Tribe Nation

Tribe Nation is an excellent mix of a roguelike game in the style of FTL and a real-time war strategy game with a light touch of fantasy elements. As the player, in the role of a chieftain of a Celtic tribe, you lead your tribe and its army across Western Europe, fleeing from the relentless expansion of Roman legions under the command of Gaius Julius Caesar. The game's outcome hinges on winning the final battle, where wave after wave of Romans come at you. Most of the time in the game is spent leading real-time battles on a battlefield grid of 8x12 hexes. The key to success is winning battles with minimal losses. It's not hard to win a single battle, but winning the war is a challenge. Your army starts with three or four units, and by the end of the game, the maximum size is seven units. New recruits are extremely rare, so losing even one unit is a significant issue, and losing more can be a reason to restart. As you progress through the game, you upgrade your army through technologies (here called "wisdoms"). Some are crucial for success and ease the gameplay. Particularly, automatic healing of some soldiers in units and the ability to increase the army size up to the mentioned seven units. Battles become increasingly complex; for example, you eventually get the option to build war machines. An interesting tactical element is the bases (here called "camps"). Victory means not only defeating the enemy's field army but also capturing their base. Conversely, the destruction of your base means defeat in the entire game. One risky tactic is to let the enemy army reach your base, so your base defenders fight alongside your mobile units. The base itself upgrades through relevant wisdoms, turning into a solid fortress by the end of the game. Terrain plays a huge role as well: hills, rivers, marshes, or forests. The characteristics of units are strongly influenced by the terrain they fight on. Customization of units is also an interesting feature; you can equip units with various gear for close and ranged combat, armor, shields, or special spears for breaking enemy formations. Successfully completing the game is heavily influenced by the roll of the dice, i.e., whether you gain those key technologies (wisdoms) in time. However, the main factor is that you gradually improve as a player, leading battles with maximum efficiency: capturing key terrain, choosing the right formations, and using one-time bonuses (like a berserk token or various drinks that enhance speed or defense). One battle lasts a few minutes, while going through the game takes several hours. Therefore, Tribe Nation can be played either casually or as a multi-hour experience, and each playthrough will be different. For fans of single-player strategy games and roguelikes, I definitely recommend it.

Nice idea but needs a lot more polish. As is, it's just frustrating. - Lots of grief caused by jank and bad pathfinding. Units bump and stumble into eachother trying to reach their destination wasting time and potentially costing you a whole run. - Feedback from units is uncertain - giving a command might or might not yield any result. Sometimes it's because of jank or bugged ui/navigation, other times it's because that command is impossible in a context (i.e. formations on specific terrains), but the UI still lets you waste your time trying. - Melee units can attack from high ground. But there's multiple levels of high ground, and it's not at all clear which can be scaled and from where melee units can attack. So you just end up positioning your troops on high ground from which they can't attack, get flanked and then get murdered. End run. - BUGS. Some abilities like Heal only work sometimes, units sometimes disappear between planning phase and combat, horse archers sometimes go into close combat with fortifications when ordered to attack... - The difficulty is odd. Easy is what you'd expect (tho jank and bugs will easily destroy even the best of runs), but the difference between Easy and Normal is huge, and the leap is not the fun kind of difficulty. On higher difficulties you just don't get enough troops and resources to replenish your units and just die of attrition. - You get a lot of defensive options but never enough time to use any of them. The enemy just comes straight for you as soon as troops spawn, and the little time you have is used getting to defensible terrain. Giving commands while paused is, you guessed, janky and you don't always know if your orders will be executed. - You can't send a unit to occupy the hex another is leaving because the move button is the same button used for selecting units. If there's still a 10th of a friendly unit on that hex, you risk clicking it and wasting time again. - Chariots are supposed to be an essential late game tool by letting you mount/dismount to take advantage of formations. But again, you barely have any time for such operations, given you need to position yourself and see what the enemy actually does before committing to a dismount. And even when doing the dismount, the chariot occupies one hex and the unit moves to another, uncertain which. So chances are you're targeting a nice defensible spot to occupy, dismount the unit and they go in another hex, leaving a gap in your formation. - It's unclear if weapons or units have counters. Spear description says it's useful against cavalry. Is that the case only for spear infantry? Are spear cavalry similarly buffed against melee/archer infantry? Are sword infantry good against spears? Are other units buffed in some way by their equipment? If it's explained, then it's not very obvious. There's some fun to be had, but I recommend you wait it out a bit. Maybe some of these will get fixed or improved. Oh, and for Pete's sake, there was no Roman EMPIRE when Caesar conquered Gaul. It was still a Republic.

