raadoo

just finished the campaign (played first part with one race, then part 1 and 2 with another one). i have mixed feelings. firstly i was surprised it was already over, i thought it was just the beginning of the story, and it turned out it was already the end. very disappointed (or disillusioned) with that. i guess there will be dlcs... but the fact that you can finish the main campaign playing through, i'm not even sure now, 4 missions is laughable. though the game is certainly engaging, it feels like a fast food meal, i.e. everything is pretty generic and shallow, all the systems, research tree etc. combat, with many interlinked systems, is probably the best part. in terms of the "empire building" part, there is really little substance to it, you have sectors, you research upgrades to sector types, terrain types or terrain features and build them. there's also a few buildings. that's it. every city will eventually build everything, because there's little to build. hard to say anything about the ai, i was playing on beginner and was able to finish the game with little interaction with the ai. even when i started the winning countdown for the technology win, the ai didn't seem to react (at all in the first case, in the second case it has send two armies of 2-3 stacks that i was able to repeal quite easily, even though i was alone and had several commanders against me). not sure if this was due to the beginner level, but i was able to win even though i wasn't the best "civ" in anything according to the ingame rankings, and explored only like 1/4 of the map. there are many combat mods and you can tailor your units to your needs, but since most of them are situational (as different units/races have different strenghts/vulnerabilities), i ended up with using basic +accuracy +defense most of the time anyway. as for the gfx, it's ok. so is music, nothing spectacular (though i feel like i've heard one track/melody already in mass effect, i wonder if that was intentional...). at the beginning it's really hard to "read the map", it's possible to get used to, but it's still hard to discern features. in the final campaigns i was also constantly spammed each turn with msgs from hostile commanders that they despise me, not sure what was the point of that as this was clear from turn 2 - i guess this will be fixed. overall, it's a decent mcmeal, will probably get better with dlcs, but if you're looking for a deep strategy game, look somewhere else, this one is pretty "casual". all that said, i liked it and would probably be still playing the campaign if the campaign wasn't a joke consisting of 2 missions.

definitely deserves praise, it is still worked on and improved, needs a few tweaks, but it is already a very good game. some unique mechanics, the systems are deep (though it takes time to learn about this, as very little info is in the game, overall the ui seems to be the worst part of the game, mainly because of lack of info (e.g. buildings tree). but the manual is ok, it's highly recommended to read it before the game or at least refer to it during the game. can get tedious to manage regions manually, a few more options for the autogovernor could help with this. it may be too easy (on "balanced" difficulty i'm currently second in legacy ("victory points") as judea, having conquered egipt and most of arabian peninsula; in my first game i was owning northern and eastern europe as gothones, but who knows maybe i'll have problems with decadence later... macedonia is currently crumbling because of that, they are leading in legacy, time to attack them... or maybe i should just wait and see, i'm getting more legacy per turn now, so i should outrun them eventually...).

gfx is ugly, but does it job of conveying info well enough. some questionable ui choices - takes some time to get used to. apart from that - a very good game, ai is really challenging and it does not cheat, mechanics are well thought out and everything works well together. there are many diplomatic options. not so many technologies to research and units, but a lot of promotions that can be applied and change their abilities. game setup is highly customisable, you can play an ancient rome scenario with a chosen nation or a customised game on a random map, that you can setup almost like a "clear civ start" so you start with one unit and no cities. overall, a very good "civ clone" with better than civ ai and some unique ideas. the only thing that annoys me is that peace treaties can be broken at any time, so you sign a peace a treaty and a turn or two later you're back at war.

i don't know. i've finished the first map and fought a few battles on the second one. so far, the story is linear, predictable and unimpressive, dialog choices don't seem to make a difference. fights are easy (on normal) and you can replay them anyway without any penalty. exploring the map to collect loot gets boring and tedious. basically, you walk around a map, encounter map markers that either trigger a dialogue or a card game. you click through the dialogue or beat the card game (most of the time it doesn't really require much thinking) and you're back to the map looking for another marker. maybe the story will get better in time but i don't really feel like checking that out...

not sure what people see in this game. it's a simple "sim" game (it's no way a "tycoon"). it looks, feels and plays almost like a mobile clicker. sure, there's some funny writing, but not much more... i guess it's ok if you want to relax in the evening for an hour or two, but the game feels pointless, no challenge, no sense of achievement, not much planning or thinking required. the way freddie mercury walks made me smile. that's about it.

