Recent reviews by ClassyTurtle

The community is as toxic as League of Legends.

10/10

Played a ton of Civilization V.
First full game of VI:

1. Literally nothing happend for 95% of the game.
2. I annexed a city state. Everyone hated me cause of it and started a global war around 1920 that lasted till 40's.
3. Their armies were ♥♥♥♥, so I fended off all invasions. I then demanded all of their cities as a joke.
4. They actually gave me all their cities. This happened again later with another civ.
5. The game takes way longer to finish on standard than Civ V
6. Won with culture, even though I had not been pursuing culture until I realized I was leading in it a couple dozen turns prior.

Civ VI Score: 0/10
Back to Civ V (an 11/10)!

This review was written at est. 200+ hours played (non-steam version) between A14 and A16.
Strategy/Building/Management games are my preferred form of crack.

TLDR; 10/10

The Good:

I. The Colonists

Each colonist has a backstory, and a large set of skills (or lack thereof) as well as various traits (bonuses or negatives). Some are particularly gifted with certain skills and gain experience much faster than those without. You will inevitably begin filling specific jobs to colonists which are more suited towards them as a result, which is both satisfying and realistic. Your colonists must work together to produce food, shelter and goods to survive the harsh RimWorld.
All colonists have: Social relationships, which is similar to The Sims or Crusader Kings II, though without the hassle of maintaining them yourself. Abrasive (trait) colonists will tend to piss off others and occasionally get into social fights for example; Basic needs such as food, rest, comfort, joy, beauty and space, all of which must be maintained by the colony products/facilities; Gear, which consists of the clothing they wear, armor and weapons; Health, which is my personal favorite. If your colonists go hunting and are mauled by a bear for example, there’s a good chance they will lose a limb which you can then replace with a bionic limb, assuming you have the resources to do so. Amputation, organ harvesting, drug addiction and more are all part of the health system, and it is phenomenally done.

II. Colony Building/Design & Crafting

Out of all the games I've played, few offer such an extensive crafting system (except maybe Factorio) as RimWorld. Your colonists will have to make everything they need in order to survive their harsh environment. Whether it be the shelters they build and live in, or the clothing they wear, or the types of foods they grow and eat, or the types of animals they raise and hunt. If you are in a biome filled with deer, odds are most of your clothing is going to be made out of deer hide. Your colonists will have to work tirelessly to produce all the goods you need in order to survive.

III. Random Disasters/Events

There are a great many random events which occur during any given moment of a game. Thunderstorms (wet and dry) may cause fires, blights which destroy your crops, eclipses which will kill your solar panels, solar flares to turn off all electronics, infestations of bugs, and more. There are also trade caravans from nearby factions, as well as enemy raiders to come harass and murder your poor colonists. To give you an excellent example of just how much these events can change the course of your game, I’ll tell you now a story of one of my failed colonies:
In the Fall, my colonists have produced plenty of warm clothing and stockpiled a good amount of food. They’re ready to get through the winter, no doubt. Then one beautiful crisp morning, a powerline overloads and begins a fire in my mostly wooden structure. I immediately wake up all the colonists and send them to fight the flames, but by the time they put it out, more than half the food has been burnt up. When the fire started, a colonist was in the room with the powerline and was burnt to a crisp. Already a man down, and it’s not even winter. Then winter comes, and with it, a large raid.

