30.2 hours to conquer the island. I would say the first hour and a half was spent just trying to figure out the game because as many reviews say; the tutorial is arse. It's not helped by the fact that the UI is very small and hard to read and so figuring things out yourself is a challenge.

Naturally, I have to make a comparison to Mount and Blade. If you're used to Mount and Blade and your heavy cavalry ploughing through armies and routing them without a single casualty, this game will tick you off. Enemy archers will be the bane of your existence as they mercilessly pick off your legionaries with single arrows in an unexpected realistic depiction of the power of bows. It doesn't help that when enemy warriors charge into your ranks, your legionaries turn their backs on the enemy archers... And when you get archer auxiliaries, you'll be convinced they hit nothing while the Britons continue to snipe your men like Simo Hayha. And that's before we talk about how a complete legion will miss a single tribal with their pilae if he happens to be charging at a slight angle rather than straight on.

People say the game is repetitive and this is true but again, no more so than Mount and Blade's combat.

Building your fort is simultaneously fun and a headache. The first person view as you set templates means you will inevitably end up with a crooked fort with slanting paths between its tents.

I really did enjoy this game despite its flaws. There's something ridiculously entertaining about seeing a crowd of warriors flying through the air after being hit by a balista shot or how after a battle, you'll see severed heads rolling across the landscape for quite some time.
You'll also get attached to certain soldiers. When I lost my Primus Pilus who had been with me since the beginning in an inconsequential skirmish at a Waystation; I torched the place.

EDIT:
14 hours and I have seen everything there is to see, have done everything there is to do.
It's a great concept, but expensive given the cost relative to current playable content.

The game is an early access title but not marked as such, though the dev does seem to be very active and engaged with the community.

Very active dev, though it might seem like he/she is agreeing to more content suggestions than is entirely feasible.

Hesitant thumbs up for now, hopefully continued dev support puts some more meat on the bones.

I want to post a positive review for this game because besides being incredibly interesting and fun, the developer has laid out a realistic roadmap and they've consistently been hitting their milestones. That might not sound all that impressive, but to me it indicates the development talent and organisational skills needed to pull off a game like this.

The game is already a uniquely fun experience, and I'm excited to see continued development to the end of the roadmap and beyond.

This game reminded me a lot of the Mount & Blade series, though the roman legion ascetic is unique for the format and incredibly fun. I'll split the game up by what I liked and what I feel needs some work done.

The good:
- At current build (as of 29/7) the system of management to recruit troops, move them around and dismiss them works quite well
- Promotion is fairly well done with most of the officers standing out among the rest of the troops, and the upgrade trees being presented understandably
- Packing and moving camp is straightforward and easy to do
- Formations and armies move fluidly and switch between battle and march really nicely
- Building works competently, and stays fairly stable between camp movement
- Designating wood to be cut is very easy, overall a solid system
- Setting guard points also works well, easy to understand
- Enemies losing limbs is honestly amazing, I love it

The bad:
- AIs can pass through blueprints for buildings while the player can't, meaning the player can get trapped within a preset base relocation
- Gates don't really have an 'open' and 'shut' state that saves between relocations, meaning open gates at time of relocation will open the wrong way rather than closing
- Legion progression is based on officers and days of progression, which means a wipe can set you back a lot. In addition, if a century is missing one officer, you must retrain the officer before refilling any further centuries
- Part of the previous issue, the Tessarius has no visual indicator to differentiate them from legionaries, making it difficult to promote replacement Optios without calling everyone to arms
- The current combat system is competent and fun enough, though the player can almost always take on any settlement by themselves as long as they block the whole time, as you can attack while blocking and often sustain no damage, Enemies who are blocking still take damage
- The quests requiring the murder of civilians does not include the settlement conquering option of murder (which is fine by me, as I don't like murdering settlements when conquering, but is still a bug)
- Enemy AI is a little janky, and will often run away to continue following the convoy march even while being hunted down. Some settlements also take shelter behind their walls, which causes the AI to freak out if the player doesn't attack the direct entrance

There's probably other things I'm missing, but overall I really like this game. I've heard this game is being produced by one developer, and if so hats off to you man. Definitely feels a little lacking in end game content as of current date (29/7), but with updates seemingly coming out frequently this is a good time

Edit: 19/3/23
So a lot has come out since I last did my review, therefore I should update my review in kind
- Of the flaws previously stated, many of the construction related ones have been fixed, and they even added an align to grid build option.
- Unit progression is made much easier by being able to promote and upgrade armour from the menu, a fantastic addition.
- Auxiliaries, archers and artillery are nice editions to your army. Also the scorpions driving around by themselves is hilarious imo
- Additional structures have been added for the other unit types, as well as a new supply system that as currently implemented is okay. It's essentially another resource to manage like gold and silver.
- AI enemies remain janky, and it is still possible to beat the AI easily by channelling your inner Doom-slayer and fighting them alone

This game continues to be a nice surprise as more content is released, even if the game remains stale in the endgame. Still recommend it for anyone who likes the idea of Indie Roman Mount & Blade

Im having a lot of fun with this game, its sadly not a concept that you see everyday in game where you assume tactical command from first person only, like the mount and blade series in the combat scenes.

