Recent reviews by Eredaemus

What this absolute banger of a game needed was a launcher that won't launch the game. I don't know what Private Division is but I already hate you <3

I’ve been playing this solidly for a week. It’s really scratched an itch I’ve been missing from a lot of similar titles.

The world generation engine is amazing. It appears you could seamlessly walk the entire planet if you wanted to and it’s always accessible in map view. The detail of the landscape cleverly reduces as you zoom right out to view the continents and entire planet. It isn’t perfect but it does the trick.

The graphics are cute and simple. Despite this, the scenery is stunning. You can bring the camera down to the eye level of your sapiens and soak in the view they have of the mountains and rivers. The fact that you can explore everything you can see really adds to the immersion.

Sapient AI is simple but bug free and predictable. By that I mean it could be refined with a bit more code, but the villagers don’t do anything random or get stuck. For example, an idle villager will “steal” the job of a better candidate who is a lot closer, so the AI is inefficient. Eventually these problems become predicable and with a bit of micromanagement you can avoid it.

That brings me onto the next issue, and a consistent negative review people leave. Micromanagement. Now this game WILL keep you busy in its current state but for some reason that added to my fun and gave me something to do. You do feel like a guiding hand, rather than setting up a perfect work roster on a jobs menu and watching the village run itself. I’m sure as content is added, such as predators and hostile tribe or disasters, they will add some automation hopefully.

Research felt fun and unique. I don’t know what game first came up with the “research bench” but I roll my eyes every time I see it in a new game as it really stifles the idea of exploration and discovery. The notion that someone can sit in a room all day and invent every conceivable amenity is boring and silly. Thankfully in Sapiens, any object that can be fashioned in anyway has a little lightbulb option on it and you must go out and find it (or craft it). I really enjoy watching them study objects on the ground until they make a breakthrough, and while the tutorial and research tree strongly hints what to do next, I had a lot of fun unlocking and discovering everything in my own time. I felt no rush.

Skills are earned through doing tasks and thankfully we are spared the usual background nonsense, where Bob has joined your village and has 25 points in leatherworking but only 3 in cooking, so he won't be in the kitchen any time soon. Instead Sapiens have traits such as strong and creative, along with negative ones like lazy and frightened, and while they augment certain roles, it isn’t a necessity to optimise every role. Skills have to be learned by every individual, as unlocking 'tree felling' won’t automatically make everyone a lumberjack. While the sapient who unlocked it is automatically skilled, every other sapient will have to spend an equal amount of time unlocking it personally. Therefore it's preferable to spread research around, rather than having dedicated researchers. The only thing that is automatically available is any associated recipe. Unlock hatchet for example and now all the toolmakers can make hatchets.

Farming and extracting works well enough. Plant too many crops in a single hexagon (tile) and eventually the soil will degrade from rich, to normal, to poor. You will need fertilizers. Trees eventually regrow but as you slowly gather all the rocks and minerals in the immediate area you need to expand. At the moment you can build remote stations and set up simple routes to carry stuff home but hopefully the devs will expand on this.

Combat consists of throwing spears of varying quality and so far, is limited to hunting. I imagine this will be expanded in the future. There are mammoths that like to wander close to your village and can run amok if they aggro. I suspect this will piss off a lot of people trying the early access content but as things stand it gives you something to fight! A stockpile of spears and a few trained throwers will keep your village safe!

If you’re on the fence I suggest you take the plunge and buy this gem.

Every story tells a story that has been told before and it feels like we have reached that stage in gaming. I could do the clichéd thing and say this is like Mount and Blade meets Heroes of Might and Magic and made a Kenshi baby or something, but this is a rare gem amongst many Early access games where there’s few concepts left to innovate and game mechanics are all too often recycled and repackaged and shipped to us with a roadmap and a hundred promises.

Graphics:
The gameplay is good enough that this game could be a sprite-based rouge-like and I’d still play it. However, some genuine love has gone into the artwork and modelling and it’s a beauty. Could be optimised better, my gaming laptop fan goes mental playing this.

Gameplay: (mostly done before by many games but reimagined well imo)
* Assemble a party, equip them, train them, give them professions, feed them, and pay them. An army marches on its stomach.
* Roam the world map and engage in encounters with bandits, animals, traders, locations and resources.
* Follow the main story to unlock progress and take on side missions.
* Role play without being locking into one path: be the good guys one day then rob a villager blind the next with no penalty to character progression.
* Resource management required with survival elements. Set up camp in the wilderness and manage your supplies to keep everyone fed, healed and in good spirits.
* Craft items in camp or in town and unlock many recipes earned through various ways.

