MartialDoctor

I bought this at the end of the beta and I have been very impressed with what this game turned out to be. This is a strategy gamer's RTS. It's designed for those who want to play a RTS that is more strategy focused rather than speed / micro focused. There is very little micro involved as you group most units into "meta-units", which allows them to function as one. The focus of this game is on the overall strategy and map control. Different units fill different roles and you can group them in ways to create different types of meta-units. Scouting, building appropriate defenses, and holding choke points are all needed in this game. As some put it, the focus is on the macro aspects of the game rather than on micro. There are only two races (with one to be released in a later DLC) in the game and they don't differ dramatically. However, I find this works well for this game as it's focus is on balanced gameplay and strategy. That being said, the devs have said they will be adding more units very soon. The AI is, surprisingly, quite good and can be both fun, and challenging, to play against. I don't have much bad to say about this game. My only warning is that, if you are more into micro RTS games (like Starcraft), you may not like this game. The closest game I can compare it to is Sins of a Solar Empire, although with less complexity and quicker games. One final word is that, as with any **** game, the devs are very involved with listening to the community, following the game, and making beneficial improvements. If this sounds like your type of game, I wouldn't hesitate to purchase it. I've been having a blast ever since I bought this one.

I will first state that all these negative comments about how this game can not be played are not true. I played this game a good 10+ hours without any issues. It took some time learning all the little nuances but, with the help of wiki and youtube, I was able to get all of my answers. That being said, though, I find this game to be very average. It's just a time sink, imo. Once the game mechanics are figured out, it's simply a way to spend endless time managing your town. Much micromanagement is needed as the town AI still needs work. But my main issue is simple: the game is not challenging. Even on the highest level, I found the raids to be too easy to defend against, even with wood (the lowest kind) of armor and weapons. And the economy is overly easy. You never have to worry about resources once you get the hang of this game... there's no challenge in gathering the main resources needed. Only in the ways you allocate your people and managing them to make sure they get everything correctly. Also, there's no leveling up or skills of townspeople. Everyone can do everything equally well, except for fighting, which there are abilities in. If a challenge was added and the UI / AI improved, I would probably change my mind. But, as is, it's just too easy.

Let me start by saying that I love strategy games. Civ Series, MOO, MoM, GalCiv, Distant Worlds... the list goes on. However, I hate this game. That's right, I hate it. I will focus on what I dislike about it so that other players can get an idea before buying this game. If you want to get a better summary of the good aspects, read one of the other positive reviews :) First off, if you are good at single player strategy games, the single player will be of little challenge to you here. You'll have to play play-by-email multiplayer games (or find skirmish games online). Play-by-email games will last quite some time (months) so be prepared for such things. I'm not a huge fan of this but I got used to it. However, if you don't have the patient for such things, it would be in your best interest to stay away. Now, on to what I really dislike. This game has so much depth to it that, as others have put, the strategies are endless. However, the mechanics of this game are nowhere near the level they need to be. To put it simply, you lack sufficient control over your units and will find a good part of the game will be to just get your units (especially mages) to simply do what you want them to do... and then get frustrated when they do something stupid. You see, the battles are totally out of your control. You give your units orders and then watch the battles unfold in the next turn. You can give your mages, and units, commands but they are very limited. In the early game, this isn't a major issue. But, in the mid to late game, where mages become very important, the fact that you lack good control over mages becomes a huge issue. You can only give commanders 5 orders total. After that, the unit is totally under AI control. Not only that but, if the unit can't perform what you want it to, they may do something reckless or otherwise stupid - sometimes even costing you the unit or gems (which you use to cast spells, more or less). When multiple units do such things, they can even cost you the battle. So, a huge part of the game becomes simply getting your units to do what you want them to. Does this sound interesting to you? It definitely was not fun for me - especially when you invest a good amount of time (late game, when your armies become gigantic - even an hour or more) programming your units to only find them not do what you want. There's not even a simple command for a mage to cast one spell and do it continuously. Or to not cast certain spells. I could go on about other AI issues that annoy me to know end but I'll end it there. My next major gripe is the way that Super Combatants, so called SCs, work in this game. Once you get into the later part of the game, you can start creating powerful items for these large, powerful units. The problem is, they become so powerful that they can take on entire armies! Even an army composed of high level summonable units which, from my point of view, should be able to stand up to them! Swarming will not work even in the least bit! So, you must rely on mages. However, these SCs will have items that are resistant to certain magic types. So, only certain magic spells will really work on them. But, wait, didn't I just say that you have little control over your mages and that they are very difficult to program to get to do what you want? Now you see where further frustration comes in. Also, in regards to strategies with these SCs, they will absolutely destroy entire armies but, get the right spells in, and you may take them out before they can do anything. One good spell, with some luck, can take out an SC with one hit or even charm it to your side. To sum it up, you may get strategies that work like this: Strategy A >>>>> Strategy B Strategy C >>>>> Strategy A This can be to the point that, if you aren't adequately prepared to counter something, you may have little or, even, no way of countering it. It also means that these SCs are very important to get and all players aim to get them later in the game. Without them, you are at a major disadvantage. So, to sum this part up, balance is not in this games best interest. Finally, I hate the ability that units, and armies, can effortless warp around the map. It destroys the whole idea of fronts, which all strategy games have. What fun is it when a unit, or army, can appear anywhere on the map at any time? There's no way of countering this as you can't predict where they will appear; you can only guess. If the above things do not bother you and you do not mind lacking control over your units, you will most likely find this game to be a great one. However, if you are like me, you will find this game to be an incredibly frustrating experience. I played a good five or six multiplayer games (remember they take months to complete) and I will say that my most recent one will definitely be my last.

