Pax Ruthenia

The game bears considerable resemblance to titles such as "Crisis in the Kremlin", though I'd say it still isn't as deep. With that said, it explores an extremely interesting and often overlooked period of political history - the 2014 events in Ukraine. The game takes place in the immediate prelude to the Euromaidan movement, as the player is placed at the head of Ukraine in the run-up to the signing of the EU association treaty, the rejection of which by former Ukranian President Viktor Yanukovich triggred the start of the movement. It's quite curious that the game goes out of it's way to avoid naming Ukraine directly - though once the main menu pops up the setting is already very clear - we're in Ukraine, and we're in 2014. As in Crisis in the Kremlin, the player gets to decide the fate of the country trough budgetary alterations, responses to events, legislative changes, a fairly in-depth parliamentary mechanic and HoI4-style national focus system. What the game lacks, though, is some time to get going. Almost immediately upon loading the game you're already knee-deep in euromaidan. I think the player ought to have been alotted more time to swing the country in either direction, before being put up before a huge national crisis. Furthermore, even with the easy mode on, political power points are generated far too slowly. I often felt more as a passive observer, than an active participant in the story. Events usually took up almost all of my political power and I rarely found opportunities to actually change anything in the country. Handling euromaidan is extremely difficult. Your popularity goes down day by day and with it - your political power. No political power means you can essentially not do anything, thus forcing you to witness your own downfall. I think that more difficulty levels need to be added. It is very difficult learning the game when you can get overthrown in less than 5 minutes. Political power generation especially has to be boosted. Moreover, I believe the game should start earlier and allow the player to tacke some early-game policy decisions before euromaidan kicks off. In fact, I think that euromaidan should be a mid-to-late game event that the player should be forced to address after initially stabilizing the country. In addition, tooltips would help a lot. Resource icons appear next to policy decisions, but they don't tell you much. If the political power icon appears next to a decision - does that mean that I will gain or lose political power? If a civil war breaks out, you are confronted with a pyramid of heads wearing balaclava masks. Clicking on one of them causes a sniper reticle to appear over it. What does that mean? Am I killing terrorists? If so, why am I still losing the battle in this region? What is the cost to do so? Is there any difference which one I choose? What happens if I don't pick a balaclava head at all? The game is currently very difficult and can be quite frustrating, as you can lose the game extremely fast. In the immediate term, I think that adding additional lower difficulty modes ought to help players learn how to play the game. Tooltips could help in clearing off confusion. Ideally, the game could have an earlier start date, so that players could get acquainted with the game mechanics before being forced to confront a major national crisis. I suggest that the developers focus on helping players ease in to the game in the short-term, both trough easing off the difficulty in the initial stages and by displaying information in a more clear to understand way. This is what I think is badly needed - less difficulty at game start and better display of information, because the rest of the game is really interesting. The parliamentary mechanic is developed a lot better than a lot of other competing titles. The setting is extremely interesting. The selection of policies and laws to enact is quite rich. The diverging national focus paths are intriguing and invite you to try and alter history. The balancing between east and west mechanic is great! I just wish there was a way to really get into it all without feeling like I need to do a PhD thesis first. The extreme difficulty curve (and general high difficulty level of the game itself), along with confusingly presented information is a recepie for frustration. It's definitely fun to play, but these issues out to be addressed. As for price-for-performance, I believe the devs did a good job at choosing the correct price for the amount of content on offer, which leads to me giving this game a thumbs up. I hope the devs keep working on this, as it has the potential to be a great game after some polish!