Recent reviews by smooth nuts

Here's the deal, this game is awesome. I love it. I've put in about 150 hours in about as short a period a time as I ever have for any game. The CEO is hilarious. Although you can buy Super Credits, it's definitely not "pay to win" or anything like that. It's a blast to play with friends. The community has been mostly a really good time in my experience.

If you take the time to learn the actual mechanics and squad-based approach, the depth is excellent. Almost every stratagem has a place. They devs are extremely responsive.

This game is a gem for a lot of reasons. Here's to hoping Sony pays attention to what makes it work and what makes it popular. They backed down the first time. Let's hope the learn.

Let me preface this review: I don't get to game very much. When I do I enjoy a certain casual pace and a game that's not overwhelmingly detailed. (Basically, if I can't play for a couple months, I don't want to have to relearn how to play.) Don't confuse that for meaning I don't enjoy depth, because I do, but you can have simple mechanics with a lot of depth. I think Northgard succeeds here.

So what is it? If you're expecting a "traditional" RTS, this isn't it. It's a pleasant mixture of something more like Civilization and WarCraft. Resourcing, research, trade, and building are very important parts to the game. This is bolstered very nicely by random map generation. I cannot emphasize what a great feature this is.

Territorial expansion generally requires holding and expanding your own borders. While there are stealth aspects to attacking opponents, it's pretty much impossible to do something like a Zerg rush early on. That's just not how the game is designed.

The main resource in the game is people. You have to expand. You can't buy new soldiers. You have to recruit existing villagers. This is another great dynamic. If you get to aggressive and get wiped out early, you can't just rebuild without cutting down on your production elsewhere.

The changing seasons and "map hostility" are other great aspects. You might be ready to expand for some resource that you need or have an invasion planned only to get hit with a blizzard in the winter. It's another great mechanic that makes each game different and forces the player to adapt. Even early on there isn't a standard build order because the resources available on the map and the events that hit you often force reaction.

Finally, I haven't played enough to be very objective about how balanced the clans are, but I have seen complaints that they aren't differentiated enough. I cannot disagree with that enough. The core mechanics are mostly the same, but each clan has very different paths to victory and expansion.

As such, the pace is slower than something like StarCraft. If you're really into the warfare aspect of an RTS, this probably isn't ideal. Also, it's an RTS. It's not a hybrid RTS like Total War games and it's not Civilization. I think a lot of the negative reviews want this game to lean either more toward RTS warfare or depth of building. I think it strikes a very nice balance.

For me, this game is a great balance of so many things and it's available on macOS, which is a big deal. I don't need to be a professional gamer to enjoy it. I don't have to sink tons of hours into it to enjoy it. I can hop online, grab a friend of two, and be done in a couple hours. If you're a working dad, like me, with a lot of obligations outside of your gaming rig, this is probably the most important feature a game can have!