King of the Universe
In the 24th century BC, the Sumerians have turned the land of Mesopotamia from a simple Cradle of Civilization to the home of empires. It is your mission to take control of the kingdom of Kish and conquer your enemies, in order to become Lugal Kiški, King of the Universe.
The Sumerians, or “the black-headed people” (Sag̃-g̃i-ga in their native tongue), were the first people to invent both civilization and writing. Their well-organised and state-run societies make the perfect setting for a strategic video game. In King of the Universe, you will not only try to conquer your enemies, you will also have to take care of your own people.
Through military means you gather land and slaves, and through economic means you build new structures for your people. If your citizens do not produce enough supplies to quench your war machine, you will fail. If you do not protect your citizens from foreign invaders, you will fail. This game is about balance, and only by finding it will you become King of the Universe.
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Tiles
Claim tiles and build or destroy structures. Watch your people go about their day-to-day lives.
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Wealth
Garner Silver and resources, such as Food, Metal and Tools.
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Troops
Build an army, and order your soldiers around. Follow your individual troops with the camera.
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Slaves
Collect slaves when conquering foreign land, and use these to build new structures in your kingdom.
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Citizens
Keep an eye on the hunger and health of your people. Make sure every class in your kingdom has enough money to survive.
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Pricing
Decide the prices of wares in your kingdom, to control the economy to ensure profits for your state.
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Trade
Buy and sell with the other empires, to build relations and gain an extra income for your war machine.
Read More: Best Tutorial Real Time Tactics Games.
Kupechestvo
AI smarter than me (
– Real player with 1.6 hrs in game
Read More: Best Tutorial Tabletop Games.
The scenario mode is quite fun, even with AI opponents. The trade mechanics is quite simple. But when you’re combining it with event cards from the scenario mode, it is becoming interesting.
– Real player with 1.6 hrs in game
Cauldrons of War - Stalingrad
This game is a good sequel for the last game of this series CoW barbarossa and it seems to have improved a lot. The AI seems much smarter in this game than in the last one and there are a lot more actions to do than before.
I intend to play this game for a long time just like I did with Barbarossa.
I RECOMMEND that you check the game out if you are interested in a large scale operational strategy in a WW2 setting.
– Real player with 92.0 hrs in game
Read More: Best Tutorial Grand Strategy Games.
Pros- URAAAAAA!
Cons- the 6th Army is surrounded in Stalingrad please send help.
I’ve had the game since the beta dropped, and I’m happy to say I’ve enjoyed every minute of it. It gives fresh perspective to the massive amount of challenges both sides face during 42', while still being very tasteful or pulling punches, which I respect.
It’s not a game where one strategy works every time, where yesterday’s blitz straight to Stalingrad means today’s attack will also proceed flawlessly. It’s not a game where the AI will sit and let you roll over them; it’s a fight, sometimes for every inch.
– Real player with 58.3 hrs in game
Tafl Champions: Ancient Chess
This is a fine game, and a free one on top of that.
There’s a surprising amount of tactics behind a very simple core concept.
Played with my friend, enjoyed it quite a bit!
Thought the attacker has a huge advantage by not being too greedy and encircling the field, as well as engaging in fair warrior trades, but defender can do quite a lot with his throne and a retinue of fighters preventing the enemy from capturing too many nearby squares.
Main cons would be unclear rules with the throne - it would be better if UI would suggest what will be captured by each move and King / Throne would be highlighted somehow whenever the Throne is left. This would help recognise that the King can be captured like a normal warrior now and the throne is hostile to defenders too - otherwise too easy to forget it and lose on the spot.
– Real player with 2.0 hrs in game
Bannerlord brought me here, have a review dev, ya deserve it lad
– Real player with 1.2 hrs in game
Hanako: Honor & Blade
I’m going to comment solely on the feel of combat since IMO that’s the most ‘make or break’ factor in a PvP game. As of writing this review the game offers 4 classes, 3 melee and 1 ranged.
The ranged character uses a bow and its pretty typical of what you would expect from such a class. Mechanics like projectile drop and needing to lead on a moving target respect the physics of shooting an arrow but they’re not overly difficult as to become aggravating. You can play back and aim your shots or you can get close and spam arrows, its a good mix of skill & spray-n-pray.
– Real player with 39.3 hrs in game
First off, the Devs have worked really hard to get this game to where it is now and it shows. When I had my first few games I had expected broken mechanics or obvious inbalance of the classes. However I was pleasantly surprised that they have a very strong foundation in place.
All 3 classes play differently with their own unique style to learn and bring out the fantasy that they are known for. Easy to pick up and learn but also some depth for those who want to truly master their classes mechanics.
– Real player with 12.4 hrs in game
Kings of Israel
Great PC adaptation of the board game. Set up works for multiple players only if sharing the same device; play can be split between two players (1 prophet per player) from what I can tell. So far I’ve only played solo. Love the Bible study/trivia option!
