Recent reviews by PTK

I dont recommend it, at its current price nor state. I am not filled with optimism either. However its not all doom and gloom.
Like most other games Paradox get their hands on, Wait 1-2 years and get it on a sale with all the DLCs.

What I like:

Its nice having a fresh new game, with a fresh new look.
I like the new art. I never liked the cartoon feel of CS-1. This is a more enjoyable artstyle for me.
Lot of quality of life updates. Many of the things you would need mods for, are by and large integrated into the game. Which is a huge benefit, if you like me, prefer playing vanilla.
I love the roundabouts.
I love not having to lay pipes, or draw up electric wires all across my map.
I like the new development system which paces the city building better than in CS-1.
I love the moddable/ajustable buildings. I love being able to slap on a few more classrooms for my school, or a few more Taxis for my Taxi-depot.
I like the new consumption/production and tax system

What I dont like
I paid about 559 NOK or == 55-60 $/€ per 27.10.23, Imo this is about 15-5 $/€ too much. This should have had a MAX price of 499, or == 50 $/€ on release.
The game is awefully awefully slow. I dont have the most modern system, but even with a tiny city, tiny population this game runs at maybe 30 fps. At times I feel like Im watching a Powerpoint presentation.
I dislike the Industrial-zones. They look horrid and I can only expect they will sell us proper Industrial zones akin to CS-1 in a future DLC. This is a major turn off. They sorta maybe kinda work for farms or forestry, but for anything else, they look like ♥♥♥♥.
It feels stripped back. Lots of the things which we take for granted from CS-1 are lacking. Most serious is the lack of proper Specialised Industry-zones and the ability to make custom-parks. These are so essential to my experience of CS-1, I feel cheated not having them in CS-2.

Imo if I had it in CS-1 even as a DLC; Im going to be real annoyed should I have to buy it as a DLC in CS-2. Im buying the "upgrade". A sequel should not feel like a downgrade from a prequel. I dont care what the "but think about the cost bro" or "Devs need to make money bro" people think on this matter. I feel cheated.

Optimalization is an issue. If I cant actually play your game, It dont matter what you put in it. The future promises of "30 FPS goal". does not fill me with optimism for the future of this game either. People who play city-builders by and large are willing to accept low FPS, but this is a humiliatingly low goal.

Tl;dr
Buy it in about a year when you can get a sale and some DLCs.

I dont know how accurate it is to call this game a city-builder. It merges politics, citybuilding and economics all in one game. I dont think it does any of them perfectly. the best city-building game on the market is still probably city-skylines, the best economic simulator is probably still wallstreet raider, while the best political sim might still be Power & Revolution. However this game intercects all those topics and makes a pretty decent game out of it.

Playing this game, I dont feel like a cityplanner, I dont feel like a centralbanker or a President. I think the most accurate job title might be something along the lines of county-council-chairman. You dip your toes into all sorts of topics but dont really deal with any specific details.

The negative reviews of this game largely are based on bugs. Which i have experienced == nothing of. Or they complain about the tutorial. Which to be fair is pretty basic. But come on the game is not all that complex. The tutorial imo is more than suitiable if this is not your first city-building game. Some might argue that the game favours a certian type of economic and political system. Which might be true. However I think this is largely an issue of not properly looking into game-mechanics. Since in my experience there appears to be several ways to build a well-functioning city/province/county.

All in all I really enjoyed the time I spendt with this game, and I hope we get a Citystate III

It does not scratch all the same itches that Simtower / Yoot Tower does. It does however give a enjoyable grey 90s vibe to the gameplay. Build Tower to make money, use money to build more tower. Its that simple/that hard and I can enjoy that. Its not a deep or complex game, but a game I often find myself coming back to when I have a few hours to kill and want to play something which demands minimum brainpower.

So the game is a lot of fun, its an old classic where I used to have this game on a CD and have probably played 20-30 times my steamhours.

There are some semi-frequent crashes. Which might be due to age or my computer set up, Not frequent enough to break the game, however frequent enough to be annoying.

I dont like that I have to use their luancher on what is literally a 20 year old game. Which just gives me annother lunahcer I never use and have 0 want for. And that is enough for a negative reveiw.

Its a bad game, Not worth anywhere near its asking price.
Tl:dr: Its ♥♥♥♥

This review was written 09.10.22

I was given this game for free. The retail price as Im writing this review is about 30€ with a 10% sale making it about 27€.

Before anything else I want to point out that this game only has 1 (fairly slow) speed setting. Meaning this turns out to be a fairly slow game to play.

I want to start with the things I really liked about this game. Sadly there is not too much to like. Its a very flavourless game, with fairly little content and a fair few bugs and other issues which deduct from the fun I could have had.

Alot of people dislike comparing it to SP2. However that was a 18 year old game which feels like it had roughly the same amount of content which this game does. Now SP2 was not a very deep game. However it had alot of flavour and it allowed you to have fun with that flavour.

