Recent reviews by Wenchbane

This game is a gem. Passion project from the developer and it has a really simple, yet fun gameplay loop. You're building (or rebuilding) cities and societies in this shattered world.

You have 4 factions, of which one is the default. They each have their unique aspects with tower commanders, ship captains and for the other 3, wonders. You can also gain a flagship themed for each faction.
The main gameplay is building these settlements, progressing your soul tree, which unlocks access to further commanders and captains, and eventually the wonder.

However, the focus is creative building, you build towers and walkways between them. You also can build these balconies or overhangs, you can also upgrade these towers and balconies and eventually create towering iron skyscrapers which give larger and larger wings of escorts from your commanders.

Connecting things in sequence can give interesting results like linking 2 iron skyscrapers at the top level, then going back down to the bottom level and connecting again, which creates a sort of dam-like wall. Or connecting 2 stone towers in close proximity creates little redoubts or gatehouses. There is procgen involved in how things come out and rebuilding it produces new results.

Solid little indie title. Gameplay loop is tight, They nailed the atmosphere and there's some cool little secrets dotted around.
It's got *normal* fish, yessir!, lights in the dark and even some foghorns too, crabs and a fishidex!

I ended up stashing the main story components and going to each area at my leisure, filling out my fishidex and upgrading my little trawler along the way. Lots of cool little unlocks too.

Also, I love that kookaburras are in an eldritch game, and they fit!? Perfect. Was surprised to hear the bully birds cackling in the dark, but it fits.

However, as others have said, it clocks at around 14~hrs and that's getting very well every achievement, sussing out all the nooks and crannies and exhausting all the content available. DLC could be an option if the Devs wanna go that way but I doubt it would be any meatier than the main game. Although if this is successful I would absolutely play Dredge 2: The Dredgening.

My most played game on Steam.

Foreword: The Devs are excellent but the publisher is not. Glad to see it coming back to a proper storefront but it's still hobbled by the UbiConnect launcher which is unstable at the best of times.

Anno 1800 is an excellent return to form for the team behind the Anno series. It's taken all the prior features and breakthroughs into one robust title. With 4 years of development there is a literal tonne of content here, so much to wrap your head around and plenty to tinker with.

The main premise of the game is the closing days of the Age of Sail and the dawn of the Industrial Revolution to what is the early 20th century. You can make some amazing cities, with plenty of decorations to spice up your layouts. Not to mention the plethora of mods that will also enhance your game.

You have multiple sessions (maps) you can expand to and each has their own unique populations who have their own needs/luxuries and production lines. There is inter-regional trade (for example you need rum early on from the New World which satisfies a luxury for an Old World population tier)

Scenarios have made a come back with Season 3~4, There's cosmetic items you can unlock through scenarios and a golden ticket system, which recently got an overhaul. You can do exhibitions in the main game's monument to get more tickets.

The multiplayer is also quite robust, and fun with friends (if you can line up the sessions for it)

I would consider this the best Anno, setting the standard for future titles in the series to come.

As someone who is a fan of gladiators and arena combat in general, this game is a must try! The visuals, the combat and even the sound design are top notch. Your heart pounds as the gates open to the roaring crowds, weapons clash and blood spills. It's excellent quality.

The combat is reminiscent of Mount and Blade - directional attacks with an emphasis on momentum that increases the efficiency of the strike. Your total stamina diminishes as you take damage, armour mitigates damage and sometimes impacts how impressive the show is to the crowd.

As you start you have basic gear, a paltry sum of money and a bit of fame, once you get a few fights under your belt you can afford a new weapon, maybe some armour, as you enter the big leagues you'll see fully kitted out gladiators and absolutely gorgeous arenas.

There's an entire support system in the back, investing in your Scollo unlocks better maintenance of your gear, better physicians and maybe even a forward pay to your next bloody sacrificial. There's also a political sublayer which effects what events pop up and how they effect your run, I haven't played too much with it as I'm usually struggling for both gold and influence to even be able to engage with it in any meaningful way, and when I do have enough resources I've skewed it way beyond salvaging anyway.

I'm keen to see this game grow and be fleshed out even more. It's challenging, it's fun, and it's so bloody visceral. I highly recommend!

Editing since 1.0 is released and all EA Roadmap features are included + House Vernius

So far what's included;
Single Player Skirmish with 5 victory conditions Hegemony, Domination, Political, Assassination and Economic (you can toggle them on or off apart from Domination)
Single Player Conquest (Think Northgard's conquest mode but a bit more expansive in terms of mechanics)
4 Player Multiplayer
7 Factions (Atreides, Harkonnen, Corrino, Fremen, Ecaz, Vernius(Ixians) and the Smugglers of Tuek's Seitch)
The general flow of the game plays like Northgard and Endless Space/Legend combined with a substantial layer of Diplomatic/Political mechanics as well as an entire Subterfuge layer which expand your options.

