This is just too user unfriendly to recommend. The factions are very different, but the ugly, automatic combat really drags down the game. You have NO control over combat. You don't even get to choose a basic strategy for the combat, like in King of Dragon Pass. And big fights can involve HUNDREDS of individual units! You can fast forward the fight or even just skip to the end, but it's jarring to be just presented with the end result ("Wait, how did Bob the Sorceror die???"). There isn't even a combat results screen listing deaths and injuries. About injuries - have you read the funny review for this game by the guy who was using goblin archers, and they all died except for one, who turned out to be missing all his shots because he was blind in both eyes? That's a funny story, but it's a HUGE nuisance that the game doesn't indicate that a unit has been crippled unless you manually check EACH one. (The developers are planning to add tactical combat to the next game in the series, but the early screenshots show that it's still an ugly mess with too many units).

Resource management is also a pain, because there are WAY TOO MANY resource nodes. This is especially bad with classes such as the Troll King that can and should control EVERY SINGLE FOREST TILE, but every class has to capture tons of tiny little villages and such to get a coin or two of income. And because there's tons of random wildlife running around, you need to either leave a decent number of units behind at each resource node, or a rampaging deer will somehow "conquer" the town and make them stop sending tribute, so you'll have to send someone to RE-conquer it.

I can deal with the graphics being worse than games from 20 years ago, but I can't tolerate that the GAMEPLAY is worse than ancient games like Master of Magic.

The guys who make this game are like the Wachowskis - they've got some really great ideas, but they desperately need an editor, which in this case means selling out to a company who uses their creativity but doesn't tolerate bloated game design.

This is just too user unfriendly to recommend. The factions are very different, but the ugly, automatic combat really drags down the game. You have NO control over combat. You don't even get to choose a basic strategy for the combat, like in King of Dragon Pass. And big fights can involve HUNDREDS of individual units! You can fast forward the fight or even just skip to the end, but it's jarring to be just presented with the end result ("Wait, how did Bob the Sorceror die???"). There isn't even a combat results screen listing deaths and injuries. About injuries - have you read the funny review for this game by the guy who was using goblin archers, and they all died except for one, who turned out to be missing all his shots because he was blind in both eyes? That's a funny story, but it's a HUGE nuisance that the game doesn't indicate that a unit has been crippled unless you manually check EACH one. (The developers are planning to add tactical combat to the next game in the series, but the early screenshots show that it's still an ugly mess with too many units). Resource management is also a pain, because there are WAY TOO MANY resource nodes. This is especially bad with classes such as the Troll King that can and should control EVERY SINGLE FOREST TILE, but every class has to capture tons of tiny little villages and such to get a coin or two of income. And because there's tons of random wildlife running around, you need to either leave a decent number of units behind at each resource node, or a rampaging deer will somehow "conquer" the town and make them stop sending tribute, so you'll have to send someone to RE-conquer it. I can deal with the graphics being worse than games from 20 years ago, but I can't tolerate that the GAMEPLAY is worse than ancient games like Master of Magic. The guys who make this game are like the Wachowskis - they've got some really great ideas, but they desperately need an editor, which in this case means selling out to a company who uses their creativity but doesn't tolerate bloated game design.