Diplomacy is Not an Option
In the RTS-game “Diplomacy is Not an Option” you will become a medieval feudal lord in a midlife crisis. Due to your position you must constantly make hundreds of decisions a day related with city management and economic development. You are tired of this monotonous and, so it seems, meaningless existence. But things are about to change: hordes of bloodlusted enemies, swarms of scary monsters and crowds of rebellious peasants at any second can bring some life to your working schedule.
War-time laws
The country is going through difficult times. King’s greed and wastefulness led to the economic crisis and widespread peasant riots. You are a feudal lord. It happened so that, being fed up of routine and everyday problems, you’ve lost a taste for life. When an angry mob besieges your castle you perceive this news with an extraordinary enthusiasm, personally lead the defense and win a glorious victory.
Your role in the riots suppression is noticed at the court. The crown sends you on a responsible mission. Rumors are, there are deposits of gold and other precious materials on a poorly explored continent. The task is to take control under foreign land, obtain its treasures in order to replenish the king’s coffer. Though they forgot to warn that the natives won’t be glad to see you. In addition, there are monsters on the continent, and local mages are actively practicing necromancy.
What sacrifices will you make for the sake of survival and victory? Or maybe you should stop this suicidal campaign and overthrow the king? Don’t you deserve to rule the world?
Physical laws
The laws of physics are thoroughly reproduced in Diplomacy is Not an Option to maximize player immersion in a medieval war action. Tens of thousands of units can fight on the screen at the same time.
Here are several helpful tips:
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Every gun has its certain range, and medieval shells fly by an arc trajectory.
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Arrows do not pierce stone walls. On contrary, arrows bounce off the walls.
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Archers on the towers have blind spots. Closed gates can become an obstacle not only for the enemy, but also for your retreating units.
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You may discover other interesting facts about the nature of things that may become useful for combat operations.
Social laws
Surviving hostile environments is an important part of the gameplay. Even the most loyal of your citizens tend to die from time to time. From various causes, such as illness, old age, depression, or being seriously hurt on the battlefield. When this happens, it is strongly recommended to bury the dead in order to avoid epidemics and the moral decay of society.
Economical laws
Economic processes in “Diplomacy is Not an Option” are visible. You will see how walls are being built stone by stone. Or how a fallen tree is cut into boards, from which the city will then be raised. The feudal lord does not need to take part in the affairs of his subjects. However, such visibility will help you to manage human resources with more efficiency. As a ruler, you will lead people, give them specialization and, so to say, the meaning of life. Every member of the society is important, from a lumberjack or a carpenter to an undertaker or a swordsman. Once set up, with a proper support the economic process will become a key to survival and also will let you to focus on mission objectives.
Magical laws
What do we say to the gods of death, whether they are on an uncharted continent or in our own reach? “Bury the bodies immediately!” – we answer to these gods. Otherwise every fallen warrior and every lumberjack died from overstrain has risk to join the enemy forces. Also the dead are a very wayward. If you demolish a cemetery and disturb their sleep, they shall rise and begin to wreak havoc, reducing the population of the living.
Life laws
We sought to create a game without unnatural limitations. From the very first task, you will be given the entire available arsenal, and all the in-game mechanics will be unlocked. It depends on you which strategy to choose for your city to survive and prosper. Knowledge of the all listed laws will help you to complete different missions with various ultimate goals and types of enemies. During your campaign you will face moral dilemmas. You will see human stupidity and shortsightedness, leading to fatal consequences. Just like in real life. The only difference is that conflicts cannot be avoided.
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Rise to Ruins
Well I’ve just about hit 450 hours, and so far I have to say I’m enjoying this. Overall its a decent little balance of Tower Defense, City Builder, and Survival Sim. Don’t be fooled by the basic bitpixel appearance, This is a relatively intuitive game with a lot of sprites, particle effects , and pathfinding(literally). The Dev has been pretty active on the forums and in discussion and seems genuinely invested in the success of his game, and in this day and age that alone speaks volumes.
