Old but gold

I don't know what happened to cause the massive review bombing in the past, buy playing it now with the expansion DLC (for steep discount of course) it's not bad. It's very similar to RTK X, but with better role-playing and worse combat. There are more options and 'career paths' (called Prestige) for developing your character the way to you want, including routes where you stay a free officer the entire time and can still win the game. Relationship building is a lot more interesting than in past games as well. You can fully edit custom characters from the start, no need to unlock things this time around. You can even make your own events with the expansion.

The combat is the weak point, as it sadly often is in these games. They went with real time combat this time around, and the consequence is that everyone gets reduced to one active ability. The AI just doesn't understand the maneuvering in real time, and is easy to bait into unfavorable positions. On the upside the various factions on the main map are much more aggressive than in previous games, and you don't have to do absolutely everything yourself.

Despite the mediocre combat, overall I think this probably the best of the 'RPG style' RTK games if you're looking for that kind of experience. At least on sale of course.

My first impression of this game is... It is trying out new ideas. However, the way it implemented the new ideas is not very intuitive.

ROTK VI, ROTK X, and ROTK XI are still my favorite games in the ROTK Series...