Recent reviews by Askalan

Dear Developers.

Please, have eyes and observe the world.

This game has immense potential, and I look forward to what it might become, but first impressions matters, and this game's first Impression? Unplayable nothing.

Early Access is not a carde blance to get out the first workable prototype.

As a Demo, this might have been, okayish, but for a full game's price, this borders on a scam.

You have not done yourself a favour with this release, and i am stil debating if I want to refund the game, or give you guys a chance, cause i WANT this game to fulfill its potential.

My suggestion? Get your guts together, communicate clearly, frequently and honestly with your community. We gamers are very (maybe too) forgiveable if we feel devs try their honest best and are in an active conversation with us.

But with a release like this you easily look like a scumbag, and if that reputation sticks, your are done for.

I hope you get the curve guys

A number of people are moaning about the Price. and 95% of those have comments turned off.

This isn't a paradox DLC or some Creative assembly BS. This EXPANSION offers easily 5 times the content of the base game. It brings tons of quality of life stuff, offers gate and door for future mods and most of all, the base game is still there. you can still play the base version of Factorio.

I can understand that some people dislike the "no discount" policiy. But in all honesty we gamers constantly get ♥♥♥♥ on by companies who try to sell us low effort, cut out dlc-crap in tiny slices. They do discounts by the dozens, bundle discounts, sales, summer sales, black friday mega sales and what not.

Here we have a damn good quality, high content exspansion, and the dev ask to get paid properly for their work. Quality has its price, and this expansion? it would be worth double the price and still be cheap!

Quite the amazing game. Cool story, plenty of freedom on how you wanna design your ship and a lot of stuff to explore.

This is why Indie games are suprior in my opinion. You have a small studio doing a passion project. There aren't many animations, designs are well made but simple and no one tries to inject any kind of politics into it.

Overall, i can't find a single negative point about the game, unless one counts the wish for more of it. (and no I am not finished with 5 hours, just felt like writing the review now)

First off, this is a very early version of the game, so i recommend judging it as such.

Right now the game is very barebone, with 1 tutorial mission and 4 campaign missions. Thats it.

The graphic looks good, the animations fit well and the landscape is quite rich in details. So the looks of the game do a fine job of giving you proper vibes.

The Cover system is a prototype as far as i hear/read, and as such it is okay. Units could utalize cover better and it is a bit annoying, that only the units that have a spot move, while the rest remain where they were.

Vehicles are only used by the AI so far, and can be pretty hard to deal with (for lack of any AT option beside AT grenades, and giting a moving target with that is tricky.)

The different faction all look distinct with different weaponry and the effects of gunfire, gas and explosion are pretty neat.

Summery: As proof of concept and a foundation this version of Rattenreich works pretty good. But that is really all it does. It gives you an idea what the game will look like, shows that what trailers and dev-diaries promised is indeed becoming reality and gets you hope for more.

BUT: Barebones is really a generous way of describing this demo. If you want to support the devs, go ahead and pay the reasonable (I think) price. But if you want a fully playable game that can entertain you for hours, you better wait to avoid spoilering yourself.

So after nearly 250 hours and years of liking this game, i seriously have to say:
NO, DO NOT BUY AND DON'T GIVE THIS DEV ANY MONEY

I really enjoyed this game, and I have supported it for long before it came to steam.

But a seperate DLC for Multiplayer??? seriously???

Like holy hell, even EA didn't try this stunt as of yet.

This game really hooks you hard! It is fun, has unique and creative game mechanics, just enough randomness to make each run special and quite the interesting progress mechanics.

Currently the game is very alpha, i didn't encounter a single bug, and it runs all smooth, but I really look forward to more content.

I do still recommend the game already:
1st it is dirt cheap and you really get your fun out of the price
2nd it is an indimentend Developer, and you feel the heartblood that flowed into the game, that is always worth supporting
3rd Dev is communicating properly with the community, and the roadmap looks solid. So worth buying already I'd say

First off: the game is really cool. It has interesting mechanics, it is inovative, wonderful atmosphere and really drags you into that dark grim world:

Secondly: The game is not abandoned! The developers are from Ukraine, you know the place with constan rocket attacks against civilian buildings and infrastructure.

They stated, that they are moving to a different place, and will need like a year to get back on their feet. Honestly, rebuilding one's life in only a year is quite the feat, so i wish them best of success.

Currently, the game is unfinished and you will need patientience. Last update was in January of 2023, next update is not to be exspected before march 2024 (once the devs got their feet back under themselves).

Right now you get quite a nice small game for 17.- which is okay. not good, not bad, but okay.

