My review is becoming riddled with updates, as the developer has been fixing stuff. Rather than keep trying to patch it, I'm just going to add my latest thoughts up here.

They've been very good about fixing issues quickly, and in particular the fact that it no longer pauses or resets when it loses focus is a massive improvement. There are some lingering issues related to the game's touch-interface-heritage (e.g. the requirement to drag tokens around, rather than being able to just click on a spot), but overall I'm much more satisfied with it now.

To be honest, I still don't heartily endorse it at the current quality and price (especially considering the price of DLC), but the steam rating system requires a thumbs up or a thumbs down and I think it narrowly makes the cut. Hypothetically, it should only get better from here.

I also should mention that at the moment, my review says 164 of 197 people (83%) found this review helpful. Those ratings were from before these updates, when I was giving the game a thumbs down, and that negative review. Hopefully my review is still helpful, but I don't want those people to feel like I hijacked their endorsements or something.

------ Mostly-original review below ------

Board games are my thing. I have almost 500 board games, and Small World is one of my favorites. I even kicked in for the collector's edition in the kickstarter that brought Small World 2.

And... I can't recommend this. Besides being overpriced (the Android version is $10; no idea what DLC costs for Android), it's really poorly designed for PC.

Doing everything requires dragging tokens from one place to another, which would be fine on a touch display but is a huge hassle with a mouse.

The game pauses if it ever loses focus, which means you can't browse the web and such during the computer's turn. Also, if you're playing an online game, and you leave the window's focus, even if it's played every other player's turn for you and it's your turn now, the game rewinds and plays back every turn again. What the hell?!

UPDATE: Quick play is now working, although the sub-minute estimates are quite optimistic. Took me a couple minutes to find a game. I'd previously written that only quick play wasn't working at all (and it wasn't, at the time).

There's support for a friends list, but it uses Days of Wonders' servers to manage your friends. There's no way of seeing your steam friends, as far as I can tell, which is particularly baffling since it already goes out of its way to tie your steam account to a Days of Wonder account.

That said, the quick play issues is the only real 'bug' I've encountered in the hour or so I've had it. All the other problems I have with it are design issues. Technically, it runs well. There's no full screen option, but the window resizes smoothly to whatever size you want (including maximizing).

I'm enjoying it, but I've already sunk the money for it. I don't recommend purchasing it until at the very least the online issues are ironed out, and ideally some more thought is put into how the game should work on PC differently from tablets.

UPDATE: Match making for online quick play is working now

This game used to be a very good version of the board game. It was stuck at version 2.5 forever, which was fine -- it looked good, it crashed sometimes but you could immediately restart where you left off, the AI was pretty good though it had serious weaknesses with some classes like sorcerers and leprechauns. I found it relaxing, moderately challenging, and playable. Over the years I put in well over 400 hours of gameplay.

Then last year they put out a patch that broke the game. There was no warning and no patch notes (still). After a few days they made it playable again though it has never been the same. Ugly fonts, slow animations, and window size issues were the most common complaint. I lost all my high scores and my expansion purchases. For all that, there was nothing new that I could see. Again, there were no patch notes, so who knows. I stopped playing for a while, hoping they would improve things. They didn't. I tried again last week and all the same issues are there, plus I had four crashes in five games. At least my expansions are back.

It is playable, I guess, and a decent version of the board game. If you decide to buy it, just know it used to be better. I assume they merged the codebase with the mobile version, or some other game, or something. Whatever it was, they went in the wrong direction.

This is great!
The same gameplay as the boardgrame, but you save a buttload of time from not having to fiddle with the five million tokens all the time. Also no arguing about the rules; Even more time saved! Playtime has gone from 2 hours to 20 minutes with this digital version.

Online multiplayer is a bit dicky to set up, though, so you'll need 20 minutes of preparation before you can play the first time. (You need to make a days-of-wonder-account.)

This is a fun board game, and I thought I would give it a go with some friends online, but playing online games with friends is extremely buggy with non stop connection and "authenticating" issues.

The core small worlds game is fun and a lot of people want to see a computerized version of it to play online with friends. However it's quite expensive for what you get, only took half a year to make and the DLC option is an insult to any other passionate developer that works his ass off to go that extra mile who truely deserves it. Back in my day DLC was called an expansion pack and it was worth every penny. Here we have a set of simple and over priced DLC packs on day 1, something alreay made & a number of fans could poop out in an afternoon if they spent that time to support mods. OK, It's understandable that a company seeks to maximize profits but this developer goes a little too far with asking consumers to purchase an aditional andriod version even after they have brought the PC one. Not sure if that also requires purchasing the DLC twice but its deserves critisim because the combined price tage is approaching a tripple A title.

As for the quality of the game itself, there are a few bugs with it. The race descriptions don't always render properly, it appears to use flash/html pages for that and suffer from a font issue on my machine. I also caused the game to freeze when attempting to read the rules as the bots were taking their turn. There are limited graphical options for resolution & sound. All said and done, its entertaining for an hour or so but for that price I think you can find something else that will keep you going for far longer.

