Lenghty review (spoilers (duh)) TLDR: I like it, pls dev read me, answer discuss, and do more (and possibly even better)

[lebeststratege]

Hi, I just finished the roman campaign and here will be my lenghty feedback of this game I overall like, despite some major flaws. I must say I WILL be nitpicky at times, it's not because I want to be demeaning, but because I wan't to be thorough. My tone should make it clear when I am. After a LOT of detailed critic of what I don't like, I also number numerous positive points of what I like, because, at risk of repeating myself, I LIKE THIS GAME. I played "at a friends house" and decided to buy it after finishing the roman campaign (I was afraid saves might not be kept, it happens) because it's a bargain for the price (could go up to 40€ without me feeling stolen from) and the devs need to be supported for them to want to make more game (possibly even better, hence my critical review)

The game start off as we are ambushed, and supposedly part on a way bigger army. At this time we are obviously Asellius, a young officer with enough nerve to rally his nearby troups during an ambush. He's guided at the time by two veteran officiers of similar role : Corvinus using the "rough but kind" archetype and Nerva with "friendly yet efficient" approach.

They are indeed heroes, because their units never root from moral, and are needed to field any armies. We are facing iberian Celts (I'll short to Celts) which also have numerous heroic units. More on that later. As for heroes we are later joined by Syphax a numidian noble (and the best unit in the game let's face it) and way later by Scipio "Africanus". No not the one that faced Hannibal and indeed led the Iberian Romans at the age of 26. This one is less competant, yet one of the better mind we'll have in this war.

This game is indeed rooted in real history, and I learned things ... on Wikipedia trying to figure out what was what. This will be my first critic :

1) The quality of writing is inconsistent.

We start by playing Asellius, but then our PoV and decision shift to Nerva (an obvious noble trying to tone down his ascendancy), which WILL be the main focus of description, but sometimes we'll have event tied to Asellius only (giving him event related to the enemy religion... that's a mischaracterisation though because not all Celts where against Rome at the time and could've been used for that storyline), Syphax and Corvinius also have some events early on (including one teaching us that Syphax is a numidian noble... on a roman front for 20 years, I call that exile). Syphax will totally disappear from event past chapter 6. Scipio is teased (ch6) but comes in play ch7 as an over indulgent jerk (the third one) while he should have, at minima, an event of hype because he just won a campaign in Greece, and he is the second "Africanus" coming to straightened Iberia once more.

Asellius is slowly centered back in the narration (Corvinius' PoV is only explored through the eyes of Nerva and Asellius, then leave the cast) especially after the events of finale of chapter 9. We never have PoV of Scipio or Syphax, once for Corvinius. the game would have been narratively better with either more balance or more focus. for exemple
a lot of care is taken when Asellius is sent to kill Corvinius in the back of Nerva, but Nerva's reaction to it mild at best or when ellipses of 10 years exists, the relationship of the character and especially what they know about each other don't change ex :the player can understand Corvinius lost his wife or sister to barbs explaining his racism, but that is NEVER explored again in TWENTY YEARS only for him to insubordinate so much he's led to be executed, and if you let him go he end up living ... with locals

The game also mix events and battle gameplay, In the events you often have choices; but of course one can't change history setting the pace to the most frustrating aspect of this game :

2) your choices and actions don't matter.

While I understand that the overall narrative can't be changed, the characters are supposed to earn ranks in their 20 years long campaign. And that's NEVER relevant. The number of units you can field is tied to the mission, not the exp or rank of the heroes (I would have loved if Corvinius had less dots of initiative to reflect both his slower wits AND his lower rank, Scipio would have deserved to have 2 "special" unit slots, Nerva should have add penalties to fielding infantry and bonuses fielding cavalry, etc..). Your choices barely impact missions/battle available or deployable troops, or BATTLE PLANS. You can talk to the army commander (I'd be fine to not have that choice at start since we are rookies), you ARE the army commander, but never provided with a choice that matter. Which leads to :

3) No visibility upon your choices.

