Diplomacy is Not an Option

I absolutely love this game so far. When I read the negative reviews for this game most of them were that this game was too difficult. As a person whose typical criticism of these types of games is that there is no real challenge seeing these types of comments was a massive positive for me since I like a challenge. This for me is one of the best games in it's genre full stop. I am very positive on this game, with a few criticisms, and a few things I hope they add. The Positives -This game is truly difficult. As someone who is typically very good at these types of games I am actively struggling to get through levels and when I do it feels like I achieved something. -The cut scenes for this game are oddly very appealing and though Scott is entertaining you will learn to dislike his existence. -There is a very good balance of resource extraction in this game where there is an active risk reward to going out building far away to extract. -Moving units though simple is very satisfying and works extremely well. With my right click I can actively have a formation of frontline, archers, and seige weaponry in one spot. -The game balances out your time of attacking, defending, city management, and decision making extremely well. There in most cases is always something you can be doing in the game whether it be microing units, building, upgrading, planning defenses. -The asthetics in this game are both extremely simple but work extremely well. It reminds me very well of the difference between factorio and satisficatory. Satisfactory sacrifices good in depth gameplay for the world to visually look good but even in looking good it feels empty. Where as factorio is lower graphically but the world feels full, the gameplay is immaculate, and it feels better to move/build. This is more on the factorio end. -The enemies are tough, the waves are difficulty, and you need to be a bit unique in your ways of handling them. -The unit types you use in the game actually matter. Usually in these types of games you will buy one unit and be able to steam roll the game not the case here. I thought this was the case when I struggled on one mission but built like 50-100 horse archers and won with ease. Then I tried it again and simply couldn't do it. I like that it keeps me honest and thinking. The Negatives -Walking corpses and being able to visibly see them or notice them effectively. There is a lot of games I've played so far where I have buildings not operating for significant periods of time because I can't see it. Also there are times where I have a grave digger + cemetery right next to dead bodies so you'd assume they'd be cleaned up. Then you are looking at something else, they turn into walking corpses, kill your grave digger and blow up your cemetery. I've tried using ballistas to long range deal with walking corpses, then a citizen dies under your tower, your ballista can not hit it and it kills your tower. There needs to be some tuning to this mechanic. The challenge of it is fine to have but the challenge shouldn't be whether my eyes can physically see it in the game imo. -Scott and Other characters you need to "keep alive" there should really be a way I can put them in a building. There is too many games where a type of character like that gets accidently selected or aggros into units and I lose because of that. Or simply make that not apart of the mission and at a cut scene at the end where scott gets up off the ground after he fell off his horse. What I hope they add to the game -More traps or unique/creative defensive options, higher tiered defensive structures -Add more citizen or troop buff buildings or capabilities such as a citizen happiness mechanics where they work faster with more entertainment or beautification. Or maybe potentially like statues or something like this that give troop buffs when near it. -Potentially like a moat if it can be done in a way that doesn't break the game -More unique resources to the game -As many building, research, or troop upgrades as possible to add to the game. It would be awesome if there were ten building upgrades each stat wise that you could really invest down one building path to get to a tier 10 building. Even if they didn't make large animation changes it would still be cool to have. Needless to say this game is awesome I was truly surprised by how good it plays, how challenging it is, how different it operates to these types of games typically. In this genre games usually have a critical flaw or major missing game mechanic that is not the case with this one. This is a type of game when I play it from a developer that makes me very interested to see what they are able to do in the future and I'd be highly likely to seek out new games made by them. As a person who plays a ton of these types of games this one is worth the purchase that is if you are looking for a true challenge.

I've been an RTS fan for my entire life and have played countless RTS games. This is the most annoying game on the planet. It would be fun if it weren't for the hyper micromanaging. I even love games like cities skylines where micromanaging is at its peak, but here, it could not be more annoying. Absolutely ruins the game. Idk why they showcase these massive battles, to even get to that point, you would need 15 hours to build up to an army like that, and the recourses are so scarce on every single map its nearly impossible. Even on the easiest difficult. I tried so hard to like it but this game is terrible.

