Recent reviews by squib

This is a beautiful game with sooooo much potential! The scenery is awesome and reminds me of my childhood growing up in thee West with many trips into the hills. This kind of game is difficult because the developers have to draw some kind of balance between today's sentiments and the actual codes of the west during this time. There are a few issues with the game, but I wouldn't call them bugs, mainly some pathing/routing confusion.

There are some things that could use some balance, particularly the fast travel/settler growth explosion rates, but my work around is that I just don't fast travel. I have a love hate relationship with the naming/bonus game prior to launching because sometimes I am just stuck trying to come up with names with decent starting stats, but on the whole that's kind of fun too.

There are some things the game is missing, like women. I personally think they should be added, but confined to the roles of the historic west. It would also be extremely cool to be able to play either side especially with a multiplayer option even if that is limited to 1 player on each side. The challenge I am sure is how much code do you write and still keep the game playable on lower spec PCs. I love the idea of weather, but really not at the cost of fps, maybe that workaround is just with different maps (something that a mod community could do!)

The game kind of lacks an in depth tutorial, but I am confident that will come either within game or via you tube gamers. The chat option however connects you with others in game who are usually very helpful. One thing I found kind of cool is running across a players name attached to an NPC. Other improvements will hopefully come to trading, with many more items available (like skins, I haven't located a trader selling those yet).

It is a challenging game, but one thing I have found truly outstanding beside the scenery and the horsemanship is the multitude of strategic options to approach a looming fight. Also, I think some of the most fun I have had in game has been several wild chases on horseback, firing weapons in a battle with the wagons and patrols.

There are just so many possibilities with this game it has truly tremendous potential and its a title I look forward to being "completed" and even further, future DLCs. I personally believe this is a future game of the year.

I am completely addicted and super happy I grabbed this title while it was on sale.

Oh and I'll end with a tip regarding starting stats at this time:

1) Bag weight. Huge beginning stat. Never take a roll that has negative bag weight. You can live with null, but +180 OH YEAH!

2) Stamina. Lots of Stamina will let you roll out of trouble and/or keep striking longer. A definite number 2 stat.

3) Skill Points. A fast start in enough skill points to add a better bow and arrow recipe for the early game can give your camps a defensive boost.

4) Health. Extra health is always helpful, but with enough recipes to give you health buffs and enough foraged items to heal you up makes this opening stat less important. Herbalism is a much overlooked stat that can give you a lot of goodies. Some start names can max your herbalism early and that can offset a negative opening health stat.

5) Additional Warriors. Nice to have, but I will happily trade several away for better 1-4 stats.

Since the issues that I have had with the game in the past have been fixed and the Devs are actively moving the game in a solid direction, I am back to a yes.

This game is not going to be for everyone.

First, for such an old game it's on the expensive side. Visually, while the landscape can be pretty stunning, it can also be depressing as in order to level, characters have to do massive destruction to the landscapes. The good news with that is stuff can grow back, the bad news is that many build poorly. Also, this is the most intense crafting game I have personally ever seen and I enjoy these types of games.

There are two types of servers, PvE and PvP. I avoided PvP as I didn't want to be constantly interrupted while building. After a week in, I can't even imagine being on a PvP server, but truly hats off to those who do. For new inexperienced players, this game will be frustrating without patience. The good news is that the CA-Help chat folks are extremely patient and helpful as is the rest of the community. Chat is pretty harshly moderated, but the advantage to that is that you won't have to deal or read the kind of nonsense you would in places like the WoW barrens.

Currently with the rush of new Steam players joining the game, you will encounter many old school wurm players that have an elitist attitude that also know how to exploit the systems in place, but they are few and far between.

So so far, this sounds like a horrible review for this game, but let me get to the truly great part.

The crafting while slow is incredible deep and eventually rewarding. The community is one of the best I have run across online and if you are quarantined and don't have many folks to talk to, this is a fantastic social game. You can chatter away while you build a wall or do virtually anything else and you have a ton of choices. And once you get a few basics down the frustration is gone and the fun really begins.

How intense is the crafting? I wasn't able to make nails until day 5, but when I made my first handful of nails it was oh so satisfying. Also, I play premium and have a deed which gives you advantages in game, however you can actually play free and I haven't seen complaints about anyone deeding over another players non deeded builds.

There are many things that perhaps could use improvement in this game. For one, in your first several days you will find yourself constantly getting lost. The map is poor, the compass meh. That being said it is kind of refreshing to not have the modern game map that tells you exactly where you are forcing you to actually understand your environment based on landmarks and such over time, or to contribute to community road building just so you can find your way to town.

So, bottom line. If you like games like Satisfactory or Factorio and the pleasure of building but find yourself occasionally not enjoying a lonely building grind in those games and want a community reminiscent of WoW chat without all of the juvenile toxicity and you have patience and most of all time, you will love this game.

If not you're absolutely going to hate it.

Hell yes.

This is a qualified yes, but barely.

