Recent reviews by › President Xi Jinping

This game plays like the devs had no idea what the ♥♥♥♥ they were doing and then just tried to copy Millennia and Ara in the last 6 months and did a really ♥♥♥♥ job of it. Trying to split the game into distinct Era's (Like Millennia), and yet each Era introduces basically no new mechanics (Unlike Millennia), plays exactly the same each time (Unlike Millennia), does not feel distinct or interesting (Unlike Millennia) and does not contribute to an overall narrative of the game (Unlike Millennia).

You also develop your cities by building multiple buildings in each tile (Like Ara) but a lot of the mechanics are generally poorly communicated (Unlike Ara), the building placement is actually painfully simply under the surface (Unlike Ara), doesn't really encourage any city specialisation (Unlike Ara) and results in rather simplistic decisions making (Unlike Ara). That the AI still sucks ass at building placement despite the decision making being painfully binary is testament to the devs stupidity/incompetence/laziness.

On top of that, the UI is complete ass (Just like Ara, so I guess the devs got that part right), the Devs were too lazy/stupid to implement some really simple quality of life stuff like a city planner and the civilopedia is complete ♥♥♥♥. City states have been dumbed down and simplified (Click the befriend button and wait). Trying to befriend hostile city states is nearly pointless as you have to kill them in the early game to safely expand and, if you try to befriend them, someone else will kill them in the 30 turns you're waiting for it to work. Just make them barbarians and be done with it.

And I haven't even started ranting about the meta progression they implemented for no good reason. Why the ♥♥♥♥ should I have to play through multiple games with the same leader to unlock new leader abilities/mechanics to try? Why didn't they just attach all of those mechanics to different leaders or the existing leaders? It's not like they spent much time recording voice lines or creating animations for each leader so adding more shouldn't be too hard. Then again, with how low effort every other element of this game is, I guess expecting them to spend a few days on that is far too much of an ask.

I cannot believe they managed to drop the ball this hard. It shouldn't even be possible to ♥♥♥♥ up this hard through simple incompetence. The devs should be ashamed of themselves for what they've done. But I doubt they have the intellectual capacity to even understand what shame is.

Do you like cute animations with a gorgeous art style? A creative world to explore with mechanics that are fun without becoming a chore? Experiencing multiple compelling storylines from characters that are well thought out, complex and interesting? A wonderful combination of mechanics, worldbuilding, characters and stories that all mesh together with purpose and care? All you have to do is subject yourself to repeated emotional gut punches that will have you watching Grave of the Fireflies afterwards to help cheer yourself up.

I don't want to install malware (Epic game services) in order to play this game.

This game is a genuine step forward in the 4X genre. It's not a Civilization clone and that is great. National Spirits, Variant Ages and different Government types all give you so many options for how to play the game and how to approach the challenges you face. It's the sort of game where, as you're playing, you're already excited about trying out different builds and ideas the next time you start a new game.

Micromanagement hell. The tutorials are terrible and random game events occur to you that aren't explained in any reasonable detail, aren't predictable or negatable or can just outright kill your run without any fairness. You are the victim of far too much RNG that can bring the game to a screeching halt for an hour or two.

You'd think that a tycoon game designed around setting up supply lines would have even a modicum of AI when it comes to transporting goods but I swear they are purposefully programmed to be as terrible as possible. All your dirty money gets crammed into the one building to launder it, despite there being 3 available to use, requiring you to micromanaging delivering the money elsewhere. Need two of an item to be delivered to a building to combine into a new item? Watch as all your trucks only deliver a single item there, while all the buildings within range producing the other max out their storage and cause your terror level to rise. Seriously, I watched for 5 minutes as my trucks kept cramming a single item item my workshops, maxing out that storage, the other one completely empty, while all the buildings around them maxed out their storage of the other required item and stopped producing.

Either the devs were too stupid to fix these issues, they did not care, or they purposefully did it to artificially jack up the difficulty. Either way, it's pathetic and this game sucks.

This game is everything Two Point Hospital should have been.

Ignore the haters, 90% of the complaints about this game are because the player is stupid, is playing at a difficulty well above what they should, is trying to use weapons and stratagems to achieve things that they were never designed to do, or all of the above. Unfortunately much of the community has been overtaken by toxic scrubs who suck at the game and are upset that the highest difficulty is actually difficult.

