Recent reviews by BarristanTheBold

This game is really fun until it becomes ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ FRUSTRATING AS HELL. Overall I'd say its a good game though, it definitely takes some getting used to and practice, especially with the combat. It can however be really wonky and glitchy (hence the frustration). A tip for beginners: get the mod that lets you save without using the Saviour Schnapps. You and your sanity will thank me.

Overall the game isn't bad, but I wouldn't say it's great either. If you take it at face value, the game is fun but does tend to get boring/tedious. I guess it really comes down to what you make of it/ what you are looking for in a strategy game. If you are like me who plays all the historical strategy games, you'll probably find that its a cool mash-up of the game mechanics from other major developers (Paradox, CA, etc), but it doesn't really excel in one particular area. Essentially, you won't be disappointed if you get it, but you won't be disappointed if you don't get, if that makes sense.

First off, some background. I'll 95% of the time be a firm advocate of Paradox. But this game makes me want to pull all of my hair and teeth out. If you don't want to play past 1870 or go to war at all, then you'll have a good time. If you want to go to war, be prepared to call your local contractor for drywall repair (its super frustrating and makes absolutely no sense). If you want to play past 1870, call NASA and see if you can borrow an advanced alien civilization's computer. The game is so horribly optimized you'll have crashes frequently.

My suggestion: save yourself the anguish and just play Victoria 2 instead, or literally anything else.

EDIT: After a few months and some updates, I STILL get frequent crashes, especially after the 1860s. They may have made some good updates for gameplay and UI, but it doesn't make much of a difference if i can't play the damn game.

The game is still in early access, but I highly recommend it. Even in this early state, it seems like a game that could be released as is. Reading the dev diaries, its clear that the devs prioritize stability and bugfixes over trying to rush content out. Also, you can't beat the price for a game that, when finished, I would voluntarily pay over a $100 for.

In terms of gameplay, it is very easy to spend hours just building, crafting, and exploring with minimum frame rate drops and glitches (which is continually being addressed by the devs). Playing by yourself is just fine, but with friends it amazing. Everything can be shared, built together, and enjoyed unless you specifically chose to keep it to yourself. The nicest feature, imo, is the fact that you can play on your world all you want offline, and just have your friends join in when you get online. Singleplayer and multiplayer are seamless in that regard.

As for running the game, I don't think you really need any sort of spectacular PC to play. I did find that you do need a pretty stable internet connection for hosting your friends, but even with drops, no progress will be lost. They will simply have to rejoin when its stable again.

Bugs and crashes aside (which for me, its not too bad), the game is amazing. The story line is engaging, and there is sooo much to do. My laptop is about 5yrs old, but it can still run it... decently.

I originally gave a positive recommendation to the game when I started out as the Romans. They were really fun to play, probably because they were pretty overpowered and you focus most of your time just steamrolling over other factions. However, once I started playing with other factions I realized how bland and empty this game really is.

I was going to write a detailed review about just some of my gripes, but that started to get too long. The game simply needs a lot of work. For a Paradox game i was surprised how I didn't have the urge to play another campaign, as if there is just no replay value yet. And this is coming from the person who has played paradox games almost non-stop for years. For example, after I played as Rome I tried out the Seleucids, which i was really looking forward to. However I found it really boring and overly meticulous. I think one of the main reasons is it is really hard to play "tall" and develop your lands, which i really enjoy doing. There are very limited options for buildings, population management, character management, and even diplomacy to a degree. What limits it even more is the mana mechanic, as almost every action requires it in some form.

Additionally, you may see some positive reviews about how this is a "good start" or "a good base game." I agree with those statements, but i'll also go back to my previous statement about how empty the game feels. There are a lot of cool ideas and mechanics in this game, but they need some serious work expanding them. It's like all bones but no meat, for a lack of a better term. And for $40, the consumer should get a full game, not a starting point to a good game.

So to keep this review short i will say I would not recommend buying this game if you want to play it more than once. If you are used to the depth and complexity of previous Paradox titles you will definitely be disappointed. I would wait until some more patches are released and the DLC's start rolling out. I actually feel kinda bad writing a negative review (since i was really looking forward to playing this game) but i simply can't ignore the short-comings.

Overall the game is good. I just started playing the game, but already i can see how in-depth the combat mechanics are. I know it will take some time to really get good at them, but at times i feel myself rushing and getting really frustrated. Sometimes the controls can feel a little clunky, and you can get stuck in cycles of getting hit from the enemy and barely being able to recover from or block incoming hits.

The only thing i really hate about this game is the fact that IT CANNOT BE PLAYED OFFLINE. There is a single player campaign, and even a mode where you can just play against bots. Why the HELL can't that be available offline???? So if a lot of your time is spent gaming offline like me i wouldn't recommend getting this game.

This game is really fun, but the crashes make this game very hard to play (unless you save every 5 min, which can be annoying). Usually what happens is I will play for about an hour, forget to manually save, the game crashes, loose an hours worth of playing. The game rarely autosaves as well :(. Plus it took me a while to even be able to save the game in the first place because of a bug that doesn't allow the game to create a save file on your computer....