The nicest thing about House Flipper is that I can relax since nobody is trying to kill me, I can't die, I can't screw up my production chains, nobody can take over my country, etc... I find it very relaxing and it is fun however as I run on an older PC, things can be a bit choppy and I've seen reports from people having the same issues with much higher end machines.

I enjoy the outcome of my efforts rebuilding old homes and even kind of enjoy the cleanup, yes even the windows. There are enough resources to give you a huge amount of combinations and there is a challenge in trying to get the person/s of your choosing to be the highest bidder. The Garden DLC I think is also a must have.

So, here is how this game could dramatically improve:

Paint color. Truly the game would benefit greatly by a player being able to input RBG values to customize color.

Pictures. It would be great if a player could upload their own pictures as well, although I understand the potential issues with this, at least a broader range would be nice.

Resizng sliders on thing like rugs would also be nice.

Also, one of the biggest drawbacks to the jerky motion is that it can make it frustrating to place certain surfaces quickly.

I also think the garden dlc could use more plants and a better lawn mowing setup.

The game could also use a wider variety in home choices as many are repeats.

Everyone playing should know that this is a very early access game so expect some issues and a lot of changes. That being said, I'm finding this game pretty enjoyable. Yes, it's a bit like Banished! and no it's not like Banished! at all...

How it is not like Banished!
1) No gathering/zones
2) No mass influx of immigrants to overwhelm your town
3) Not nearly as many houses needed
4) Much nicer graphics
5) Your town can virtually die and you can still save it. (as long as you have the trade center)
6) No building grid
7) paths and lanes are generated by foot and cart traffic only

How it is like Banished!
1) Same type of game essentially
2) Resource generation style game, with feeding your town at its core.

Really nice things about this game:
1) It's apha and actually works rather well for such an early access game
2) There is some challenge to the game
3) Great music
4) Nice maps, sure there will be more to come
5) Very relaxing
6) Organic flexibility, yeah.
7) Micromanaging style builder

Bottom line, if you enjoyed Banished! but hated that the development of that game died, this could be for you. There are enough differences and in depth play that it feels fresh. I would compare to Sim City vs City Skylines, but not as demanding or asset heavy. If you have to have crisp grid like square lines due to heavy OCD issues, then you might go nuts.

Things the game could still use: (I am sure we will get many of these, I think)
More maps or a map editor
Optional grid-style tools (perhaps a mod one day)
More decorative items
Some mild terraforming (there is a current bug if you misplace a building in a certain way and delete you leave a big crater and you can't get rid of it easily)

This is the greatest solo game ever made. period. end of story. you're welcome.

While this game has its initial frustrations and a pretty in depth learning curve, I highly recommend this game especially if you enjoy building games that provide you with plenty of challenges along the way. Despite what many have said about this game on the forums, it isn't all that buggy and although there are some, Frontier seems in my opinion to be doing a good job early on with updates.

You will need to run through the tutorials either in-game or online, especially for laying paths. I would also highly recommend reading up on how keepers and other employees work and how to manage them. In Franchise mode, you absolutely have to start small and build your zoo up, money really is never an issue in this game unless you simply push things much too fast. There are some zoo animals that will bankrupt you quickly if you place them too early in your game.

This game takes a lot of patience and if you have an eye for detail, the game provides you with an absolute TON of nice building options. It is definitely to your benefit to take the time and learn all of your hot keys along with some tips and tricks on item placement,

Your biggest frustration is going to come from the challenge of keeping your employees well rested and working, especially your keepers, but once you have that down and build the right kinds of habitats there is no reason that you won't have very happy and healthy animals.

You should also use your radar to evaluate your guests happiness, the impact of staff buildings, you circle of education as well as taking a look at your animal's wandering zones, especially the babies as they can much more easily escape.

I find myself playing this game very slowly, building very deliberately with a ton of nicely done, appealing habitats and then just getting lost watching everything work. Once you have the game mechanics and some of the tricks down pat, the game is very relaxing. Landscape everything you can and make use of the lighting options.

I also would recommend you watch builders like @KRX on Twitch, who builds some pretty amazing habitats.

This is a first impressions review.

I have played all but the most expensive railroad simulator games out there (you know who you are, wish I had that kind of money...jebus) Pretty much every railroad simulation game is a bit derivative of RRT which is not a bad thing. That game is still a lot of fun to dust off every now and then, although you do crave better graphics.

What I really like about Railway Empire is the track layout, which is extremely important as it is everything to a railroad simulator. The devs do seem to listen to the community as evidenced by their recent update and I would concur that it would be nice to have an option of a double track layout function, but I also think that it may not get used as much as it does in previous games just due to the expense of laying track.

What is great about this track system is the ability to connect, then slide your track to its best position. There is a learning curve to layouts, but its a small one. Signals are not as much of a learning curve as they are in Factorio, but wgat can be a challenge is fixing train routes when you have overloaded your track. In many online vids, many place two small stations in each town, one for moving people and mail and the other for freight. I think it may also help keep the competition away as well.

