6.5/10
Man this game has a pretty cool idea but.. it's just a simplified civ but with cards. There's no diplomacy or anything. It's ok if you think civ is too complex and you'd rather play a watered down version of it with cards then you might like this but I would much rather just play civ. I like the card idea. I'd love it if it was as complex as say civ 4 and it didn't look like utter garbage because the gfx are really bad. The ui is bad, the maps are bad and way too small. I'm a retro gamer so I love retro gfx but this ain't it. it's just uninspiring hexagons.
Cool idea but way too simplistic. If simplicity is more your thing then you might enjoy it but I'd still rather play something like Ozymandias which is even simpler than this but it makes up for it by being extremely fast paced and addictive. If they changed the gfx on this I might like it a bit more. I really didn't like how the gfx just looked like something a student did in his game dev class.

➕Various modes under single player and online
➕Interesting blend of card and 4x
➕Online components - leaderboard rankings, daily runs, weekly challenges

🔹Seems like a very multiplayer-focused game - I don’t see much involvement for quick rounds against AIs

➖Cheating single player AI
➖Poor UI (No way to specify card cost, ect)
➖Gimped tech tree = very repetitive games

Game world is like maps in Civilization - randomized hex grids. Each grid can have special items like horses, iron/stone, ect.
No real narrative, it's a 4x/Civ game.
Overall, not too special here.

Very unique mechanics, combining 4x with a card game works better than I’d thought and has some interesting interactivity.
Difficulty can generally be a bit too hard against AI because of rampant cheating. I’ve been watching the AI like a hawk during some of their early turns and it's crazy how they can get out some units so quickly. This seems to lead me to believe that the AI is a bit of an afterthought and that multiplayer is the focus.

Not bad. On ultra the game looks similar to Civ 6.
A bit poor in the UI area - no way to choose which of the different card costs to pay, no easy way to see the lineage of the tech skill on where it sits within the tech tree, units occupying the same space can be annoying with movement and especially promoting a specific unit.
Aside from UI functionality, it can look and feel like a mobile game at times.
I noticed no bugs or performance issues.
i9-13900KF | RTX 4090 | 64GB RAM | 1440p @ 240hz | Windows 11 installed on SSD

Boring and mostly irrelevant. No voice acting.

Deceptively low replay value. 4x and card games are generally very high replay value, but I think due to the number of cards available, every game will go down the same route.
Bonus points for lots of achievements and because the true replayability comes from the multiplayer aspect.

Hexarchy is an interesting game. The combination of a 4x grand strategy game like Civilization alongside a card game like Slay the Spire or Hearthstone, is a pairing that I wouldn’t have expected to work as well as it does. But exactly how well does it work?

My biggest negative is how, mechanically, Hexarchy fails at both a 4x and a card game in ways that fans of either genre would be impacted.
From the 4x standpoint, Hexarchy feels like half a game at most. Imagine in a Civ game if only went up to the industrial era, then that’s it. Nothing else. There are a total of 24 different technologies and because these never change and games last a short ~30 minutes, you’re left with repeating the same technologies constantly. I would have really liked it if I had the option of starting at later techs/eras, or if that was even included in the game at all, but with my 4 hours of playtime, I’ve already got a method down of an optimal path to play and what cards to ignore. It doesn’t feel like a 4x when there’s so much metagaming due to only a single win condition (points) instead of doing things like culture/science/war.
From the “Deckbuilder” standpoint, at worst this is a lie, you cannot build a deck. You play a technology and the cards related to that technology are always added to your deck (Which you can then permanently remove in the middle of the game for bonuses). But there is no deckbuilding here. I can’t define any sort of build and go into the game with it. Every nation has the same deck with some slight variation of an ability and two unique cards. This leads to strong metagaming by focusing on rushing superior techs and ignoring anything else. Why would I ever build a warrior with 4 strength if I can rush to a swordsman with 15 strength a couple turns later?

For the positives, I would say that as long as you don’t inspect the mechanics too closely and play at a high-level, Hexarchy is an interesting combination of game modes to play with. If you dread the feeling of spending 10+ hours on a single game of Civilization, then Hexarchy could be worth trying. Its greatest appeal is in its approachable and (somewhat…UI restricted) easy-to-understand mechanics.

So does Hexarchy work well? Kinda. I think it would be worth it on its sale price of $8 with some caveats of understanding that this is a more multiplayer-focused game. You can definitely play solo against the AI and have some fun for a bit, but I strongly question how long this will last before its shortcomings start becoming overwhelmingly apparent.
For me personally though, I would prefer to have my deckbuilders be focused on deckbuilding and my 4x games have deep gameplay mechanics. I think too many positives are lost on both sides from this combination.

You can find my curator page here: https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/groups/Synik_GR

Only played four hours but it is a good game. If you mainly like the first phase of 4X games and don't like the slow grind after the buildup phase this is worth a try. That said don't expect perfect quality. The graphics are not the most beautiful but they are functional. This is a relatively cheap game so I think it is okay that it is not as polished as more expensive 4X games. I don't think the average player will sink hundreds of hours into this, I would think more of it like 5-10 hours before getting enough and then making revisits to it once in a while.