Realpolitiks
I have owned Realpolitks for a week now, so far I love it. It is a very good Grand Strategy Game, many people don’t like it and I see why, however here are the pros and cons in my opinion.
PROS
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You can play as every country in the world, minus a few very small countries (e.g Figi).
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You can start in the years 2020, 2050 and 2222, which all have different countries and starting points.
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Very good starter game for anyone wishing to get into the Grand Strategy Genre, not to many aspects to learn, quite minimal.
– Real player with 215.7 hrs in game
Read More: Best Historical Political Sim Games.
Realpolitiks Review
Nostalgia Goggles Factor: None
Crash Factor: Crashless
Bug Factor: High
A Polish-made Grand Strategy game set in our Information age. Starting in 2020.
The Good
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3 starting dates; 2020, being similar to our world today, 2050, a post-apocalyptic setting and 2222, where nearly every province is it’s own country.
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Play as any country.
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Every start date has it’s own time limit, 2020 ends in 2100, for example. When the end date is reached, the country with the highest score will be the winner. However, it can be much more fun to simply ignore the score game and just play it like a sandbox, setting your own goals. You can play past the end date.
– Real player with 152.9 hrs in game
Imperium BCE
Be a leader of one of the greatest civilizations in the world. Bring glory to Rome, in our upcoming title, Imperium BCE.
Would you expand Rome’s borders through war? Or would you use spies to sabotage other kingdoms, divide tribes? In Imperium BCE, you can use many different strategies, to bring about the inevitable Roman dominion.
Surrounded by so many different kingdoms, cultures and leaders, you will need to maintain balance and spread your influence slowly, so as not to alarm your neighbors. Your spies will have to work in secret, act on your orders, to strengthen your culture and religion, making your enemies weaker. Your diplomats might work on improving relations with other kingdoms or might provide you with valid justification for war.
Events
Being in control of a sprawling empire comes at a cost. Unexpected things happen. Events take place which are outside of the control of even the most powerful people. In Imperium BCE, there are events that can hold you back or propel you forward.
An unforeseen rain might ruin the crops. This can lead to food shortages, citizen dissatisfaction, anger with the Gods for letting it happen, or maybe anger with you, for not doing enough for your people. Will you find a way to appease them?
Will you follow the advice of your priests, and have rituals conducted, to celebrate your Gods, at a great cost of the coin, in order to make your citizens happy?
Your choices could have dire consequences. Thread carefully.
Spies
Weaken your enemies. Soften the battlefield. Some of your greatest assets in Imperium BCE will be your spies.
Well trained to operate in secret, your spies will sabotage, assassinate, and do whatever it takes to make Roman take-over easier. Give your spies time and resources, and they will steal essential supplies, spread your culture far and wide, and even disperse diseases, which can devastate entire populations.
Just hope that they never get caught…
War
Train some of the mighties warriors that ever walked the Earth.
Bring your enemies to their knees with advanced battle strategies, reward your soldiers with land, besiege cities, and expand your territory. Attack when your enemies are vulnerable, be able to defend your citizens against anyone who dares to make a move against you. Fight sea battles and maintain control of the sea.
When the dust settles, Rome should have prevailed!
Diplomacy
Win hearts and minds, improve relations, give gifts. Hide your true intentions.
Your diplomats will repair the damage in reputation, caused by your conquests. A good diplomat will make an agitated king feel at ease as if the Roman invasion is not just around the corner. When the time is right, they will provoke and insult, leading kings and their people, into your well-prepared trap.
Wars can be prevented or set in motion by a crafty diplomat. Use them well.
Building
Provide your architects with the resources needed to build the unimaginable!
Develop your cities, turn villages into towns, have your citizens witness Rome growing beyond their wildest imagining. Build structures that will stand the test of time. Different buildings will provide you with different benefits but will take time to construct. Plan your expansion carefully.
Your enemies will be envious of your achievements!
Discoveries
Encourage bright minds to work on inventions, for the benefit of all.
With more than 50 technological discoveries available to research, or even steal from other kingdoms, gain the upper hand and crush your enemies. As some discoveries can take years to be put into use, you will have to choose carefully which discovery to pour limited resources into.
Have patience. Good things take time.
Laws
Legislation was of great importance to the Roman public.
Choose between different governing political systems, and enact laws that will help shape your society. Organize your people, bring about needed changes, make improvements for your citizens, and reap the benefits of well-structured communities with clear rules and responsibilities.
Watch Rome prosper before your eyes!
Read More: Best Historical RTS Games.
