Recent reviews by lemoncakes01

I wanted to like it, but I spend more time afk than doing anything whenever I run a campaign. The game lacks flavor, player agency, and content. In particular the war system is totally unengaging and the player has little/no control over the outcome of a war. There is no attention paid to the varying development of regions, and as a result nations develop technology at the same rates and there is no value gained from the cost of labor being lesser in one region over another. Diplomacy is obtuse, and again the player has no agency, with the AI acting unpredictably, against it's own interests, and at times seemingly completely random.
The gameplay loop is thus -
1: queue up large quantity of buildings
2: select law you want passed
3: leave for 15 minutes
4: return and repeat 1-3.

Though it only shows 100ish hours here, I have thousands of hours before getting it on steam. The situation with the economy has grown so egregious that advancing through the tech tree is an exercise in futility. The increasing toxicity of the playerbase has made the lack of starting fire extinguishers and repair parts an even bigger problem as teammates right next to you will no longer aid you, resulting in your first few matches with a tank having you either burn down right away or be stuck in spawn all game after a sniper breaks your track inside your spawn area.

Edit to hopefully move the review out of the dates considered "review bombing."

Interesting concept. It'd be much better if there were some clock in the corner, because it is hard to know when, or how much, time is passing. It very much seems that time is not consistent between worlds. Also, the weird, unintuitive symbols used for each action, such as the flower with a plus or minus, could really use a tooltip when you hover over them. The real nail in the coffin, however, is a near-total disconnect from reality. Placid, drug using herbivores are really the only species that seems to make it - in reality, these species should not even make it to the stone age. Everything we know about evolution disagrees with the paths this game attempts to force you down, and this makes the game come off as a cheap propaganda piece.

The matchmaking will continuously pair you against players with far more hours and a far higher rank, who will make it their mission to ruin your game experience. Could be a fun game if either the matchmaker were balanced or the community not toxic.

The game state has deteriorated dramatically, and no is no longer fun for anyone wanting to play more than 1v1. Balance is completely out of order, and power creep has left 90% of options in the dust. Much of the old content has been removed in attempts to balance the game for 1v1.

Edit 400 hours later...
Recent updates have continued to worsen the state of multiplayer balance. As bad as CoH3 is, I would not recommend this as an alternative anymore. Coh2 is now just as bad. Find a different game.