Recent reviews by Syrius

I want to recommend this.
The story is fun, and the clans are wonderfully naieve.

Ive played a lot of MW5: Mercs, and I have to say a lot of the features provided by mods (which are utterly essential for Mercs) are implemented here in a plausibly deniable way, which improves the game dramatically.
Scanning is an inventive mechanic, and they thankfully make use of features sadly neglected in Mercs (like repair bays).
However...

Firstly missions are utterly linear, you are told where to walk, and enemies are presented to you in an order you are supposed to kill them in, there is nowhere to explore, no freedom to plan.
Mobs just dont spawn until youre close enough, rendering long range combat largely irrelevant.
Mech progression is linear also, so you get mechs in the order you are given them so designing your star (team) is pretty dire: long range is pointless and you have only specific mechs to choose from in the weight range, even the pilot skills are fixed.

But the most egregious of flaws here is how unstable the game is, trying to play this with a friend and getting them connected is a constant chore, they frequently get kicked entering missions, and a couple of times we've had to load earlier saves to get around something unknown causing crashes to desktop. My system is new this year, 5090 and other specs to match, the flaws here are not with my system.

Then we go onto the bugs and flaws carried over from Mercs: Only player 1's (me) jumpjets work properly, other players sometimes loose the ability to lock on with missiles when entering missions, and whilst I realise this is not a new engine, and doesnt need to be, correcting mistakes like these should have been part of development or at least come before DLC.

I'm sad I cant play this through to completion, but the irritations are just too numerous when it works at all, just having to reload from saves hours old to get around crashes is enough to put me off, but lack of respect for multiplayer functionality and the utterly linear nature of this game, devoid of any strategy makes me want to go back and just play Mechwarrior 5: Mercenaries with mods, because its just better, and I dont have to find work arounds for bugs that the modding community have fixed and/or didnt exist in the first place.

A curiosity, nothing more.

Review at 13 hours:
Just finished the age of Antiquity. Largely enjoyed it.

The good:
Classic civ experience with balance changes, and a paired down unit roster, which I approve of.
Focus is very regional, as it should be.

The bad
Ending an age is obnoxious, even using the new continuity setting. Everything that was building just vanishes, diplomacy you've spent resources on just stop and vanish, even if they would complete the same turn the age ends... This should really have its own category on here as The TERRIBLE.
As the age ends you get some rando minor changes to pick from, and some super basic summary screens that are virtually worthless in judging you competence in comparison to the other empires.

Generals: you should be able to control where they deploy the units, theyre fiddly as hell. Id like to be able to see a lot more info and have a lot more control over the units which are now apparently better organised under a leader. It feels the opposite.

I'm sure these things will get corrected over the life of the game... they generally do. But as the game stands, avoid it. Buy Civ 5, its still the best of recent times.

Seriously, ending an age is gut wrenchingly vile, and basically Id rather start over for real than just dump half of what Ive done this playthrough in the bin and leave me to pick up the pieces.
I can see what you were going for, and I largely approve, but the execution is abysmal on a level I have never experienced from Civ since "Call to Power".

Review at 35 hours:
Only thing I disagree with above is that there is actually a way to decide where generals deploy units: Click the unit in the general, then the unpack button to the left, not the smaller one above. Generals :NEED: the assualt trait that lets units move after deploying by default. It is massively unsatisfying to roll your army up, click "Go!" and then have to wait a turn as you get shot at. And you dont have to if you dont put your units in a general, its daft.

Returning here after another 20 hours gives me a chance to offer some constructive suggestions, so heres what this needs to be rescued:

Civ traits should carry over, if I picked the Maya I want at least some visibility on what carries over, and that should be most of it. No, I dont want my Jaguar warriors to suddenly become scouts, that doesnt even make sense. If I picked a scientific/economic race, the chances are I want to stay one! Or I wouldnt have picked it.

Either projects and constructions should have their cost refunded to you at the end of an age, or ideally automatically completed, as this is supposed to be an age transition, and time generally travels forwards, regardless of your wishes.

The screens concluding each age need to be MUCH more informative, not just some crappy rogue-lite details. Noone plays this series of games because its a rogue-lite, what exactly possessed you? Id like to see incomes, total accumulated, graphs on a turn by turn basis of all/all-discovered races, for guidance go back and look at your other games! :facepalm:

Id like to know how towns provide cities and with what, and to which city.

Borders should grow over intervening spaces, no country in the world has 30 miles of no-mans land just sat in the middle of it, that makes no sense.

Where's the recognition for circumnavigating the world? This kinda builds on the jarring transition from antiquity to rennaisance... Where did the medieval era go?