Europa Universalis IV
I’m a divorced woman of color. Recently, my ex got our son Larry a video game called Europa Universalis for his 14th birthday. It seemed good for him, because it takes place in the distant past and he’s always been interested in history, so it seemed like a nice enough game, no graphic violence or anything, at least until I sat down and watched him play at it. I don’t know what sorts of racists made this game, but it’s basically a colonialism and genocide justification simulator. If you want to survive, you need to have access to money and soldiers, and the most (only) reliable way to ensure you have enough is to attack and conquer your weaker neighbors. If you don’t, you can be sure someone else will eventually come attack and conquer you.
– Real player with 4558.6 hrs in game
Read More: Best Historical Grand Strategy Games.
So EU4 was a good game. Then they released the 450+ ‘bug fixes’. The entire game outside Europe has now been put back behind a new paywall unless you have the paradise DLC as it is now impossible to develop your provinces to spawn institutions as army tradition gives you impossibly high dev costs. I played one game and when I needed to dev an institution from a 1/1/1 grasslands province and starting cost is 120. That is only with 33 army tradition giving a 150% penalty. This was a custom nation and I had -20% dev cost. Good job paradox forcing everyone to buy your shittiest dlc in order to use any of the other DLC’s you have paid for. The game is now broken outside of Europe without the paradise dlc. You make me sick Paradox!
– Real player with 1819.5 hrs in game
Conquest of the New World
This is an old game I firt bought around 20 years ago. I enjoyed it a lot then and still enjoy it. The controls are very basic and the graphics are poor by today’s standards but it is still fun to play and does take strategy to conquer the new world. For $10 I’m very happy with my purchase, I’m only irritated that I had to purchase the game a second time because my current machines don’t support the old software.
– Real player with 1783.2 hrs in game
This game is an old favorite of mine from many years ago. Although its graphics are now very dated, and it is a turn-based game in an era when most people seem to prefer real time (at least, the people who sell games seem to think so!), I have always found it to be a very well conceived, highly playable, and unusually entertaining game. It might very well have become one of my all-time favorite games if not for one fatal flaw: It contains a number of bugs which, in extended play, render it literally unplayable! The most annoying of these is that, in battles between large armies, the game hangs in the middle of the battle, and is unrecoverable. The only solution to this I have ever been able to find is to save your game before the start of each turn so that you have a fall-back position if you hang. Note that you must save under a new name, exit your game, and restart under the original name each time you do this (in other words, there is no “Quick Save” option as in so many other games). This makes it such a nuisance that you are not likely to do it. But even if you do, what’s the point? In order to not hang, you must choose not to have the battle. But without large battles, this game holds little interest for me. So when I saw that Steam was offering Conquest on their platform, I was excited to think that they might be offering a playable version, and I immediately bought a copy (at full price). Unfortunately, once I got well into the game (about Turn 120), the same old problem occurred. When playing on my own computer I was sometimes able to resolve the hangup by force-closing the hung game and rebooting the computer. Obviously rebooting the Steam server which supports this game is not an option. So here I am, having invested about a week in playing Conquest (actually 24.1 hours of play time according to Steam), and my game can neither be continued nor reverted to an earlier position – not that going back would necessarily help, anyway. I’m sure you can imagine my frustration level, and my disappointment that Steam did nothing to fix this potentially classic game before offering it for sale.
– Real player with 838.7 hrs in game
Total War: SHOGUN 2
OK I’m older than the average gamer and have a history of traditional wargaming - map based and figure based games/campaigns. I find all the Total War immersive and an excellent up to date computer based version of traditional wargaming. Shogun 2 is a particular favourite as it was the first one I really started to customise with user based extensions and later my own. Today, I’m downloading it again to play it for the first time in about 3 years and can hardy wait. Programming wise, apart from a few moody extensions the game is very reliable and lock-up and crash free. It also gets a big plus for not stealing all my memory and CPU run time allowing me to multi-task with high end productivity and graphics software.
– Real player with 5367.3 hrs in game
The best Total War CA ever made. It’s all downhill from here.
– Real player with 541.1 hrs in game
Age of History II
Alright let me get this straight just because i have 700+ hours on this game doesnt mean that its the best. Obviously this game has some features and inequalities that i would like to tell people about. Now i wouldn’t consider myself a professional jusut yet but it has some bugs that i think are either bugs or baad game design. I like to structure all of my reviews based off of Price to gameplay so here are the 10 things that i will review to give the game a simple 1/10 score.
Well for starters this game is very simplistic which i like in a game + 1
– Real player with 1248.0 hrs in game
at least let the community fix your game pls. or do something with it again? its fun but dont buy until something happens with this.
– Real player with 726.8 hrs in game
Crusader Kings II
If you care about the amount of gameplay you get for your money at all, this game probably rates higher than any other game. (Last I read, the average player had over 500 hours on this game.)
Crusader Kings II is a strategic game where you spend most of your time looking at a big map of Europe cut into little counties, but it is drastically different from a game like Medieval II: Total War. Whereas in those games, every nation had rigid boundaries and an entire nation was a distinct, unified entity, Crusader Kings II focuses upon the feudal system of governance, and especially its hereditary system of succession.
