I discovered this game randomly during Larian's recent sale of their games. It's a genre-crossing game that gives me a ton of mixed vibes; everything from Rome: Total War (due to the army/city building part albeit simplified), to Warcraft III (a controllable avatar in an RTS), to Starcraft II (namely, the interactions between characters, and tech levelling part of it), to RPG's (it's got a political and RPG-esque part of it). It's the game concept equivalent of "throw stuff at a wall and see what sticks". And, somehow? It works.
The voice acting is surprisingly good for most of the characters, and the storyline is decent. The political decisions are a bit on-the-nose, but it really gives depth to what would otherwise be a relatively bland RTS, and makes you feel for each individual faction (except for the undead, because they creep me the F out lol... play the campaign to understand why).
The biggest weakness in my opinion is that all the maps feel like "skirmishes", and there's no real identity. In fact, some regions share the same battle map despite being geographically very different. It makes the game feel 'samey', and therefore not a huge candidate for replayability - except for the aforementioned story plot.
The game can also be cheesed; namely, when you finish each act, you start with a relatively clean slate, with your research points mostly reset. Therefore, it's typically better to capture every single region except for the last capital, park a navy on it (since navies can't capture territories, you can do this to effectively trap the enemy forces there), then unlock every available Dragon and Tech ability before moving on. You can also do this to stockpile cards (an admittedly very cool ability to buff your army, debuff your enemy, and to economically improve your regions) before moving on, as those transfer over. You can do this in an egregious manner so that by the final act, you can literally rush the final capital with an overwhelming navy and win.
The final issue is unit balance; some units are great, some units are weak. But the endgame Juggernaut? It's... overwhelming. Although weak to air units, it can make its own air units to counter them. If you pair it with a Zeppelin, it can absolutely crush anything nearby, including most ground units, most naval units, and can also be used to essentially knock out an enemy before it can even act.
Despite its numerous shortcomings, I must admit that the game is both unique... and fun. Not one I'll likely replay again and again, but a fun little romp that honestly deserves a much more fleshed out sequel.
