Well, well, well. This IS easily the BEST 4X game I've ever played

[The Doctor]

And it's just out of the gate too...

Yes, I know it's not balanced.
Yes, I know there's no synchronous multiplayer.
Yes, I know there are things that need to be improved. I know that that battle viewer looks crap but my, oh my, even with all the above, this is an even better game than full Civ 6 is even at this point. You might disagree with that and all of that is true of Civ6 (apart from the battle viewer and the multiplayer of course) but let me explain.

Well, what about religion, you might object? Well, I'm not claiming that every system in Millennia is better than any that are found in Civ but rather mean that, taken together, this scores more highly overall than Civ.

As I advance to each new era and see the incredible scope this game has, I am even more impressed. New features , improvements and systems keep emerging and your cities needs become more and more sophisticated. This game has launched with more systems than pretty much any 4X game or even PDS Grand Strategy game has.

I have to say that the demo did this game a great disservice. The first three eras are pretty basic as far as the gameplay goes and of course, nobody is going to see or experience what this game really has in it later. And the artwork and the improvements all approach Civ 6 levels as you go on. It's a good-looking game.

I am just going to clap my hands and say that this is now officially the best 4X game I've ever played.

[Qoojo]

Originally posted by Boldee:

Originally posted by Qoojo:

The Doctor can be proud in knowing that this thread and perusing the forums/twitch has me hooked. I only buy games on sale, so if the premium version hits 25% off, I will get it.

It's £25 on CDKeys.com,

My only gripe is the price but this game isn't alone there many games are over priced.

i see premium is 25% off there. Will need to investigate the store though. I have not used them before.

[Boldee]

I've used them many times, service is good and they can be trusted.

[universecreep]

I will respectfully disagree with the OP on this

The game is ok.

Lots of interesting ideas.

It needs a LOT of balancing.

At this time, I'd say it's in the top 10 of 4x games I've played. Can it get better? Of course. The base game is very good. Will it ever reach the heights of Civ IV or V? I'm not convinced at this time. But if they do, awesome!

[Sleepysteve]

lol.

[Model]

Totally agree, just needs the kinks patched out and you got a great game.

[lusciouslanguidity]

Originally posted by Dee-Jay:

Bought it and refunded it based on the (highly limited) 2 hours that Steam lets you have in a game to figure out if you want to keep it.

For me, it's just a bit too much like Civ (albeit with lesser presentation quality) and the mechanics just don't quite pull it clear. Perhaps an "uncanny valley" type situation, maybe the devs could've made it look a bit more different to stop it feeling like a discount store version of the AAA market leader. Also, feels a bit lacking in immersion, never drew me in quickly in that short period of time.

I will watch it and look to pick it up in future maybe, good to see people are having fun though.

so basically you did what the OP said is the problem with the game

[lusciouslanguidity]

Originally posted by Aluminum Elite Master:

Maybe it's just me, but I got 20 minutes in and refunded. It's a disaster of a game IMO:

The number of settings is ridiculously low for a 4X. There's hardly any map customization... all you have for nation builder are the original presets of the other nations (no generic symbols, even)... even some basic game settings are totally gone, like the ability to choose to enable edge scrolling. I discovered all of this in about the first 5 minutes.

UI is too simple and generic. All the lists are the same sickly-yellow font on a beige background. No color coding, like green names for armies, blue for navies. Those lists are atrocious, and to cap it off, font sizes are a bit small and don't appear highly customizable (again, not a lot of customization). And the backgrounds and borders of panes that pop up are just a plain color with no decor. By the time I got to the 1990's-esque battleviewer, just another 10 minutes had elapsed and I got to see a battle that looked like it was done on the oldest version of Flash software.

Then there's the woeful immersion. No voiced narrator, not even as an option. Even HK had that (though it was a bit buggy and repetitive). I finally met my first real opponent and got two brief sentences, no leader screen, no unique music cue, no introductory diplo options. While at the time I thought HK's immersion was bottom of the barrel, I now stand corrected, as Millennia is even worse. And by this point, it was about 20 minutes in when I met my first opponent and was underwhelmed with the non-introduction to them that I got. So it was off to get a refund.

I'll be honest and say that maybe the game has some really neat systems later on. It might also have cool units and tough decisions to make as the game progresses. But I never got that far because the most basic things looked threadbare beyond my lowest expectations coming in.

Again, totally willing to acknowledge that 20 minutes isn't enough to render a complete verdict on the game. But it was enough to say that it's got so many obvious problems that it's hard to justify owning it when I can go back and play Civ, Old World, HK, and even Civ 4 Col (yes, even *that* Civ seems better than this).

problems are in the eye of the beholder.

if you just want a 4x game that has all the bells and whistles of sleek, highly produced, modern tech, then yes, this game is redundant and worse. if you want a new kind of 4x experience then this game is not redundant and in some ways better.

[bscoggins]

Needs some polish, as has been said. But I really like the core that's here - it'll be 100% better as soon as we can raze vassals. I think they've got a winner here.

[Stealthkibbler]

Originally posted by bscoggins:

Needs some polish, as has been said. But I really like the core that's here - it'll be 100% better as soon as we can raze vassals. I think they've got a winner here.

Has to be my major complaint is even when trying to be diplomatic or insular you always trend towards annihilating your immediate neighbours because of the threeat that they will vomit a bunch of ♥♥♥♥♥♥ states all over the region blocking future expansion, its such a bother because you can raze neutral cities but not the player ones.

[Cursisanafou]

Like many games, this game will be good. proper modding tools will make this game great.