SUMMARY
– Real player with 448.5 hrs in game
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Rise to Ruins first experience:
Day 1: Wow there’s a lot of stuff I can build!
Day 2: There’s a lot of stuff I need to build!
Day 3: There’s a lot of stuff I wish I had built!
… Day 1 (Again): Okay.. There’s a lot of stuff I need to build!
This review is split into 2 segments, the pros and cons here at the top, followed by a summation. This is an EARLY ACCESS review, please consider that going forward. especially in regard to content depth/width.
Pros -
*** Good aesthetic-**
– Real player with 391.1 hrs in game
Alpha Lyrae Discovery
bought the game at a discount of 90%, not a bad game, there is not enough multiplayer, but one is not bad either. it is clear that the developer has not abandoned this brainchild and continues to release updates.
– Real player with 1541.1 hrs in game
Read More: Best City Builder Colony Sim Games.
My 5yo absolutely loves this game. It’s just simple enough to where he’s learned the WASD and mouse movements enough to play it by himself. Really appreciate developers who put stuff out that little ones can play.
– Real player with 10.0 hrs in game
Spider-Robots War
Not a bad game, you can create many robots, 5 levels, decent graphics
– Real player with 1.9 hrs in game
Unfortunately even for the price of £2 its still pretty terrible, i went into the game thinking wish it had more than 5 missions, was quickly replaced by not been able to wait til i finished it, literally, left during the 4th mission, i could be so much better but was blatantly abandonded early on during alpha
– Real player with 0.8 hrs in game
Defend the Rook
Great game, highly recommend trying it out. It might seem a little easy at first for this type of game where often you are meant to die a bunch and slowly become stronger with upgrades. You have 1-10 ascension levels, but the first 4 are super easy and then 7+ becomes pretty tough. I’m not super excited about how it scales at 7+ because it feels like artificial difficulty, everything starts to cost twice as much so you can’t upgrade everything. I would prefer the enemies becoming more challenging rather than having less upgrades.
– Real player with 68.9 hrs in game
Neat roguelite strategy game. Beat it on the highest difficulty, enjoyed figuring it out. I had fun with it and recommend it, but I’ll list stuff that bothered me:
-Your core loadout before any towers/traps are your castle and three heroes (warrior/rogue/mage) by default. You unlock variants of these classes as you play. It quickly became apparent to me that the easiest way to win was “buff the ranged characters” and turtle in the corner with defensive buffs. It’d be nice if the upgrades supported different goals. I believe I had one playthrough where my warrior carried me, and it’s because he had full map range, so he was basically a third ranged character.
– Real player with 28.2 hrs in game
Empires in Ruins
Edit: The developer is super chill, and is looking to patch out the bugs soon. This is still a hard game with hit-or-miss writing and an imperfect UI, but serious props to anyone who can indie dev something this complex. Check it out if there isn’t something in the review that’s a dealbreaker for you.
This is a very “yes, but…” recommendation.
Empires In Ruins is a thing I should like. It’s a tower defense with a 4x strategy layer, and where you can econ yourself into an easier TD situation, or TD yourself out of a bad economy.
– Real player with 27.9 hrs in game
**This is a short excerpt of my longer analysis and review (available in English and German). I would recommend reading the full text or watching the YouTube Video (German Voiceover, many subtitles)
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Empires in Ruins Test / Review
Empires in Ruins Review – Conclusion and opinion**
For an indie game of a small team just entering early access, the game is already surprisingly polished. The campaign includes a very entertaining story and for strategy fans an appealing game depth.
– Real player with 13.4 hrs in game
Exodus Borealis
I feel like it is important to point that this game this is made by solo dev, who has been great at interacting with everyone in discord and is willing to listen. Now those of us that have dipped into the early access games will know that this is something to cherish lol.