it's a dlc at best, not really an expansion. guess they put most resources into the promotional video... basically you get "eras" which is nothing more than "choose your (not that significant) bonus for this era". and "loyalty", meaning "don't settle to close to other civs", and the borders system in civ4 worked much better - here borders don't change - it's all or nothing. there are also minor other changes which are good (like the casus belli for breaking a promise) but most of them should be in the base game from the beginning (like, what's the point of promises if there's no penalty for breaking a promise). braindead ai, poor diplomacy, lacking ui, questionable artistic choices, boring end-game are still here. the whole game is still decent (that's why i gave 5) but if next "expansions" are so irrelevant as this one, civ6 will never be better than 5 or 4. the magic is lost, you no longer feel you're leading a civlization trying to outsmart your opponents and making strategic choices, you feel you're playing a dumb board game with simple rules that gets boring after you survive early game...

i think i spent about 20 hours in the game, the save game says it's 12,5 h, but i had to replay some things. so... the game is ok. the story seems ok, i want to continue playing, rpg "part" is well done, but.. the rts is really not well thought out. first of all, the controls ****, no active pause with so many units to control while you have to target your abilities is just nuts, placing buildings, controlling workers and everything else requires way too much map scrolling and clicking. secondly, there is no time to grow and prepare, everything happens very fast, with more sectors under control it's practically impossible to keep track of everything and react, yet it seems the only way to go is to expand quickly. and i guess i could forgive all of this, even the fact, that i had to replay one part of the story, because an event did not trigger and it was impossible to finish a quest, or that a fishing hut next to a river full of fish is idle and does not produce food, but when suddenly my base just blows up, while i'm not even attacked and i have no idea what the hell is going on it's a bit too much. i've been replaying this rts mission for half a day, and when i finally thought i developed a sound strategy... my base just blows up with no explanation. is there a time limit? did the other faction develop a nuke? what the hell? i'm not even sure if it's a bug or if it's intended. also, the tutorial does not really explain much in terms of the rts part and you have to learn by trial and error, clicking and checking... so... needs some bug fixing, but i guess it won't help the rts part much, because it seems just badly designed in terms of gameplay and ui. it's a pity, because the rpg part is quite fun, and i would like to continue playing. so it's 8 for the rpg part, but bugs, ui problems and rts part make it a 6.

i'm about 20h into the game. firstly, the camera is awful, luckily there's already a mod allowing a bigger zoom out and camera tilt. there are some ui problems, inventory, looting and highlighting items could be improved and it can get really tedious, but generally it's ok. there's a lot of info regarding skills, abilities and so on missing and you have to google it. quest journal and map should be better organized providing more info, it feels like you have to remember everything or note down yourself, if a new marker appears on the map often the description is cryptic and you have no idea what quest it is related to or how it even got there. fights are ok, even if at first you may have no idea what's going on. as for the world and story, npcs seems interesting and intriguing, there seem to be many possible ways of achieving things and completing quests, which is great, and the world seems to adapt to your choices. writing is good with good balance between important info, quality humour and "filler". the main story itself seems quite average and cliche so far, but that may change along the road, the amount of times you are told in the beginning that you are the chosen one who is supposed to save the world suggests that there may be a twist here later. ;) overall, i wouldn't call it a masterpiece but seems a very solid game, nothing new and revolutionary, certainly better than some of the latest rpg releases, though. i didn't really get into the story but so far i want to continue playing. [edit: changed from 8 to 7, after a few more hours i somehow lost interest in the game and don't really feel like continuing, perhaps i'll return to the game some time later to finish it; inventory management became a real chore (and it's a problem of 99% rpg games), though i'm only playing with a party of two. also "quest reward items" become worse than standard items in shops very quickly, as shop items upgrade regularly relative to your level, which means you have to reequip quite often... ]

after the update, the ai still braindead, though in a bit different way. no wonder, since it seems the only changes they made to the ai are the ones in the changelog, and these are minor tweaks, not real changes. so... it's 1906 AD, standard size map, i have 16 cities, 6 remaining ai civs together have 18 cities. they haven't even settled all of their continents... ai keeps breaking promises, so it's impossible to play peacefully, unless you're ok with them converting your cities and stealing your technology boosts. if someone breaks a promise and you declare war - it's still your fault and you get the warmonger penalty, so there's no point in keeping promises (unless you're far weaker - but that also doesn't stop ai from breaking those promises repeatedly). i've conquered the strongest ai civ in 20 turns (he broke a promise not to spy on me three times), he had almost no military, his best unit was a cavalry, i had tanks, bombers, artillery and mechanized infantry. i brought back to live gandhi, so he denounced me after 5 turns, because i was in a war with a civ that i liberated his city from... and so on... some bugs were removed, new ones appeared. if you're wondering whether to buy the game, wait for a sale, patches and dlcs. the game has potential, but it's simply not finished.