If you read through all the reviews, you'll notice stark contrasts between what people think. This is, mostly, I feel because of the skill level required to truly play this game well. On the surface it looks simple but it is, actually quite complex. Many different weapons all which have a different feel along with armor types. That, along with different customization, allows one to create custom classes that fit ones style. That along with a very interesting attack and parry system, make for a really great combination. All in all, I really am enjoying this game. However, there are two issues I have a problem with. One is the fact that the game servers were sold out to only one company, Multiplay, with no way of setting up one's own server. This has made renting servers very expensive and some areas where no servers are located. The other is a squad spawning system that doesn't suite this game. However, this latter problem, like other issues this game has had, will probably be handled by the developers (they've already begun to change it). I'd highly recommend this game to anyone looking for a fun and complex medieval FPS. However, it won't appeal to the masses due to the high learning curve required to actually get good at this game.

A very nicely done game with some great puzzles, fun mini-games and a wonderful created environment. I really enjoyed playing this one. There were a few puzzles which really got me stumped but, that's what a puzzle game is about, right? The hint system allows one to get either an easy hint or a full walk through if so needed (although I'd advise against using the full walk through unless you really can't figure it out). My only real qualm is one. I found the ending to be too brief. It would have been nice to have a good ending to an otherwise great puzzle game!

I will agree with a lot of the positive reviews here on the merits of this game. It is a combat-focused 4x game with elements of master of magic thrown in there. The game mechanics themselves are quite well done and it's interesting to see the range of spells, units, and upgrades available. Basically, the core **** and fun game is there. It's not very complex, which is both good and bad, and, yet, is satisfying to play. However, the one aspect where this game fails quite miserably is the AI. After playing about 6 hours into the game now, I can surely say that the AI, even on the highest difficulty level, is passable at best. It makes far too many mistakes and doesn't understand some key concepts about how to play the game. It can be suicidal and stupidly aggressive, losing massive amounts of units for no real reason at all. Because of the AI, this game is pretty much going to sit on my desktop, unused, until it is addressed. So, if you are one like me, who feels that a competent AI is needed to make a good game, then I'd say wait on this. Hopefully, future patches will address the AI issues and this game will become challenging. If this does happen, I would easily put the ranking up to an 8 or, possibly, even a 9. It has the core ideas down, it just needs the AI to back it up.