Recent reviews by RickCall12

The game has a lot of issues and bugs that make it unplayable and frustrating at times. I frequently run into pathfinding issues where the slightest issue occurs and the vehicle won't do anything and goes into a tantrum, and when you do get pathfinding issues, the game does not help you resolve them, and they can be incredibly frustrating to even fix, sometimes requiring you to start a new game because the game is broken.

A few scenarios that I ran into:

• I had an issue where a bus refused to climb a hill; the road was connected and there looked to be no visible issues to justify the bus's tantrum, yet it threw a "no path" error and refused to move. Even when I told it to go to a depot, it refused to move.
  
• I set up an intercity bus network. I decided to downgrade part of the road, and immediately the buses threw a "no path" error and refused to cross the downgraded road (downgrade was freeway > medium road).
  
• Want multiple trains on a track? Forget about it; signals don't work still, and I'm having to manually 'E' every signal to get the trains moving again. Maybe I don't understand how signals work, so I would appreciate some feedback on this.
  
• The reverse train button is broken; click it multiple times, and the train glitches out.
  
• Ship pathfinding is confusing. I tried to setup a port > port connection via a river, but the ship decided to throw a "no path" error and wouldn't tell me why. I tried terraforming the river to be bigger, but there was no resolution.

Oh, and just in case the developer isn't aware, your Discord link is broken or expired.

Just a really cool game and concept

Pros:
Combat is a big improvement to superpower 2

Cons:
Lots of bugs
No consequences for invading or annexing
AI seems non-existent? (Russia declared war on Ukraine and neither side did anything for over 2 years)
Don't like the lack of speed controls
UI is bad, it either tells you nothing or looks like a unity passion project

Play it

I've actually really enjoyed my time playing Fallout 76 - I mostly steered clear of the game at launch due to its ... launch problems, and would occasionally dive into the game whenever they did the free weekend games. But this is my first proper dive into the game and can say I have thoroughly enjoyed my time.

Are there bugs? Yes. Are there any game breaking bugs? Sure, but they're so rare to come across unless you deliberately try to cause the bug. Has the game crashed on me? Yes, about twice in my entire 60 hour game, and both of these instances was when I've tabbed out of the game to do something else.

Have I had fun? Yes. Surprisingly I've fallen in love with the base-building aspect of the game, and love unlocking new building or crafting plans. That being said, I'd love for the developers to look at improving the crafting and base-building aspects where possible, especially placing down structure less clunky, and being able to properly categorise building plan sets.

I really love this game

This took me awhile to give my opinion on this game, but I have now come to a good and general conclusion as to how best to describe it. You can scroll down for a more bullet pointed TLDR.

Backstory:

I've played the original iterations, Age of Civilization on my mobile device and enjoyed my time. When the game updated to let me know about the upcoming Age of Civilization II PC edition... I was hyped. I watched all the videos, and read the posts and continued to gain hype for this game. However, hype is a weird thing. You can't measure it or predict it, but it's a necessary evil to this industry, too much hype can destroy a game, too little hype and a game goes unnoticed. I unfortunately fell into the hype trap for this game.

As I kept doing research on the game, I eventually stumbled onto the Age of Civilization II steam page, and thus their discussions thread. And learned about the stage of the games development. While I absolutely support developers taking their time with a game, it kinda felt like a joke with this game. With the game appearing multiply times in "soon to be released" list, and then it disappearing for a few weeks, and the lack of connection the developer was having with the community. I eventually lost hype for the game. I went from going "omg this game is amazing!!! going to buy it!!" to "it's out? okay..." I believe the lost hype came from the lack of communication in when the game was going to be released and having to maintain a stable hype level for an unknown amount of time.

But here we are... the game is now a few days old and I did buy it on release. And I can say that the lost hype definitely helped with my opinion of this game. It's by no means a masterpiece, and it does contain a few noticeable bugs... but I am enjoying my time with this game.

Actual Game:

I'll be honest, I haven't put a lot of time with the actual "playing" of the games or scenarios, because I've been using the editor for the majority of my time, I'll get into the editor later though (it's really good).

