i thought this game was really difficult, than i tried thinking like an american, so i restarted, invested all my money in guns and now it's piss easy.
It's quite hard to start with, but it got easier and exponentially more satisfying with archer and catapult upgrades. I don't know if it would have been any better had the game told me how close i was to finishing it, even tho the surprise came just after i started managing to get the gate back up to 100% after every fight. Good game!
You know what could improve on this great crafting system? A back and forward button which would take crafters back/forward to the last craft-item which was selected. I frequently find myself having to navigate using the tabs on the side to get back to the more advanced craft items.
For example, i'm working on an Upgrade that requires a Whirring Gizmo. I click on its icon to craft one, but discover i have no Toothed Wheels available. So once again I click on its icon to craft one. At this point I am able to craft my Toothed Wheel but there is no efficient way to get back to crafting a Whirring Gizmo without having to EITHER navigate back to the original upgrade from the side tabs OR stay searching for the Whirring Gizmo icon among all the others. In this case, a simple back/forward button (replacing say the Consume for Repairs and Consume for Fuel buttons when in the ship) would navigate from the Toothed Wheel >> Whirring Gizmo >> Upgrade or vice versa.
*ANTIC* Can you customise the hotkeys for battle actions during missions? It would greatly improve the ACTION feel of the game if the battle actions were assigned to more intuitive keys like for example Right and Left cursor keys for advance and retreat, Down for cover, Up for halt and Space for attack :) DO IT :P