TL;DR version: Check on this game in a few months.
This game is frustrating, for a number of reasons. The main one being that the early game is actually pretty fun, and it's clear that there is a good game somewhere in here. But that good game is buried under an awful lot of problems.
It was released far too early, and wasn't finished yet? Want proof? Multiplayer support is listed on theTL;DR version: Check on this game in a few months.
This game is frustrating, for a number of reasons. The main one being that the early game is actually pretty fun, and it's clear that there is a good game somewhere in here. But that good game is buried under an awful lot of problems.
It was released far too early, and wasn't finished yet? Want proof? Multiplayer support is listed on the box as a feature. It's over a week since release and there is no MP support. No online play. No LAN play. Nothing. It's at least another week before it'll be enabled, and with the offhanded way Stardock has been informing people of it, it's clearly not a priority. When it does get enabled, some features of the game still won't be there (modding support, and tactical battles, though they say those will come back at some point). For a listed on the box feature to be entirely missing like this is just pathetic. (Bottom line, if you're at all interested in MP support, wait for Civ 5.)
In the single player game, things are burdened by being rushed in other ways. There's a stat at character creation (Wisdom) that disappears in the game and is replaced by another stat (Essence). Shards that should boost your spell damage don't work due to a bug. Performance is improved since the initial release version, but can still drag high end systems to their knees for no apparent reason. (That said, the cloth map overview mode works great for a strategic overview and you'll spend a lot of your time on that, where performance isn't an issue.)
The AI isn't very good. There are "minor factions" that have one city and don't really do anything all game. They just sit in their city waiting to be conquered. The major factions do things, but tend to do things that don't make sense like put their Sovereign (the king, basically) in positions where he can be easily killed. If your sovereign dies in enemy territory it's game over, so that tends to make things easy.
The worst problem is the combat system. Tactical battles don't feature things like Line of Sight or walls during city sieges. They're simplistic, and in many cases reward the player for standing still and waiting for the AI to charge. There's a morale system, but most of the time it doesn't matter and when it does it doesn't make sense. In a large fight your morale goes down if you start the fight as the weaker of the two armies, even if you're *winning*.
The combat damage system is simplistic and just plain bad. Damage is calculated with simple linear random numbers (the roll is 0 to your attack power, minus zero to their defense power). The results once the numbers scale up are wildly unpredictable, you'll see units with 17 defense take no damage, and other times the same unit take the maximum possible damage as if it had no defense at all, and get one-shot. Because of that the sovereign and champion units get weaker as the game goes on, eventually being largely useless except for the Teleport spell in the face of trained units with huge attack scores. The whole thing just makes late game a mess.
Stardock has a reputation for sticking with and patching games into good shape, and that will probably happen this time. Unfortunately Stardock is also developing a reputation for releasing games that are buggy and unfinished, and they did that this time. It needed more time in development then it got. Take a pass on it for now and check it out again in a couple months. What you'll find will almost certainly be a good game.… Expand
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