Hiring personnel and applying them to your trains is a pretty nice add. You do have to pay attention to them getting along as well as not accidentally reassigning an employee already on a train. At first, I overlooked that it clearly says what routes they are assigned to, now not really a problem.

The stock system is also quite different from RRT, here you can't buy stock in your own company, but you can buy it in other lines. You can also merge with them if you buy up all of their stock and then sell off everything if you want. Getting refunded for trashing items is awesome. Mistakes will not kill you and you can eliminate duplicated lines from competitors you have taken over.

The newspapers, while they seem annoying offer nice diversions. Major kudos to the Railway Empire journalists who have written some seriousl funny stuff. I think may favorite is the Man Bear Pig article.

The other thing I enjoy is the research tree.

So, what would I improve!

Two things re gameplay would help immensely. The biggest feature I would like is to be able to move the track connection at the station from one line to another as the station expands. Also, it would be nice to be able to slide the station just like you can track in a city so that as you expand you can have easy access to lines you need to run off in different directions. I find that if I am building small stations to begin with, it just becomes a bit of a layout pain to cross over lines. So far, thats about it, although some of the start up graphics had me worried as they don't quite live up to the gameplay, but its also something that I am sure helps keep the dev cost down so no big deal.

With all new games you never know what kind of $ you will have to toss at DLCs and I am certain this game has several DLCs in mind down the road. We're playing in North America only right now. A European map can't be too far behind.

There is HUGE potential with this game. (Think Civ) politics and city building with some era style challenges tossed in or it could just become that modern RRT style modern update that people have craved for years. (Yes, there are tunnels)

Freeplay mode is also quite awesome if you just want to relax and experiment as well as ride along with your trains.

If you are into survival or roleplaying style games, this may not be a game for you although it is a welcome change. If you crave relaxation while being challenged when you play then it definitely is a must buy.

This is the absolute worst game that I have ever purchased. Why do I only have a few hours in? Because after the intial launch, every single time I think...well okay let's try this again, I just upgraded my PC...CRASH. Does not launch. I have tried every single opening setting in this game and every one of the fixes mentioned to absolutely no avail. I see some folks that I know in this game and obviously enjoying it, so I hung onto it way past my opportunity to simply get my money back. Then today, I see reviews about how the game company let cheating go on for over 2 years and with 60% of players doing so, they had no choice but to offer their player base amnesty pissing off the other 40%. Never, ever have I thought that a gaming company should face a class action lawsuit more than this one. DO NOT BUY THIS GAME. Complete rip off.

My family and I have been playing this game for many years and I have to say for strategy gaming, this franchise gets the most playtime among all of the games we own. In the latest expansion, once again the game changes and some are going to hate it, but I don't. A few of the new features really enhance your play and can keep you on task. Some types of victories now seem to be a much bigger challenge than before, probably a good thing especially if you play multiplayer.

The best new feature in this game is by far the new Golden Age/Dark Age revision. It used to be that golden ages were just okay and really didn't last very long. Now they last for an entire era, if you earn it. You can see exactly where you stand easily and make determinations about how you might best earn era points. It is also not the end of the world if you slip into a Dark Age and if you can go from a Dark Age to a Golden Age, you get a super reward. This mechanic can help you to keep your focus through the Ages.

The next best feature is the Governor feature. You can place Govs in City States or your own cities and they can bring you extra benefits for cities with the resources or tiles that may benefit industry or science, etc... It's basically taking your old advisors and putting them into strategic places so they can benefit the growth of your cities and your Civ. You also have choices, so that each Governor can boost the aspect of your city that you see fit.

In addition, spies now have a few more abilities that ramp up that challenge. One example is that you can have a spy temporarily remove a Governor of another player's city, creating a little chaos.

The AI has also seen some major improvments, which was a big complaint prior to this xpac. I don't think it is perfect, but some of the leaders in this game have "issues" and preferences that can make them seem like very fickle friends. That being said, your friends do seem to remain friends longer and your enemies may have a tendency to forgive a little faster than before. This has leveled out the interactive play quite a bit, removing the old frustrations.

New challenges; Influence and Loyalty. You better keep your citizens relatively happy or they could turn on you. Also, as you take over opponents cities, you will have a short time frame to gain their loyalty before they revolt and go independent. You can retake them again and again and try to get them to stick with your civ, but I have found that a bit of a challenge so far when you are playing from islands and have some distance between your civ and another. This I think is going to make domination victories much tougher and perhaps end the multiplayer zerg-fiend's easy path to a win.

Another great feature is the "World Emergency" quests that come up once in awhile that should you join and be successful at, you get huge rewards to split with all those who joined the cause. Ghandi firing a nuke...dude's gonna see some consequences for that...or not so much, depending on how the world chooses to react.

Rise and Fall has definitely addressed many of the issues players have had, and there may still be a few to go like the whole Mac/PC multiplayer compatibility thing, but overall I am finding this xpac to add a lot more fun to what was a bit of a dull slog through the game in VI.

I highly, highly rec this game xpac. It has a ton to offer along with a good number of new leaders to increase the mix and the challenges in the game.