Recent reviews by †UnDEAD†

I desperately want to like this game. It has everything in it to get me hooked: strategy, RPG, unique stuff for different cultures, and overall a sandbox experience in a very historically rich era.
So, I'm returning to it every year or so, only to rediscover why I abandoned it the last time (or find something new).

Let me give you an example. There are Knight Accolades in the game, a title of sorts to bestow upon one of your knights, that would give you some bonuses. You can (and should) also designate a successor to this title. So, you open the UI for successor designation, you see a list of candidates, but unfortunately the guy you want to be the successor isn't currently a knight. So, you close this UI, you go into another UI with the list of all characters that are or can be a knight, you scroll through that list trying to find the guy - did you get his name right? - that could be a successor the the accolade, you force him to be a knight, you go back to that other UI, and then you declare him the designated successor to the accolade. Repeat this process up to 8 times, for each of your accolades. Do this every time some of the characters involved becomes unavailable (because of death or other change in circumstances).

Or the Holy Roman Empire, one of the most interesting entities in the game's history period. It has this thing going on with it, with how 7 Princes of the Empire would elect the next Emperor. Well, that mechanic is still broken in the game (how many years after launch?), who exactly is an elector changes seemingly randomly, even on a new game before unpausing, there are some strange delays in vote scoring updates, and more issues.

But what gets me the most is how a vassal won't protect their land against an external threat. To those unfamiliar, the way it works in the game is, a war can only be declared on an independent ruler or a fellow vassal (and also revolt against your liege, but that's besides the point here). So, let's say I get to declare a war on a neighboring kingdom A, and if I win, I'll get some land from a duke B that's vassal under the king of A. So, one would assume, the duke of B would help out his king, because, you know, he'll loose his land, maybe even all of it. Also, the duke might be as strong or even stronger as his liege. But that's not how the game works, though. In the game, a vassal won't help his liege protect the vassal's own land. I find this just incredibly immersion-breaking for me.

Now, this game is very moddable, and so there are mods for everything. And I spent hours in the last few days trawling through the mods, trying to figure out which ones I need, which work with the current version of the game, which mods are compatible, which are required for each other... Now that I'm almost finished with preparing to play the game, I don't think I will.

I desperately want to like this game, but there are just too many things, small and big, that annoy me way too much about it.
I do not recommend this game.

Very nice game. I like the different mechanics, they are interesting and not overwhelming or too complex. Overall, it's a reasonably complex game, where every single thing is simple, but combination of them becomes very interesting.

I heard some found this game too difficult: with some luck I managed to beat a run on my 2nd attempt, which makes it *way* easier than Slay the Spire (for me).

This is Dwarf Fortress. Sat sapienti.

Beware: it's addictive. Also, as of time of this writing, it's NOT pay to win: you will only meet the same set, i.e. it's either free vs free or paid vs paid.

With above out of the way: it's a nice little autobattler, with very simple core mechanics, but the interaction of them provides for some real depth (imho). And while there are some obvious choices (Whale + Deer anyone?), it's always interesting to find (or see) new combos.

The game is in beta, so it can only get better :)

best deck builder roguelite since Slay the Spire.

There are some minor bugs - understandable for an early access game - but it is already very fun to play. single player missions are nice, but the PvP part is what I really like about this game. If only there were a few more players...