Recent reviews by DarrellSin

I don't preorder games, and am not into playing much multiplayer, so didn't suffer the turn-offs that others did on its clearly rushed and botched release. That said, seeing the hopes of what the game hinted at being not fulfilled kept me away for quite a while. A few months later, I did get the game on discount and, while it was fun, I lost interest fairly quickly.

I came back to the game with the recent Atlas Rising patch and have been very pleased. It has most everything I would have wanted upon release, and plenty of time savers. It is also incredibly beautiful, and provides a relaxing gameplay for me to enjoy after stressful work days.

The willingness to fix the game is more than I can say for many AAA publishers (their track record is why I don't preorder games), and has resulted in a very fun sandbox. I am fairly far along the (pretty decent) storyarc, but I have paused on that to get my base farm going strong. Just upgraded to a nice hauler to ramp up my production and get those credits so I can get a freighter and farm on the go. From there, exotic spacecraft are the end goal before I go back to the storyline. I see them on occasion as I fly around questing, and they always give me a spur onward to grind.

So far, a few hours in and I am enjoying the game. I haven't hit any major bugs.

Pros:
-very good tutorial as part of the main campaign.
-solid foundations for the story (comparable to most games in this genre)
-logical game mechanics, especially during battles
-quality graphics
-excellent camera control
-difficulty levels seem to scale very well
- game does get tougher as you move on. Definitely can't rely just on the basic party.
-AI enemies in battle performs well
-modest amount of side quests
-developer communication is AMAZING. personal answers to almost every forum post, and obvious love for their product

Cons:
-army management/specialization is fairly simplistic
-character specialization is through items and a very simple as well
-small army and small battlefield (by design). some could view this as a "pro" though.
-no easy way to prioritize quests. some don't update when finished, or provide enough guidance to pursue
-levelling is VERY slow


Overall:
Well worth $10 at this point. I am enjoying Blackguards, which would fit in this genre pretty well. Blackguards is well beyond in most facets, but I feel with this game open to Steam Workshop, the game could become incredible. The developer support is key, but I imagine improvements will be slow for such a small team. I am happy to have bought it, and definitely imagine playing it even more as I am winding through the last chapter of Blackguards.

As a 4x strategy game, it is definitely behind Civ IV and probably lags behind Civ V as well. That said, the hero feature is done extremely well and ends up playing like a HoMM melded with a slightly watered down Civ title. For fans of both types of games this is a must purchase. Warlock is also a fantasy based 4x but FE:LH is far superior in my opinion. It just seems "bigger," and not just because of map size.

Incredible depth and replayability. Very deep strategy, and an active mod community. Those who are fans of George RR Martin's Song of Ice and Fire book series (or Game of Thrones HBO series) really should look up the incredible full conversion mod for this game. Just google CK2 and Game of Thrones mod and you will be set.

Some major changes, but I like them. Way more strategic than just creating an epic stack and steamrolling the map. Gods and Kings DLC adds religion, and a few other parts of AI have had some updates. My only complaint is how DLC crazy they went this time. I would much rather have 1 or 2 substantial DLCs than 20 little ones, and then another that costs nearly $30 but only includes elements that probably could/should have been in the original release.

Updated to include I like this game more and more as the buigs got fixed and time healed all wounds :) Played a ton prior to getting VI, and can see playing both pretty regularly

Love this game. Fun storyline and the DLC is extremely good. Looking forward to the Portal campaign

Not enough time in the day to play enough CM. Waited until it was under $10 since CM10 had me invested (400+ hours on a single career). I hear decent things about this iteration, so here we go...