Timeline

Thought I would just give it a quick try and refund if I didn't like it. Well over 2 hours later I'm still playing. Lots of tech, units and buildings. Its Civ without all the stuff I hate. No congress no loyalty etc. A fun game that will scratch that just one more turn itch. Very enjoyable that's affordable. If you are a 4xer you will like this game.

In the current state I'd rather have the option to have a 'middle' choice between positive/negative, but there we are. So, negative. Game has potential, but it's lacking in so many areas it quickly bedomes a chore to play. Basic GUI options are missing; * No minimap. * No zoom with mousewheel. * The zoom that is achieved with keyboard is not enough. * There is not a simple option to show 'all mines' or 'all fishing villages' or even to sorrt all buildings alphabetically, so by midgame you're squinting at the list to see if you missed upgrading a building. * Unit sprites are big, so big that you cannot see what is built underneath. Or if you have 4 units in the same area, there is no hany overview of what exactly is there. Same with resources you discover later: it's hard to see if there suddenly is uranium underneath the bank you built earlier. Then there are other gripes * The map/worldbuilding has issues. Quite often I find myself starting 1-3 moves away from another player. On the largest maps... no fun. * Resources are not divided evenly. If your starting continent has no copper of iron, you are screwed. * Some resources are needed to operate units. Say, oil. Now, this by itself is fine, but in almost every game I played I cvan barely find 5-7 oilwells on the entire map - meaning I can barely manage 2-3 ships and 2-3 tanks - and then forget about planes. Finally: the AI is really atrocious, and I can see why. The dependencies are convoluted and hard to keep track of what needs to be built next. With 25 plus resources that need be managed, the AI quickly screws itself beyond repair as it seems only to recognize what it needs, then builds that building but it never appears to take the operating costs of the building into account and that becomes a downward spiral anytime soon. So in all, there is a game hidden somewehere i here, but at current it's just not fun to play.

Classic no nonsense, 4x game.

Game is working as expected, no crashes so far. Its similar to old CIV, but it is not a clone. It has it own mechanism with elaborate economy. You need to plan ahead, so your civ wont run out of food, wood, etc, which has negative effect on your army. Combat is better then in CIV games. It take much longer (like 10 turns) before you kill enemy unit 1 on 1. Therefore you can flee from combat and save damaged unit, and replace it with fresh one to stop the enemy. On the other side, graphic is dated and music isnt very good either. You will want to switch it off and replace it with your favourite playlist:) Another problem which shoud be adressed, is that when enemy plays, game wont focus on combat. Later in the game when you empire grow big, its hard to tell where the enemy hit your units. Because all fights happens at once and without screen focus. Bright side of this feature is that enemy turn take only a seccond. Conclusion: If you like turn based 4x games, where your decision matters, and game isnt flowing on its own like CIV VI, buy this one. That is if you can carry yourself over dated graphic :)

I rarely ever write reviews, but decided to leave one for this game, considering this looks like a small project that could use a bit of a boost. I was extremely sceptical looking at this game on the store page, but it turns out this is a pretty fun, if simple, 4x strategy game. I'm 5 hours in and I will definitely play a lot more. Perfect when you don't have a lot of time or energy to jump into a more "involved" game. Hopefully the developer sticks with this project, gives us some good updates and builds up enough reputation and good will to bring and succeed with something even better in the future. Good job and carry on.

A difficult game to review. Ok. So the idea here is to get rid of all the add ons that Civilization has done over the past twenty years, which have taken away from the core gameplay. Timeline achieves that. Unfortunately it also strips away many of the basic QoL add ons that Civilization also put in over 20 years. In this case, the loss of the latter takes away from the success of the former. How much depends on how hardcore a 4x Gamer you are. In my case, I lost interest before the end of my first game because I was trying to fight the GUI more than I was trying to fight the other civilizations. Much of this is caused by the map. Although it has a nice lo-fi aesthetic, things become confused very quickly. There is no world map or way to layer things visually. There is no way to set a unit to automap and it is actually quite difficult to make anything happen because the vast majority of 4x games you naturally default to using the mouse to move the map. But in Timeline clicking on the map selects the region, so doing anything takes twice as long. Click on a unit, go somewhere on the map, realise you've lost focus on the unit - repeat more than once until you actually get the action you want. That problem alone meant I ended up taking at least three times as long to achieve anything in game. All it would take to solve is to change map selection to right click rather than left click. Additionally map 'map navigation' to arrow keys as well as WASD (I only discovered WASD as I was writing the review) This isn't available in redefining keys. Additionally, I found one bug. Pressing 'Next Unit' will only cycle land units, not naval units. In terms of the actual game, my only concern is that all factions appear to play the same. Therefore the only value in replay is in changing the map. But the way the map works means that the only real variety is continents vs islands. That said, the developer has clearly put a lot of thought into how to distil Civilization down to the basics and has succeeded in that. The mechanics of the game are successful and enjoyable when they work. So overall, this is a difficult decision. If the game was a racehorse, it would be making good headway but falling at the final hurdle. I'm gonna go with a cautious recommend. Even in its current state, there's nothing wrong with the mechanics, it's stable, cheap and it will appeal to some people. The game's mechanics are successful, its failures in QoL features around the UI are not game breaking, but the style of 'Reimagined basic civ' means you're already only appealing to a small audience, and the UI problems restrict the audience to hardcore 4Xers. It's the Dev's first game (on steam at least) and is the work of one person. If the Dev were to improve the UI, then the game would be much more appealing to a wider audience. I hope the Dev takes that up because they clearly have a a good idea and potentially a fun game if the frustrations are dealt with. They have put in a lot of effort and work and most importantly a lot of thought regarding mechanics and balancing. It would be a shame to let that go to waste for the sake of some easily solvable problems.

I do enjoy this game, once I got used to the system. You really haveto evaluate the tech tree otherwise you'll build things that you cannot support. On that note, there needs to be a few improvements or additions. A world map would be nice. Currently cannot scroll out to see the entire world. An additional line or three for more advanced resources (copper, iron, steel, coal etc). Highly reccomend the historical map to start with. On the random maps you have no idea where other nations will be coming at you from. I plan to continue to enjoy this puppy.

How to build a city or something? I need a tutorial......

Really fun 4x game, easy to pick up, kinda plays like civ.

i love this game, i really do its a super simple version of civ, with some of its own unique gameplay mechanics it does have a few quirks and bugs that need fixing (such as the camera not working properly with scroll) but overall i STRONGLY recommend this game for anyone who enjoys civ and might want a simplified version