Best video on Ara - honest and brutal about lack of AI and broken systems.

[Spacemutiny]

https://www.youtube.com/live/0tJ_A_I9whc?si=O0ji9TFcqO6b8K4B

This is the best video I’ve seen on Ara. Bottom line is that he thinks the game is really fun and has the base of a great game, but the complexity of the resources means you can outpace the AI by ridiculous amounts even on the highest difficulty. Seems like a lot of work is needed on balance and how the AI builds.

May hold off on buying until I see how the patching goes.

[vthemighty]

I'd definitely check out more of TactiCats videos in the future. There's a lot of good stuff here.

[Spacemutiny]

Originally posted by vthemighty:

I'd definitely check out more of TactiCats videos in the future. There's a lot of good stuff here.

Yes by far the best video with actual criticisms and analysis instead of just “The game is fun!” with no deep dive into mechanics. I loved Civ 6 im the beginning until I realized the AI was non existent. Glad I saved myself the discovery of this game’s issues. I’ll definitely keep an eye on it and see how it progresses though. But man companies need to start properly playtesting their games.

What we really need is the makers of Old World to make a game that encompasses all of world history.

[Bozz 💀]

Yea I also stoped playing Civ because of the AI... Guess I'll pass on this one too and see if it gets improved, the way ressources work I really doubted the AI would be competent enough.

[GuNNuP]

even with his complaints the AI is still better than civ or humankind.

[Bozz 💀]

Originally posted by GuNNuP:

even with his complaints the AI is still better than civ or humankind.

Yeah but what does that mean, I mean it's really hard to do worser than Civ 6 xD even if it's a little better it's still far from acceptable.

[Flickmann]

So it looks like the early access cretins hyped up and lied to gain views AGAIN. It's telling when these issues are so glaring yet so few call them out.

[gmsh1964]

My interpretation of Tacticat was that it was a really good game.

[WarriorDonut]

I watch his videos quite often (his Manor Lords stuff is fantastic). But, in watching his new things on Ara, he constantly explains how much fun it is and how deep its strategy and replayability is. What's frustrating him is the balance at release, and how the rock-paper-scissors nature of conflict needs more nuance to make it more of a challenge. I can't remember the last grand strat game I played where you couldn't make those same arguments at release, so I don't think this is a big deal.

[UnderKingDuck]

I mean very rarely does any game come out without issues. Sometimes it time restraints for the release window, sometimes bugs slip into release builds and no one honestly finds them. I 100% expect balance issue for the first public build. The AI part is a bit disappointing, but the devs said they will address it in a future patch. They just said those changes are not stable yet and could not make it to the release build.

[Astasia]

Not going to watch the video as I plan to go into this mostly blind and without expectations, but the "economy issues" remind of Humankind and the Endless games, which can usually be alleviated by playing on a higher difficulty. Complex economies can be really fun to play with, but ya the AI suffers from it, in some ways this can be a fair tradeoff for enjoyment. I'm really not expecting any 4X game to have competent AI going forward, I've stopped playing to "challenge myself" and rather to just enjoy the ride and mechanics. As long as the AI pretends to be relevant for immersion purposes, I think that's mostly fine.

[Thedopeshow]

I tried to watch and couldn't get past him swearing constantly and talking about how he's so much better than other YouTube. I'ts clear that he's just young and I'm likely not his demographic so I'll pass!

[Tonas]

There are upcoming changes to the AI that weren't included on release to avoid breaking stuff, so that should start improving pretty soon!

[Testikles]

Originally posted by Thedopeshow:

I tried to watch and couldn't get past him swearing constantly and talking about how he's so much better than other YouTube. I'ts clear that he's just young and I'm likely not his demographic so I'll pass!

Yeah, dunno how anyone can pass 45 minutes of random rambling as a review. Even if he should have some valid points I had to turn it off halfway through.

[Ellye]

Originally posted by Testikles:

Originally posted by Thedopeshow:

I tried to watch and couldn't get past him swearing constantly and talking about how he's so much better than other YouTube. I'ts clear that he's just young and I'm likely not his demographic so I'll pass!

Yeah, dunno how anyone can pass 45 minutes of random rambling as a review. Even if he should have some valid points I had to turn it off halfway through.

From the bit I've watched he's pretty much echoing the same that you can read in any of the dozens of written reviews.

Why anyone would prefer to watch a 45 minute video instead of reading a 2 minute text, I'll never understand.

Solid foundations, barebones UI, barebones diplomacy, AI struggles to compete. That's basically it.

[Deygus]

Bummer... I was considering getting it and now I think I will hold off for a bit and hope they improve the AI. I can't stand games that don't offer much of a Challenge even at higher difficulty levels.