I really like this game, it’s honestly a lot of fun to play. The gameplay feels smooth, combat is enjoyable, and overall it keeps me engaged. The main thing for me is that I just want more content, more nations, more military variety, bigger maps. Still, I had a great time playing it, and I’m looking forward to seeing how it develops further.

10/10 game. Always a fun time killer with many modes to choose from. And the developers really care for their game with continuous updates and feedback. Recommended for anyone who enjoys They are Billions and any RTS/Tower Defence games.

слишком сырая баг на баге, про баланс даже говорить не приходится, бесконечные атаки бомжей, которые сильнее пользовательских юнитов - это полный крах геймплея между миссиями сюжетные ролики интересные, но от них тольку нет, так как даже с читами на ресурсы обойти бинд числа и силы противников в х100 от твоих юнитов не возможно не ведитесь на пеструю картинку боев с ордами болванчиков - это чистая маркетинговая ложь, даже самые топовые стены в этой игре падают на раз, поэтому от такой орды вы будете жить меньше минуты игра требует огромных сил и времени чтобы в конце заплевать тебя бесконечными волнами крестья с вилами, которые почему-то в разы сильнее профильного солдата вашей армии из трижды прокаченной казармы

I appreciate the efforts of the devs to support the game all this time, the constant stream of updates has really improved the game over time.

写给开发者的: 编队内没血的单位不容易选中，建议参考星际和魔兽的方法，每个单位及其血量都显示在屏幕下方的列表中，而不是同类叠加。不然我想把没血的往后撤，还要在大地图上选中他。

