Blocks!: Hammer of the Scots

nice game - enjoying it so far

The game requires some serious polish. Besides a weak AI (more or less acceptable), coding is sometimes faulty. The game hangs randomly due a fatal bug during wintering phase that turns it totally unplayable with either Scots or Brits. From time to time the cards drawing enters in a wierd loop. Also noticed that picking destinations at the end of the turn are some times ignored, like Wallace unable to move to the forest, or nobles unable to pick specific castle. There are some other improvable usability annoyances. Nice attempt, and still useful to learn some game mechanics in solo mode, as it is. All after all, it has potential only if devs invest some work on patching it.

Its kinda like Richard III War of the Roses but harder and different. You're also in a bottleneck. And there's no naval campaign unless you have a card or hire the Norse raiders. Nobles are not eliminated... They're simply captured and become opposition. Killing Robert the Bruce or Edward II however is different and doing so wins the game for the opposing side. Has about as much Historical accuracy as Mel Gibson's Bravehart in a way.

Fun, but as everyone points out, the AI needs some work. The Scottish faction is the only one that's remotely challenging. I played England for the first time and won within two campaigns (about 15 minutes). The biggest problem with the Ai is that it retreats even when there are no open area's to retreat to, which results in the player gaining control over those blocks. Obviously a player in that situation would fight to the death since they have nothing to loose. Fun, but not very challenging. If your a nerd for Scottish history or a fan of these sort of block war-games, I'd recommend it, but expect the Ai to be a bit of a pushover. Hopefully the devs will get it together and fix the Ai, but Im not too hopefull considering how long its been in Early Access.

Makes me want to buy the board game, the only thing is a rather weak AI.