I've played the multiplayer with friends almost exclusively and it feels like the Avalon Hills boardgame combined with Northgard. Expanding and the opening moves feel very akin to Northgard's early game but the combat is decisive and you still need to plan your attacks, covering your flanks and having a plan B. It's so refreshing having this tension in a strategy game.

This game has become a staple in our sessions.

The gameplay feels smooth and fitting for a game set in the Dune universe. It's nothing like the fast clicker tank spam games from the 90's, those were great but this is a welcome and much needed step in the right direction. Games will take time to complete. My first game on the default settings took about 3 hours to complete and suss out all the mechanics, of which there are A LOT the depth is there from the beginning to very well into the late game.

While each faction has a tendency, there are subcommanders/councillors who can adjust or slightly twist your tools to make the factions play differently. I hope they expand the offering with more to choose from as this would add a lot of cool twists to player's strategies.

The game offers a variety of win conditions to pursue, The pace is methodical, moving units and committing to attacks will leave you open to counter attacks by locals, rogue sietches and your rivals.
Eliminating a rival via assassination is an involved affair, expensive and lengthy. You need to prepare with the right agents as some can count for 2 infiltration levels, the infiltration cells located in easy to reach but unassuming enemy villages and resources.

With all the different win conditions going simultaneously it's vital to keep a finger on the pulse of the game, as someone who has a fairly smooth game can win by Hegemony or CHOAM while the others are duking it out.

There's various territories and resources for you to explore. Some tiles are special and denoted with a star banner, they offer either a unique building or a huge boost to a certain production or resource as well as pushing you closer to a Hegemony victory (Think Fame victories from Northgard)
You'll also have access to unique village projects like an experimental furnace or a military factory which provide a huge bonus but cost substantial upkeep.

You'll be expected to build up a functioning infrastructure, all while handling the harsh environment with plenty of upkeeps like water, managing a spice tax paid by the houses to the emperor and other factions to either the Spacing guild or intermediaries, you can adjust whether you stockpile or sell all of your reserves risking your next tax. You'll manage gathered Intel for espionage and Authority will allow you to claim more territory with different factors like presence, technology and distance dictating the price. Rogue seitches, Renegade houses, Storms and the mighty Sandworms will work to topple your sandcastle. If you've played Northgard a lot of these systems will feel familiar.

There's also a variety of units to use. Every faction has their Scout unit (Ornithopter) and their 5 standard units (Melee troops, Ranged troops, Siege troops, Drone/Support, Faction Specific Elite Troops) as well as bonus units from technology (like mercenaries) or the political voting system all players take part of (Landsraad Guards) You also have access to Spacing Guild resources with 2 mechanical units, 1 fighter craft and 1 frigate(of which you can only field one frigate at a time)

Units also have veterancy which makes them more powerful (except certain units like the Landsraad Guards or Heroes which come with a set level)

There is a unit supply system which ensures you need to be careful with how and where you move your units, Some territories like the Deep Deserts will deplete unit supplies quickly which will result in the unit losing health rapidly until they can refill at a village or with an espionage supply drop, Resources like water tie into this and can give you a huge buffer to push through normally prohibitive territories.

Manoeuvring your armies strategically feels very reminiscent of the Avalon Hills boardgame take on Dune. You really do need to sit and think about how you're going to tackle your win conditions, your rivals and keep your territory under your control. Put in 3 other real players and the politics and interesting choices do come out, watching the ebb and flow of a match is interesting and engaging.

My only complaints;

The UI needs some work, it's functional once you've sussed it out but there is a lot to be desired in the layout and clicking around for things that aren't there is quite common, for example voting has several stages, the proposal of what you vote on, which only certain people with titles can reroll where everyone else has to wait for those decisions to be made.

Also there is a bar under the resources where alerts and events pop up, however strangely, on the left of the screen are timed missions which pop up rarely/infrequently and are super easy to miss, with some dire consequences (like villages rebelling, or receiving unique units)

A few lessons from Amplitude in how they organise and layout their UI would be a good step.

The Drone units, while cool, should be replaced with something more in line with the fiction, AI in the Dune universe is shunned. Support units could be replaced with Ornithopters that fill that role, think stealth transports/medical/fire support/etc to fill those gaps. The recent DV movies have a few varieties and it could be a subclass of mechanical unit under fighters and frigates.