Also the Gameplay well let me go into more detail about that, but it is important to remember that it is early access so may change after i write this review but what i have found so far is:
Tower defence - The towers have this kinda Age of Empires feel to them this brings back that old nostalgia i love that! There also is an Arachnophobia mode this is something i recommend you play i wont tell you why, just trust me it is worth it! The enemy ramp up nicely giving a good amount of failure and felt to me like fun Gameplay
– Real player with 84.1 hrs in game
This game is excellent for civ building and tower defense gamers. I am a seasoned (72 years old) player of both. The combo of both makes the game intriguing and challenging. It has depth without drudgery. Folks who do not play either of these genres may like this one just for that reason. To me there is a third aspect included - research. Which path should you choose first. There is no formula - one choice may be the best this go round but not in the same sequence the next time. And there will be a next time as you progress from map to map. Deciding how to allocate workers is another juggling complexity. The Dev’s UI design is a thing of beauty. Easy to use, informative info tips and an effective warning/informing system. Whatever your gaming proclivity I encourage you to give this one a try. It is just that unique.
– Real player with 63.1 hrs in game
Stronghold HD
Welcome My Lord!
When we think about the Middle Ages, then most often it seems to us that this is the time of romance of knightly tournaments, beautiful ladies of our hearts and a cheerful life with a mug of ale!
But in fact, these are harsh times, when people were sick more often than they ate and died before they reached a better future!
But it is in this game that you can become a Lord and feel all the power and strength of your hand. With this power, you can create a better future for your citizens here and now!
– Real player with 1534.8 hrs in game
Stronghold 1 is love, Stronghold 1 is life.
I love this game, from the age of ten all the way to now, I have loved every single second of it.
The campaign is challenging and fun whilst keeping you thinking of new ways to take over that pesky Pigs' castle (Still haven’t been able to get past that mission). I’ve played a few multiplayer games and it is quite polished. There is no lag, and if there is, it is either connection lag (99% of the time) or your computer is a potato (1% of the time).
To this day, I say to myself, “These graphics are perfect for this game”. I have absolutely no problem with these 2001 graphics, plus the HD remake makes it even better by adding bigger resolutions.
– Real player with 108.5 hrs in game
Unholy Heights
An apartment management tower-defense game about your resident monsters against humans.
While the idea of being a landlord is enticing the tower-defense part can get incredibly tedious & repetitious since there’s not a whole lot of strategy to use here from beginning to end.
The idea of the tower-defense is just to stop humans from stealing your money and if they get away with it you only lose your highly expendable tenant should they have died defending the money taken so there’s no real fail state. You try and stop the humans by knocking on the room doors of the monsters of your choosing and IF they’re home (which most usually are) they’ll do their tower-defense thing and help kill the intruders.
– Real player with 59.0 hrs in game
Let me tell you about Popan.
Popan was the first baby ever born in my apartments. She was a Cheepy so I didn’t have high expectations. Popan was probably 3 days old when her parents died in an unfortunate ambush on my complex. I had a ton of other tenants, so I didn’t see the harm in waiting for her to grow up. Somehow, she never became in debt. This fucking baby was paying the rent. She grew up to be a total badass. She would single-handedly wipe out entire waves of enemies without breaking a sweat.
– Real player with 34.2 hrs in game
Anticorps VR
Complete strategy game, mix between management and city-builder with a dose of tower defense but, here no pre-defined box, or unique courses, it is very clear in VR and without alliasing. We are on the best VR strategy game far superior to my other strat games on VR.
We are very free in the approach of the game (be it the movements or the strategy), good replayability levels are procedurally generated at each game. I am 6 hours of play and I beat half of the game, there’s a challenge. The game requires a little grip because of these many possibilities and its depth. Party purposes are epics
– Real player with 9.5 hrs in game
I wish it was easier. I never understood how to play the game. I kept running out of water but when I put down the water tower it didn’t work. The tutorial is completely broken. I remember having to look up a Youtube video of you playing the game to understand more. I would love a easy mode or a mode where there’s only one supplies your trying to maintain. I enjoyed it. I just wish it was more well explained.
– Real player with 2.0 hrs in game