Senaste recensioner av God Emperor D

I'm a Total War veteran from back in the Rome Total War days. I watch Pixelated Apollo, who left the Total War franchise behind because of the neglect of the Historical community that made this franchise. I too had decided to leave behind the "historical" titles after Three Kingdoms decided to be a Wuxia game instead of a Total War game, although I appreciated some of the advancements it made.

I thought this franchise was dead, but the turn around post lay offs had me back in. Vote with your wallet, right? Well, here's my thoughts on this title as an OG who grew up on the Europa Barbarorum type mods:

This is the THE best campaign I have ever played. I have yet to lose the "one more turn" itch which normally kills my games in the late game, causing me to start over. From the immersive scenes, to the new non conquest ways to obtain victory, even to the new way of managing settlements and the new(+returning old) combat features, this game is blowing me away.
I do play with the Radious mod, but still, the campaign in particular has me impressed. The outpost system is an amazing way to help navigate when your empire becomes sprawling, which was always one of the more tedious aspects of the late game for me. The complex resource system makes the campaign a blast in terms of planning those early moves, and the waves of various uncivilized invaders makes the late game still challenging.
One of the huge issues with previous titles is the way you can just leave your borders undefended and steam roll the AI with some clever diplomacy and expansion choices. Now? You can no longer just hug the edge of the map and win, you need to devote whole armies to maintaining border security. I also LOVE the depth of the campaign customization!! I personally play with 15 unit armies instead of 20, as well as cut off the recruit defeated enemies option post battle and it totally changes the game for the best.

I really hope the passionate minds behind a lot of these design choices weren't let go in those lay offs.
This game has some polishing that could be done, but this is the best Total War game IMO.
If you've been putting it off because of the setting, or past grievances, please reconsider and take a note from the Warhammer Total War crowd: We CAN take back our franchise. But we have to put our money where our mouth is and support good decision making.

I genuinely love this game, it's not copium but it is some hopium. This game is a 8 out of 10 for me if I'm being conservative with my praise. I want this title to succeed.
I thought I was done with this franchise. Done with Historical post Three Kingdoms. Done with Fantasy post Shadows of Change. But I'm back and for what it's worth to the passionate people who made this gem:
I recognize and appreciate your efforts. I hope others come around as well.

I want to specifically give props to the people behind the Workforce, Legacy, Ambitions, and Victory Point systems. You've done something that hasn't been in this franchise for a long time: make it really feel like I'm leading a civilization.
I'm no mere war mad tyrant, I am a Pharaoh, and I WILL build my legacy in stone!!!
Adding more immersive and civilization building paths to campaign victory is a stellar choice and it's implemented in a way that isn't just an uninspired rip off of other titles. It's fresh, it's new, but it's still feels like a unique Total War identity.

If you guys pull off the same type of magic with rethinking settlement loyalty/rebellions, expand the diplomacy more, this franchise will come out of its Dark Ages.
Cheers to the team from a disgruntled ex fan you've won back!

Very enjoyable, while I have some different opinions about how certain scenes should be interpreted or visualized, it was a great experience over all. As someone with little ability to feel fear, often reading (or even hearing) lovecraft's works is not enough to stir an emotion beyond intrigue. This was a great remedy.

I sincerely hope that someday you folks expand and do more of lovecraft's works. I'd be especially looking forward to one on Innsmouth, as it's my personal favorite. This was too good for free, you guys should at least charge a buck. I will likey get the 4.99 DLC at some point. It's nice to give that to the victims of Ukraine, but if ever I hoped for a charity skimming some off the top, I hope you do. Good work should be rewarded.

For this review I'm considering three things:
1) this is a new game (so bugs are expected)
2) the developers are indie so they might take longer to patch and update the game
3) if this game is on your radar you probably enjoy polandball/countryball meme comics.

So, I want to start off with the negatives. Nothing I hate more than reading through a review, getting hyped for the good, just to see some stuff that's a deal breaker for me. We'll start off with bugs/design issues:

SAVE GAME BUG
Probably the worst bug in the lot. It basically makes saves a pointless feature. Basically, if you load a save game all/most of the settlements disappear. They disappear from the map, from the quick bar to the right. Essentially destroying your save.
DO NOT start up a big map game unless you're ready to devote the time to it. This is a real game breaker and is the reason it took me as long as I did to complete the campaign.

HERO LEVELING PROBLEM
At the start of the game, you're given a lv1 hero (sometimes with a item already). This is fine, except when you recruit heroes from the appropriate building they start at lv0. Now, having not played the game yourself this might not seem to matter but allow me to explain:
The game has a skill tree directly tied to what level you are, each time you level up you get a point to spend. Heroes that start at level 1 DO NOT START WITH A POINT TO SPEND. Meaning your better off picking a level 0 hero and giving it any item/unit from the lv 1 hero and then delete your starting hero.
It's a minor thing but it basically locks your first move to ensuring you can recruit new heroes.

DIALOGUE OVERSITE
When playing as one of the many available unique heroes; Tibet, Ottomans, etc. The dialogue you will have with other balls (that plays before a battle) will recognize you as Poland no matter what faction you play as.
I understand having unique dialogue for each ball wasn't a priority for early release, but having Tibet be recognized as Poland while I'm playing as China is... Jarring.