Fending off the raiders isn’t usually too bad, but this one was the largest yet. The raiders damage a good portion of the front of my colony, destroying doors, walls, heaters and other vital equipment as well as killing another colonist (who just happened to be my primary Doctor). My remaining 3 colonists are depressed from the deaths of their friends (and brother for one of them), and one finally snaps. He goes wandering around in a daze outside in the snow during a cold snap. Most of the food is gone by this point, and things are looking bad. Another of the colonists nearly bled to death, as the only remaining ones have very poor medical skills. We ran out of medicine last week, so you guessed it: infection. He dies from infection.
The wanna-be doctor wandering around outside is eaten by a pack of hungry wolves. Just one colonist left, and most of the food is gone. He’s going in and out of dazes, bodies of raiders and colonists are everywhere. Finally he runs out of food, and he does what he has to: he begins butchering the raider and colonist corpses for meat. Luckily they’ve remained frozen outside and in the half-destroyed buildings.
In the end, it’s in vain; During yet another dazed incident outside, he is attacked by a bear and loses a limb, bleeding out in the snow. And so ended a colony which would have otherwise been just fine for the whole winter. The events snowballed and snowballed until there was nothing left worth saving.

IV. A Whole World to Trade (Or Conquer)

A more recent addition to the game is the ability to send out your own caravans to nearby settlements to trade goods. You can also attack them, and be the horrible pirates that you probably hate by this point.

The Wat?:

I. Normally I would list a bunch of odd choices for system design or bad interfaces or missing obvious features. Not on this game!

The Bad:

I. It's still in Early Access, and thus it is not yet complete. Your savegames may occasionally break due to this, so don't get attached to any of your colonies.
II. It can be horribly unforgiving and brutal.

This game is early access, but not really. It's basically finished as far as I can tell. You start with a drill and a box. You have to feed your drill coal to keep it going. You craft some more drills and boxes. Then after a decent amount of iron and copper has been melted you can make automatic miners, belts and electricity, and this game becomes something truly mindblowing.

Your goal is to create the universes most effective automated factory, and by god you will try. Once you automate one thing, you can then automate another, and another, and eventually you will have a sprawling, massive factory that you didn't plan very well. It will bother you, so you'll make a new section of your factory, much more organized and effective. And then you'll make it bigger, and bigger and bigger, because by this point you realize that you need true mass production of everything if you want to get all the science packs produced, and your rocket built.

Then you'll look outside, or at your clock, and realize you haven't left your computer to eat, drink or sleep for five days. I'm not kidding, this game is better than crack.

UPDATE: Now with V2.0 and beyond, they have fixed virtually every complaint I had.
Great game! Too lazy to update review below.

First you start out with making your species, picking its homeworld type, leader, emblem, traits and more. You can also rename anything you want while you play. I literally have not found something I could not rename. Leaders, planets, stars, sectors, ships, etc. I especially like that there are 3 types of Space Travel: Warp Drive, Hyperdrive, Wormhole Stations. Each one works a little differently, and has its own advantages and disadvantages.

Unfortunately for me, I run Stellaris on a potato, so I am limited to the smaller size (150 stars). You can have up to 1000 stars on the largest map size.
As of patch 1.0.3, I can now run the game (mostly) fine w/ larger map sizes.

It’s got it all, black holes, pulsars, you name it. All sorts of interesting solar systems are randomly generated.

I love the Pops mechanics. Every pop has traits, but they can diverge into different traits and ethics over time. Later on when I unlocked gene modification, my own people started modifying themselves and changing. I also uplifted some plant-people, then genetically modified them some more to make them a biogenic army invasion force to use against my enemies. (+40% dmg is pretty nice).

I tried to go to war with one of them. That was a very bad idea. I look forward being able to take on one of these guys at some point.


It’s true, the UI is phenomenal compared to other Paradox games, but some strange things still lurk about. Quickly finding a list of all your trade deals isn’t exactly obvious. Another example would be edicts. All planets have them, but there’s also empire-wide edicts on an entirely different tab.

In my first game I formed a Federation, half expecting a great merging color of myself and friends, showing our new Federation name. Nope. No map modes of any kind. (Allies, enemies, Alliances/Federations, economy. etc)

Not until they were already bombarding one of my homeworlds and had blown up a space station did I notice. You only receive a small notification at the top when they enter your space… which will always be there if you’re within THEIR territory at the same time. This bothers me a lot.

