IF THE DEVELOPER REWORKS THE GLOBAL CAMPAIGN, I'LL CHANGE MY REVIEW.
The idea behind this game is genuinely interesting, and I had a great time playing through the tactical campaign. But the main focus of the game was clearly supposed to be the global campaign. Unfortunately, it's ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥.
Almost every major patch reworks the technology tree, and yes, new content gets added. I read the patch notes, I see dozens of bug fixes, and that's great... but it never actually changes anything that matters. The global campaign is fundamentally broken.
Here is my list of the problems:
Metals - I understand that using four different metals to manufacture vehicles is realistic. But with the ore deposits being randomly generated, I don't even know which city has the metal I need, and when nobody is selling the metals I need on the market... what exactly am I supposed to do?
If you want to produce armored vehicles, you either:
* buy every piece of metal from the market from day one (which probably requires banks, but you don't even have enough building slots),
* be able to produce only a couple of tanks that get blown up by RPGs,
* or aggressively conquer cities and slowly develop your mental issues trying to deal with the game's economy.
Economy - Nobody wants to deal with this ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ logistics. Just give us a global storage system. I don't want to spend my time searching for the rifle ammo in my towns. The global campaign should be about building an army and fighting battles, not spending most of your playtime doing logistics and construction.
AI on the Global Campaign Map - First of all, I hate when every city under the AI control has battalions with 30 squads. Second, don't be surprised when every country on the map declares war on you one after another after only two in-game years. Either play on some isolated island nation or prepare to suffer. Establishing alliances and improving relations is useless.
Buildings - Please, add one more building slot, at least in non-rural towns. Why do I have to live in a permanent state of deficit simply because I don't have slots? Also, the countries should be able to develop their construction speed or capabilities. I don't understand why a country with dozens of cities can only build or upgrade one building at a time.
Battle AI - The vehicle AI is incredibly stupid. Your vehicles need absolutely perfect terrain to function. They are useless in hills. Infantry seems to become competent after gaining combat experience (The enemy doesn't seem to have the same lack of combat experience, though) - and even then, they're still vulnerable to rebels.
DLC - The Western and Eastern Airborne Forces DLCs are basically legal cheats. They give you access to IFVs and artillery technologies years before everyone else. These technologies should have minimum research years just like every other comparable vehicle.
Manpower - Remember those AI battalions with 30 squads in every city? Yeah... you are not able to do that. You have to keep an eye on every single soldier - even though they are complete idiots. It becomes incredibly frustrating, especially during the early years. I want to enjoy the battles, not become mad over every casualty. I'd just add a setting where you can toggle the reserve requirement when creating a new campaign, so you can enjoy this game a little bit more. And you should remember that soldiers also need food, which puts even more pressure on an already broken economy.
Campaign Start - The economy and political system feel especially hard during the early years. You're basically building your country from zero, and it's slow and painful. At least the game gives you a decent starting army, which works well in defence. But you still need to wait for years before you can build a proper assault battalion. You'll constantly be short on military factories (unless you let your people starve), metals, manpower (especially during wars), and research.
Politics - This system feels underdeveloped. The developers should expand it by making ideologies more distinct or adding other political mechanics.
To sum up my feelings about the global campaign: It's slow, painful, and feels like every country makes 30 squad battalions just to throw all of them on you. Even with the dumb battle AI and how punishing every single casualty is, I still really enjoy the tactical battles. The global campaign is what makes me quit every single time. Instead of fixing and polishing the game, the developers moved on to making The Last Haven, which, judging by the reviews, ended up being even worse.
I can't really recommend buying this game at full price. But, if the battles you saw in the trailers are what got you interested, it could be worth grabbing on sale.