EDIT: On the standard play mode, I have now reached level 5 (Saul), which increases the number of prophets involved to three. I personally take about 20-30 minutes per game (unless I lose in the first ten). Based on the settings available for the Custom game option, it looks like there may be as many as four prophets in play at once. In Custom mode, you can also choose which prophets are in play, whereas the standard play-by-ranking mode assigns prophets at random. Definitely recommend playing in Custom or Bible Study mode if you don’t want to affect your level ranking status! Bible Study mode provides both good and bad consequences to your multiple-choice response, making it worth cracking open your Bible (or clicking the online Bible links provided) for the right answer. Highly recommended to you if you like turn-based games, strategy, and fun ways to engage with the Holy Bible!
– Real player with 56.0 hrs in game
From a secular perspective, it really depends on what you are looking for in a game. This game is rich in its representation of historical content, if you accept that it is based entirely on the Bible. It makes extensive use of RNG, which I understand is not popular among many gamers, but is a very appropriate way to represent human behavior. Not that it is random per-se, but in life humans will often either surprise you, or at the very least the number of things they might do is so varied that trying to make a specific prediction in a moral-political context is not likely going to be accurate. It really feels appropriate to have so much RNG in this context, but there is a little you can do to maximize your output. In short, this game uses mechanics that are generally not very popular, but in a highly appropriate manner for the subject matter.
– Real player with 40.1 hrs in game
Cauldrons of War - Barbarossa
This is a highly abstract wargame where the abstractions combine elegantly to become more than the sum of its parts. For example, the game has a concept of command points each turn. Each area also has a number representing rail capacity. A rail capacity of 3 means 3 free supply points per turn. When rail capacity decreases in certain area of operations, you are forced to make decisions around prioritizing supply (via truck or horse, which is not always successful) vs. attack/movement. The player is thus forced to tradeoff meeting supply vs. achieving objectives which I think does a good job of conveying a decision that a general would actually need to make.
– Real player with 101.0 hrs in game
Cauldrons of War is brilliantly designed wargame that puts you in total command of either the Axis or Soviet forces from the German Invasion of the Soviet Union in June of 1941 until the Soviet Counter offensive in the Winter of 1942. It is one of the most tightly designed wargames on the market and yet its surprisingly complex. The game worries you primarily about issues that would worry a General In Chief, (Supply, Type of Operations, Force Composition of those Operations, how hard and far to push etc…) without worrying you about things a lot of wargames try to force on you, even if your rank doesn’t make that make much sense (micro-management) and in that sense this might be the closest experience to being a Field Marshall during the Second World War of anything that’s been released as a game. There are only a few things I’d change to make this game even better, 1. I’d like higher resolution maps, the games imagery does what it needs to do but it could be even better with an eye popping military style atlas with a great resolution. 2. The campaign needs to extend a bit further into 1942, playing as the Russian’s is nowhere near as fun as playing as the Germans because you’re the punching bag for the entire game and only have a few weeks at the very end of the game to counter strike, the game should extend a bit further, in line with the historical Soviet counter offensive in front of Moscow. 3. At times some key information about why certain tactics work and why later those same tactics don’t work, feels hidden. The game might benefit from displaying combat modifiers or other items that help inform the player why things are working and why they aren’t. Those are minor issues however, overall this is a brilliant game and for only $5, you can’t go wrong with it.
– Real player with 20.6 hrs in game
Osman Gazi
it is better than the mobile verison beacuse you can have unlimited arrows
– Real player with 14.9 hrs in game
nice greek game
– Real player with 0.8 hrs in game
Myastere -Ruins of Deazniff-
i’ll give it 5/5, its pretty difficult to control the character while mid-grapple but once you get the hang of it its all easy, also it would be cool if we can store health potions.
– Real player with 12.1 hrs in game
The English translation was likely done by a computer, but the Umihara Kawase-style rubbering action is pretty fun once you get the hang of it. If you love Umihara and need more like I do, you’ll enjoy this game. For anyone else, probably stay away.
– Real player with 5.5 hrs in game
Nebuchadnezzar
While inspired by the classic Impressions city building games, it would be inaccurate to say Nebuchadnezzar is just a reskin of Pharaoh. The game has its own mechanics that are distinctive such as the beautifully worded caravanserai or the planned market/bazaar walking routes (as opposed to the annoying random wandering of sellers in the Impressions games that required the use of roadblocks). There are a ton of resources in the game and the tiered housing levels have an interesting intertwined dependence on how these resources can be collected.
– Real player with 62.0 hrs in game
Probably the closest any game has come to recapturing the old Impressions City builders (Pharaoh, Zeus, Emperor, Caesar etc).
This type of city-builder game focuses very heavily on production and distribution of goods to supply your population, where a mistake in logistics management can cause the whole city to come crashing down. If you’re expecting something more like a SimCity or Cities: Skylines, you might end up frustrated with the strong presence of logistics management aspects and harsh penalties for making mistakes in that department.
– Real player with 61.4 hrs in game