Reign: Conflict of Nations is not a bad game. But it suffers from comparison with a great number of A-titles in the same class. If you enjoy epic historical battles and tactical thought, go for Medieval: Total War 2 (or any game of Total War series); if you enjoy historically truthful political simulators with high degree of complexity, go for Crusader Kings 2. If, however, you are not a fan of great battles and CK2 are too complicated for you... go for Knights of Honor. I'd really recommend Reign only to medieval eastern Europe enthusists as myself.

Reign: Conflict of Nations is an empire-building 4x strategy, depicting happenings in Eastern Europe between 1300 and 1700. Your ambition will be to unite one of the leading powers of the region (Poland, Lithuenia, Sweden or Russia) and become a hegemon. To this end, you'll need to build up a powerful economy, use diplomacy and spycraft, convert population to your religion, gather knowledge to make technological progress, and - of course - wage wars. Sounds promising, doesn't it? So... what's wrong with the game?

Firstly, you will be required to do ALL these activities at the same time and that's - even with the help of action pause - is extremely difficult for bigger empires.
Next, the battles are resulted by the computer, without giving you a chance to lead your troops or even influence the outcome. Moreover, the results are often unpleasantly random, so you'll find yourself kicking and screaming many times, after your highly superior army of knight has been wiped out by a rag-tag band of peasants.
Third, you control basically all aspects of the game from the very beginning and none of them (to my knowledge) grows any more important later in the game, so it basically feels all the same when you control a miniature princedom in the heart of Poland, and a huge empire of the late-game. You just do A LOT MORE of the same stuff. And this is a recipe for boredom.
Lastly, the game does not give you much choice of how you will rule your empire. In other game of this kind, you can choose to be a pieceful diplomat and trader, or a vicious tyrant, spying and assassining your enemies, or a steeled knight, conquering the world with fire and sword. Here, the game strangely pushes you into doing all - you can't win by the means of diplomacy, but you can't hold too many provinces with brute force (for unhappiness spawns infinite number of quite powerful rebels, who will finally defeat you anyway).

All and all, R:CoN is quite playable, enjoyable and challanging in the beginning, but largely boring, time-consuming and repetative later in the game. It might be good springboard for those who want to jump into Crusader Kings, but feel intimidated by their complexity. And it might entertain you if you're fan of Sienkiewicz and history of Polish and Russian empire. In nearly all other cases, don't waste your money here!

This game has one major problem that is unnoticeable in the very beginning, but soon becomes an overwhelming tumor killing the game. It's the fact that you have to manually control the resource production. The most optimal strategy is producing ±0 food and throwing the rest of the city population into gold and knowledge production. However, because the food production changes all the time because of various reasons, it have to be manually changed, otherwise you cause starvation or waste resources. And everything affects food production – moving troops, growing population, settlers, religious unrest, disease. It's no big deal if you have 1-5 cities, but if you control half of the map, it's just boring and painful to deal with the mess. Thus the actually interesting and unique parts of the game drown in the micromanaging tedium.

I cannot recommend this game.

This feels like a modern Lords of the Realm game or a simplified Crusader Kings II game. $1 on sale so don't expect the depth of CKII (over $100 on sale). After (re)starting about 3 times in 5 hours or so, I got the hang of it (Trial and error *is* a form of tutorial, right?) and was able to get a good game out of it.

Pros:
- Graphics are well done for a strategy game
- Immersion is good
- Rarely explored region for the genre (Eastern Europe - Russia)

Cons:
- Combat results are brutal and there's not much you can do about it
- Well-being (Unrest) can become an issue quite fast which leads to next issue...
- A *lot* of micromanagement as your empire grows (Mostly, but not exclusively: Population allocation)

Tips:
- Pause frequently
- Multiclass your heroes
- Use as many ambassadors as you can
- Have commanders leading roaming "stack(s) of doom" rather than small static forces
- In order, work on Food/Well-being, Economy, Army, and Research

Regularly crashes to desktop, with no autosave. Clunky interface. Never got far enough to encounter the additional issues other reviewers have mentioned, but I can see they're there... if only the game didn't crash after 30 minutes of play, I could have a chance to be disappointed!

Clearly no longer being maintained or patched, don't risk your pennies on this outdated, unstable mess.

I pretty much have to say what the other negative reveiws have stated, that being the game is fun until you get a little ways into it. Then after that point, the game crashes more and more often.

After playing for some time this game i have to admit I enjoy the micromanagement level because it gives the player a new level of control and also a series of considerations when making decisions. That is not to say that it is purely a positive experience. I will be the first to admit the frustration this game gave me the first time I started a campaign. Also the degree of difficulty to grow your settlements fast enough and the speed and strength that the armies created by the computer to invade you were quite unfair. The game lacks balance but the ideas and concepts it gives the player are not bad, just a problem in execution.