For some events it's totally understandable (long lasting choices such as tradition vs synchretism), and narrative events often provide clues to the ♥♥♥♥ and pros of the choices (some feeling purely moral and that's good). But when you make a tactical game, with a roster of unit different enough and balanced enough as this one is, you can't afford not the give player a heads up of what is to come !
I'm not talking of most major battles where deployment could be kept in the hands of army commander (I'd dislike it, but more on that later). I'm talking of every other ones.
Most of the second campaign is in a snowy setting, but you never have a heads up if you are going to be on the offensive or the defensive ! I remember one time when I was said to be on the defense, only for the mission to turn to extermination 4 turns in and my reinforcements are snow-weak cav in this snow covered map. An other major issue is that we have

4) no idea of how separated unit groups will be when selecting out units.

That's a huge problem because having balanced group is sometime mandatory, and sometime not efficient enough. We can also field siege ballistas, but they can't move (should have a move of 1/1, can't fire if move this turn). Some deployment points will leave them so far that they can't be used, other so close they can't be saved. Sometimes you are supposed to be defending, but Celts don't attack, leaving you with a useless unit. (looking at you final battle)

And that is sad, because combat, the core gameplay of this tactic game, is otherwise pretty well made. Some historical aspect are left out in favor of gameplay (such as the differences between hastati, principes and triari, or the equipments) but that's for the better.
Romans have access to 16 different units most of them with different uses, though some are so impractical that buying them is a waste of resources :
War elephants (don't bother because despite huge offense, the enemy often target moral... their weak point triggering a slaugther in your own troops instead. Historicaly accurate, but destroyed but the fact enemy always have number advantage).
Numidian cavalry (good on paper, this unt aim to suppress the enemies, but have to be too close to do that, meaning they always get caught and slaughtered. They needed a "move after shot" bonus to compensate their poor range).
Balearic slinger (the only roman unit targeting moral, meaning they lack synergy with the rest of the force. in 30+ battles I never rooted the enemy once, same weakness as Nerva)
War machine (they can't move. numerous times you'd need them to move 1 square to move them on the damn hill instead of doing nothing, they are not "bad" just outclassed by alternatives such as Cretan archers (same job but better) and Velites (similar damages but can move), oh and they can't level up ! why? don't know they can't be equipped either)
Standard Bearers (this one is tricky. the ONLY unit capable of giving back morale should be a great deal in a game where the enemy is an harasser targetting moral, isn't it? Well they could see us if they were not using a precious unit slot while being walking targets. Their stats are so poor that they get destroyed by everything looking at them, and the only use they have is moral healing. But if you swap them out for a damaging type unit, you kill enemy faster making you lose less moral anyway. They could even make war elephant viable, but they use the same special slot. Oh and they only work for the units in their army which mean the optimal way to play them is with a full unit right? yeah if you want to give initiative and so lose moral and HP to the opponent instead of taking positions and winning the fights)
Apart from these 4 units, which all have superior counterparts, the rest is well balanced with the challenges of the game. That's great. I would have liked more efficient (in term of diversification of gameplay) unit promotion, but it's ok.

What is not ok is that

5) your unit can't catch up xp wise

. The game have 4 level of xp for units : recruit, soldier, veteran and elite. They require 18xp to get to elites. If they die in battle, they don't get xp, if they survive they get 1. Every 2-3 chapters the unit you buy and of the computer have one more level (there are minor exceptions), but the roster being balanced means you don't use the same unit every fight. So every "global level up" you get behind for several battles, and if you buy late game units they are all elites taking the place of 20 years old veterans because "stats". It's sad. And fixable => just reduce the amount of xp needed to level up (from 3/9/18 to 3/7/14). in my campaign I had a total of 17 unit wounded (including those pesky lost battles) and couldn't keep up.

Because yeah,

6) the game being history based, forces you to lose some battles and events.

This one is almost a deal breaker. it could've alleviated if you used the battle screen as a way to narrate said battles instead, especially because this narration is enforced by changing objectives (AKA moving goalposts) by the previous objectives can be achieved with no reward or no change in narration (it's history) whatsoever. A simple "despite the efforts of a small number of increasingly famous officer among the ranks, focused on inflicting losses on the Celts, the overall situation of the army became so desperate that a retreat became the only available option to fight another day" + you give a unique trinket and 1 honor point to the player and that's it. Do this the 3 times you need it (ex kill the elephant by climate or poison afterward, have some traitors in the ranks capture Mancinus, have the celt bring even more reinforcements ), and it's all good, because

7) the game could use optionnal objectives.