– Real player with 2025.1 hrs in game
Crusader Kings II is one of the most deep, fascinating and replayable strategy games I have ever played. In brief, you play as a family in the middle ages, anywhere between Mali and Mongolia, or from Bengal to Britain. You try to secure advantageous alliances and strategic marriages, and build up a small realm, either as a vassal of a greater power or striking out independently. There is no real win condition, though I love taking people who lost out historically, and helping push them to greatness.
– Real player with 1862.2 hrs in game
Victoria 3
SHAPE A GRAND TOMORROW
Paradox Development Studio invites you to build your ideal society in the tumult of the exciting and transformative 19th century. Balance the competing interests in your society and earn your place in the sun in Victoria 3, one of the most anticipated games in Paradox’s history.
THE ULTIMATE SOCIETY SIMULATOR
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Lead dozens of world nations from 1836-1936. Agrarian or Industrial, Traditional or Radical, Peaceful or Expansionist… the choice is yours.
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Detailed population groups with their own economic needs and political desires.
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Reform your government and constitution to take advantage of new social innovations, or preserve the stability of your nation by holding fast to tradition in the face of revolutionaries.
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Research transformative new technology or ideas to improve your national situation.
DEEP ECONOMIC SYSTEM
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Expand your industry to take advantage of lucrative goods, taxing the profits to improve national prosperity.
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Import cheap raw materials to cover your basic needs while finding new markets for your finished goods.
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Secure vital goods to fuel your advanced economy and control the fate of empires.
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Balance employing available labor force with the needs for new types of workers.
PLAY ON A GRAND STAGE
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Use your diplomatic wiles to weave a tangled global web of pacts, relations, alliances, and rivalries to secure your diplomatic position on the world stage.
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Employ threats, military prowess and bluffs to persuade enemies to back down in conflicts.
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Increase your economic and military strength at the expense of rivals.
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Accumulate prestige and the respect of your rivals as you build an industrial giant at home or an empire abroad.
Arms Race - TCWE
Arms Race - The Cold War Era is pretty promising with the way game mechanics work and the AI is good. The recommended strategy in the guide section doesn’t work reliably for me and I ended up using a different strategy. The AI is also pretty good at adapting to what you are doing. The limited 3 budget changes ends up meaning every decision has long term implications.
Most games turn out slightly differently due to the AI choosing different tactics and the randomness of global crisis events.
The game isn’t as full fleshed as say Hearts of Iron but I feel like the mechanics are well thought out and the AI provides a challenge even on easy. It does a good job of abtracting the cold war and reducing decisions to the macro level (‘meaningful decisions’) compared to HoI3/4 which features considerable micromanagement. I personally prefer macro level games (less micromanagement) but it’s not everyone’s cup of tea. If you prefer to play M&T in EU4 vs base EU4 or if you prefer to play Darkest Hour/HoI2 vs HoI4 then this is the game for you.
– Real player with 17.2 hrs in game
This is a fun little game which plays a complete run in about 2-3 hours.
It runs through the whole of the cold war and includes extensive historical detail and research - history geerks will enjoy looking through the tech trees and space race just reading some of the interesting commentary.
The game itself is primarily about resource allocation - the resources being influence (generated by diplomats) spies, and military. These three resources allow you to control the board through a variety of diplomatic coups and military intervention.
– Real player with 14.9 hrs in game
Conquicktory
Conquicktory is a minimalistic turn-based strategy focused on top-level decisions in your civilization’s development. You’ll control the diplomacy relations with neighboring countries, declare wars, plan the key strikes and distribute funds to the peaceful/military issues. Your subjects will do the rest of work - there is no need to deeply micromanage all the aspect of your glorious growing empire.
The game map has 3 views:
1. Military view. If you see a spear with a flag over one of your cities, it means that you can create an army in it. Simply touch and drag from it and you’ll see the army path. Army will capture cells around its path. The same dragging way is used to plan the movement of your existing armies. Also you can see the cells defense ratings on this view. Cells are defended by nearby armies, cities and forts.
2. Diplomacy view. Here you can select a country and see its current enemies (red) and allies (green). You can select a country and suggest a treaty to it, or declare war. Also here you can answer the treaties suggestions from other players
3. Economy view. You can see how much each of your cities brings to you, and set the funds spreading to war, peaceful growth and treasury. You can fund new cities and fortresses in this view.
Game features:
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easy control mode which lets you focus on the top-level questions of you empire
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simultaneous moves, which are performed once all the players have issued orders
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challenging AI, which does not cheat but can make clever moves
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spectator mode, where you can relax and spectate how the AI play (and try to guess the winner)
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prebuilt maps of the world, continents and countries, which you can conquer