Another bizarre one. Every planet has food production in addition to its energy, science and minerals. Yet, if I have a planet producing 11 extra food, and the pops are all filled, then what should I do with it? Well, don’t worry about that because you can’t do anything with it. Cant trade it, transport to your other worlds, sell it, nothing. Having extra food doesn’t seem to do anything beneficial whatsoever.

I don’t even know where to start on the AI. It’s dumb. Really dumb. Even on hard the AI doesn’t do a anything that I have seen. The most interesting thing the AI has ever done in my games is go to war with their neighbor. Once. Nothing came of it. Another time three empires created an alliance.


Once your star empire begins growing for real, you’re going to have a ton of planets to keep track of. Thus we have Sectors, zones you designate by star system. It makes sense, and it essentially automates those planets for you. The UI for sectors is far from good, and needs many changes to be useful, but that doesn’t bother me nearly as much as the total inability for Sectors to automatically build Spaceports, Ships or Armies. This is downright infuriating, because you have to open the absolutely abysmal sector list, open each one, then click each individual sub planet within that sector and build a spaceport. This. Is. AWFUL.

Everything is wrong with this. I first noticed when I formed my first Federation. After managing to make friends by essentially giving away minerals and credits and repeatedly renewing research/star chart exchanges, we formed an alliance. This was very tedious even then, but I figured the real cool stuff would happen at Federation level. Boy was I wrong. Once I formed my federation…. Well that’s it. Nothing changed as opposed to an alliance. I figured some type of Voting system would be involved to vote on federation laws, kick members out, set Federation-wide Policies (Prohibiting slavery seems like a thing a Federation made up of very different alien species would vote on, right?). This was a massive disappointment, there is absolutely nothing special about being in a federation. Except the Federation Fleet. You can build ships with all Federation Members pooled Tech, so they're the best ships you can make. Only the Federation President can make them, so you lose control after you lose your seat (alternates every 10 yrs between members).
So after waiting 30 years to regain my presidency, I am excited to see the size of the fleet.... THE STUPID AI DIDNT BUILD ANY. AT ALL. ZERO. IN THIRTY YEARS. NOT ONE SINGLE SHIP.

The Diplomacy Menu itself is another massive disappointment. It’s fairly simple, a list of trade deals you can do, but it’s missing such basic things… like the ability to see how many minerals/credits they have. If you try to trade 1000 credits for 1000 minerals or vice versa, and they only have 990, the trade deal wont go through. But it won’t ever say it didn’t go through. And they could have as little as 5 credits/minerals. You have no way of knowing! Additionally, where the hell is the button to trade food? Oh yeah, I forgot, food is totally meaningless in a huge, populated galaxy!

Lastly, and probably the worst out of everything… War is too easy. This may relate to the amazingly dumb AI, but every game I’ve played has been the same… expand first and fast, and then conquer my nearest neighbor and vassalize them. Now I have double the fleet because once I declare war on a second empire, my new vassal’s fleet attaches and follows mine. This immediately starts a huge snowball effect and my giant deathblob of ships just move on and on until everyone around me is my personal ♥♥♥♥♥. It shouldn’t be this easy. You know what would be great? If the AI empires around me, after I conquered Vassal number 2 or 3, pulled their heads out of their asses and said “Oh man. Let’s make an alliance and stop this crazy bastard before he comes for us.”

For a Paradox game, I am just stunned by how there’s no infighting whatsoever. There are factions, but they don’t do anything. Rebellions are supposed to be a huge feature. If you’ve ever played CK2 you know how frustrating it is to be going through 20 years of civil war just because your King died while hunting, and his 4 sons decide to tear apart the Kingdom for the Throne. So where the hell is this kind of thing for Stellaris? Disabled, apparently. That’s right. They released the game without one of their most well-known mechanics. One day they say there will be a patch to enable rebellions and factions once again, but how they released it without it already working is just beyond me.