It's not a big one, it's a stapple of the genre and you can even go out of your way to make some optionnal objective be incompatible with each other to induce a choice for the player (so long as they have reward preview, tied to the gameplay proposed ex : defend you get a triari unique item, attack you get equites' do both? good luck but get both sometime you just can't).

I've said the unit balance is good overall, and I stand by it, though I feel a minor adjustement should be made to the combat system

8) defense and attack stack additively

. That have deep gameplay ramification => importance of terrain (great, many games fail this one), importance of number (less good since romans are ALWAYS understaffed) and impact of shields (a bit too impactful). But it comes in chunk of 50% of base damages and that's way too much. if instead it stacked multiplicatively for defense, then at D+2 you'd take 25% of damages, at D+3 only 12% and lets say D+4 you take nothing.

8.1) Conversly flanking

shouldn't stack multiplicatively but rise less quickly (+35% damage per stack would enough, would make fight last longer and moral become more relevant), it would also allow

8.1.1)multiple unit of height

matter more since you wouldn't cap the bonus from height at 1 for range units (A chap optionnal battle make you defend a watchtower side next to a huge hill (why isn't it ON the hill btw? is the tower aim to not look past it?), but the player have absolutely no benefit to climb the hill because 1 elevation gives all the advantage available. too bad. Range units could see adjustements their => javelin thrower become range 2 and archers/slinger range 3, but javelin thrower gain one range per 2 elevations beyond the first (so on flat it's range 2, on height 1 it's range 3, height 3 range 4, etc..) on top on bonus damages, you'll want to get to them fast; and archer/slinger gain 1 range per height (note that slingers damages are low so less impacted by bonuses, and archers are really weak toward cavalry due to them needing to not move to deal damages, could change the bonus from "+1 flanking" to "10 flat damages" and changing their base stat dmg to 12 meaning prepared they deal more than slingers, unprepared they deal less).

My last itch needing a scratch is

9) While some losses are mandatory, none of the victories are

. It might seems strange to read, why would I want a given victory? Well because the game fall sometime too deep in the narration over the gameplay, especially at chap 9-10 (end game) with Nerva's death . When you wrote this part of the game, you retroactively wrote Asellius' encounters with the druid to setup a confrontation ... which never comes, because it's the final battle. Asellius needed a final showdown with Rhetogenes, even if in insubordination in an optionnal duel fight to avenge his friend Nerva, at the cost of his favors with Scipio. you would have given closure to this arc, the player get to have the choice between letting Rhetogenes live, seeing the point of Scipio's argument and earning special promotion for final fight or killing him out of spite, taking down Rhetogenes preemptively, maybe at the cost of him being out of position at start of final fight?.

[lebeststratege]

I know I said I liked the game at the start of the post, and I'm 2 hours in writting critics. But I really really do, else I wouldn't have spend this time writting, or remembered so much of the game.
Here is why :
-

the game atmosphere is overall great

it's not nitty gritty (I like them too), it's not overly optimistic (not a bad thing either). The tone is really on the spot between "we are fighting barbarians" and "they are closer to us than we tought... than we would have liked" although I would prefered deeper character arcs that's because overall
-

I tend to like the character

they are pretty easy to get involved with, maybe with the exception of the late game Scipio who could've used more hype, more dilemnas (for exemple senate letters pressing him about the campaign tardy results, or some more insight about how he comes to change his views on the celts compared to his other wars (he did fight greeks and destroyed carthago already, why are the Celts specials to him?)
-

The menu display is good

it's not a huge thing, but many games miss on this "simple" aspect, yet it sets the tone of expecations.
-

Some texts are color coded

it makes it so easier to read wall of texts on a computer screen (ADHD me thanks you), though I would have like more of them (like a small Wiki relating the historical events and mysteries, with some code for historical characters and other for written ones).
-

it interested me in the place and time period of the conflict

I'm a huge strategy nerd, but not so much in conflict of the roman empire (I view the political/strategical changes of the roman empire appealing, but so are those of China, Macedonia, etc..), so it made me look after this Scipio Africanus, I learned things (most notably about Iberian Celts) instead of seeing the same conflicts again and again (eg 100 year war, the crossing of the Rubicon, Napoleonic warfare, WWs etc..)
-

