Microcivilization

So, this review comes in two parts. TLDR: Game itself is fun, but one feature ruins it / will end your multiple-ascensions runs without warning if you make the well-intended mistake of using it. DO NOT USE THE "While You Were Away" FEATURE! So, the game itself. I'm not gonna get into a deep-dive here but it's an 8/10. It's very grindy (So you better be into that), some of the crises feel brutally one-sided against you, but it just encourages you to continue to get better Leaders and Ascension perks. The gameplay loop is pretty straight forward, it's fun, I enjoy it. Complex enough to keep your attention, simple enough that you don't have to feel like you're solving a physics problem the entire time. You do need to come in with a Dwarf Fortress "Losing Is Fun" mindset though if you play on anything above Easy, sometimes you will end up in a death spiral through no fault of your own and there is literally nothing you can do to prevent that, you just have to accept you're gonna hit 1 Population and have to rebuild. Reason that I don't recommend the game though? Your Ascension progress is tied to your Civilization, which is tied to your Save File. It is not tied to your "account". And there's no way to start over on a new map with the same civilization, you have to "win" / ascend by reaching the end of your tech tree. And as you get anywhere past the Classical Age, you will need resources from the strategic map to get that far without it requiring double-digits worth of hours. So why is that a problem? The game offers a "handy" "While You Were Away" feature that you can use. It promises Gold Lotuses, your Ascension Currency for Meta Progress, and an increase to your population. Sounds useful, right? What it DOESN'T tell you is: 1. That you're going to be ambushed with TEN Crises as soon as you load in if you accept that (When even 2 back-to-back can kill your civilization, putting you to 1 population and having to rebuild. You keep your buildings and tech though, so that part in-and-of-itself isn't a massive issue, it's just basically a guaranteed "Die" for any "Didn't just restart" city."). And 2. The actual main issue: Other civilizations will expand on the Strategic World Map if you use this option, and it's extremely difficult and time consuming to conquer even a single tile from another civilization. So you're now forced into either a 10+ hour CBT session because you can't just restart with the same save file on a new map, or you have to give up and delete the save so you can start on a map that's not pigeon-holed into mentally partaking in a niche fetish, and lose all of your Ascension / Meta-Progress. I have significantly over 1,000 games in my Steam Library. I've been playing videogames for roughly 27 years now. And I can only think of 2 other times in gaming history I've ever seen such horrific game design. I can not recommend this game in the slightest while it has this feature in it.

It has many systems, but the decision making is very linear. The progress through technology tends to have little impact on what you can do and it's just the same systems as before, but with bigger numbers. Overall it's not particularly engaging.

If you've played for 20+ hours, it's always a thumbs-up. BUT!!! The late-game balance is broken. The game is horribly unbalanced in the later eras, which is why the developers robbed me of the thrill of completing the game. So I’d give it a thumbs-up, but only if you understand that you’ll only get to experience half the game. The second half is broken.

Well, that's a clicker. A clicker like the one you have probably already tried on your phone years ago. This one is much better than your usual phone crap though, but not enough to be a good PC game. Entertaining for a few hours, boring soon after: difficult to expect more from this kind of game. However, if paid a few bucks for it, then it may be worth for the few hours you will play it.

I love having 43 ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ crisises in a row while not being able to build things because another crisis gave me a famine and smoke stacks while everying has thorns and then penalized my respec points for not stoping them, actually insane that this was allowed.

The game has a good start, but balance falls apart mid to late into the game. It incentivizes meta grinding that doesn't have a varied or healthy play progression. There is no push your luck or tension to incentivize you to continue to participate in the gameplay loop nor are there rewarding progression unlocks. A lot of good concepts that just don't come together into a meaningful experience.

This game is fun and all but at higher level (125 in hard) there is just crysis that will one shot you before you can even click a button. The game need a bit of balance it's either really hard or really easy

Late game it completely changes and super unbalanced drought and economic depression will destroy you and if you fall behind on event they just start stacking and is the most frustrating waste of time...blowing your horn just to get ahead is your only option. The most frustrating experience i have ever had in a semi casual game. ALso do not use the idle forward function it will always lead to a loss. Remove those features and balance the disasters a lot but this is gonna be a hard pass for me. Prestige farming games are not compelling gameplay.

Started off decent for the first few hours but devolves into crisis after crisis giving you no time to cover.

After reading so many negative revievs i was afraid to buy it, but beside a little grind and sometimes a low performance, its a good game, already have like more than 30h and still climbing to next upgrades Playing on normal and didnt had any difficulty like people are talking or any CBT 10h sesions, or to have to start over on the same map, why, not sure what they are talking about Not sure what is the point of using that Iddle option to load saved game, that game dont feel like Iddle genre Dev could add better notifications on some thing like Starving or Debt because is barely noticeable and upgrade auto scouting spam and it sound effect