*update* Some parts of the game looks nice, but the quality of developement feels rushed in how it responds, the screen doesn't scale well in places. http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=203025847

The application must also be active at all times to play multiplayer otherwise you get a re authorization message followed by the turn replaying itself from start which means no browsing on your 2nd monitor to pass the time and even reading the in game rules causes this issue to occur. I like the game but the quality could be better.

Great boardgame gets a great videogame treatment! Local multiplayer makes a great alternative to getting out the box and playing tabletop when kids are around to grab at the 100+ pieces in the game.

As for the game itself:
It's a Risk-esque territory accumulation game, set in a fantasy world, but without the massive luck based elements of risk. Over the course of the game you'll control different factions (elves, orcs, sorcerers, etc.) all with different attributes that tweak the core rules. Each faction gets assigned a random special ability like flying, berserking or dragon master that further tweaks the rules.

Each territory requires 2 soldiers to conquer, with 1 additional required for each additional factor like terrain, fortifications or opponents troop occupation. Eventually your troops will wear thin and you'll have to put your active race in decline; all but one troop in each location is removed from the board. You still collect points for those territories; but special abilities & troop movement are no longer an option. At the start of your next turn you'll be able to select a new faction.

Play continues for 10 rounds with points being accumulated for each territory you control at the end of each turn. It's fast paced, with fun art and concept; and also scales very well. It supports 2-5 players, but has a different sized game board depending on how many people are playing!

Linux version of the game hasn't worked in over 8 months, no response from developers about the problem, yet Steam still lists it as Linux/SteamOS compatible on the store page. Do NOT buy if you are a Linux user.

Small World 2 is an easy to learn and quick to play digital version of the popular board game by Days of Wonder. The object of the game is simple, be the player to gain the most coins by the end of the game, through occupying regions of the map and taking over opponent’s regions through conquests.

The rules of the game are simple and easy to learn and this digital rendition makes it easy to keep track of everything and prevent mistakes that can easily be made when playing the original board game.

Once the basics of the game have been grasped the skill comes in when deciding if it is worth paying coins for choosing a better race/ability combo, choosing which regions to occupy/conquer and when to send your race into decline and choose a new race.

The DLC’s add new race/ability cards creating new combinations to master and get used to. At the moment, there are only a few DLC’s available and not all of the expansions available for the board game version have made it to the digital version as a DLC.

There are many ways to play:
Solo V’s AI - The AI of the game does seem a little unbalanced with dice rolls frequently failing for the player and constantly succeeding for the AI (way above what the statistical average should be).
Online Multiplayer - Unfortunately recently there does not seem to be a lot of players wanting to play online. I have gone into the Online Waiting Area to find very few or no games at all available to join. I have also had the game crash or freeze a few times when playing online with a private game between friends.
Local Multiplayer - Great for playing against family and friends when all on the same network.
Pass & Play - Tedious way to play but means that the game can be played on just one computer and with only one copy of the game.

Overall Small World 2 has made a successful port over to a digital version. It has been sympathetically done, in line with the artwork and lore of the Small World board game. There are one or two small issues with the game, but generally these do not detract from the convenience and speed that the digital version brings over the original board game.

Pros:

• Quick to play as there is a turn limit on games.
  
• Easy to learn.
  
• Many ways to play.
  
• Prevents miscalculations/mistakes when trying to conquer regions/calculate coins earnt.

Cons:

• Limited ability to play online due to very few games being available to join.
  
• No graphics controls meaning that the quality on larger screens suffers.
  
• Occasional glitches especially when playing multiplayer.
  
• Unbalanced AI/random number generation.
  

I own the board game and most of the expansions, and my kids and I love it. This is a pretty faithful digital version. My son digitally crushed me twice in a row last night, and it took less time than it would have to play one game with the physical board game. We were pleased that it clarified a couple of rules that were not clear (to us) previously. The art is in keeping with Small World art, although the graphics don't scale well when maximized on a wide screen. Touch functionality is awesome, and using a mouse is not nearly as bad as some other reviewers have suggested. The AI is not 100% there: I've had AI opponents walk all over me, but I've also had an AI opponent play an entire game with their first-turn pick of Hordes of Amazons... Online play, Solo, and Pass 'n' Play all worked like a charm. I've had it crash out of the game twice during solo play, but I expect that will get ironed out in the near future. Overall, I believe it's worth the price for the base game and the DLC. I would really like to see Tales and Legends DLC.

DO NOT BUY ANY GAMES FROM TWIN SAILS INTERACTIVE (rebranding of Asmodee Digital).

I encourage you to check how many bugs their games have, and how little they care about fixing them. Go stroll over their products and the bugs reports, but most importantly, the developer's reply. They have the habit of releasing stuff and strolling to the next product without ever looking back.

I have personally written multiple emails to their official Ticket System, spread between months and never got a single reply. This game in particular crashes randomly without any error mid-game.

Hopefully one day Steam will take action. Before that, simply do your part and DO NOT BUY ANY GAMES FROM TWIN SAILS INTERACTIVE.