The musics are really good

, they are coherent with what is happening (winning, losing, avenging, etc..), have a distinctive feeling (unity of tonalities), have loopability exceeding 3 sec (epic sax guy meme syndrom), and have overall quality. Many games (especially strategy ones, where music is played at lenght) miss this : what they think is a detail but stop the player from enjoying the game.
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the balance of the game

despite using assymetric roasters of unit, and sometime feeling some Celt units are cheated (one or two heroes, the light shield falcata devotio running for miles to stack a triple flanking on you, or some slinger/javeliners murdering your heavy shield veteran non moving Triari in 2 shots), overall the experience is that even those units are manageable, requiring maybe a restart but nothing is unfair to the point you have to cheat or forfeit.
-

The AI is good

the AI is far from dumb (even if sometime it clearly have a trigger such as waiting for you to cross a river) meaning I can enjoy it when I chain some comboes and outplay it, while not being so omnipotent it always take the exact best decisions. Sometime it could clearly do better though such as ignoring my 20hp Scipio in melee, because I have a gaellic cav also in melee and it chose to deal more damage over killing a flanking unit of mine. Yet the feeling still is that the gameplay as a whole is balanced well enough.
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The price tag

30€ is a bargain for the time spent on the game.
-

The graphics won't age much

the art direction for the graphics make them enjoyable, detailled enough and have the perfect mix between realism and symbolism (some game try to much and would have displayed the specific shields of each unit, but lose overall coherence. Not here)
-

historicity vs gameplay is well balanced

We don't care that there are "hero units" because it enhances the gameplay even though we all know there is no way a single man with a trinket could soak up 3 times the pain of an elite triari company. Or the fact Roman unit can equip different type of shields make no sense, because it allow for customisation.

That is the end of my long post, hoping the devs can scrape good things from my feedback (I'm open to discussion if it can help) and hoping they create another game, either in a similar context (could be cool to see some Roman vs Roman action with different auxiliary unit such as Pompei Vs Cesar, maybe even tied to a larger favor system to compete for the unlocking of those auxiliaries), even maybe a similar type of conflict (the invasion of Germany by rome and the following desmise) or simply another place (chinese conflicts), time (could be iberia's conquest by the muslim) or even time span (following a family starting from iberia's conquest by the muslim to the "liberation" of iberia by catholics, with all the politics, cultural amalgamation and technological advance in between but might be too complicated, can be a 3 generational story during 100 year war, or another lasting conflict).

[Meteorbyte Studios]

Holyyy ♥♥♥♥! Wow. Thanks for the thorough review! Read it fully and I agree with many of the points. No matter how many years we do it, we're still learning something new every time.

I don't have time to respond to every issue individually yet, but I'll make time for it. Take care and thanks again!

Best, Phil

[lebeststratege]

I'll regularly post other critics, that's I'll try to numerate to so that's it's easier to respond. I don't expect major changes for this game (some are easy to do (ie xp thresholds for level up), so I'd welcome them, others, are probably worthy to consider for a sequel, other games or DLC).

I won't make critic without counter propositions, because it's not fair to judge others work without providing an imput of your own.

10) Skirmisher unit's level up perk don't make sense

By definition, a skirmisher role is to poke enemy units while kiting back. They should be weak to light infantry, cavalry and longe range heavy units (archers, watch towers and warmachines), while having a massive edge vs light range unit (heavier shields and damage), heavy infantry (more range than their movespeed), and have definite advantages in rough terrain (often at the cost of being subpar in flat grounds or using elevation).

But in this game, Skirmisher have the level up choices of Light or Heavy (take less moral damage or attack in melee are safer). That makes them an often subpar unit later in the game. Because neither of them are good for the unit. (Skirmisher weak point is their HP, and they don't want to melee)
As a class, the skirmisher would have benefited more if all had the "light unit" upgrades (either movement bonus in rough, or bonus defense in rough), Even though I don't like this tree either (see next point).

THE exception is the macedonian peltast auxiliary on the roman side (because they are ranged but can hold their ground in melee, sometime being more efficient if they add a 2/3/4 layers of flanking), for which it make sense they have this tree.

A better "soldier" choice would have given me a triple choice of specialisation =>
- +5 range damage (phys for heavy skirm, moral for light)
- Can disengage from ONE melee unit at start of turn (better defense vs 1 disruptor, but punishes bad positionning or reward well timed attack)
- Gain 1 permanent defense in rough (not higher ground, allow to put an emphase on the ambush side of the unit)

This tree would allow Skirmishers to further their advantages (big damage at cost of low range, kiting units forcing to overextend, taking good positionning) instead of giving them nothing.