In conclusion;

If Northgard's early access journey is anything to go by. Dune: Spice Wars is going to have an excellent development with plenty of additions. The gameplay fits the universe well, is fun and strategically engaging and it combines all the aspects you'd expect for a game taking place on a planet as harsh as Arrakis.

PSA: Pay your taxes if you're Tuek's Smugglers. Sardaukar are in the game and they are no joke.

This game is actually quite amazing for the content it has. And the Dev team are fantastic! They communicate well and update the game quite regularly.
If you liked Star Trek or Firefly then this game is definitely for you.

It pits up to 5 players (Or Bots) in charge of a star ship, and your goal is to find the Lost Colony(Yet to be implemented as of this writing - But we're not far away from that as of this update)
There's many scenarios this game puts you through like exploring abandoned stations and retrieving documents, exploring fallen alien civilization ruins and getting artifacts out, retrieving and delivering cargo and all out space battles with multiple ships.

Contents;
- 5 Distinct Classes
- 3 Distinct Storylines
- 1 faction dedicated to selling and distributing biscuits
- Infection that slowly envelopes the galaxy
- Ability to capture crewed ships (Not drones)
- Fitting and Upgrade System for ship components
- World Bosses which have unique ships and components
- Space racing for credits and components
- Planets you can beam down to and explore
- Blind Jump mechanics
- Stealth systems for certain ships
- Heaps of standard missions
- Space Casino
- Skill trees, some distinct to each class
- Research system for access to more skills
- There is a lot of attention to detail inside each ship
- Reputation system between the factions

Despite all that there is some criticism
The enemy variety is very basic and some of the planets are small areas or repetitive to explore with not much there to actually explore. Most generic planets compared to places like the Burrow, the contrast in detail is huge. - This is a big one.
Despite EVA suits, you cannot space walk or repair outside damage on your ship, There also isn't any type of shuttle to get to planet surface or abandoned ship/station , ground vehicle or mech to make planetary gameplay more interesting.
Once you get high enough level and upgraded your ship you can pretty much stomp most enemies outside of the Infected.
There isn't a dynamic economy like the X series despite having a high cargo ship.
There is room to have more distinct vessels (Example would be a built in missile battery system (Like the stealth ship) or a Drone Carrier type ship.

In regards to the work Minskworks, the developer, put into the game, I recommend Jalopy but you should definitely buy their other game Landlord's Super so they actually get paid.

In saying that, Excalibur, the publisher, was the worst thing to happen to this game. Thus Jalopy has been forcefully taken from the developers and left in the state it's in, which is practically abandoned and still with many bugs, Devs can't work on it cos the publisher won't let them. Plus that debacle with the other roadtrip game where Minskworks coped a lot of flak for something they didn't actually work on.

Overall it is not a bad post apocalyptic sandbox action adventure game but a terrible mainline fallout game. It's essentially Fallout 3.5. If you liked the nonsensical design choices of 3, you'll love 4, it's more of the same mediocrity.

There is a cancer... known as the Creation Club, a malignant growth that needs to be cut before it infects the surface.

We must protect Bethesda from it's worst enemy... Itself!
- Because of Creation Club and what it means for the gaming community this will be a negative review.

Pros;
- Nice Graphics
- Retro-future vibe is done well
- Layered armour systems
- Customizable weapons
- Power armour is done right
- Survival Mode really adds to the atmosphere

Neutral;
- Crafting/Base building a la Survival genre
- Combat is in line with modern shooters
- Pre-war opening scene


Cons;
- Checklist design for content (EG; Supermutants, BoS, Radscorpions, Deathclaws, etc despite the setting)
- Incredibly poor story telling
- Factions are either one-dimensional or pointless
- Endgame conflict is similarly pointless
- Companions and characters are similarly one-dimensional
- Heavier emphasis on "Radiant" quests over handmade quests
- Settlement system relied on too much over handmade locations
- No Reputation/Karma/Consequence systems
- Sad excuse for dialogue
- Weapon damage is poorly done (Automatic weapons lose damage)
- Can't make ammunition (Without DLC, and even then it's limited)
- Legendary system replaces a real Unique Weapon/Armour system
- Small selection of weapons both Ranged and Melee
- Get power armour & kill a Deathclaw in first 15mins

From the start you get railroaded into one role which dialogue reflects. The urgency of the story is totally incompatible with the pace of gameplay that is presented. The only real choice is how you approach the open sandbox, rifleman, gunslinger, assasin, etc. Stealth is also hilariously broken (Just try stealing indoors in Diamond city and the whole city will flock to you and kill you even if no one is in sight)

Far Harbour was a huge improvement over base game and Nuka world captured the vibe too but the atmosphere needs to be fleshed out more a la Fallout 1.

