Recent reviews by Seb

As TehGramgor said, it's "Great fun"

I bought this game hoping it would be made in the spirit of its predecessor, a timeless classic which is fun still to this day.

Well.

I quickly came to the conclusion it's rather a cheap cartoonish dumbed down version aimed at younger kids who can't affo- wait. This is actually not a cheap game. But then why is it so rubbishly made?

They had every single foundation there, lying in front of them. One of the most successful RTS games of previous decades. And what do they do? They throw the blueprints in the fire, hire some orangutans to point at random suggestions, and completely change everything. EVERYTHING.

It's so dumbed down. I can't even begin to explain it. You have basically ONE faction, with 3-4 different skins. You can build:

- 20 houses (no more, there are building caps! What the hell!)
- 7 watchtowers (...), market (5 upgrades, all of them improve gathering speed by a slight amount, how creative)
- barracks (you can build cartoon ranged, cartoon spearmen or cartoon swordsmen. That's it.)
- stables (2 different units which... well... not much effort went in to differentiate them neither trait nor appearance wise)
- armory (2 units again)(you can upgrade units... with the same uninspirational boost you'd expect aftera hearing about the market, and the icons are just military ranks, saved some money on that too I guess)
- Dock (fishing ships, caravels and galleys. and "fire ships" which are basically eternally burning wrecks and make no sense whatsoever)

So yeah. That's it. Not kidding.

The diversity of the originals are gone, the 2.5 D nature of the old game has been replaced by poor 3D something that reminds of Populous or something (except that it's not as fun), it reminds more of Age of Mythology, but again without the diversity, and for some unexplicable reason, they chose to put the setting in colonial times. Not only colonial times, but what look as the same year even. There's no change to your civ. The only thing I noticed changing appearance is your walls (once, after an upgrade) and your towers (ditto). Your units will always look the same. Your enemies' units will look the same (there's differences when you zoom in, but the horrible 3D concept makes it nigh impossible to notice if you don't make an efffort).

Ok time to let the simplifying go for a second. Or not.

Because now I want to talk about "how to play" and the campaign.
It will introduce you to how to use your mouse, as if you've never used a computer before, and that's it basically. The highlight was probably finding a unicorn rider easter egg in the tutorial while exploring (any effort to prevent the player from avoiding their "triggers" or otherwise cheesing or avoiding their intended linear objectives have been poorly implemented and borderline seemed to be done in a hurry).
Actual important information, like how to repair your ships and buildings, is completely neglected (there's a button on the lower right, and there's also a cooldown timer after having been in combat, and ships apparently auto-repair when close to the docks) Enemy armies will spawn at random places, sometimes right on top of you, if you don't pay extra attention to actually trying to follow what you think they intended (instead of playing your own game) or not spawn at all.

Unit pathing is even worse than AoE II (how is that possible?!?), "luckily" you usually won't have any interesting amount of units active at the same time.

Side objectives are an interesting add, but they are extremely poorly explained sometimes (missions regarding units can be particularly hard when the unit in question gets lost, or you never knew where it was to begin with, I'm talking NPC style, no name or indicator above, can be next to any amount of other NPCs, no pings, no nothing, no minmap markers except treasures and "tribes") The rewards are also extremely neligible, might as well had added an extra gold mine but I guess this is the one place they decided to implement some diversity and then made this too in a hurry. (Would it hurt to make them actually hard and have noticeable rewards?!)

Campaign is made in (now) generic WCIII/Age of Mythology style, albeit with even worse dialogues and incoherent settings and fantasy (WCIII and earlier was great in this regard, AoM not so much but still loved that game because at least it had a fantasy setting and not historic, and the rest of the functions of the game made it very enjoyable)

I don't know what more to say.

I tried to give this game so many chances, and I'm really good at always playing a game through, but I just can't see myself doing this. I regret buying this, and I feel extremely disappointed that they did this so half-hearted.

A few voice actors are great, others seem to be hired family members or overzealous first-timers.

I would refund it, but sadly I played this way too long after buying it. I feel almost a bit angry about the choices they've made, especially with the butchering of other great titles in the past 5-10 years.

If you loved AoE II, for the love of god don't buy this. Get one of the new AoE remakes instead... they're still great fun, have an active multiplayer base (which this game will never have for obvious reasons) and even though they are just that - remakes - at least you know what you will be getting!

Hope the rest of my day will be better than this....

Best regards

After having invested quite some time in this game, it's time to write a short review, I guess.

First and foremost, I'd like to point out the replayability of this game. The amount of unique playthroughs are apparently infinite. The amount of time alone, that you get at your disposal before the game ends (though you can now do the CiV "Just one more turn..") means endless different outcomes.

