XO
(I backed this game on Kickstarter, and helped out with alpha and beta testing…)
XO has a lovely mix of tactics and strategy within a relatively short three to five hour game run. But learning XO well enough to survive that final run will take you much longer. It’s a game to be played many times as you learn more about the ships, the factions, the enemies, weapons and circumstances. Each time you’ll learn how to survive longer, how to make better use of the ships, systems and resources you encountered, and how to better choose through the event paths in order to win faction allies as you go.
– Real player with 89.9 hrs in game
Read More: Best Real-Time with Pause Dark Humor Games.
I’ll split this review to what I enjoyed and what I did not.
What I enjoyed
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You really get the feeling of trying to build together a rag-tag fleet of military and civilian ships, fleeing away from a seemingly unstoppable enemy while building up your arsenal, firepower and the capacity to support your fleet. Awesome feeling. :)
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Lots of interesting concepts, boarding, resource harvesting, different kinds of weapons to counter different enemies. Really enjoyed different weapons, upgrades, ship types, keeping civilians in cargo holds (then performing a crew transfer to abandoned/disabled ships) and the ability build up my fleet. :D
– Real player with 51.9 hrs in game
Europa Universalis III Complete
Whee. Europa 3, like its predecessors and its cousins Hearts of Iron and Victoria (Crusader Kings as well, but that isn’t as hard to learn), is an extremely complex game that is notoriously difficult to learn, not helped by crappy tutorials. I had an edge having been playing this series since its first installment, but it still took some time to get used to everything. So right from the start expect a significant time investment on learning how to play the game, and learning to do well at it. War, Diplomacy, Trade, Exploration, and more. It’s all here.
– Real player with 535.5 hrs in game
As far as I’m concerned, this is the best game ever - especially in this version with the first two additions to the game.
To a certain extent, it is comparable to the Total War games, if they only included the map mode, which would here be simplified to armies only being able to move from province to province and not within a province. However, you have a more complicated diplomacy and domestic policy to deal with.
Another thing that makes it different, and, for my taste, better than the Total War games, is the greater realism and historical accuracy - in this game you can’t just conquer everything, and it remains challenging for the more than four centuries that its timespan covers.
– Real player with 492.4 hrs in game
Divinity: Dragon Commander
This review contains of three parts:
1. What game is it actually/what does it contain?
2. How do I feel about certain parts of it?
3. Summary.
1. Divinity : Dragon Commander
This game is an interesting mixture of turn-based strategy, RTS with a possibility of turning to TPP and continuing the fight, and to some degree a Empire builder. I will use few comparisions in order to describe it for newcommers. If You liked Total War series for the turn based strategy and the possibility to command Your troops on a RTS battlefield, but You found both parts a bit too complex this game may just fit Your taste. How is the RTS part handling? Well it can be compared to Warhammer 40K Dawn of War, but again in a more simplistic way. The places on which You build are not only limited but also fixed, and the whole game is basing on the land controll with one resource involved. The number of units avaiable is smaller and there are no fraction specyfic units. That doesn’t mean that there is no micro/macro cntroll involved. In fact the ‘rock-paper-scissors’ mechanic seems fair enough and even the most low tech units remain usable in late-campagin matches thanks to their special abilities. Storyline? Hymmm. I can’t say I did not sink into it, but it really is a rather linear story with one ending. Again I would compare it to the Witcher style of handling the storyline. You can do various things by anwsering many choices. There are no good anwsers as each option rewards ou with something and punishes You with a other one. But ultimately there are three acts, that lead the main storyline. You can either win the campagin or loose it. There is also a random campagin mode that takes out only one part of the story and gives You a chance of discovering personal plots and endings without the need to go through the same three maps again. Multiplayer. As it stands the UI is a bit lacking at the moment but still the matches give a lot of fun. With dragons fighting in the skies while micro managing their armies and macro managing the factories the RTS gets really interesting.
– Real player with 92.5 hrs in game
Read More: Best Real-Time with Pause Turn-Based Games.
It’s a pretty good game that could have been really awesome. They were really ambitious with it.
The main issue is that they didn’t have the budget for this one and Divinity Original sin, which they were developing at the same time.
So they had to pick one or the other, and they picked D:OS, which makes sense because it was more in line with what they’re good at doing.
Even so, Dragon Commander got made, though they ended up cutting a HUGE amount of content. Like, the game that you see is about 30% of the final product that they strung together and published before moving over to D:OS
– Real player with 55.6 hrs in game
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
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
Rebel Inc: Escalation
Great game, very stressful, amazing feeling after winning.
– Real player with 60.1 hrs in game
This game is wonderful. In addition to being a good challenge and having endless replay ability, it’s theme is uncommon and very relevant to the real world. More games like this should exist.