I talked about Light unit tree so here it is.

11) Light unit level up... ain't that great either

The light level up tree gives you access to either no movement penalties through rough terrain, or no defense penalties through rough terrain. On paper it looks good, but their are unintended consequences.
The first being that light unit will die and thrive by the terrain, that's good (this game does a really good job to make terrain important, contrary to say... total war (free sucker punch)). But it also prevent them from being used anywhere there is no such terrain. In turn, that makes them miss valuable XP, leading them to get behind (while heavy units can be used on any missions).
The AI also have trouble keeping it's unit covered, often leading the ultra mobile units do the first wave of damage, die, and the rest is just ripe for pickups. Finally for the player, none of these choices are really appealing.
For Skirmishers, Better movement is always better because they kite better, for light cav it's too strong (you get free strike on range units with gaellic cav, or can bait the IA to split it's troop so much (2 or 3 infantry chasing a gallic cav around the map while you rip them apart with long range). At the same time light infantry can't really use any of them => Devotios and Celtic warriors can't afford to strike non weakenend and will get shreded in the answer the following turn, no matter if they have the defense penalty or not, and them having to reach frontline to deal damages, mean they obviously are in range of retaliation no matter what.
=> Cantabrian amazones are too weak (damage wise) to deal significant damages in the enemy backline, too brittle to withstand the incoming punishment (they ARE in the middle of the enemyline) and don't even have enough cohesion for the second attack to do more than pinching the retreating enemy a bit hard.
=> Standard bearer can't do anything really useful in term of fighting anyway
=> Balearic Slingers are often a subpar unit because they lack damage and aim for moral, which the roman do awfully baddly
=> Cretan archer just don't want to move (and if you are reached by melee they die anyway)
=> Celtic slingers go up to 6 range and neither the movespeed nor the defense bonus should be in the discussion any time.
Those last 3 units + warmachines should be in a special promotion tree (long range artillery) which makes me digress a bit.

My proposition would be a light infantry only soldier promotion (no skirm see prev point, no cav, they deserve unique love, more on that later) tree =>
- Gain a free "second" movement after taking a melee attack without triggering opportunity (limited to 1 escape, or 2 for amazones). The aim being to offer an escape to a flexible unit with low cohesion/hp
- Gain +2 flanking vs range unit. The aim is to provide them with higher "ONE shots" potential vs skirmishers, given they WILL die the next turn anyway.
- Gain +1 Cover, +3/5 base damage (should be around 16) and +10/20 cohesion (roughly up to 55). The aim is to make them a medium infantry with the downside of having less hp or moral (depend unit), but still some utility for 2-3 turn of mild punishment.

IRL is calling for me, but I'll come back to discuss the other unit type promotions.

[lebeststratege]

12) heavy unit promotion tree is good

Following light unit promotion, I come to heavy unit promotion. Namely "when you attack you gain more cover" and "when attacked, reduce moral lost by 30%".
And they do their job, mostly.
The moral defense is a great one, probably the one you HAVE to use every unit. The other one is not bad in design, but would be more useful for a light infantry. This is why :
"Heavy" unit aim to hold a frontline on one place, while the rest of your army does the damage. Commonly refered as tanking. But to avoid making these units too powerful, they are often limited in damage (or for praetorian guard, in number). So having a bonus useful for your tank to take less damage (that they are made to tank) when they have little to gain while attacking is far from great. Would be better if they had moral damage to compensate (you face a well organised unit, barely putting a dent in it, that should chip away your moral).
I would also make heavy infantry take a bigger malus due to rough terrain (hard to have a huge cohesive unit move on a swamp) and make it -2.

Here is how I would have made this promotion =>
- Take 30% less moral damage. The aim is to have a solid frontline
- When attacking gain 1 cover and deal 5 moral damage to adjacent enemies (including target). The aim is to improve moral as a mecanic and give heavy infantry a useful attack
- Reduce penalty from rough terrain (only) from -2 to 0. The aim is to have a defensive option even in winter but taking an opportunity cost.

In the game, heavy cavalry and skirmshers also "benefits" from this tree, but they gain almost nothing from it (heavy cav can't really sustain damages anyway, and heavy skirm get absolutely nothing because they die when they get hit.