Recent reviews by Oranos

Great station and music. Nice to have different commercials and real hosts. Love the format. Thanks to Wan Shey.

Comparing to: Civ VI: 1,286 hrs | Civ V: 1,251 hrs | Beyond Earth 520 hrs | HUMANKIND 371 hrs

Pros: This game is awesome. Buy it. They truly love the historical 4X genre and play tested their game.

Characters\RPG: The character and event mechanics add so much flavor and uniqueness to each run I can't imagine not having them now. Your choices directly shape your empire over time as those character's abilities really affect global stats. Going for domination? Then send every generation to tactics training and choose bold options in events. You can add generals to your veteran units that you've molded for decades which really invests you in each battle. Or, you can be King David and send the lover of your wife Bathsheba to the front to die ;)

Diplomacy: It's next level compared to the other games. You can marry the daughters of other nations to secure peace or send your boosted characters on missions. Your relationships with other nations mature or degrade sensibly. It feels real.

War: There's no arbitrary BS hindering total war or conquering. The unit costs and upkeep make sense. No war weariness, happiness, or UN referees stopping you from conquering your foes - just the reality of infrastructure and your skill (I'm looking at you Humankind!). They even have a "chess mode" for PvP play that removes random events.
NOTE: Coming from Civ you're gonna get humbled the first couple of battles due to the order system (below). Since troops can move 4x and even be force-marched expect some serious flank maneuvers so keep your units together, dress those lines, and field more men than you would have in Civ.

Orders System: They're basically action points that can be increased a number of ways and it fixes a reality-breaking issue in other turn based games like Civ. If each turn is a year\semester and a unit only move 2 hexes a turn = moving a unit to the front can take multiple decades in Civ. This system allows you to burn all your points and get that army across your lands in a single turn or two. The downside is that if you're deep in battle with lots of actions you wont have the orders to micro your workers or characters at home. It all balances out and the benefits outweigh the setbacks. It also speeds up turns between players.

Victory Conquest is default (Roma Victa!) unless you toggle the various victory point options. I'd like to see an auto-adjustment of points based on map size but it works and covers peaceful culture\science strategies if you're looking for that.

Cons: No much. Just nit-picky things.

Naval Troop Movement: It's a little wonky. I see what they're going for with the anchor system but miss a standard "troops auto-embark" or "ships that carry troops" system. With this system you end up with a line of stationary ships forming a bridge across long distances. And your boys just cant cross lakes. I miss being able to pick off vulnerable troop carriers as they reach shore. It works though.

Marsh: I'm down with HP drain in swamps as it's realistic and creates interesting battlefields. But we should be able to clear them with a late tech + worker. I had one that really jammed up my trade and roads.

Music: It's very realistic to the period and cultures. However, I'd pay for a DLC with some more epic pieces.

The game offers amazing military units and civs, a novel tactical interface for using them, and a competent AI to use them against. (EDIT: the AI is trash after the classical era. It will build zero units and not upgrade the existing ones. You can walk over a continent w 3 armies.. which is good bc that's all you'll be able to afford) Combat is a truly rewarding experience and beats the competitor hands down in that regard. However, it then does everything it can to stop you from using these things to conquer your neighbors. If you like seeing how many buildings and crops you can build before 300 turns and don't ever want more than 10 cities.. this is your game. If you want to win by military domination go play the competition. This game clearly does not want you to play that way. You'll end up fighting every mechanic to do so and surrendering to your vanquished enemies even though you're surrounding their last city with superior armies. My war support for this game is now zero.

1. Rome did not stop sacking Carthage because Carthage got tired of the war. The war support mechanic is broken. War support going down should be a stability hit instead. If I've decimated my enemy, my people love the war, and I'm at their last city's gates I should not be forced to stop. We removed every city, unit, and outpost from a player and the game god referee magically resurrected him from the dead and forced us to give him half his stuff back. Total BS.

2. City cap needs to be seriously raised\removed and scale with the map size. Why have expansionist civs and other continents on a huge map with a 10 city cap? No matter how creative you are with attaching territory it's impossible to conquer the world. Why have military units in the late game if I can't use them to conquer cities? This makes any domination victory on large maps impossible.

3. Unit maintenance costs need to be drastically lowered and they scale into absurdity. A well placed Dutch special commerce district = $30/turn. A single redcoat regiment = $55/turn. If every acre on the the island of England was a commerce district they still wouldn't have enough redcoats to fight one battle against America or India. And why bother because you won't be able to take their cities due to city cap.

4. No fame is rewarded for taking cities, capitols, or removing a player from the game. You only get a little from killing a few units. Pretty sure Germany got some fame when they sacked Paris in 1940. The only incentive for military conquest is eliminating a civ from generating future fame. Also, a civ that's removed from the planet by military conquest can still win? When we land on Mars we'll claim it for ancient Rome?

5. You cannot attack land units or cities from the water. This HAS to be fixed. Any ranged water unit should be able to fire on land units and cities. Melee units should be able to assault with a penalty. Also, transport ships carrying troops should not be able to defeat naval units designed to fight at sea. My army of 8 redcoats can't land on a tile but their transport ships are somehow stronger than am armada of 4 frigates? You can't do an amphibious assault onto a district tile = small islands become invincible. Why build naval units at all? Just settle islands and laugh at the battleships from the beach.

Maybe some future mods will address these issues and make conquest playable. I not expecting anything from the designers since all of these mechanics were invented to stop the type of gameplay I enjoy from Civ.

= A late bloomer but great game =
159 hrs and still discovering\conquering new worlds and challenges.
When this game launched it was Civ ME. The bugs were crippling and multiplayer was just plain broken. It was sad because the vision, story, and atmosphere were great. The quest, techweb, and affinity mechanics create a "Choose Your Own Adventure" system which allows you to truly adapt to your starting terrain and opponents. The soundtrack is epic. The achievements and units were designed by scifi fans for scifi fans.
After a few major patches this game is running faster than Civ5. It's stable and immersive. Multiplayer is 95% there but 100% fun. On the harder levels the AI is pretty creative and challenging. The "happiness-health leak" is fixed - it matters now but it's properly measured. Your people don't rebel just because Polynesia banned truffles. You can finish the invasion but may need to slow down.
= I gave it a second chance and I'm very glad that I did =
I'm looking forward to the Rising Tide addition.
- Having to stop Hutama from completing the Mind Flower in 10 turns from the other side of the world without airports..
- Bumping into an Multi-Kraken breeding den while moving Hail Mary reinforcements across the water..
- Dune sand worms ripping apart your first two cities - walk without rhythm...
- Allies beaming armies of Cloverfield titans into enemy farms to fight alongside your Astro-Roman legion mechs...
- Asia attacking you before your first settler.. defending in NASA spacesuits.. the bugs eat your new tank.
- Your ally AI gets mad that you built a wonder he wanted and turns on your forces the night before D-Day
- 42/42 "So Say We All"

Pure to the spirit of the 1994 original. Well done guys. Amazing.