Volcanoes... You know the "most destructive explosion known to man" cant happen every 10 years? By the modern era the world would have to explode entirely to meet that criteria as the damn volcanoes go off so often, I have whole turns where more notifications are volcanoes than anything else. Calm down the volcanism, its not even a fun mechanic when they do erupt on your towns, its just a gold sink.

Distant Lands: Really cool idea, but, the faction that wins that age is the one with island chains 2 sea squares from their capital. Distant Lands kinda need to be distant, Manhattan shouldn't count.

Overall:
Ok, so I'll possibly... play another game through, took about 35 hours on epic, which wasn't a bad length for a game.
I still wouldnt recommend this game, but I can honestly see some stellar developments here, bridges as buildings, the town and city system, Distant Lands, even the natural disasters are kinda cool, but need a mechanic other than "Now pay gold".

Navigable rivers are really nice, and Ive no complaints with the graphics at all.
Personally Id like to be able to discover leader agendas, and how to control your effect on them, because people randomly getting furious at you is kinda dull.

So, the bottom line for me: This game has lots of neat potential, but as it stands is a massive list of problems. If resolved, this could be a great game, until then I strongly advise avoiding it.

I loved the OG game.

I really can't recommend this.
It takes all the flaws of the original, adds a ton of bugs, including one that means you cant even finish the tutorial...

If you can find the OG game, its worth your time. "Relaunched" is a mess, squandering a rare paid opportunity to correct all the mistakes from the OG game on a shameless cashgrab.

Nice!
Small steps towards Genestealer Cults and Imperial Knight factions?

Yes please!

Too much meh.

I'm 30 hours in and I feel I dont want to go on, with over a million tech points, every "technology" unlocked and 6 million gold I am really struggling to see a point.

Micromanaging the assistants through their tedious jobs isnt fun. and you just need soo many staff. This isnt a medieval blacksmith, its a 1920's sweat shop, and sadly you have to give everyone painstaking tasks: exactly what to build, exactly what size of what type of ingot to carry from A to B, what ore to put where, what shelf holds what pot, although not a sword, no no that does on a different shelf...
Its painstaking, and it feels like I should be getting a wage for doing it.

Quarter the number of staff you need, have the assistants make the ingots that are needed, or loose the sizes completely and just have the blacksmiths take 2 ingots for a medium ingot requirement etc, and have assistants assigned to carrying just fill things that need filling.

I dont care what merchant orders are filled, just pick some, and why do merchants only want the latest goods?
And for gods sake why cant I put swords on a shelf that can hold ladles? I'll take a room full of barrels that just hold everything please.

And speaking of which: Chests! Ok, so only one person at a time can access them. Which is why they make an awful choice for rapidly accessible transport hubs. The blacksmiths have to queue to put the swords into the chest that the assistant is taking swords out of! I mean what the hell?! Just chuck em in a pile, or better yet, just hand them to the assistant that is taking them away. Game wise they should just go on a rack against a wall that can be accessed by smith and assistant at the same time. I shouldnt have to build 6 chests just to they dont form a mile long queue to use one chest!

TLDR: Buy Tavern Master, its fab.
This misses the mark by creating a slog with little positive reinforcement and little development beyond being given more micromanagement to do.

My 21 hour review:
My first few hours are an important time to review imo as its the time you understand least and can make no excuses for not understanding things, and systems haven't become ingrained enough to overlook any ambiguity.
I love the game, but I certainly think the start needs polish so people understand what they are playing.

I'm playing with friends and solo on my own world, so experiences will include a little PvE multiplayer experience but mostly solo.

That said, lets go with the good first!

- Amazing open world, with choice of where you make yours and resources hint at the economy sim to come.
- Huge variety of ships, although you dont see them nearly enough.
- Intelligent and tactical combat system.
- Skills to develop on a ship by ship basis, specialising in one of the familiar MMO roles.
- Factions to support and defend.
- Your own provinces to govern and grow.
- Build defences to hold off pirate raids.
- Co-op battle arenas where you and your friends can beat back NPCs and/or other players.
- The arenas can be much closer to home as pirates try to take your territory,
- No death penalty, you dont loose items, gold, or anything, just a respawn timer.