This game is well-executed but suffers from a lack of variety and an overly high price tag. Overall, the amount of content feels more like an Early Access title than a finished product. In its current state, it’s worth no more than 5-10 EUR. Pros: - A unique mix of new and old ideas. - Runs smoothly and delivers solid strategy gameplay, particularly on the battle map. Cons: - It becomes repetitive very quickly. - While the battle map features—like terrain, elevation, new skills and wisdoms, and the pillage system—help reduce some of the repetitiveness, the strategic map lacks variety. There should be much more freedom in how and where you progress. For example, choosing to traverse mountains should provide unique maps, modifiers, and challenges compared to a river valley. - Near zero immersion. The events you encounter are the most barebones I’ve ever seen in a game. Even the music doesn’t feel distinctly Celtic. - The difficulty relies too heavily on war attrition. Winning maps isn’t necessarily hard, but the challenge becomes minimizing your losses, which forces you into a specific playstyle. While the game technically allows different approaches, there’s only one truly optimal way to play. - There’s no meaningful progression system, which is surprising for a game with roguelite elements. Many games fail because of poorly balanced progression systems, but here, the high level of attrition makes some form of progression feel necessary. Instead of stat boosts, perhaps there could be more customization options at the start, similar to what roguelite card games offer. Still, I recommend you give it go. It's very unique and may just be what you are looking for.

Well, not even the easy difficulty is easy. But I'm pushing through! However, it's definitely easy to loose track of time while playing :-)).

Mecanically the game is interesting, thematically as well. Tactical game design elements for the battles are interesting, so is ressource management However I was greatly disappointed in the storyline, which I find incredibly underwhelming. I thought the game would be about resisting overwhelming odds by facing the roman invasion and finding ways to resist. Instead the game is about running away from the romans. In fact if you play the game as intended, you will only fight celts all the way through, except for the very last mission. If you choose to turn and fight the romans, defeating them in battle will do absolutely nothing. You will not recovered conquered territory if you succesfully attack Roman held lands, you will not even halt their advance, as the Romans will progress just as if they weren't defeated. I'm sorry but that's really disappointing. There's nothing fun about running away and fighting the people who could be your allies but keep finding reasons to fight you. Trailer has you believe you will play like Vercingetorix trying to face Cesar, game has you reenact the Tatar fleeing the Mongols. Why should I run instead of hitting supply lines and ambushing legions ? Why sail to Ireland, instead of repelling the first and second Roman invasion of Britain, or sealing Cesar's defeat by breaching the roman fortifications in Alesia ? "When a tribe becomes a nation" says the trailer. Does a tribe become a nation by being a minor group of refugees absorbed in an already existing culture, or does it become a nation by federating people and repelling invaders from it's lands ? (Edit to change the thumbs down to a thumbs up, cause it felt too harsh, the game is still well done mechanically, and it wouldn't be nice to the people that worked hard on it to impact the reviews so negatively. I wish there was a neutral option. I wouldn't recommand it but it is still something that required a lot of work and that is definitely worthy of respect.)

Zkusil jsem si zahrát Tribe Nation jen na krátkou dobu, ale hra mě už teď naprosto vtáhla do svého světa. Tato roguelike strategie, odehrávající se v období galských válek, nabízí neustále se měnící zážitky díky náhodně generovaným hexovým bojištím a unikátním situacím na jednotlivých zastaveních. Ať už jde o strategické boje, obchodování nebo prožívání textových dobrodružství, každý průchod je trochu jiný, což přináší neustálou výzvu a nutí vás přemýšlet o každém svém rozhodnutí. Jedním z největších přínosů hry je její pohlcující atmosféra – stačí se postavit do role náčelníka keltského kmene a okamžitě se ocitnete uprostřed dění, kdy je třeba čelit jak nepředvídatelným okolnostem, tak nemilosrdnému protivníkovi. Obtížnost hry je na takové úrovni, že vás nutí přistupovat k řízení omezených zdrojů naprosto strategicky, a i když jsem udělal pár chybných kroků na začátku, už po několika hodinách jsem si začal plně uvědomovat, jak jednotlivé herní mechanismy fungují. Určitě jsem si všiml, že některé vlastnosti nejsou dostatečně vysvětlené – jak ve hře, tak například ani v tutoriálu není jasně popisováno, jak některé propriety fungují. Přesto je právě objevování těchto skrytých tajemství součástí radosti a přidanou hodnotou zážitku. Každý krok a nečekané rozhodnutí vás posouvají vpřed a motivují vás k dalšímu hraní. Doporučuji Tribe Nation všem, kteří mají rádi strategické výzvy a jsou hráči "ze staré školy". Ať už jste zvyklí na vysokou obtížnost a strategické plánování, nebo jen hledáte něco, co vás vtáhne do dění a neustále překvapí, tato hra rozhodně stojí za vyzkoušení. Už se těším, jaké další taktické záhady a dobrodružství mě v této dynamické strategii čekají!

