Spent 70 minutes fighting over a river against some dude inflicting 500,000 casualties and receiving likewise in turn only to lose my connection to the game. We choked the river with our dead -- 10/10 would recommend.

One of the most pristine and interesting gameplay concepts packaged in the world's worst UI and menus the world has ever witnessed. This is the type of ♥♥♥♥ you whip up as a game prototype and then never show anybody. But here we are.

At its core it's a very solid game, the basic mechanics are simple by design and that's what makes the game interesting. The game itself is plain, but who cares if the game is good? What detracts from the experience, however, is everything else. The UI is awful, the controls are janky, and worst of all, there's a bunch of mechancis that get briefly touched upon, but that I don't think myself or anyone really fully understands.

I realize that zero health means a unit dies. What about morale? Does it do less damage? Take more damage? How is morale damaged in the first place? Why do units slowly drown when they walk through a river to transform into a ship? How much income do you get from cities, and on that note, how do reinforcements work? Is there a base tick rate? Does healing count as reinforcement? I know terrain type affects damage, but does this work both ways? Is mountain terrain better to defend on, or worse?

All of these things lack a proper explanation, a proper display on the game screen. All the buttons are too large, and even when you hide the UI, in 4 player matches the player names cover up the top left of the screen (where sometimes a capital city / units are).

But it's free and it's fun, so it gets a pass. Hopefully we'll get some fixed.

While I think at a fundamental level the game is on the right track, there are far too many issues to make a recommendation for someone else to play. Perhaps with more time, I'll change the review to positive, but currently it needs a lot of work
1) To put it frankly, the UI is bad. It's blocky, it's in the way, it takes away from the visual aesthetic from the game which is actually pretty nice. I'm sure there are a dozen people out there who would be able to provide UI for you if you are unable to make nice-looking UI, and they won't break the bank. Hell, have it be a community contest and they get credits for it. Bottom line is that something needs to change.
2) The controls are jank. Having to confirm every order, not being able to select multiple units. Its only compounded by my next point.
3) The frontline AI sucks. Why am I losing part of my frontline as my unit goes deeper without another unit advancing? It doesn't make sense. It made me and my friend who I played with lose units we shouldn't be losing, and wasn't fun to play with. It also makes island maps impossible, since ships don't move the frontline. Meaning naval landings just end up encircled and dead. This doesn't seem like a very complicated thing to need to fix so I don't understand why this is such a big problem.
4) Combat. I think the simplicity of combat is good. However would like the ability to cycle out units to be improved upon. I shouldn't have to retreat my backline so my units can move completely, I should be able to have an order to retreat which allows me to move through my own lines at some cost, and be able to send my reinforcements to where the last unit was.
5) Naval. Why do I need to wait for units to transform into ships? I get it if it makes it easier to code rivers, but atp just make 2 terrain types, river and ocean. Ocean your units turn into boats and then cross, and river your units just cross. It bothers me when I think my unit is at sea and its not so I have to fix it with the already jank movement, and then I have to give naval orders still. The whole naval systems needs a rework.
I think the production system is simple and well designed. Props to the developer for that as well as it's relative simplicity. Same thing with terrain, simple and effective.

If I were to order in importance to be patched I would say that
First fix frontlines
then fix the UI
then fix the controls
then the navy and combat quality of life improvements as I've laid out.
I hope this criticism was constructive towards a better game, because I see a vision of a great game with improvements.