Why it’s good:
Assuming it stays this way and the devs do not cave to potential whining, the resource management and economy is done well in a sense that you must plan your expeditions and engage in multiple enterprises, of which there are many. For example, it may not simply be enough to brainlessly accept a bounty, travel to the objective while murdering every hostile on the way for loot because depending on how far you travelled, camped and repaired, you may return to town with a net loss, especially if you have hired too many followers. You have to kill multiple birds with one stone, so to speak. I think this helps separate this game from the familiar notice board grind fests we've all seen before in most RPGs.

It's a true sandbox. There are no time limits or any pressure to accept quests or talk to everyone you find. There are too many games out there that simply bombard you every time you set foot in a new area with stories, cutscenes, sidequests and lore. There is also no need to turn over every stone and constantly check walkthroughs. There is nothing I hate more than games where you must talk to x in area y before progressing the story to get the special trinket that makes the game playable or unlock something.

Where it falls short:
While I praise the economy, there’s a bit too much profit in capturing prisoners to make money which can become the core focus and a bit cheese.

They need to clean up that framerate and optimise the game better.

£30 is a little steep

Great series – a guilty pleasure with re-playability each release and a good price tag. Unfortunately, some odd gameplay choices limit the longevity of each play-though for me. Once you have expanded your shop and skilled up, the game should be about scavenging and restoring old classic cars. Not just for profit, because in game money means nothing, but for the reward of completionism. That 50% condition classic car door you just found on the tip should be the holy grail! But sadly, you are robbed of that reward - not only can you just buy that car door instantly and economically, but with a few taps of a magic hammer you can also make it 100% anyway. What’s the point!? The repair bench along with the general game economy needs a more realistic game setting. That car door should be restorable to 60-70% tops with no magic shop to spawn you in the part. Perhaps a replica shop with available parts that are optional but limit the overall prestige of your vehicle, making it preferable to fit on the original but slightly damaged part you found in a barn. It’s still fun though and worth it for the price.

Dangers of copying Rimworld
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To define what makes this a bad game compared to Rimworld you have to explain what makes Rimworld King of the Hill in this genre.
My first colony sim would be Settlers back in the 90s and the genre has come a long way since then. Rimworld is an incredibly well programmed and polished game and Tynan Sylvester has put a great deal of thought and effort into defining what makes a colony sim rewarding and immersive. The systems for combat, social, item storage, medicine, emotional, decay, agriculture and crafting are not only well executed but are in my opinion the gold standard for how this genre be done. We are given full control without micromanagement and a logical reaction to every action. Much like Minecraft, this game will inevitably pave the way for many clones.

Going 3D
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It was certainly fun to dispatch the first wave of raiders from my bases roof with a bow while they tried to bust the door in. But somehow this mechanic isn’t as rewarding to me after a few raids. I’m 20 hours in and I’ve not needed to engage in melee once. While Rimworld is trapped in 2D, the combat feels more engaging. A fight with a rabid squirrel closing in on a colonist fumbling his shortbow shots is more engrossing to me than what is essentially a turret defence game in 3D.
The next problem is map size. While a 3D base can be built in all directions to save space, you can see right off the bat the game map is pretty small. This is understandable for pathing and memory issues but I feel the novelty of 3D does not make up for the gameplay lost in the process. The pathing in Rimworld has been so efficiently polished and well programmed that even on a huge map every entity, even all the wildlife, can make use of it efficiently. This allows for more realism and immersion. If a wild bunny can’t find any vegetation, it will starve and leave the map. If it’s wild and trapped by your structures, it might attempt to bust out. All this rich depth is lost by the early access deer randomly roaming the 3D map.

Expectations
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By paying homage to Rimworld so openly but poorly, my biggest concern is that the devs now have a long road ahead of polishing and refining all these systems they have essentially copied. If they don’t, users will be frustrated by the lack of control. If they do, it may be a while before they introduce something Rimworld hasn’t done already.

Overall
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I had the same experience with Medieval Dynasty. High 90% reviews pulled me into a world that is too empty and unfinished. Early Access is an overused excuse that leads to half finished products. This content doesn’t warrant 20 quid. That said – I hope this review ages poorly and the devs end up creating something we can all cherish in our collections.

Changed from negative to positive after my OCD got the better of me. This game like so many isn't perfect, and you may run into the odd glitch. In my case it was a mission objective spawning inside a rock. The only solution in this case is to abandon and avoid the enclave that gave that quest.

Despite the imperfections the game kept me coming back for more and I have ventured up the difficulty each time for a whole new experience. If you are having trouble dealing with special zombies or difficulty in general you are probably not taking advantage of the AI teammates who can be equipped with devastating weapons and unlimited ammo. While you are weak and undergeared at the start you have to pick and chose your fights.

