time as I did not have the resources they needed to be able to create anything that would help, and I could not figure out what the squiggly black icon was for the resource I was lacking. A mouseover tooltip at the very least might have helped.
5. Others have mentioned the game speed as fine (perhaps they played other players rather than the AI?), I found it slow to okay at the initial expansion stage, but then it quickly blew up when the AI had a viable military creating infrastructure and I did not. The game then went from an okay pace to stressful.
6. I want to be able to take the time to learn a game without feeling like I am getting somewhere and then watch it all burn down!!
7. I want to become aware of all the units I have at my command and the supply chains they need to create and boost them.
8. I guess it would have been handy to send out a scouting type to feel out where the AI was in the "fog of war" unexplored areas, but I was too busy setting up my infrastructure and then chasing my tail trying to defend it.
9. The more I learnt of other bits and pieces, the more I was enjoying the gameplay, but the AI aggression and my inability to contain the attacks just became too frustrating for me.

Yes, it's a beta, but it's basically the same underlying mechanics that were shown in videos by the devs 15 months ago?

1. The tutorial seems to be a last minute addition and is very "clunky" feeling with the instruction screens (including replicated images of supposedly different things that are meant to be helpful).
2. It seems the tutorial only covers the very basics, and 90% of the tutorial(s) is/are yet to be created? Why are 2 of the 5 tutorials not available to the beta test? They aren't written, or they are above us? Exploration and advanced would seem to be things we should get to see?
3. The very basic stuff is sort of covered in the tutorial, however so much more of the gameplay needs to be in a tutorial! e.g. How to find the basic resources - Zoom out doesn't zoom out far enough, and panning the map is slow and awkward with the WASD keys (especially when you bump the Q or E key and manage to spin the map and totally lose your bearings, whilst the middle mouse is the reverse of what I expect, all while trying to see areas for the engineers to survey, and stands of trees for timber harvesting; How to protect a coal and an iron mine long enough for them to give me enough coal and iron so that my blacksmith gets to hammer out his first sword;
4. After going through the process of engaging engineers to do the building in the tutorial, it seems things are more automatic with them engaging in building in the "skirmish" (real gameplay)? I much prefer them engaging and doing things automatically!
5. Road building gets confused when the end points of both building to connect are already in the same hexagon. Clicking that hexagon should cause a road to join the two buildings, but the road doesn't connect them unless I make it longer than one hexagon.
6. The maps I have seen in my 5 or so attempts at 1vs1 skirmish are very sparse with the required resources to build an economy, so military and engineers are all killed off before I can even get close to generating replacements / reinforcements. I HATE TRYING TO BUILD AN ECONOMY THAT I HAVE NO WAY TO DEFEND FROM GETTING OBLITERATED! The game quickly becomes frustrating as there is no way to fend off the constant attacks on multiple fronts whilst also attempting to get resources from an area too vast to defend with minimal military.
7. In the screenshot (refer minimap), that is the nearest coal and iron deposits to where the camp is. There is NO way to achieve an iron supply chain in order to make swords and thereby create military units, as now that it has been just found, the local timber supply has dried up and I cannot build a means of extracting it as well as defending it until I find and extract another source of timber. In the meantime, I am down to 5 military units.....
8. Some swords, etc would be handy in the storehouse, so that some military could be created before so many other buildings are needed just to create a sword, let alone train one soldier.
9. Demolishing a building returns none of the resources, so if you run out before a key building in the supply chain is built, or one gets destroyed, there is no way to scavenge resources to build/rebuild it. I want a means of being able to play where I can rise from the ashes, rather than having to throw it all in the bin and start again!
10. The forest areas are too sparse and too slow growing to supply sufficient timber for the number of buildings required without there being a forester to boost that timber recovery. The engineers are able to survey and find ENDLESS iron, coal, gold, gems and even stone to mine, but trees are not deemed necessary by your devs? Perhaps there's a huge part I am missing in how to manage the extremely limited timber resource?
11. Managing the military is awkward. I tried to assign different groups, but still found that clicking "1" selected all troops. Super hard to defend multiple fronts with so few attacking units. The towers take a lot of resources. The scarecrows seemed ineffective. The military take 6 or more buildings in order to create, and one or more of those get obliterated by the bandits before those buildings get to assist in the gameplay. Then I run out of basic building materials/resources before being able to rebuild. Way too frustrating for me, I'm sorry!
12. The graphics, sounds, and the basics of gameplay all seem fine. Perhaps the AI aggression is accelerated for the beta, but I prefer a game I can work on growing an economy in rather than watching as 15 military units get splattered and then any chance of further advancing my game also disappears.
13. Also, not so keen on the mouse bumping the edge of the window and moving the area being viewed. Almost every time I went to click the build menu, I bumped the bottom of the screen, and the view scrolled up. When I tried the game windowed rather than full screen, and used Alt+Tab to go to another window, the mouse position still pulled the displayed area in the game window across and I got to listen to the ocean sounds and see water rather than what was happening with the settlers. Not sure how useful others will find that feature, but have since turned it off in the settings.
14. Ah, just found the harbour and ability to trade excesses for gold and perhaps buy the stuff I can't get to make...
15. Defeated yet again, and found the screen locked up when choosing the exit the game..... Needed the 3 finger salute and task manager to shutdown the beta test.
16. Confused with reading other's comments where they mention "winning".... I must be missing something vital as I cannot see how winning would be possible at all!
17. I want a setting to be able to turn OFF the AI and just go about learning the infrastructure and trade stuff.
18. I did get to build a second storage unit (which is where the donkey carts finally get some use in transferring between them), and I can vaguely understand the dev's desire to get us to manage where items are stored, but in a game where the AI seems to already have a substantial infrastructure across many locations allowing for an army with attack waves which come way too frequent when you are trying to learn the game mechanics and not really wanting to have to micro-manage which storehouse contains which goods..
19. The AI's engineers had about a dozen troops shadowing them as they expanded the territory pushing back my borders. Is there a setting somewhere for troops to be able to automatically shadow the erratic movements of engineers tasked with claiming or surveying? (Not that I would ever get as far as creating a few dozen troops to do that, but if I could ever get that far, is there such a setting, or it's only an AI feature?)

Interesting. The default download location the game chose for itself was in the 32-bit pool?

C:\Program Files (x86)\Ubisoft\Ubisoft Game Launcher

I suggested it head over to the 64-bit puddle instead.

C:\Program Files\Ubisoft\Ubisoft Game Launcher\games\TheSettlers_ClosedBeta