Recent reviews by max

Good game but it's single player and requires an always-online internet connection or it just crashes without any feedback.

I love this game and have owned it for years, it has so much potential but I can't recommend it because of how buggy and unpolished it is. Major QoL issues, an aggravating UI, constant major bugs, and absolutely abysmal AI lead to an extremely frustrating experience. Multiple major components of the game are plagued with numerous bugs, many that have been around for a long time.

They really need to do a major patch cycle where they just fix bugs, streamline the UI/UX, fix the AI (to the point where they're at least capable of staying alive), and focus on performance.

I can't wait to change this to a positive review.

As others have said, "mile wide, inch deep". Serious balance issues (forcing someone to be your vassal is as detrimental as being well-mannered!?), The entire knowledge system is clunky/grindy/unfun and needs to be reworked from the ground up. Requiring nobles to manage buildings is an annoying mechanic and the bonus isn't worth the benefit.

This has potential and I'll update my review in the future but don't buy it just yet.

While the tutorial is lacking, it's amazing to be able to play DF without needing outside tools or graphics packs. Well worth the money for continued development that is sure to come.

Never got to play, sort of glad I didn't. Refunded.

A relatively decent sequel plagued by balance and game design issues.

The entire game seems to gate content behind research for no apparent reason other than to increase play time. Tons of "side quests" are actually required to progress through the game. Weird limits like requiring a giant vault to hold $60,000 when in reality you could hold that in literally one hand, requiring huge amounts of space for power, and locking multiple levels of expansion behind research mean you are starved on space, and your base ends up being largely too much power/vault/lockers which makes no sense.

Traps aren't powerful enough, minions weak and just fodder because they are gated behind research, there's tons of decor items, some do stuff and others don't but it's never clear when you actually need them. The world map is a boring game element that you're constantly having to micromanage (i.e. click), boring stuff that most times makes more sense in a list than a map. They've taken a fun game and turned it into a tedious chore.

Surprisingly polished for a new paradox game. If you liked CK II, you will like this.

95GB download required in-game, and at launch time, the online services appear to be down. Game is unplayable and you have to leave it open for hours to even download it, ensuring you will not be able to refund your purchase. Doesn't leverage Steam's global CDN, and it decompresses files in between downloads, ensuring you will average 15mbps download on a 1000mbps connection.

Update: Literally half the time I've spent "playing" this game has been waiting for it to update.

Played the demo (which worked well) and enjoyed it, but once I purchased the game it ended up crashing constantly and would force me to replay entire chapters. Doesn't perform very well and seems to be a pretty bad PC port. I ended up refunding. If they fix the technical issues, I'd buy it for sure!

there's still a long way to go on this early access title, but it's a solid foundation. the story line ends rather abruptly but there's plenty to do otherwise. right now it's good for a few hours of play easily.

UPDATE: changing my positive review from 2020 to negative for now. developer continues to "rework" game mechanics, but seems unwilling to finish the actual game.