Ara History Untold: Anniversary Edition

For me right now it's: Civ 6 > Ara > Millennia > Civ 7

This 4X game has a lot of micromanagement and production chain management. The AI has been made better and the game is a challenging and rewarding experience. It IS a little brain melting if you play too long, so take care of yourself.

I like these types of games. Planning chains, building smart cities, scaling up slowly. That’s usually the part I enjoy. Ara let me do that, for a while. Then the cracks showed. The AI doesn’t play fair. At slightly above "normal" It builds wonders in three turns. Prestige shoots up even when I’ve taken half its cities. I’m winning, but I’m still behind. Feels fake. Like the game’s already picked a winner. I just turn off the culling, but still annoying. Taking cities doesn’t feel good either. You inherit junk. Random buildings that eat your resources. I spend more time tearing stuff down than building. Sometimes I leave the cities empty. That works better if I have excess fish etc. The early turns are solid. Chains are clear. Progress feels steady. But past four cities, it slows to a crawl. Too many moving around production chains/decisions. Too much upkeep. You stop playing, start managing. I’m not the only one saying this. Prestige is broken. Growth gets punished. The AI cheats. There’s a good game buried here, but right now it’s buried deep.

I used to love 4x Civ-games but got burnt out on them. Ara re-ignited the 'one more turn' play for me. The resource management takes some getting used to and is more fiddly than it should be, yet it is also a very satisfying and relaxing game loop (grabbing new resources, developing improvements to extract, 'upgrading' improvements with products', using the output for further production or consumption, growing and grabbing more resources and/or new tech). Military and diplomacy are serviceable and the AI could be better, but why bother when you can build your beautiful economy!

Its a Fun game, but definitely needs a few small changes. ill start with the cons 1, TURN LIMIT ISSUE My biggest gripe with this game is the Turn Limit, this game is an Extreme Micro management game, like with every civ like game I like to build an huge Army and take over the planet, with this game is not that simple as there is a LOT of preparation you need to do before you can get to this stage, after my sixth attempt I finally got to wear I needed to be and managed to be the most powerful nation on the planet with the biggest army, just as I got my Synth Troops and was trying really hard to get a Missile Silo so I can get Nukes, but half way through my invasion the game just ends, I won the game but is was not to my satisfaction. all that preparation lead to a boring victory instead of my well earned glorious world domination victory, I didn't even get to use nukes! PLEASE make the Turn Limit optional, like every other Civ like i've played (Humankind, Zephron) you choose the "just one more turn" option which lets you keep playing after you win so you can continue your world domination. 2, CITY CAP Issue The City Size limit is 30, then you cannot expand any further, this sucks as it means if you want to expand you will need to either invade other people or build new cities which can be costly in the late game. the biggest issue is the damn Food shortage problem, the jump from level 29 to 30 is an insane amount of food requirement to the point that my whole Empire was on the verge of starvation just because of 1 city reaching level 30, So I have to quickly built a tonne of irrigated farms, made fertiliser. tractors ect. to the point where my empire almost became mostly farms! in the late game I had food coming out of my ear holes, Some Balance is needed to for Micro Management stuff. 3. Annoying AI This con is kind of a nitpick, the AI in this is not nearly as annoying as the AI in Civ (where the other Civs keeps building cities on your lands). However it does have that annoying issue that Civ AI has where the AI Civ constantly keeps demanding tribute like every turn, even though I was far more powerful than their Civ they felt the need to constantly demand tribute from me, and every time you refuse to give them all your money you get a minus to the relationship with them. its just irritating. 4. Trading Trading with other civs is a bit lack luster, as I cant choose what I want to trade with the other civ, it seems that I don't actually lose anything and I just use my "Merchants" to get free stuff from the other civs, also it can be annoying having to keep going back to the trade screen to refresh the trade agreement with the other civs and make sure I continue getting my free stuff, its a nit pick, but the trading just doesn't have much meat on the bone. OK now the PROs. 1. Graphics Graphics are amazing, its a really cool concept for a CIV like, being able to see your armies battle and see your cities grow, I especially love the future cities and the attention to details was great, I know Humankind tried to do the same, but this game does it 100 times better, checking in on your cities and seeing all your people go about there day is such a cool idea and really adds to the realism and immersion. 10/10! 2. Game Play I love micro management style games, I've played a lot of the in depth micro manage games like Rimworld, Dwarf Fortress, Kenshi, CDDA, Going Medieval, Mount and blade ect. so always loved this style of Micro Management as you get that swell sense of satisfaction when you create something in the game and this game does that very well. Its a learning curve game, if you dont succeed at first them retry again and again until you get it right, took me overall about 30 hours to fully understand all the mechanics of this game, and it felt more like a challenging project than a casual civ like which for me is a great thing. 3. Customisation and Variation this game allows you to name nearly everything, you can literally name all the building in the game if you like I had a'lot of fun name Pubs and Schools and such which is a great feature if you like to get immersed in your own world/ There is a'lot of units and building and wonders to build so each time you play it will be a different experience, overall I give the game 8/10. just needs that Turn Limit crap turned off or optional and it will be a 9/10 from me.

The most underrated game! Extremely good! Strongly recommended for all disappointed fans of CIV7! :)

I refunded this. I never refund games. Must have wishlisted before the LGBTQ+ tag was added because I dont buy this type of game. (I buy an absolute TON of games, check my profile). Gameplay felt a little under developed. Concept was not fully formed before release. "Leaders" of "nations" are a cast of reddit approved nobodies. Opening video starts with a woman showing people how to build the pyramids, then goes onto show other weird fantasies the people that like fake history have.

No region abandonment/trading is really keeping this game from being playable for me. There seems to be no way to abandon claimed regions. One turn after I claim a region several resources spawn right next door. Can I abandon and pick the resource laden one, No. Instead I have to wait for the city to grow to get it. Oops another faction claimed it before I could grow again, can I trade for it diplomatically, No. Can I fight for it militarily, No. My only option seems to be burning that factions city to the ground AND having to wait for growth to be able to claim it. If this sort of thing was a rare happenstance, ok -- but its basically happened to me every game. Often multiple times. This does not seem to be good gameplay. Is it something hard coded into the build or a design philosophy of the Devs? Either way it sort of breaks the immersion and frustrates me as a player which ruins what is otherwise a seemingly enjoyable game, for me anyway. Here's hoping Region management gets updated in a later build, would return if it was.