The Bad:

- Opening onto the world map isn't a great intro, as it looks basic. but the Provinces you enter immediately look lovely.
- NPC Variety. The zones are populated by the same ship over and over, would like to see some of the ships listed in the dock section sail by occasionally.
- Early guidance is lacking, If you aren't into a sandbox experience, the game wont hold your hand to find the fun stuff. If you read a review criticising lack of things to do, or spending to long doing something, this is because they haven't looked very far.
- "But, I want to set up my own faction!" You cant. You can manage your own provinces :for: a faction. This isnt clear.
- "But I don't want to loose my old ship and most of my exp!" When you buy a new ship you keep your old ship, its equipment, crew and officers and some of your exp. Different ships fill different roles and sail differently. Its frustrating to loose exp but does make sense, gives you an opportunity to try something different, and the main source of advancement is economic, money you don't loose.
- Crew and characters are just items like any other, but this is daaaamn weird when you salvage them from the bottom of the sea.
- Decorating your ship. Now maybe I'm a dimwit, but I could not figure out how to use colours and decorations for hours. Its a tab on the left in your inventory btw.
- Faction character. Id like to know more about the factions early on, but this may be my desire for stories to tell in my head :-)

TLDR:
Great, relaxed game with trading and combat on the high seas. But it doesn't hold your hand to find anything, from the developing of your own regions to conquering them its there, but you wont get shown it, you have to find it.

Laid back, fun and characterful.

If you like a city builder this game has a charming art style, and good writing to the missions, and is worth your time.
If you're after any kind of speed this isnt for you, this game is laid back and pretty. It prompts thinking about the placement of your buildings as well as making them pretty and functional, and rearranging the city is part of the fun. You can create a self sufficient sky city, it'll quite happily maintain itself eventually. However, at the moment the maths on the resource bar isnt always 100% correct, so be careful to monitor the resource accumulation/loss yourself also.

The main quest is entertaining (tho not finished yet) and surrounded by a plethora of side quests, which are worth doing just to interact with the entertaining cast of humanoid caricatured birds, the combat gets to the point where you have to think, but if youre prepared its not hard. Tho from reading other reviews it does punish being unprepared. Basically if you have an empty weapon slot, you probably arent prepared for the next area. Seems quite straight forward, but I dislike games that tailor to the lowest common denominator, so I appreciate this strong hint without being lead by the nose.

Ok, so Pros:
-Beautiful, laid back experience, with pleasant and atmospheric music, and a unique art style that wanes only a little as you enter regions beyond the floral grasslands, but is still pleasant. To improve music per region would be good.
-Adds another dimension to the city builder, see to your people's needs but also keep the city aloft and balanced.
-Changing scenery: most city builders rely on taking the player away from their previous successes to change the environment, this game does something different which is cool.
-Combat is simple but inventive, skill with exactly where you fire the cannon can make a big difference, but also having the right weapons for the job, which means how you made your city plays a part in your combat. Really smart.

Cons:
-No way to chase down things you may have missed. So Ive a tech Ive no idea where to go for it, so I'll probably leave the game having missed something, which is irritating.
-No way to automate filling vacant worker positions. If a pop dies during combat, or becomes ill they (obviously) leave their job, but you have to manually re-fill that position (or wait for the ill to recover). Which means ultimately my self sufficient sky city would plummet to the ground because my bird people simply wouldnt bother re-manning the fans as they crashed to their deaths... Disturbing as it is frustrating... tho maybe a statement on the modern world..?
-Attack Aricraft are too slow. Theyre accurate so they can take down pirate warships...but tbh I can usually kill the pirate warships with trial and error cannon shots before the fighters ever get there.
-Bluepirnts. Huh? I keep getting "blueprints" for odd stuff, like wrecked buildings as "treasure" I cant actually see why I'm getting these, where they go, or what use they are..? So the con is unexplained random junk taking the place of actual treasure.

Overall: Excellent little game. Doesnt play like early access at all.

At 48 hours of very relaxed play I have exhausted all (found) missions and technologies. So its short, but as an evening to relax to this is up there with some of the most chilled games Ive ever played. I hope it gets a little polish on the problems, maybe a "mystic" who can direct you to things you havent found yet? Missions, relics and tech for instance.
And a continuation of the story, the northern continent should really add heating as an element to your city, and Id really like to see faster strike aircraft, because theyre largely useless despite the games insistence that theyre powerful (they are, a week next Tuesday when they arrive). And also the ability to add escort ships to your city, which is what these blueprints are I assume.

So lots of potential and a fab game as it stands, a glowing thumbs up from me. I hope the devs keep up the passion shown so far, that is rare in sequel games of the same type. Good job!

Very nice looking units! With their (very) slightly beefier stats they replace their firstborn counterparts in the late game.

A lovely little addition. Looking forward to an Eldar unit pack :-D
Tho I have to be honest, I was looking forward to a new faction, this is a pleasant little update to the Space Marine roster.

An excellent RPG in the 40k Universe, superb with friends.

Liked Baldurs Gate 3? Like 40k?
This should be in your library.

Highly recoomended.