All in all, Port Royale 4 is a surprisingly good game. It has a very broad scope, and its large management tools are benefited from an expansive map full of cities as a playground. In an era desperately short of good management games, this colonial Caribbean title is a breath of fresh air.
All in all, Total War: Three Kingdoms - The Furious Wild expansion was a better experiment than I expected it to be. I am never particularly excited about animal or nature-focused factions -- Air Force boy here -- but this DLC features such an interesting mix of units and mechanics that washed the bad taste of Troy away from my most recent TW palate. From angry kings with axes and fire-wielding melee units to giant elephants and devastating shock-heavy tiger units, The Furious Wild brings the full breadth of nature to bear on the Three Kingdoms period -- and China is better for it.
CK3 is a worthy successor that delivers a powerful mix of grand strategy and RPG gameplay. This is possibly the most polished a mainline Paradox title has ever been at launch.
I can’t recommend Fae Tactics enough to those of you out there waiting for Square to take another longform stab at FFT. It may lack the abundance of micro managing you're used to, but the more straight on approach really puts the combat front and center, and I never missed upgrading menial unit equipment or cross classing or the like. Whether the trend catches or not, I can’t say, but don’t miss the truly fresh take on the classic formula.
Ultimately, Othercide is a unique entry into the genre that is definitely worth your time. It’s pacing issues and ramping difficulty might be the stuff of nightmares for some, but when it comes together, the clever timeline mechanics and risk-based troop management can be the stuff of sweet tactical dreams.
Greek Wars nails that addictive 4X loop and it does so in an often-overlooked setting. One of the key issues with this genre is that fall-off point (typically around the late-mid-game) when you stop doing those titular 4Xs and start waiting for some turn counter to tick down while mindlessly mashing the end turn button. While there were certainly some down-time beats, all that layered complexity of diplomacy, economics, and trade means that there is almost always something to do and idle turns are relatively few and far between. If you’re interested in either the period or the 4X genre more broadly, Greek Wars is worth picking up.