I highly recommend to be patient, and give the devs the time they need to built a new excistence. if the 1 year period they annoucned passed and still nothing is heard, then you can loose trust

just one time.....a single F***ing time could they not take some random chick as the allmighty tough restiance leader... seriously that is getting so old by now.

Other than being ridden with clichees and 2020's politics virtue signals, Its a solid game. Good game play, the invasion mood is a fun idea and while the story is duller than the club of a troll, it is always fun to put a bullet through some facist's head at half a km distance.

I really do want to recommend this game, but the DLC crap really kills it. With all DLC the game feels complete with a tiny bit extra, but that is 300% of the "basic price"...like em... nope can't call THAT a recommendable game...

Really nice Strategy Game 8/10 +1 for Nostalgie XD (no clue why it has "balanced"= bad reviews???)

TLDR: The game is a lovely revival from a classic and wonderful game, so I have been waiting for it sicne the very first announcement a good 4 years ago.

Grand Strategy aspect: -> Very good
The building system is really nice and ease to get into. You have limited building slots, but most building can be upgraded mutiple times, each upgrade being basicly a building of their own, giving buffs, ressources and sometimes kingdom wide boni.
The provinces's traits (ressources, number of villages and their type) is random, so replayability is good.

Grand AI & Diplomacy: -> Decent
The AI is okay on the big board. I builts their towns in a proper fashion and makes use of all kind of knights (trader, spy, mashall, diplomat & cleric). Its diplomatic acting is sometimes a bit wonky, especially with asking the player to attack partners or even allies. That could be improved.

Real Time Battles -> Good
The Battles are based on the terrain the armies fight on, which makes it really nice and you get almost unique battlefields every fight. The towns look quite nice, too and offer a good bit of tactic options for a defender.
With 9 Units per army (+ the marschall's body guard), one would think it is rather small scale tactics, but it can still get surprisingly hectic (and i play strategy games since 21 years now XD).

The Battle AI is decent. It utalized all parts of its army, tries to flank, get behind you, capture your camp if you leave a gap and uses infantry, archers and cavalery appropriate. The enemy's commander is sometiems a bit reckless, and the AI could be a good bit smarter, but it is good enough to be a little change (when units are equal)

Graphic -> Good
I have a decent machine, but by far no monster rig. I Play on medium graphic settings and it looks all nice. Could be a bit better for 2022, but by grand strategy standards it is really lovely. A lot of details, nice gimmicks and overall a really cool atmosphere.

UI & accessability -> Very good
When you start the game, there is a tutorial, which explains you which button does what. Read it and you will have no problems at all. Information are easy to get, tool tips are appropriate and the UI doesn't pull you out of the immersion of being a medieval king. There is a good bit of depth to the game, which you get into layer by layer, something i love a lot, as Shallow games get boring quick for me.

Summary: Knights of Honor 2 is a quite good game for strategy fans, good for beginners and really nice for fans of the First Knights of Honor. It does not invent the wheel a new, and the claim, that it is rather a remake of the first part, than a second part, has a point. But then again THQ nordic are the Necromancers of Gaming. They take wonderful games from 10, 15, 20+ years ago and revive them, and they did an excellent job here. Could they have done more? sure, if they had the same ressources as Creative assembly, they could make a game that stomp the total war garbage of the last 10 years into the ground. But honestly, this is a really cool game, and i know i will sink hundred of hours in it.

A serious review:

VRC was quite a lot of fun for me for the past 6 years. 3 years ago i got introduced to mods for VRC, and damn they changed everything. There are so many quality of life features, that without it (and i tried) VRC is just bland, clunky and sometimes outright annoying (as without mods there are very little protections against crashers and such)

One can use VRC without mods and still have fun. But more disturbing is the clear, loud and vehement reaction of quite large group of the community (round about a third of the active users i recong based on reviews and data from steamdb). The Community made pretty clear, that the introduction of Easy anti cheat (which btw is terrible at preventing cheating, just visit any public server in 7 days to die...), would be a great desaster.

And that feedback got utterly ignored by the devs., like absolutly, ignored, there was not even a conversation being held.

Ever since the announcement of this Security update and the introduction of EAC. i kept an eye on population numbers and users...well every day it declines, with the average dropping by a good 8'000 people. 2 weeks ago average population was around 26'000 people being online, now it is around 17'800 and still falling.

So yeah, i belief VRC shot itself mighty into the foot by evicting content creators and modders... and worst of all? Avatar rippers (People stealing custom made avatars ,the Big "Cheaters" in VRC) are still around, just visit their forums they still go around, appearently without much trouble...