The game advertises itself as a more grand strategy version of the Age of Civilization game style. It's by no means as "realistic" or "proper" grand strategy as Europa Universalis or Hearts of Iron by Paradox Interactive. But the game is definitely more fun and simpler to play in comparison. For those who are Paradox grand strategy players, don't expect the same level of strategy focus as you would in the Paradox grand strategy games, just expect a more fun time.

The game focuses on your control of a singular or multiple countries (have not tried the multiple countries feature, but it does seem possible), you'll control the countries basic economy by building up a regions economic and development output which improves your overal income, and then building special buildings (farms, workshops etc.) which add bonuses to region population, economy growth etc.

You can then build up your military to expand your empire into neighbouring countries, taking their regions or making them your vassal. Let's not forget the surprisingly indepth diplomacy feature (that I didn't realise had a scrollable menu for a while), it's definitely a lot more simpler than how Europa Universalis does their diplomacy, but there are definitely elements taken from the EU game that have been added into this game, which in my opinion, makes the diplomacy feature a lot more fun to use. Passing ultimatums to neighbouring countries, changing your relations and agreeing to alliances, defence pacts, non-aggression pacts, personal unions and other options, the diplomacy feature is greatly improved upon compared to the mobile version.

My main complaint about the actual game, and just something you'll have to get use to/know about, is how you change scenarios. It looked rather confusing to myself, as the game will open up with the 1400 scenario (might start off with a random scenario, but this is what the first scenario was for me) and then before clicking "new game", I was trying to find the "change scenario" button, because I wanted to play WW2 or modern day, couldn't find and then clicked "new game" expecting it was the only scenario. It doesn't launch you into a 1400 country, but into the pick your country and scenario screen. The confusion for me, and something I am now use to and understand how its done, was how to change scenario, as it wasn't made completely obvious in the new game menu.

Editor:

This is by FAR... the best geo-political editor that has ever existed. It can be a bit fiddly, but what editor isn't fiddly? You can change nearly every feature in the given scenario!! Like that is crazy to me. And you don't like the current features, or want to add new civilizations, leaders, cities, terrains? Just add new ones!! Like I must praise the developer heavily for this editor.

I have spent hours in the editor just making scenarios and seeing how every little feature works. And it is soooo straight forward it is crazy. If you ever get a chance to use the editor, please do.

Overall:

I may not have been as hyped as many of the other community members. But I do believe that not being over hyped, definitely helped with my opinion on this game. It is a good game and will recommend this to anyone who enjoys strategy and grand strategy games.

TDLR:

Pros

• Actual gameplay is better than Age of Civilization I
  
• Editor is the best editor I have ever seen for this genre
  
• Lots of scenarios to mess with
  
• Indepth diplomacy

Cons

• A few noticeable bugs

Things to consider

• This is not Europa Universalis or Hearts of Iron

Okay, so I decided to write up my general thoughts of this game and why I don’t necessarily believe it’s a bad game, but a game that has potential and needs a lot of work to get to a point where it can be considered realistic and fun to play.

Economy
I enjoy the main concept behind the economy; managing your taxes and spending to meet every growing demand of the nation. However, there seems to be a great deal of rebalancing of the economics that needs to go on before this side can be considered final.
First up, my main issue is that there is no essential challenge or overall threat to your economy that can come from continuous decline or improvements. In one of my games, I played an economically and militarily powerful German Empire. My GDP was at 192,191,728.67 billion euros. Now this is fine, and I feel greatly powerful and accomplished for reaching this feat. But right now, there is no obvious threat to my economy unless I go about and substantially and suddenly increase taxes or decrease spending dramatically. There is no threat of a sudden recession or the global economy collapsing. There is no threat that a sudden surge in new populations could overwhelm my economy; like my population in the 700 million and continues to grow by 4% every turn, and yet there is no obvious or overwhelming threat on my economy. Like if my population increased by 4% every turn I feel like my economy should start to hurt a bit under the strain of new population.
Taking my scenario, there seems to be a weird issue where every time I increase my social security budget (it is currently at 98-100% of my budget) my income increases too. I can pump 20-30-40-50-80 points into my social security and end up with a 149% increase to my income and only a 140% to my expenses. Like this feels incredibly broken. I was able to increase my GDP and economy through this exploit. Now my income is at 37,971,891.89 billion euros and my expenditure at 26,201,952.29 billion euros. No other budget or expense reaches that insane amount and instead I’m left with the thought that, while improving the social security could improve the general well being of the nation, having a direct effect on my income doesn’t seem at all possible.
Many people have probably already mentioned the economic growth bug, so I won’t mention that here. I will also put one final comment on my economy. All my taxes come from one singular source. Corporation tax. Now let’s consider the previous point I made with social security improving my income, if my only source of income is coming from the corporation tax, how does social security improve my corporation tax revenue?