Stellaris is a very fun game. I enjoy it a lot. But there are some glaring problems (AI, trade/diplo, UI) that ANYONE at Paradox should have seen. In my opinion, they have essentially released a Beta. A very fun beta, but it clearly is not finished. I expect a stupid amount of DLC for this game, as their past titles had as well. However, if they expect me to pay for a DLC pack just so there is some kind of REAL DIPLOMACY/TRADE, they can piss off. This is something that should be in the base game. Period.

It can be difficult to put into words the kind of effect Crusader Kings can have on a person, but I will do my best to do so.

If you’re anything like me, you start as a lowly, insignificant ruler of a small county. You hope to have a nice quiet life. Find a good, loyal wife with excellent traits, and if you’re truly lucky, gain another county to call your own. A great many years pass, your bones ache and you grow weary more and more every day. The savage ruler to the north taunts you and burns your villages. Another few years pass, and as you lay on your deathbed, your firstborn Son and Heir enters and says “Father, we have secured the lands to our North at last, and our soldiers celebrate your name, and our victory!”
“Good, my son, good…” you say. “It is time, then. Our House shall be known as the guardians of these lands from now until the end of time. It is your time to rule.” Your son, brushing away a tear, “Not yet, father. I have assembled the other nobles. We name you Duke of these lands, and all those who follow you shall be known as such. You’ve accomplished a great deal.” Sleepily you muster, “Duke…” before departing the world.

Centuries pass, and your descendants find themselves Kings of a grand, sprawling land. But it was not without a heavy cost. Your great grandson, Duke Henry found himself beset by enemies on all sides. A small ‘Kingdom’ of savages to the east, even his own noblemen and councilors conspired against him. The war was long, and brutal. Thousands of your people, even Henry’s own son, die in battle. Worse still, Duke Henry discovers that even his wife has betrayed him, with his own spymaster, the only councilmen Henry believed he could trust. In his rage, he orders them executed.

It was not long after that the disloyal, traitorous dogs within Henry’s realm show their true intentions, and a small faction of rebels goes about pillaging the countryside. Now truly alone, Henry perseveres. The remaining cowardly traitors within the realm are imprisoned and executed. The foolish rebels find themselves slaughtered by the savages to the east, and they themselves weakened. With a bit of luck at long last, Henry crushes the remaining forces, and declares victory over the savages. They will stay to their own lands for years. But now the son of the spymaster seeks revenge, and he himself has a son.

Henry cannot allow this to continue, he has gone too far and fought too hard to allow it all to fall into ruin, just because of some foolish young mans misguided attempts of revenge. A plot is devised, and the problem is eleminated. The spymasters son has two children of his own by now, and Henry knows it is only a matter of time before they too seek revenge. Henry orders his new, fiercely loyal spymaster to take care of the problem. With great efficiency, the 10 year old stumbles off a cliff, and the wee babe is found in his crib, without breath.

A few years later, Duke Henry ‘The Cruel’ launches a grand war against the savages of the east, and claims their land for his own. Shortly after, Henry orders a crown be forged, made of the finest gold, silver and gems. With a thunderous voice, hardened by years of betrayal, struggle and unspeakable horrors, he declares “I am King Henry the 1st of House Durroe, King of Bavaria, ruler of this land, and no one shall stand in my way ever again!”


Tl;dr – Slaughtered multiple family lineages, children, women, thousands of peasants, tortured prisoners, castrated the tratiors and eventually became a King because of it.
11/10 would genocide again.

I've been playing this game since around Alpha 10, and it has continued to steadily grow into a much more interesting game. It has a bit of a steep learning curve, but once you get the hang of it it's a real blast. Don't expect detailed info on the rooms/objects.

Considering I've sunk nearly 120 hours into this thing while it's still in Alpha should say a lot.

Hats! HATS! HATS!!!!

Extraordinary game. Way better than an RTS. The only complaint is that it takes a LOOOOONG time to finish a game, usually.