Seriously, Bethesda, this was such a poor attempt at a Fallout that matters, please do your consumer base a favour and get Josh Sawyer or John Rodriguez onto the over-arching story. Let them do the characters and decide what the main conflict revolves around. I'd wager a lot fans wish for Bethesda to do the open world and smaller meta-stories while the two above mentioned do the main story, Obsidian can handle the lore so anything new can really be new and interesting. Moving forward, the team that did Far Harbour should be put onto doing the main quests, side quests and story bits for future games, they did a good job and it shows.
Emil Pagliarulo honestly doesn't care about the story (He even admitted as much at GDC!) and thus can't write a compelling main story to save his life, but he can definitely break a franchise to cliches and poorly done "twists"

I'll add this review here but I've updated the main game page with a combined review.

The Eagle King adds several welcome features to the game, mainly a PoM style campaign from Hegemony: Gold to this installment. You follow Epirus in his exploits throughout Italy, performing tasks that are in line with what happened historically BUT it doesn't stop there. Should you decide you can conquer all off Italy and establish a new Greek Hegemony in the region.

Upsides are the historical tidbits, added units based off of the mainland Greeks and a totally reworked naval system.

In addition to the campaign there is an invader scenario which gives you control of up to 7 additional factions that come from outside the Italy map.

You play as either the Senones, Boii, Dalmatae, Epirotes, Macedonians, Cretans, Mamertines and the Alelia. Each faction covers a culture, ie Sabellic, Etruscan, Gallic and they come with their own specific start like Naval Invasions or Cross Alp invasion.

In the invader sandbox you get your own tasks to ease settling into an assigned spot OR you can decide to screw it all and take the first city and begin your reign of terror.

Did I mention the smaller overhauls? The AI is much more competant and combines effective tactics, itactually uses navies and to great force and also intermixing mercenaries with its native forces to plug holes in their armies. Cities can be easily taken from you and the AI is a tonne more fun to play against.

Downsides are the diplomacy is still not where it could be and other aspects of ancient life like religion and trade are non-existant. There are still a couple of old bugs lurking around like units disappearing and disembarking units killing them immediately. Some units are not represented in an authentic way but I can respect artistic license.

All in all a good first step on expanding Heg:3 and I recommend it to anyone who enjoyed the base game!

'I thought this game was cool before it won an award!'

I'll update this review as the game gets updated and the DLC are released.

Hegemony 3 is the crown of the Hegemony series where Phillip of Macedon/Wars of Ancient Greece is one of the gems encrusted. This is the game that gamers who are new to the series will probably jump in and try first and that is a good thing.

I was pleasantly surprised at how the game launched and has been progressing ever since. The moment to moment gameplay is engaging and quite fun especially in the 3.2 version. Combat is quite tactical and there are often times decisive strategies available.

Factions and their units are diverse with their own set of bonus/malus along with starting positions. Of note is all the historical tidbits just a few clicks through city management/unit screens and the convinient help menu.

The game is seamless with one loading screen from faction selection to actual gameplay. Different modes to start from (and more coming in The Eagle King DLC which is releasing holiday time). and while there are no actual historic campaigns to follow there are quests that occasionally pop up and the main hegemony objectives to pursue through a sandbox.

EDIT: Eagle King has released and it lives up to the hype, Total reworks of existing mechanics in the form of naval combat/gameplay and diplomatic options with allies via military access. Mercenaries got some love with quite a few Pyrrhic war themed units available which are stronger and more specialised than their standard counterparts.

The Eagle King campaign is open and totally free from the get-go, plenty of options in how to play out that era. There's also a semi-campaign sandbox with the invader factions. Unique start which allows you to decide where you want to start while having a limited starting force. All in all a good addition to the main game and I highly reccomend it!

Empire management is where the Hegemony series shines, especially this installment after the 3.2 update where you'll be managing and leveraging all your reasources and manpower to lead your fledgling tribe/city state of ancient Italy to a veritable ancient world superpower. You plan out your supply routes and ensure units and cities are supplied all the while moving your armies up to the fronts and fortifying vital strong points. It's always a joy to watch the game unfold and have your empire spread across the map.

The graphics are a major step up. While the zoomed out view still gives off a quasi-boardgameesque vibe the map is drawn beautifully under it in a black figure vase style. All the menu and unit portraits are presented the same way. The zoomed in view is very detailed and vibrant. Units are resplendid in their faction colours and uniforms and each are distinct to their culture group.

Overall the game presents it's chosen time period and content to an authentic finish and it just keeps getting better!

Here's to Longbow on developing and improving Hegemony 3 and the series as a whole for all the years to come!