Military and diplomacy
There isn’t a point to this mechanic. Like it’s fun to conquer the world, but the only consequence to conquering comes from if you use nuclear weapons in your conquering. I played my German Empire scenario and by 2070-90 I had conquered the world. By the time I left Europe, my military strength was in the millions and now my military strength rests in the 147,441,766,700. There is nothing that can defeat my military yet, the mechanic to conquer the world seems now pointless. I know this game isn’t meant to focus on the international ramifications of conquering the world and more on the internal controlling of managing the economy and internal politics. What I’d like to see with this mechanic is to see the diplomacy expanded, have the United Nations being added to the game and have a proper reactionary international community. Maybe even have proper rebels and civil wars that can make or break your country or another country.

Politics and laws
I know the developer didn’t want to focus on this part of the game, but I’d like to see more done with the election mechanic. In my German Empire game, its just a formality at this point. There is really no reason for the general election. Instead, I’d like to see a proper election being carried out. Okay, maybe not to the same level at 270soft do it. But maybe to the extent that Law of Civilization do theirs, with multiple parties contesting for seat controls and having to use your political might to capture new seats to control your nation. Having a mechanic where you must manage the political scene is something that would very much improve the game I feel.
More laws. Just more laws please. The current selection, while a great deal, feel limited. Like there isn’t much ways you can shape your country. To the developer, I’d advise playing Democracy 3 and see how they do their game; because like or not, Democracy 3 is the only other game in this market and have basically set the standard for how government simulators should work. In their version, they have an incredible library of laws and users can add their own laws with their own affects too. The game also shows off how those laws affect the country. Something as small as a new tax code or increasing unemployment benefits could have incredible ramifications for the country and seeing how these laws affect the new nation is something I’d like to see.

Conclusion
I personally like this game, I really do. And I absolutely love this genre of game. And for this reason, I will be sticking with this game, no refund for me. But will I recommend the game in its current state? Maybe not. I’d tell the person to check it out and see how they felt playing the game, it’s only a few quid after all. But I want to see more done with this game, fix the unbalanced issues in the economy, add more laws, add more mechanics and flesh out existing ones.

Arms Race is a reimagining of the original The Cold War Era which are both developed and published by Alina Digital. Arms Race has taken the approach of improving upon the existing IP with brand new features and taking in a lot of the concerns of the previous title. In this new edition, expect to find new features like the global consequences which are events based upon real world versions; however each consequence can be won by the US or the USSR to take the glory compared to the real life situation. The global consequences feature allows for more replayability in the game and expands upon how each game will go down.

I believe that this is a great new edition of the game and hope that Alina Digital will bring more to the floor soon.

I bought this game on a whim that it might be fun to check out, but expected it to get rather boring. I was wrong. Now, I have not played a lot of the game thus far and the games I have played weren't terribly long, but they were incredibly fun to play. As someone who enjoys business management kind of games, this was right up my alley, and it shows. Every little thing can change the balance of the game, star port got upgraded? Oh no, now the competition can get access to the planet. Famine starts? OH boy, more demand for food and water!

I will be playing this more and more and checking out everything there is thus far. But from what I've seen, and combined with the somewhat constant updates (There was an update a day after I downloaded the game) I expect to get a lot of fun out of this game.