Slam on top of that an extremely intricate and complex web of mechanics by dedicated and passionate developers and you get a perfectionist's or completionist's utopia. At the earliest start, you start at 1444, and can continue to 1821 if you so like (and as mentioned earlier; even further), where at the absolute lowest speed, unpaused play will mean one day is about one second somewhere.

Before I proceed, it's imperative to mention DLC's. The core of the game alone is incredibly detailed, literally thousands of provinces you can interact with. I personally recommend only getting the core game (plus the free DLC for the diversity) at the start - this not only because you should always test games out as far as you can first, but also because it will ease the learning curve for you. As generally a fan of anything Paradox has released so far, I loved this game already before any DLC, and I am confident the vast majority of strategy fanatics will as well.

The continuous maintenance and development of the game (which incredibly has been NON STOP since launch!) has been financed by DLC. Each major DLC has been followed by additions to the core game. The DLC mostly features either vanity (unit packs - skins and models), song tracks (for those who use in-game music), and game features. This means that some DLC will change how you play certain (or all nations) - but mostly in a way that means added micro management; which is more of another layer - an added form of immersion - than something required to like playing this game in general.

All DLC function features that I know of are double-edged swords: that is, it is a new thing to pay attention to, and which can both benefit or hamper your nation as you play. All this taken into consideration, I find myself unable to take seriously anyone complaining about the game's continuous development being financed by DLC, nor do I see any logic in trying to objectively attempting to present the DLC as something negative.

For those that like challenges, I highly recommend going for ironman achievements - the sense of accomplishment is very real; though I suggest playing as a recommended country if you are just getting started: Even if you love challenges, I think because of the amount of possible micromanagement and things to learn that you should think twice before trying to conquer the world (or most of it) as nations such as Ryuku or Albania (as this can be discouraging) before you have at least few hundred hours clocked in.

The multiplayer has always worked seemlessly for me, but I am aware that some people have occacional issues which would mean a rehost. I personally use to play with friends when playing online, together versus the AI, but I know that people have tons of fun in more or less random sessions as well. Except from early release (which had one or two bad patches) me and my friends have been using the official servers exclusively.

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TL;DR
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In short, this game has extreme replayability, immense attention to detail, and endless of hours of fun; especially if you get a friend to play it with you - though the ironman (SP) challenges present endless fun as well.

I've gotten more or less all my DLC on 75% discount or more, which had happened several times per year when I got them. DLC not at all needed to enjoy the game - it adds immersion and new ways to play; it does not make it easier (nor harder, assuming you know how to use any new functions).

I do not know of any other games which have as many ways to play as this one. Paradox' own games - namely CK II, HoI 3 BI or HoI IV BI and Victoria II comes second, CiV IV's Rhye's and Fall comes third.

I love this game.

I have not yet even tried mods (there are many with very positive reception).

A more up-to-date version of the CC classics.
I will edit this review later, but first off I want to say something immediately.

I see people claiming to be CC "fans", give it thumbs down, and post stuff like "you can't pause the game".
Guess what, you can.. just hit the "pause" key on your keyboard. Now, that wasn't so hard, was it? And if you truly had played any of the predecessors, you'd realize that this version works just in the exact same way.

By the way, you can press spacebar to activate range info (I have command influence range as standard). There's a comprehensive list of keybindings in the manual.

Now, off to the game. CC is a top down, real-time action WWII strategy game, with roots as far back as 1996. CC is legendary for those beknownst to it. It continues the style of a few other games in the series with a grand-campaign-style strategic map. This strategic map will progress on a turn basis, with battles occuring after a movement phase. Battles will take place one by one, where two battlegroups clash on the grand map. Available at some points on the strategic map are also air support and artillery (to inderdict). When you battle, you will get loaded onto the proper map for the region you're in on the Strategic map, and the real-time action starts. The battles are realistic and intricate, with morale, cover, angle of attack, suppression, ammunition and range all being important factors to the outcome.

Of course, you can scale the difficulty yourself, do skirmishes instead of a grand campaign, and set up your own battles, or even campaign if I recall correctly. Last time I checked there was also a functional multiplayer. And I guess this would be really fun to play with (against) friends.

As for the price, I had to get it, not nescessarily because it's fairly priced (although I don't find it that steep) but because I want to support the making of anything CC, since the series are one of the few classics that stand out with great quality, which in my opinion should get all the support it could get. We have enough throwaway games today published by companies that care for nothing but money, with employees that have no passion for it whatsoever.