Other reviews have noted the dialogue as: Not Funny, Didn't Laugh. I agree for the most part, but honestly that's not what I'm here for. I'm sure if the Devs allow for workshop support, the community will fill in dialogue with what they personally find funny. The devs should ultimately just focus on fixing/improving the game.

MAP ISSUES
Certain items, chests, etc, are inaccessible on certain maps. It's a VERY Minor thing, but it is something that needs fixing.

CRASHES
It happens on rare occasion, including after I beat the America Campaign. But, IMO, this is to be expected for an early release from an indie developer.
_________
Now I'll move along to the game itself. The soundtrack is great, not Jeff Van ♥♥♥♥ in Total War games great, but you will definitely be listening and think to yourself: "Damn, that's pretty good."
The same goes with the aesthetics(game art). The map and buildings look damn good. You'll almost want to sink your time into fully building up a city just to see how good it looks by the end.

The variety of balls you can recruit(or fight) from special buildings around the map is nice, however they outlive their usefulness in the late game. A lot of this has to do with how logistical the game is. Most strategy games kinda brush over logistics, but in this game it's pretty important. On larger maps you might even want to dedicate a whole heroes specifically to gathering units and taking them to other balls.
Some people will find this tedious, especially if you make the mistake of trying to create multiple armies. Doomstacking everything to one hero who does all the work is the meta as far as I can tell so far.

All in all it's a fairly easy game to pick up. I actually skipped the tutorial myself. It definitely needs some polish, but if you love countryballs you'll love this game.

FINAL NOTES: Some suggestions for the devs or moders to improve the game:
1) Have a hard limit to how big your units can be tied to your character level. Maybe you could even add a new logistical skill tree (The way of Chinaball) which improves how man units you can gave, increases map move speed, etc.
Right now the big problem I'm running into is just how OP doom stacking is. OP is fine, but it's also a bit tedious. You just have to count down the turns once you get the ball rolling. It also makes the game (SLIGHTLY) less strategic, as you can just brute force your way through any barrier with sheer numbers.

2) Factions and Heroes DESPERATELY need some uniqueness to them. Unless it's really buried in the code, I can't tell any real difference between the factions except what unit pool you start with. Conquering towns of different ball types gives you access to those units. You can roll around with a completely Chinese army as UK if you have the opportunity and drive to. Which is GREAT... But....

It basically makes all the factions feel the same because... They are. You even get the unique dialogue for other factions if you recruit heroes from that faction.

Giving different heroes different specialties, make some better magicians others better fighters, etc, then locking certain heroes from recruitment for other factions would go a long way. More modern heroes seem best to lock; Mao, Xi, Trump, Hillary, Borris, etc.

Further give certain factions certain faction wide bonuses... If the unit limit is implemented, China could have higher unit caps in their armies, America could get an extra movement for all heroes, Britain could gain extra resources/money from map pick ups, Russia could get a defense bonus in it's cities, etc.

CLOSING THOUGHTS: Really enjoy this game and it's one of the few games my tablet can play. (RIP to my PC, F's in the chat for Poverty). This is a lot of fun for its price and I actually have more than 27 hours on it since steam doesn't count offline hours.
HUGE Recommend for any Polandball fan or Strategy enjoyer, and I hope for good things to come. After the bugs get fixed and the game gets polished... TIME TO ADD ITALIA AND JAPAN BABY! (Here's hoping)

Honestly, this game is pretty trash. I don't even see why the devs took the time to add in all the polynesian natives.
Despite the real life history of Europe's rise to power being a much less certain affair and requiring a great deal of struggle, the EU Devs just seem to want to throw penalties at the rest of the world.

The era penalty mechanic has to be one of the most braindead ones I've seen implemented. It makes Europe's rise feel a hell of a lot less like a snowball rolling down hill, and more like a freight train that needs to desperately be derailed. The devs should have really contemplated how successful the stone age Maori were at combating the British when adding them to the game.

Only buy if your completely uninterested in playing anything not in Europe.

Look, I love the idea of playing anything that isn't another Chinese Warlord. But I play Records mode, exclusively, and it's incredibly ridiculous and jarring to have these weird tiger and fire units in Records mode. GIVE ME BACK MY FRANCHISE!

For those older Total War fans, dissapointed with Rome II, this is the game for you.
It reintroduces immerison, and is a solid all around improvement.

The only complaint I have of Attila is the way the huns were treated. In a game named after the most Famous Hunnic leader, it's rather dissapointing that you can not actually carve out a Hunnic Empire(without mods).

Additionally, the Raze meachanic, coupled with the doomstack spawning of the Huns, makes this "Survival Strategy" game feel rather corny(which is an unfortunate trend with Total War these days). The End of Days theme is too overplayed, and to the detriment of gameplay.

Luckily, as I said, a plethora of mods can deal with these issues. Which makes the game, for me, a solid buy.
(It's true that the "Make and Mod" mentality of game developing is annoying, but if you can accept that as a fact of life these days... Buy this game.)

Hey, CA, since SEGA is making us buy the games we've already bought anyways, do you think you could talk to the brass about maybe having a "True Purchase" Pre-Order option?

You know, something at the price of a collectors edition, except instead of all that useless ♥♥♥♥ you get all the non Expansion DLC free?

I mean, if you insist on bleeding us dry, you should at least have the decency to let us get all done up-front.