Reviews - ComradeWinston

Everthing about this city builder functions perfectly as you'd expect and more. For instance, one thing speaks to how much thought has and may continue to be put into this game: the ability to close off a body of water with a dam, build pumps in it, and drain it. A short while after draining the body of water, grass soon grows on what was once dirt and you can plop down more city. You can even put sewage pumps along that area beforehand, remove the water pumps before turning them on, and flood your new stretch of city with poop water. If you really hate your citizens, you can place new water pumps in the ruins of your new-ish poop-flooded part of the city and your citizens all throughout your city will become poisoined and die.

Sure most of that has little to do with the whole city building thing most of the time but it tells me everything I need to know about their dedication to detail and sandbox mechanics.

Very promising. This game plays a bit like a MOBA in the grand scheme of things but with ships. For the price & quality, I can't not recomend this but keep in mind that it is very team-oriented.

There isn't any way around it, this is a much more in-depth fantasy version of Civilization 5. Aside from all the depth and such, the setting feels far more fitting than the "insert X historical leader as the figurehead of X nation" of Civilization. The "world gets periodically buried in an ice age" lore simply works well, where that historical stuff is fun but wears quickly; at least in my experience. It generally helps the diversity of the world, factions, and even is a gameplay element with the onset of a punishing winter for elongated periods of time.

City placement isn't dictated by distance between cities but rather they're divided by generated provinces you can claim with a single city, entirely doing away with gamey nonsense and weird broken borders typical to Civ5. Technology is organic, only divided into tiers rather than mandatory lines of progress more like a loading bar as a manifestation of your needs. After having played a number of Paradox strategy games, I've come to appreciate a good UI and this game certainly isn't hard to navigate through; everything's where it should be, no hassle.

Diplomacy isn't the typical limited rigid enemy/neutral/friendly set either. By default nations are in a state of "cold war" from which point they can either become friendly or fight their opposition's armies over control of neutral territory. You can also compliment and insult, among other things to decrease or increase the cost of certain types of diplomatic declarations and agreements. No longer are the days of "I really want to kill that guy's settler but I really don't want to declare war on him" as now you can simply slaughter them along with everything else.

Units are one of the finer points of this developer's games, at least compared to most generic units in strategy games. Each faction has three basic units but you can drastically alter them by creating(renaming kinda) a new unit with better equipment, along with any minor faction's units you pick up along the way. You could make your ranged units more durable than any generic mele unit, create a berserker unit, or even the most expensive upgraded thing you can get your hands on.

Heroes play a role much like characters in more recent Total War games. They can be given the finest equipment your nation has like any unit and eventually level-up to be anything from a skilled administrator to a glorious commander through a very Total War-esq tree of passive boons. In battle, they also play a role as a most effective unit.

Faction diversity's easily among the strongest features of this game, going against the current trend of making factions very much the same as each other. For instance, one of them can only build a single powerful city and subjugate distant minor faction villages which then occasionally supply that faction with free units. Another can only increase its population and heal units through using dust (magical money). The trader faction can even uproot its cities and set down somewhere else at will. This vast difference between factions is only further supplemented by the ability to create custom factions, with a limited point system providing you a series of boons along with crippling debuffs to choose from; ensuring balance.

If you've enjoyed Civilization, you'll probably find this game surpasses it in pretty much every way—though the character limit on custom names is truly criminal.

Among the numerous Paradox strategy game series', this one certainly isn't lacking in the content department. Character creation allows you to do what you will with any given starting character, from making ugly weak dwarfs to brilliant strong madmen. Count to Emperor; you can take many positions and generally do a great deal from any of them. However, that's about as far as my praise goes.

This game most shortly put is an offense to whatever senses of logic I poses. It confounds me so to no end, as I have struggled to find any enjoyment in this game beyond being a subjugate duke or king below another person in multiplayer and for extremely limited periods of time. The sheer massive lists of persons throughout the world to suffer is only one among many of my problems with this game that exemplify the core problem of this game: tedium.

Your own family will constantly complain or try to kill you if you refuse to give them half of your personal titles. In some parts of the world, random armies of holy warriors from one cult or the other will invade you relentlessly unless you do so first. The passing-on of titles from one heir to the next is nigh unintelligible. Buildings are essentially pointless to invest in, when you could just spend that money on mercenaries that are generally lead by their own badass commanders. Technology is pretty much pointless outside of anything that expands the number of titles you can hold or those that curry the favor of your lessers. War is simply a numbers game, if you have a few thousand more men than your enemy you win; unless you do something incredibly stupid like crossing the Gibraltar or between Ireland & Britain. Generally really, the UI is abysmal and finding or doing anything is a chore on top of all of the above.

If you're attentive and can find entertainment in stabbing the same king of the same country in the face long enough to become emperor of the universe or love clicking on diplomacy windows all day, you may well find

For a complicated game, the UI and everything in general are intuitive and not too hard to understand. Comparatively, pretty much every last grand strategy I tried in the past simply was too crazy and unintelligible for someone new to such a genre, like myself.

However simple though, if you're looking for a war simulator look elsewhere. This game's about international relations and nation management, the least of which is on the list of priorities is throwing armies around like you would in a Total War game and absorbing every last chunk of territory you can get your hands on. It's not as though if you want to be the Napoleon of the 1500s you can't be, however you'll likely have several major nations invading you, very few friends after a short while, and all of twenty men left if you don't manage your manpower well. Rifles may very well practically grow on trees but the men who wield them don't.

I'd recommend starting as England, allowing you to be able to focus on learning how to effectively manage internal affairs before dealing with international politic heavy nations like Austria or most any other surrounded by neighbors. As a more isolated nation, it also seems to have more internal events, civil wars, and rebellions which will likely be your undoing but teach you much. It's also a nice place to watch the world develop so you can gain a basic understanding of the world's progression through time, from national motives, to religions, ect.

Simply summarized, this game's an imperialism simulator. If you're trying to be the nicest, most lovable, cuddly dictator then you'll soon be invaded and end up like Ned Stark.

Good ****.

Instead of having my traditional new-years wank I played this and was not disappointed in the least. So yes, this game is as enjoyable an experience, if not more so, than wanking.

Though really it is a great nongame with excellent commentary on how idiotic the games industry and gamers can often be. It's certainly worth getting and going through every last little corridor and finding every last 'ending.'

P.S. If you cheat your way to getting the Commitment or Go Outside achievements, die.

Clearly one of the best games ever made, even surpassing gems such as Skyrim and The Witcher 2 with ease.

Why does this game exist? Who plays it? Who spends money on driving a big virtual truck around?

Just... just... WHY?

Pretty, pretentious and more of a slideshow than a game.