– Real player with 42.1 hrs in game
Secret Government
I really want to like this game, and in a lot of respects I do. I actually wish Steam had a middle option between the binary of recommend: yes/no, and the last thing I want to see is the devs give up on this due to negative feedback. However, I’m sure most people would be disappointed by the game in its current state, so “no” it is.
It’s a great concept and it has a lot of promise, but the game is incredibly game breakingly buggy and there are some very obvious gaps where development just never caught up to what was planned. The developers have stated their intentions to keep working on the game, and I really hope I can rewrite this review into a recommendation at some point. Outside of the issues, what the devs were going for is very apparent, and I would love to see it more fleshed out. There is one circumstance in which I would recommend this game that I will include at the bottom of the review.
– Real player with 90.4 hrs in game
Let me level with you: this is a thinking person’s game. Though its aesthetics reminds one of the Europa Universalis games, if you lack the patience to tackle your goals in a subtle, clandestine way, you will suffer. Unlike the EU games, you cannot simply go up to a ruler and order them to go to war with another country, nor can you simply go to the citizens and order them to support your newly created political party. In fact, it is best if neither are aware of your existence at all as they will crush you if their Awareness of your Brotherhood is high enough and it doesn’t necessarily have to reach 100 first for them to start weakening your Brotherhood.
– Real player with 54.4 hrs in game
Planet Colonization
This is a tough one to rate. I thought I was buying a builder. Instead it is a unique take on Real Time Strategy in which prices from the independent market are the key drivers in determining how you build a functioning economy to support the war machine to take down your rivals.
The approach is creative and unique. You have to focus on staying profitable. Whatever resources you need you can buy in the market. However, to buy in the market you need positive cash flow or sufficient assets to access credit. You’ll bankrupt yourself quickly if you ignore the price signals from the market to focus on building the production chains you need.
– Real player with 4.8 hrs in game
Information / Review English
Planet Colonization combines the Game styles of Strategy and Real-time Strategy game, which was developed by Araknumia Software. And is still in the Early Access Phase.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2314299795
Gameplay / Story
It all started in a galaxy far, far away … A planet full of natural nutrients that you need to survive, a dream that is too good to be true, but really there. You are lucky enough to have found this planet and you are the focus. This is how the game begins!
– Real player with 4.5 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.
Crusader Kings III
This game is an amazing sandbox with plenty of depth, but it lacks difficulty. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had such a good run with my first character that I don’t even want to play my second one. Unlike CK2 where you would spend so many hours to create an empire; CK3 feels like a speedrunning game some of the time, and doesn’t always live up to its predecessor. Most of the time I can create an empire with my first Ruler. I 100% find it harder to roleplay in this game compared to CK2. This can be decently fixed with the massive modding community for CK3. If you are looking for a more roleplay-sensitive experience I would recommend mods like Succession Expanded, Minor Titles, MND Balance, Medieval Arts, CoA Designer, Sinews of War, Additional start dates, and cultures, Ethnicities & Portraits Expanded, and Community Flavor Pack. Other than the difficulty. I love playing this game, I already have 545 hours in it.
– Real player with 580.9 hrs in game
I have no idea where to start this review 🙂
Did I like it oh yes, yes i did. Will I continue to play it after 210 hrs , yes, yes I will. After 210 hrs I have finally managed to playtrough a campaign twice.
All right with that said this is the only game from Paradox i have really played. Even if i have played a little bit of european universalis 4.
I really like all the options this game gives. In which nations to play as. In how you want to play it. Do you want to try to conquer alot of stuff. Or do you simply want to build your nations. Do you want to get more land by wars or do you want to try to get it more peacefully.
– Real player with 296.4 hrs in game
Orbi Universo
It’s Democracy meets Civilization.
Still a work-in-progress, and from a part-time indie dev, but what you see here shows promise.
If you’re a Civ/Paradox/Democracy fan, it’s an easy recommendation.
If you’re not too sure about it, grab it on sale, or wait until they finish all the ages that make the core gameplay.
Pros:
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Less intimidating upfront than Democracy, you start from humble begginings.
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You can start at any place in the globe
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Many different paths to take your civilization through
– Real player with 81.2 hrs in game
This game is unique. Maybe not much replayability, but there definitely is some. In the bronze age I had a shining civilization, the entire Iron Age was a time of unparalleled ascension, but I quickly over expanded and then the disruption caused by the immense amount of minorities quickly destroyed my stability. I kept undermining the power of the clergy in order to stop them from toppling my republic, which caused the number of heathens and heretics to rise to such a point as to ruin my stability even further. There was this entire collapse scenario very reminiscent of the fall of the Roman Republic, culminating in a coup d’etat by the military which led to a quickly fragmenting military dictatorship that saw a snowball of decline that just kept rolling and rolling.
– Real player with 36.9 hrs in game