The roleplay servers of old on SP2 were so great because of the freedom you had withinn SP2. You wanted to play a theocratic communist UK which discriminates against English people ? Go right ahead there are ways to do that. As of today playing a country i can choose between allowing elections and not allowing elections. And a very binary choice of Dictatorship or Democracy. Making a communist country and a theocracy more or less the same.

SP 2 allowed you to discriminate/favour based on religion/ language. SP3 downgrades that system. And meshes culture, religion and language all in one bloc. For example you have Black/White South African. Demarking social group on racial grounds, while other places its Christian vs Muslim Tongoleese demarking social group on language grounds. In Serbia you have Serbs and Hungarian serbs... Well what seperates a Hungarian and a Hungarian serb if they live in the same country? This also removes flavour.

SP2 had what felt like 200 diffrent economic sectors. Here we have maybe 16? Autarky still appears to be the way to go. They try to limit this with limiting the amount of farmland your country can have. Which does not really make the situation any better. It just means you have to invade other countires in a long game.

Im still trying to figure out how to use the unit designer and how to purchase more army units. But this is probably because Im retarded. I dont think the UI is all that great. You can have bad UI which is functional. This appears just to be bad.

War has had a rewamp which is... Not horrible but far from great. You now have to continiously occupy the provinces which you want to take over. Thats cool. Had it not been for the fact that some countires which are the size of a stamp have 1000 provinces and the USA has 50. There is no "occupy button" which there was in SP2. A feature I miss when we have to deal with continious occupation.

All in all. Its just disapointing. It lacks a ton of features. It has no flavour to speak off. The servers were beyond ♥♥♥♥♥♥ on release. All in all Im just disapointed. I dont know if its because the devs were rushed, or because the devs were lazy, If you can get it on a super sale. Sure go for it. If not stay clear.

I enjoy it,

The good:
I like the concept, I enjoy the era and I enjoy the attempt at realism being made. Is it 100% realistic? Probably not. It does however make an effort and a serious one at that. While there are other trading games on steam this is something new and novelty is nice after all a trading game is a trading game. I like that there is a 2 currency system; credit too and from the Indians, and cash with Europeans/Freemen. It adds a nice touch.

The meh:
Its a little too random. I mean obviously you are trading with the indians for trapped fur, not all hunting seasons are going to be alike. However as of 22/09/22 it feels just a little too random and a perhaps a little too punishing? The nations, You can pick between several diffrent nations to play as/ represent, this give you bonuses / disfavourable traits. While i understand the idea, it does ruin some of the realism aspect,

The bad:
You can stack up pretty huge debt with nobody actually appearing to care, Okay maybe this is realistic, After all what is the tribe of 100 people going to do against your mega F-off stone fortress? Probably not too much, With Europeans however Im unsure how realistic I find it, However I guess this is similar to the credit system?

All in all:
Not going to blow your mind, But if you like trading games (or Early American/Frontier history) give it a go you might just enjoy it.

I think this would have been fantastic as an early access title.
Its too bare bones to really justify the full price of 130,- == 13€ in its current state. If you can get it on a sale... Perhaps its worth your money. (I got it on a 20% sale.)

The good
The idea is a great one. Its fairly easy to build in the game. You can build at a great scale. It has a semi realistic / not too cartoony look which I prefer. I like real estate development games and city builders so this should be right up my alley.

The Meh
Money is too easy to come across. So sure I love seeing the money go up & down I dont really ever feel like I need to worry about money. There are some "jobs" you can do to make more money, I dont really see when you would ever need to do these things since you will "always" have more than enough money. The AI cannot be called intelligent, However it keeps your city from being a ghost-town so meh?

The Bad
Its just not big enough, There is not enough stuff to see do or use. There feels like there is too few building blocks to really compliment the more realistic artstyle. Its easier to suspend your disbelief in a game like Minecraft than in a game like this. The blocks (yes its mostly blocks) and tools I have at my disposal does not allow me to really build at the scale needed to fit in with the art style. It works wonders if you are building a block of flats, Building a house however is going to be more of an issue. Currently 18/09/22 iut feels too much like Im playing a beta.

Before you buy I think you should think about your expectations for this game. Is this a game which will blow you out of your socks with its awesomeness and deep and realistic simulation? No

I read one of the other reviews describe this as "a choose your own adventure game" as "few of your choices matter". And there is without a doubt some truth to those comments. However I paid 37,- or about 3,5-4€ for this game. I did not expect much and honestly Its fine.

Its one of those games I can imagine playing when you need a 10 minute break.

I like the artstyle.

I would rate it somewhere between 4-6/10.

If you want to donate money to the Ukraine via a company then sure this is perfect for you. If you only care about the assets you get from this DLC its kinda lackluster. As the workshop will provide you with many of the same things for free. So Simply from a game improvment pov. I dont reckon that its really worth the asking price. Which for me here in Norway was 72,- or about 7€.