So sad what a game it could have been but i am the same issues as everyone else, unfair balance of AI and all the rest. I played for several hours as i thought things would balance out once i owned half the map. Ya try and get there with the isssues. If i had spent more than 5 bucks id be unhappy. Its not bad practice to enetr into the more serious startegy games but 1 hour of the same micro-mgt and you'll be requesting a refund as well, speaking of which

Many promising features in this game, including a welcome exclusive focus on the mid/eastern European region. However, the combination of real-time gameplay with an 'open' strategic map fails to deliver a comfortable gaming experience. Numerous other small issues, including an occasionally awkward interface, all combine together to leave a game which just becomes a chore rather than fun. Better games with the same 'feel' exist.

Reign: Conflict of Nations is a grand strategy game whose biggest weakness is that it doesn't have any strengths. Reign is far from a bad game, but it can't compete with a number of great games within the genre. Crusader Kings 2 is a far deeper and more complex game if you are looking for a very in depth strategy game. If you want something more action oriented, the Total War series pulls that off quite well. This game attempts to fill the niche of people that like the idea of Crusader Kings 2, but want it to be more simplified and accessible. Most strategy fans will feel underwhelmed by Reign due to its inability to commit to being either complex or casual.

4/10

Challenging and solid but worth the effort?
Reign: Conflict of Nations - A game of " what ifs?"
Its there to offer gamers interested in historical eastern Europe a Strategy game -unlike fantasy worlds this is a harsh climate, the struggle is almost constant but not the fault of its game mechanics. It is missing minor production values and nuances of older games than itself but overcomes this through its choice of nations and almost endearing ruleset.

I do have to admit that the GUI and Stain Glass/Manuscript art is genuine and of quality. The game knows what it is implying and does so directly without notice of any shortcomings. To relive the Renaissance and Reformation era as Monarch/Head of State of an Eastern European Principality with very accurate names and maps is done adequetely.
Its where the game ends is the drop off. At 1650 the game ends with one popup window describing my loss due to not being as formidable as other leaders, a pity since I was established at top ranking of every nation on the statistics window in game of every category, OK I wasn't maxed out at Diplomatic relations, that is because I had taken over half the map and ran out of people to truance with. In my mind...I won.

First the dissapointment of doing all this hard work with nothing to show, not even a summary throughout the years. I had lasting family dynasties, many brutal conflicts, trustful allies, great enemies, miserable generations, fascinating trades. Not even a list of every leader I had, at least, in a time frame would have let me remember fondly my hours into it.
The game also misses some points when - someone dies of say,old age. They sure tell you someone has passed away, but who it was and what their duties were in your vast empire, are up to you to remember where you positioned them, needing to check if there is a deficiency in your nation and replace him. The names sound alike over the years and portaits are reused. Confusing.
Great Music sticks with you throughout the day, and classical guitar. Only a handful of songs play throughout complementing the state of your province, they are good/great - I claim great.

The game is simply simple that meanders into deep engaging and addictive gameplay. I am a fan. High difficulty in that most everything has a cause and effect. Want to boost farming? well be ready to lose out on gold and research for around 6 seasons. Want to buff Research for some seasons, well every other nation gets some too. Things conflict. This is where I now see my misfortunes in my personal game. Poland, historically suffered tragedy in the timeline when this game nears its end. I should have devoted more time at the start of my campaign in the spread of my empire as there was impossible odds against my nation from constant robbers, and instant takeovers by rebel nations and dark times on the regular after roughly the late 1500s. That is the type of attention to detail that I respect from this thought provoking experience. What if this game had a higher budget? I am leaning towards the developers putting out precisely the game they had envisioned.

Pros:
Music
Graphics/Map
Simple battle control
Historical accuracy
Different troops per region
Highly replayable - each country should have it's own agenda
Nice damage system, regain health at city - red,orange,yellow,green - combine units
High maintenance
Art direction - Manuscript painting
Get lost in the cultural significance overshadows some mechanics are half baked

Cons:
Charachter models are simple
Sometimes hard to click on model because it is behind something.
Too simple battles
High maintenance
Defineltely needs a journal because mission tab does not have any other messages to keep track of other countries at war etc.
Nuances that needed to be implemented,which have detracted from its own originality. See the diplomat screen's lack of info
Regiments do not regen health in villages

I guess I could say most of the faults could be a primitive aspect such as the time period of the game itself. But thats not the type of 4th dimensional gaming I prefer. But I kind of believe that a power hungry monarch really had no reason to keep tabs on diplomatic relations all the way across the map. In a way this is similar to old style CRPGs, and drawing your own dungeon maps on graph paper. If you really want to recall information, it is given to you, but only for a brief moment so take notes.