It would have been nice to see more immersion in the food / shelter systems. Morale and hunger don't seem to have fatal consequences and zombie raids should in my opinion be harder and less frequent. At the current pace they are annoying and cost ammo to ignore.

Since buying this game there has been a lot of updates that have enhanced the gameplay so all in all I got my moneys worth.

There is something wrong with the AI in this version.

I've been playing scenario skirmish for decades. I always play on impossible difficulty as I have mastered every cheese move in this game: I sell off all my starting forces, hunker down on my start planet and cheese the trade system, keeping myself well defended with forts until I'm ready to torpedo kite and win.

In my last 2 play-through's, the AI built no fleets and no one declared war on me at all, which is abnormal as it's usually a guarantee at the start when I am weak.

I hope this can be fixed as this a classic game. I still have the CD's somewhere but I was hoping to keep a Steam copy.

I will recommend with the caveat that it's currently broken!

I am new to Crusader Kingdoms and here for the hype. That said, thumbs down (for now) mostly because of the price – I’ve had this level of fun, if not more, from way cheaper games. Nevertheless I am still playing it daily so that says something. Actually, if you’re reading this far then f*ck it - thumbs up, why not. You were only going to waste the money anyway, judgemental prick.

Pros
You play as the head of your dynasty. You die. You play as your heir. Ad nauseum.
The traits of your active character determine how well they respond to your choices as player. You may have to hold fire on murdering everyone who slights you. Unless your character is up for it, in which case break out the thumb screws and tear the place apart.
Educational. I’m sure some of it is inaccurate but most of it looks spot on. Especially the inbreeding and treatment of women. Boy we have come a long way!
The music. Declaring a Holy War will likely make you Deus Vault and wake the neighbours.
Everyone has an opinion on everyone. And it calculates throughout the game. Families remember sh*t. Like the people you casually burned at the stake just to close the damn pop up on screen.

Cons
UI is a clicky mess. Hard to select troops. Banners and nameplates stack over each other and can suck my balls.
Huge events pop up on the screen, obscuring the “pause” indicator, such as allies calling you to war, over and over and over and over…
AI is painfully predictable – at least on normal difficulty.
Allies are retarded.
You didn’t spot your heir ♥♥♥♥♥♥ the family dog, tried to murder his brother and called your chancellor a c*nt at the last banquet and now you must play as him because you just died. Enjoy.
Scandinavians. Jesus you guys won’t quit with the whole invasion thing. Honestly – stop. Please.
Hard to see screen and type while wearing full plat armour.

I refuse to give this game a thumbs down. Yes, there are a lot of accurate and fair negative reviews on here because the devs have made some big gameplay changes that have not gone down well with folk (myself included). I was upset at a few but I have continued to play. See my hours.

As of right now that low price tag gives you access to all of these betas, which are amazing stand alone games in their own right. Just right click the game in your library, properties, betas, and you can enjoy any version that suited you.

However, I agree with the negativity towards this games overall direction. The latest version has made some appalling decisions in the direction of ease and arcade. The game use to harass you from the get go - the environment could be deadly and the zombies would pursue you from a greater range, especially if you had raw meat on you. If you bumped into a zombie at night it was a very bad situation even when geared mid to late game. Now you can wander alone at night and get away with it - this of course can be tuned in the difficulty settings, but I’m judging the game on it’s defaults here.

The flow of the game used to be that is was preferable to avoid zombies, not farm them. Killing them was risky and required resources and skill. Your ammo was precious and your melee swing had to be true, well aimed, with a good angle of attack and an exit strategy. Stamina was key - running around swinging a club in a crowded room was what got you killed. Often backing away from the situation was the right move. The xp you got came mainly from doing actions - the more you ran, the more stamina you had. The more stone axes or bows you made the better they got. It gave the night cycle a purpose as invariably the outside was very dangerous and this in turn made you appreciate the base or building you were camped in. I would creep about hoping not to disturb anything outside. I use to love farming scrap metal and making armour, on every coop game I was the armour guy. I would craft some, scrap it and start again.

I can see why the devs might think these things are tedious and I can only hope they are trying out every idea in the bag before they finish the game. To be honest if they don’t undo the XP system and put things like gun parts back in I’ll either have to mod the game or stop playing. But thank you for years of great enjoyment either way!

So much promise but I swear this game has more bugs in it than when I bought it a couple of years ago. I played it through first time and endured the bugs with lots of googling around problems. Here I am giving it another shot years later wondering why I'm trying to constantly work around this games ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ glitches. I draw the line at Hearthlings stuck floating in mid air. The fans have more enthusiasm to solve the problems on discussion boards that the developers have of fixing it themselves. I'd say "fix your game", but it's kinda my game too since I paid for it. You can slap "early access" all over this as much as you want but you're just going the way of every half baked title on Steam.