Look, on many fronts, this game is actually great and has some really cool things about it. But in my experience, it’s hard to tell what is a game engine bottleneck versus an intentional design choice. For starters, do your archers magically have perfect aim on the ground behind walls, but not when you actually put them on your walls or towers? Because the moment you put them up there, their projectiles literally hit your own walls or towers sometimes instead of the enemies, which is just stupid. Subjectively, I don't feel like the walls are worth the headache. What do I mean by that? Yes, I build them. Yes, I make 3 layers of them and put 1-2 rows of the wooden towers behind for extra range. But after each wave—especially if you have a complex castle shape because you expanded organically to grow your city when you needed resources—going back to manually repair and fix a wall here and there is just not fun at all. That’s why I say it feels like it's not worth it. An auto-rebuild feature would be great here. Personally, I am no fan of micro-managing units. The game presents the opportunity for an amazing castle sim with strategic, tactical gameplay, but it just doesn't seem true in practice. I managed to do a few missions on regular difficulty and started both the Rebel and Royal campaigns, but eventually, I got tired of the micro-management and the tech tree. (At this point, I’ll just take any upgrade I can take). Anyway, I thought to myself that I at least want to finish the story quickly and see how that goes, so I’ll take it easy and just go on the easiest setting. It was okay for seeing some of the other missions while I was slowly learning the tech tree and units, but on the mission to build the Temple, everything went all south. Even while using the pause button, the micromanagement for that specific mission feels especially annoying. Since your horse archers and horsemen lack an auto-ability to attack and pull back, I found myself either investing too much time into the economy and falling behind on attacking nearby enemy settlements, or the exact opposite. This is the easiest difficulty, and I think that's a bit ridiculous. Other missions are punishing but doable on normal—this one, not so much. Again I know personally and I'm clear on the point that I'm not a fan of babysitting units. For players coming from Starcraft here most of the units play as if you're zerg, if you want an experience that's more terran or protoss like you're not gonna get it here imo. Swordsmen feel like a pretty good choice with upgrades archers too, but things like the 10% wall health upgrades? I don't know if they are worth prioritizing against some of the other tech and the added time it takes for enemy waves to chew through it, it's tough to say what the exact ROI is in investing in that side of the tech tree and when. Personally, I would love a way to queue up research. Having to open the menu every 2–5 minutes (depending on how much time you spend in pause) is personally very annoying. I already know the exact order of research I want to do, and it’s basically the same for me every game—just let me queue it up! On a related note combining these management points, it would be nice if you could build production buildings even if you don't have the free population to spare yet. Why? To free up resources and keep your builders busy! So you don't till morning when your new people arrive. Otherwise, the moment free people arrive, you are already wasting a lot of time waiting for builders, free people sitting idle, even if u have a good amount of builders houses ready whereas the buildings could have been ready in advance to minimize downtime. It would also be great if you could separate the settings on the builder houses so you can choose if a house should do repair only or build only. That way, you could keep specific repair teams close to your walls. On the combat side, I see everyone online recommend crossbowmen, but I think given the higher shooting rate of archers, it really depends on the enemy and wave type you are facing. Upgraded archers can still be a good choice for defense on your walls because of that fire rate. They both have their use cases imo depending on which enemy faction you're facing. I see some people say, "Look, at least on easy difficulty you should be able to enjoy the game's art style and the castle sim aspect." I agree the art style and assets look really great and nice, but the reality is that if you are busy focusing on everything else, you never actually get a chance to focus on the visuals at least on easier difficulties I think you should be able to enjoy this aspect of the game but it just doesn't happen. The game itself usually shows a clean, single layer of walls in the trailers and store photos, but your fortress never looks that nice and clean in actual gameplay. Even if you wanted it to, putting 3 layers of walls down doesn't connect nicely together to make a single "deep" wall anyway—it just ends up looking like you are spamming 2–3 raw rows of walls like in Age of Empires II, which is a shame. The trailers present these beautifully designed cities, but in actual gameplay, trying to build like that is completely unwise. I've seen other people mention you just have to keep some troops there ready but usually with a well designed wall that's not been necessary for me. Finally, the resource logistics are another micro-management pain if you care about minimizing travel time for your workers. Until you unlock the Forester Cabins later on, you constantly have to build new stockpiles nearer to the lumberjacks and manually set them to "wood stock only." You are forced to choose between two annoying options: A) An inefficient central stockpile (like in Stronghold), where your workers spend ages just walking back and forth dragging stuff instead of producing. B) Constantly building stockpiles close to the work wherever it moves. This minimizes downtime travel and gets you more resources per worker, but it comes at the cost of high APM. Yes, you can pause to do it, but it’s just one more task you are forced to babysit. Since minimizing worker downtime travel is key in my experience, having to constantly manage these local stockpiles is just an extra friction point to worry about. I quite like the game on many fronts, but because of these choices, you don't actually get to enjoy the castle sim aspect much at all. Played 36hrs so far maybe I'll play more idk if I'll feel like it I may give it another go sometime but currently I could not personally recommend it. It's been fun but also tedious. That's probably a good way to put it. May say it's not the genre for me, fair but it does have some nice enjoyable aspects to it, as I said above, I do like the castle sim and visuals of it it's nice and to a great degree for me it's what got me to try the game tbf. Note I played the shareware demo first but I don't think that sets your expectations right for the main game, its micro management and difficulty and general play style.

Nice to see someone remembers what RTS is and how to make a good one! Now go ahead and make a few more... Like a WW2 version, Modern Warfare and a Futuristic/Alien version. The Campaign is great and challenging. The voice acting in the cutscenes is priceless. Who knew complete gibberish could be so funny. I usually skip cutscenes for being a complete waste of time and dialogue well, normally is horrible in most games. Completely surprised how good they were. Hours of fun... ROI meter = 100%.

So great game, just one issue. It completely freezes the gpu every minute or so. Basically, I do not yet recommend anyone getting this game eventhough it is a lot of fun. reason being, that there is a severe graphical glitch. it freezes the entire gpu for about 2 to 3 seconds. every minute or so. its to the point were the game becomes unplayable. this problem gets worse the further into a single game u get. I will change this review once the game devs have fixed the issue. and I wouldn't mind helping out as well in any way possible. The problems were more severe in the dx12 version of the game. playing on dx11 has improved the issue. but it sadly isn't gone.