From Village to Empire

pretty solid

AI is absolute idiot, will charge at you just because of full health and only retreat if in verge of dying map is awful and configuration does not make significant changes UI is another nightmare that both cluttered and lacking at once

6/10 Simplified Civ-6 like 4x TBS TLDR: A free indie Civilization remake, with not much meat, poor controls and horrible UI. Still, it's surprisingly addictive due to its adherence to the Civ formula. Good: + free + it borrows the idea from Civ 6 and Endless Legend of buildings taking separate hexes on the world map So-so: +/- graphics are well-drawn 2D tiles and units, reminding Battle for Wesnoth. Yet nothing is animated, and it kinda looks strange in this day and age +/- music is seemingly 8 or 16 bit(?) and rather generic, not that good +/- while most of the Civ's core systems are there, they are generally reduced to the bare minimum. E.g. the tech tree is pretty small. There are maybe 3-4 units per techlogical era. A couple dozen buildings. Some improvements for the tiles, of which only farms get better versions later on Bad: - controls are clunky. E.g. there are no red arrows to help direct ranged attacks. Often it's even unclear which unit is selected because of the white highlights around every reachable tile (instead should have been just a flat fill with an outline) - UI is very poorly made, making city management a pain. This is exacerbated by lack of worker/former units, as you have to build every tile improvement like a building, from the city's UI - it was like that in Civizliation Call to Power, a series that came between Civ 2 and Civ 3. The city menu is implemented as simple lists of buttons that can't even be scrolled properly. Removing citizens from tiles they are working on requires too many clicks. Pillaged buildings don't get their workers auto-removed. This and many other small flaws and missing QOL features make the game barely tolerable overall. - lack of info what resources come from where - the feature that made Civ 5 great. Tooltips are too few and far between, too short. There isn't even any tutorial. So you will have to guess things as you go - ancient and advanced units barely differ in their stats. For example, a dragoon, a 19th century cavalry unit, still barely defeats the simplest barbarian warrior. A catapult stays relevant and doesn't get an upgrade even after I've researched modern infantry! I guess the US marines on their missions overseas still should watch out for hidden enemy catapults just in case One has to admit that developing a complex game like Civilization must be quite difficult. So, the mere fact that somebody brought this game to a playable state is already an achievement. Yet, to make such a complex game engaging, far more effort is required. This is not even an alpha version. It needs far more content, more features and a lot of playtesting to work. Still, despite its bare-bones state, it already delivers the Civ's magic. And it was fun to play for 1 run. A neutral-positive vote. Seems like it was abandoned? It's a pity. Though on the other hand, I don't exactly see what novel features the devs had in mind when starting this project. Aside from some minor differences from Civ here and there, there aren't any big novelties to justify working on such a difficult project. Simply make a free Civ remake? I dunno. It's not like the original costs a million dollars so that no gamer could afford it... [table][tr][th][i]I'm a Steam curator, you can [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/43946907-Friendly-Nerd/]follow me[/url][/i][/th][/tr][/table]

It's a simpler strategy game, enjoyable to play 4X game when you don't want all the politics that the larger 4X games have. Works fine, never crashed or gave me any problem in the 800 hours I have played. Yes there is no more development being done on it but it's free and it works.

Игра "From Village to Empire" - это увлекательная пошаговая стратегия, предлагающая игроку построить империю с нуля. Игровой процесс построен на управлении ресурсами, развитии технологий и, конечно же, ведении войн. Что понравилось: приятная глазу пиксельная графика, интуитивно понятный интерфейс (несмотря на обилие информации) и глубокая система развития. Каждое решение имеет последствия, и просчет стратегии критически важен для успеха. Разнообразие юнитов и технологий позволяет экспериментировать с тактиками и находить оптимальные пути к победе. Однако, игра не лишена недостатков. Искусственный интеллект иногда принимает странные решения, а пошаговая система, хотя и даёт время на обдумывание, может показаться медленной для некоторых игроков. Кроме того, начальные этапы игры могут быть достаточно сложными, требуя терпения и усидчивости. В целом, "From Village to Empire" - отличный выбор для любителей пошаговых стратегий, которые не боятся трудностей и готовы погрузиться в продуманный и увлекательный мир. Рекомендую!

A Civ clone with a long way to go. It's quite fun to play. It's main difference with the Civ series is that you actually expand your cities by building on the map. Quite promising but still quite barebones. I appreciate this game being available on my OS of choice, Linux

Mildly recommended as a free civ clone. If you've never played Civilization before, then this might be worth a play. It has dated graphics, lacks in the bells and whistles areas, needs a lot more depth and has no really unique mechanics. That said, it does play like expected, has a all the standard features and makes for an interesting game if are after that retro feel.