You'll see players crying and moaning about how the dev team only nerfs things, conveniently ignoring that the devs have overall buffed stuff 3 times as often as nerfed. And many of the "Nerfs" are actually sidegrades or minor redesigns to give the stratagem a more distinct place in the game. They're salty that certain enemies constantly kill them, but then steadfastly refuse to change the way they play or the builds they use. They sob that certain weapons suck, but then you find out they're trying to use them to do things the weapon is distinctly not designed to do, while completely sleeping on other weapons that are amazingly effective at that very thing or will easily solve the problem they have. They weep about how enemy spawns are broken and there are too many bad guys, but they refuse to stick together and pick their battles, instead they spread out and aggro the entire map, letting themselves get overwhelmed soon after. They whine that the game is too hard, but refuse to just lower the difficulty. I play at difficulty 6-7 cause that is where I have the most fun. They have the option to do the same but just don't cause they're afraid their PP will shrink if they do. It's honestly pathetic.

Does the game have issues? Of course it does, no game is perfect. But it's a hell of a lot of fun and I definitely got my moneys worth. Ignore the haters, they are the epitome of mad cuz bad.

Started off good fun with a clever concept and a puzzle to slowly and carefully unpick each turn. And then it just got worse and worse over time. Enemies started getting more and more absurdly powerful abilities that just take all the tactics out of the game and make you more and more reliant on RNG.

Early in the game if you didn't have decent attack cards you could move into a safe position to the side of an enemy and outside of their attack arc and wait for a better draw. The random chance of your card draw that turn forced you to think outside of the box, but it also made it feel all the more satisfying when you had just the right tool for the right job and pulled off the perfect turn.

Now all enemies automatically turn to face you when you move, or they will move every time you move (And they still get to move on their turn too). They will automatically counter attack you whenever you attack them (Even if you attack from behind). Or automatically attack you whenever you move into their attack arc (Which often takes up a significant majority of the board that isn't already covered in enemies). Enemies have huge stacks of "armour" that regenerates at the start of every turn while for you to do the same you not only need to have the card drawn but also it takes an action to do so (And don't tell me the quick block free action card exists, I know it exists but the armour it gives you is barely half what a generic enemy will deal in a single attack so it may as well not exist). Enemies are immune to damage from the front. Enemies will automatically deal damage to you whenever you deal damage to them (Not even a counter attack, just hitting them will straight up hurt you). You used to be able to get around some of this by having enemies attack each other, which was cool and fun and rewarded good gameplay and positioning. And then enemies became immune to each others attacks so that option goes out the window too.

And don't get me started on the deck building in this game. A few hours in and you realise that the deck theme you had been angling for is now useless because every enemy has an ability that hard counters your decks greatest strength.

It gets to a point where you aren't punished for making a mistake, or taking a risk that doesn't pay off. You are punished for literally every move you make. Every time you do anything at all the entire board changes as enemies move and attack and counter attack. Hell it isn't uncommon to find yourself in an impossible situation on the very first turn of a level.

Hard pass, I wish I could refund this trash.

I'm not sure what they have done with their latest "patches" but they certainly didn't help. The AI cheats so hard it isn't funny and it is so in your face and blatant it makes a complete farce of the game. Taking ownership of minor factions without actually completing the necessary quests, upgrading their ships when they're not in their systems, perfect maphacking when at war so they can always dodge your fleets with outright perfect manoeuvring, not to mention just being granted massive amounts of resources and ships out of nothing.

I used to enjoy this game, but the miserable state of the AI takes all the fun out of it cause every time I get a little bit ahead the AI pulls some random ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ out of it's arse to drag me back down and ruin my fun.

Great game for map painting and 4X fun. The gameplay goes very deep and I feel like every few hours I realise that I could have done something better as I get a better handle on all the systems. But you don't have to go extreme on your gameplay, micromanaging the hell out of your empire is not required to play the game, to have fun or to even be particularly good at it.

Definitely start with the base game and play a good few hours of it before you touch any DLC. The DLC adds a lot of more of the same, so it won't fix the game or make it enjoyable if you don't like it already.