There is something immersive about being able to design your own camp and being able to dismantle it and rebuild the same preset in a different location to keep your army moving, or seeing servants with pack mules come and go from your camp with supplies, giving us the chance to deal with logistics that sadly many games ignore yet was, is and will continue to be vital in warfare.

The downsides would be path finding, and the repetitiveness of the gameplay like, approaching a village, form testudo to tank the arrows, release your arrows, switch to battle formation and rinse and repeat.

I would love to see more games like this were you would march around the world with your army in a first person perspective and see the massive logistical trail you have to take into account for.

Biggus Dickus Legionary 2nd Century, Date of death, July 22nd, 43AD In our hearts and minds forever, We love you.

roses are red

violets are blue

the gauls have been subjugated

Brutus, et tu?

Biggus Dickus is an actual name than can be randomly assigned to new recruits.

I went through the tutorial and recruited some legionnaires, among these men was "Biggus Dickus".

He survived multiple battles and rose through the ranks, to Tesserarius then Optio then to Centurion, then to Primus Pilus (first spear... Giggity) and now as my Praefectus. Adorned with medals and clad in plate armor. Glorious.

So far in this save, the man has slain dozens and I can't imagine playing this game without him lol Biggus Dickus is a tank.

Imagine Rome Total War but in first person and kinda poly. Definitely Recommend!

I can't recommend it in its current state (v6.0).

The first 2-3 hours was a good time. Built up my first couple of centuries, stabbed a few enemies, built a little encampment. It really felt like I was leading the Pax Romana. But then it was just... the same thing over and over.

There's no need (or ability, really) to vary your tactics - receive arrows in Testudo, switch to Battle Line to receive the enemy charge, and mop up when you're done. There's also no need to build an interesting or defensible camp - just smoosh a bunch of identical tents in a pile, you're never there for more than a few minutes anyways. There's a few tent and wall variants if you want to decorate, but there's no functional difference AFAICT.

I stopped playing after my second session. My quest progress was lost/bugged, so I couldn't refill my Archer centuries. There were no more caravans, warbands, or noble gatherings (I assume also a bug). My camp had grown to the point that it was hard to manage from the first-person view, and the damn legionaries kept getting in the way. And there was no real risk - I'm making more money, food, and supplies than I need every day, so I can just cherry-pick the easiest settlement for each fight, and upgrade in between.

I never did figure out what the Unrest system was for - just put your camp close to newly-conquered settlements, and by the time you're ready to move on, the quest rewards have reduced the Unrest to zero.

I'm going to keep an eye on this game, though. With some additional polish, I could spend a lot of time enjoying it. I'll update my review if that happens!

Additional feedback for the developer:
* The quest screen is hard to navigate and prioritize, and it doesn't show progress towards the goals.
* Base-building would be easier and more fun with a third-person view.
* It's really tedious to move every century's slider every time you disband or reform the legion. I think they should all become soldiers when you reform, then revert to their previous Guard or Worker role when you disband.
* I never saw the need for any of the deeper formations; the rear centuries don't rotate forward, or move to fill gaps. They only get into the fight during the mop-up.
* There isn't a way to move formations laterally, or rotate them in-place.
* When enemies attack the player, they get so close that the models clip. So either I fight someone who's invisible, and hope I'm landing hits, or I back up blindly the whole time.
* The "clear cut" option seems to discard resources even if you have space for them, which is not what the hovertext says.
* ALL Workers will run all the way across the map together to harvest a single tree. Maybe automatically cancel outstanding harvest orders when you strike camp?
* I couldn't find the Guide mentioned in the initial tutorial, and there's no keybinding listed.

Just one person's opinion. Thanks for reading!

Just for clarification, this review has not been bought, it has been earned.

There aren't too many games out there that are like Warlord: Britannia. Though this game is very bare in it's current state, the road map that the developer (single dev team) has posted looks very promising. I do agree that there needs to be some QoL things added (easier way to promote or upgrade when army in encamped, choosing who gets guard/ builder duty, commanding singular centuries) but there is a great foundation here. I can tell that the developer has spent time combing through history books and videos trying to perfect the Roman gear and what it would have roughly looked like in that time.

Overall, this game has greats bones it just needs to be built upon. So far, I have experienced no crashes and the game has ran fine. I have only encountered one bug and it was simply fixed by saving and restarting the game. If you like Roman history and a little bit of front line fighting, get this game.

TLDR: the game has great bones and gear design. The game lacks content but the development road map looks promising if content is pushed at a decent rate.