[h1]La guerre des Gaules a commencé![/h1] Et de toutes les tribus celtes qui habitent ces terres, ce sera la vôtre qui s'imposera, par la diplomatie ou par le fer, il en sera ainsi! Mais un mal bien plus grand sévit derrière cette chaîne montagneuse que vous avez nommé les Alpes, en la personne de l'Imperator Iulius Caesar, Empereur des Romains, dont l'ambition, la maitrise du champs de bataille et les faits d'arme ne sont plus à prouver. Et voilà qu'il lorgne sur vos terres. Certes vous êtes d'irréductibles Gaulois, de fiers guerriers celtiques qui ne se sont jamais laissé envahir, mais là c'est différent, vous êtes face à un empire au sommet de sa puissance, et lorsqu'on est fort on s'étend. Alors armez vos hommes, préparez vos druides et que vos nobles prennent la tête des armées et s'attendent à de lourds combats! [u]Le Jeu[/u] Ce jeu de stratégie est difficile et très tactique, sachez le. Vous échouerez souvent, et vos armées sont à protéger et à ne surtout pas gaspiller car le recrutement de troupes fraiches sera ardu. On pourrait dire qu'il y a 3 phases dans ce jeu: 1/ Des combats assez tactiques sur de petites cartes faites de cases dont certaines sont plus hautes que d'autres, avec ça et là des gués à traverser, une case sacrée que votre armée contenant votre druide pourra approcher pour construire un totem et ainsi gagner certains bonus (régulièrement durant les batailles des events se déclarent, ils alterneront et pourront être en votre faveur ou en celle de l'ennemi; si vous contrôlez le site sacré, alors les events seront toujours en votre faveur, sauf si votre druide meurt ou le site est détruit par l'ennemi); à gauche de la map il y a votre Forteresse (à protéger coûte que coûte), et à droite celle de l'ennemi qu'il faudra détruire pour remporter la bataille. Vos unités se masseront à côté de votre forteresse, idem pour l'ennemi. Ces unités sont définies au départ et pourront être améliorées et réorganisées lors de la seconde phase, après les combats, j'y viendrai. Faites le tuto qui vous expliquera bien les combats, les formations, les différents unités et armes, le débordement de l'ennemi, etc Ah, information de taille, si vous perdez toutes vos unités ou votre forteresse, la partie se termine immédiatement; vous pouvez fuir un combat à tout moment, vous gagnerez alors moins de pillage. 2/ Une fois le combat gagné vous devrez choisir quel type de pillage (faible, moins de ressource mais bonus pour quelques futurs combats, moyen pillage, pas mal de ressources et rien d'autre, ou gros pillage, plein de ressources et d'armes/capacités mais malus pour quelques futurs combats. Ensuite vous basculez sur vos armée et vos nobles et pouvez les réorganiser, recruter des unités fraîches si vous avez assez d'hommes, créer des unités montées si vous avez assez de chevaux, créer armes et armures si vous avez assez de fer... C'est également ici que vous pouvez organiser vos sagesses (chaque noble a ses propres sagesses, c'est à dire ses capacités). 3/ La dernière phase sur la carte de la Gaule, où vous déplacez votre armée et choisissez quelles batailles mener ou quel marchand visiter. Si le jeu peut paraitre facile au début, à la moindre rencontre avec Rome et ce sera de lourdes armées contre qui vous ferez face, par ailleurs une fois la première contrée terminée tout deviendra plus difficile, d'autant que si vous manœuvrez mal lors de vos batailles et perdez trop d'hommes, vous aurez bien du mal à récupérez une troupe à 100% car vous manquerez forcément de troupes fraîches, vous forçant à combattre ultérieurement avec des armées en sous nombre et donc plus faible. De plus, si vous choisissez tout le temps le gros pillage, alors vous combattrez en plus avec un malus, ajoutez à cela le sous-nombre et alors vous aurez vraiment du mal à vous en sortir. Enfin attention, l'IA est plutôt bonne, et méfiez vous car sans palissades votre forteresse tombera vite et ce sera le Game Over si vous n'arrivez pas à la défendre à temps. Le jeu est vraiment sympa et intéressant, il est proposé à moins de 10€ et est de bonne facture, par contre il est en Anglais (mais cela ne posera vraiment aucun soucis car peu de textes), et si vous aimez la stratégie alors foncez!

It feels arbitrarily punishing. There are dead ends in the game that result in you having to restart it. I don't mind a hard game but pointlessly and 'randomly' hard just isn't that interesting. A good game that has that sort of 'random' challenge to it needs to have outlets where you can fight heroically, get lucky, limp away. This game is simply a house of cards and random wind. Once the structure is hit by a gust your run is over.

Nice.

I was playing the game since the first demo became available, where I got kicked by Romans pretty bad. The full release is polished, it works flawlessly on my Steam Deck, and I know I need to level up before the Romans come. Quick loading time is refreshing compared to larger titles.