Recent reviews by Eschaton

The only thing it's good for is testing early game strategies against ai. I haven't tried to play with another human and already know I would definitely prefer the actual boardgame.

If devs are still working on it (why would they when ppl will buy it in it's current state?) add real ai strategies and fix bugs. Loading transports but then canceling the move resulted in a game breaking crash. Enemy Bomber raid ignores aa gun (is this supposed to happen) and freezes the game for like 30 seconds. I'm never buying another game from this publisher unless fixed thanks

my contribution to "overwhelmingly positive" status

Finally went with Gal Civ III gold (on sale) this one is the more complete 4x from what I played, including the previous installment. It's clear the devs have surpassed it by ironing out core concepts and fixing repetitive gameplay. Seems to be enough content now to keep me busy for a while...I would like to try Stellaris too if they ever finish the game./

Very alive game! Easy to feel immersed...huge upgrade from the first. Much better than ES1 I.E. Not empty lifeless shell of a game! This is with all current expansions, mind you. They also did a big update right before I bought it. I hope to see more even more content (updates to dlc?)

One of a handful of games I can play with my dad co-op and we both enjoy. We played for a couple hours and broke the first quest because apparently you have to press P then invite to join up (after starting the game)...despite this and some bugs I noticed with targeting & movement it's worthwhile. I like to try out the different classes and exchange powerful items between my various characters.

One of the most satisfying games I've ever played. It's very simple at first glance, but has a ton of different ways it can be played. Doesn't get too bogged down in micro-management, and most importantly doesn't feel like a spreadsheet. Really fun. Combat while (again) simple at first has tactical depth to it and becomes very interesting with tech advances.

And now for the complaints...

I don't remember it being this buggy back in the day...it crashed a few times and I get a fps hit on the colony screen when it's raining. The sound cuts out, too. As for the actual gameplay, while the various races are diverse and fun to play, diplomacy can be underwhelming. Also while the unique ship models for each race are one of the games strongest points, all the buildings look the same (like regular human buildings) so it makes playing as aliens much less immersive.

I wish the auto-build feature was set to 'none' by default. I normally don't use it because I like having full control over cash use. It can be repetitive going through each colony screen every few years towards the end of the game to see what needs building. Could have been implemented better.

It's too bad there was never an IG3. There's a really great formula here that could be improved upon further.

Can't recommend it as it's unplayable...constant freezes, crash to desktop, memory leak, corrupt saves (assuming all work from old saves lost), etc. I upgraded my video card to play this game specifically and these problems became much worse with the last update. I hope to be able to change this review to positive soon...

update: got new computer, no longer potato, game now runs smooth. great game but needs more stuff to do after I get my base built up IE more enemies with better and differing ai, or relics/derelicts/other abandoned bases to find

This is a potentially great game marred by glitches and unrealistic occurrences. I loved it for the first 10 hours, then quickly realized its shortcomings that need to be fixed before I can truly enjoy it. I still recommend it as it can be played in a very specific way without breaking immersion.

Stuff that takes away from enjoyment:

Enemies, animals, and rarely objects (like when an airplane seat spawned inside cave) will sometimes get stuck in a weird spot and glitch out for a while until (I assume) falling through the floor and disappearing forever. If Bethesda couldn't fix this problem in Skyrim, I doubt it's really fixable but I thought I'd mention it.

I chopped down a tree. It fell on my house boat which just vanished instead of breaking apart into the constituents which were used to craft it. A tree falls on my walls, nothing happens (no damage)

I don't seem to be able to drop stuff that has a carry limit. Why do I need to craft a shelf in order to get rid of stuff in my inventory like booze? If there is a way to just drop stuff in a pile, please let me know. Why isn't there a craftable crate that I can just drop stuff into? It makes no sense that I need to craft a separate holder for different items. If there were an option for a more single player friendly mode where items don't constantly respawn, this would fix balancing issues from having more control over inventory items.

A positive note: the map is bigger than some make it out to be. While it would always be nice to have a humongous land mass to explore for 600 hours, it's actually pretty big as is. Since I can craft a boat, it would be cool if there were more islands to explore.

Overall a good game, probably.

Edit: picked it back up after a while, almost every major complaint was fixed since then. so much better...the expanded caves and all the different craftable items are keeping me busy. Enemy ai seems much better. Really fun game, keep it up devs!

Edit 2: it seems there are a whole new batch of problems since latest updates... log sled physics is messed up, falling through map and seeing thru ceiling in caves common, crash to desktop is not rare enough especially right when saving. enemies and items will randomly disappear, weird stuttering lag at times... in short many new glitches. Things that I wish devs would add is a custom game mode where I can set what items respawn, additional hidden caches of items in the world to find, and a mutant setting somewhere between peacful and normal mode. Anything to cater to the single player experience.

60 hours in and I'm guessing about half way through on my first playthrough, having loads of fun!

Pros: beautiful art, actually fun combat, lots of treasure and items to collect, tons to do, ok story

Cons: sometimes clicking on toolbar and attacking in combat has unwanted effects like either nothing happening with multiple clicks or my target twitching right as I click on it to attack with an archer, thus wasting action points as the character proceeds to waltz into the fray...inventory management can be burdensome with so many items, some that I am afraid to just throw out (irl hoarder)

This game had the best graphics I had ever seen on the PC when it first came out. I was 12 then and I still think the gfx are pretty good. That was the main reason why I shelled out $40 at the time, not knowing that it would end up being one of my favorite games of all times for other reasons too. Namely the excellent soundtrack, 3D world map that makes for interesting exploration (even though originally there was only 1 map in the game), immersive diplomacy, good thief abilities for spying on or stealing from the enemy (also it's fun decimating weaker enemies with just 1 thief as they can "hide in the shadows") and a ton of spells that I never even got around to trying most of. Many artifacts to find for the champions, although it's often annoying to not be able to use them as they are often faith dependent. The combat system is clunky and somewhat tedious but basically strategic with missile units and mages usually doing most of the damage. It is often simple to trick the computer by having it chase one of your melee units around while you fire on them with missiles, and the enemy doesn't evade well if at all. I suppose you could have an army of mostly melee units, but you'd better find the best ones in the game because most of them are pretty weak. The redeeming aspect of battles is the rpg-like element of experience points that levels most units (not all) up to 5, and champions much higher.

I always preferred playing as the Life faith, and it may be the easiest one to start with as they have the best missile units (archers) in the game. A tip would be to free your great temple as soon as possible (before the first 7th day) in order to start gaining followers for gathering resources and creating new units. New followers arrive to your empire every 7 days, depending on how much "Fame" you have gained.

I really hope they fix the "Pegasus bug" as I have already run across 3 of these level 8 creatures and it takes an entire army with my best champions to take one down, usually losing a couple units in the process. Not neccesarily a bad thing as it adds challenge, but I really don't think a level 2 hamlet is supposed to spawn this creature.

I really really hope they make a Lords of Magic II, or at least an HD update for this game!