Recent reviews by Cieniu

Valheim. Beautiful journey to the world fulfilled in 50% with great content and in 50% with emptyness.

Since the Early Access release date me and my friend were extremely excited about Valheim because of it's unique design and enjoyable, easy, intuitive mechanics. And of course the setting of the game. You can spot the theme of the game right after the first few seconds of the game/thrailer. Nordic mythology mixed with an open world, sandbox, and most importantly COOPERATIVE game. We had to try it.

And how was it?
The gameplay itself was mostly standard for those games. You won't love the view of slashing some greylings in the woods, or chopping the wood, building a house by yourself, defeating a boss... You will love memories like tree chopped down by you and falling on your friend and insta-killing kim. You will love the wild ocean waves while you only have a raft. You will love the Sea monster attacking your Drakkar fullfilled with silver/iron ores transported with your friend to your base. You will love losing your items and then travelling back to the other side of the map just to get killed again.

Content that exists in the game is awesome, unique bosses, food, whole cooking stuff, especially since Hearth and home update.

BUT

There is one big downside. I remember travelling far with my friend for the very first time. Discovering the mistlands gave me some unknown fear at first, just to be immidiately replaced with disappointment. It was completely empty. The same thing goes with the Deep North and Ashlands. So much potential in it. And yes, I am completely aware, that this is just early access. Still it is available since 2nd Feb, 2021. It is almost 10 months now. I expected way more content to be uploaded through this time. We basically got the H&H update, which was fantastic to expand bases, homes in many new ways. But the content to explore didn't change that much since the very first day of EA.

I recommend you trying it, of course with a friend. But I still have many expectations towards the creators. Quality of the content is awesome. Just the quantity seems to be too low, even assuming that devs are focusing on the quality.

INTRODUCTION
Europa Universalis 4 is the most abundat game of the Paradox studio. It consists of the:
- 13 Major Expansions
- 3 Immersion Packs
- 9 Content Packs
- 4 Collections (Monuments, Unit Packs, Songs, E-books)
- 3 Free DLCs (Songs of Yuletide and Catholic/Evangelican Unit Packs)
- Digital Extreme Edition Upgrade Pack

That's quite a lot. We can see that the game is still upgraded by the developers even though it is over 7 years old, because the latest major update with the new DLC came out at 9th June 2020. With the new DLCs producers provide a free content for everyone that have the basic game.

THE GAME ITSELF
In this Paradox production you play as the "ghost" that leads the country through the history full of wars, political games, rebellions and many others, from the 1444 (or later up to your prefered start date) to the 1821. So you can play as any nation in Europe, right? Cause it's Europa Universalis.
WRONG!
You can play as almost any nation that is known to exist in the timeline of the game - Indian Tribes, Oriental Countries, Shogunates and Daymios, Hordes, Arabs, Ottomans, African Tribes... Okay, so many, many COPY PASTE countries, right?
WRONG! Many nations have unique missions and decissions available only for them or a very limited group of countries. Every country provides different exoeriences from the game.

INTERFACE AND CONTROLLS
Everything is very intuitive, you can easily learn and remember where are the IMPORTANT THINGS while placing the first steps in this interesting world. You can define which messages should pop up right on the screen and which should be just mentioned on the side of the screen. Many useful hotkeys are also available for you as soon as you will learn the basics. You can even define your own hotkey. Tons of mapmodes is a big advantage if you like to see everything on the map.

MULTIPLAYER
Playing with others is not perfect, but provides much fun as well. There are some issues like "corrupted saves" or other stuff, which makes a certain save totally unplayable. I had this problem only 1 time though for my dozens of games with friends. Everything happens slower in the multiplayer and the game speed cannot be too fast depending of the internet connection between the players and the host.
BIG ADVANTAGE: If host has some dlcs, others can play with him even if they dont have any. They will still have access to the content of the host while playing with him.

OVERRAL
This game will surely attach you to your PC for many, many hours. I highly recommend you buying it. But you NEED some DLCs to feel the game better. "Art of war" or "Rights of Man" are absolutely must have for playing in Europe.

PERSONAL RATING
9.5/10

When it comes to Grand Strategy games, there is only one company coming to my mind - Paradox Interactive.
Crusader Kings II is not the newest game, but it really keeps a high level. New updates, new DLCs. Despite the fact it is old, it is really competitive towards newest titles.
The best thing about this game is unique game mechanic. You do not controll a whole country here. You controll a member of a dynasty. This changes entire gameplay. You have to worry about continuity of your dynasty, which is troublesome when you realise that you are surrounded by your rivals, your jealous brother for example, who wants to inherit your titles. Crusades are also important part of the game, as aproaching Seljuk invasion is really dangerous.
The big thing here is maneuvering between your vassals wishes and your own. Too many rebelious vassals will cause several problems for sure.
The only disadvantage of this game is... Price of the whole game with all DLCs. In my opinion it is way too high, but you can get some more important DLCs on the sale.

BUY OR NOT?
OF COURSE GO FOR IT!
(note: It's way different than Europa Universalis 4, if you expect something similar, be cautious)

Wspaniała gra dzieciństwa, zagrałem w nią i od razu wróciły piękne czasy kiedy mama ganiała spać, a ja mowilem "Tylko skończę!" :D
9,5/10

Bardzo dobra gra z rozbudowanym systemem rang, każdy znajduje przeciwników na swoim poziomie. Poza rozgrywką istnieje możliwość zakupu skinów do broni na rynku społeczności Steam, co uatrakcyjnia rozgrywkę. Polecam gorąco fanom FPSów!