I like it. I was looking for a slow moving game to keep my mind busy but not overtaxed, as I am almost 70.

As an archaeologist, this is one of the most entertaining city builders I played. The game isnt very complicated and easily passes off hours for me. I do have some complaints though and I really hope the devs read these, because I feel like this game could become so much more immersive and interesting:
On a macro level:
- modify animal behavior: having mammoths, bears and ibex wandering through my camp or not being alarmed by my presence at all is kinda weird. Would be cool if animals had their own high-capacity AI behavior.
- dogs: make dogs useful! they just sit around at camp doing nothing, and when something happens it takes them ages to defend the camp. Make dogs capable companions for hunting, or turn them into an alert/defend mechanism, instead of the current one.
- human AI isnt very good, to say the least. hunting is rarely synchronized, as in, I can order 3 ppl to take down a mammoth and theyd all get to the animal individually, so the hunt turns into 1 man chugging spears at a massive furry bulldozer while the others r still on their way.
- day-night cycle pls? more dangerous at night, colder, etc.
- UI is a bit wonky: itd be neat if, when building stuff, you could put down multiple structures one after the other without having to re-enter into the menu and re-pick the structure.
- wall-building is absolutely atrocious. make sure all buildings have the option to be put in flexible angles (not just the residence), especially the walls! use the same system as Black and White 2 used, it was very intuitive.
- more options to build morale? idk, maybe having a "sitting around the hearth" option to boost collective morale?

These are just stuff that bothered me most, but certainly dont make the game less fun! If you like city-builders and slow-paced strategy, this is definitely for you.
If the game devs are interested, I have more suggestions from my professional background, wouldnt mind sharing them :)

I kinda got the feeling that the game is half finished... don't get me wrong, I love the game. It's just I see so much of what it could be, but isn't.

The Good
I really feel connected to the people... the fact that I'm not just a micromanaging deity saying "you, chop down this tree, you, build this house there" really shows that the people are, well, people and not automatons. The approach of "Okay, we need a tent, can someone make that? Thanks. Anyone up for chopping down some trees? And we need someone to go fishing too..." is one of two things that really sell the game for me... that I assign goals (which are taken up voluntarily; if they're unhappy they'll do their own thing) and leave it up to the individuals as to how that gets done really makes me feel like I'm leading a team.

The second detail I like... no magical materials. Every stick, every log, every piece of mud, every stone and every bundle of straw was collected by one of the clan. Food gets eaten, buildings need repair. Tools break. Ah, the problems with being the mayor in 10,000 BC!

The third... I love the animations. You can actually see them putting up wood, stone, wattle and daub, thatching roofs... all with the materials they gathered. I know it sounds like a minor detail, but it really makes the buildings seem more real.

The Bad
I find as the game goes on, I get lost. Maybe I don't know how to use the interface properly. I find myself looking for graphs and tallies... all the things an accountant would need. In fact, that was the first know use of writing... ledgers for granaries. Instead, I don't know how many mines I have operating... I don't know why I need to set work areas, why can't I just tell them to get wood from the nearest tree? What are the production rates on bronze looking like? Where are the bottlenecks in my production lines? How much fodder did the animals eat last winter (so I can plan better for this year)? Can I get a crafter to produce trade goods, without it getting mixed up with the rest? How many male and female donkeys do I have, at what ages? I may be the mayor, but I'm blind without my paperwork!

The second issue is raiders... they get in too easily... they break down solid stone walls in a few seconds... collapse towers with a few arrows... and you can't buy them off with tribute, or hide inside your fortress while they raid your fields or mines... in fact, I don't think I've ever seen raiders actually take anything... remember that scene in "Pirates of the Caribbean"? These guys have got to be the worst raiders I've ever seen... Stone walls should be able to keep out a few brigands, and if you haven't got those, a danegeld should do the trick.

The third... I feel town planning could be better... like, have an option to automatically rebuild destroyed buildings. To lay out plots for buildings one doesn't wish to construct yet, just to keep the space free, without it tying up resources. How about an option to "move" (demolish and reconstruct) a building you find is in the way? What about freeform placement of walls (so you don't find you've missed a segment, it just builds walls along the path you select. Or the freeform placement of buildings, so you can have it less like a modern city grid? And when it comes to farms... rather than having to personally select grids of land, how about you specify how much you want planted, and the tribespeople plant it in some empty space? If you build new buildings, they move the farms further out when they replant, so you don't find your settlement boxed in by farms. And with a crop-rotation knowledge bonus, they'd be shifting their crops around and getting a harvest bonus. Is irrigation mentioned at all? So much that could have been done...

I have had this on my wishlist for a while and was so glad to see it had finally been released. So far it seems like a mix between Banished, Thea and the Sims. It's very micromangement if that's what you want, but there's also a fair amount of autonomy if you just leave your townspeople to relax and focus on specific tasks. It's definitely a one more task/season/kill/I HAVE TO GET THIS LAST THING DONE BEFORE BED type of game.

It's very detailed with an extensive crafting, gathering, and hunting system, which is what I was after. Also, the primal view for hunting is kind of awesome. AND you can domesticate animals. I HAVE PET DOGS. This is basically everything I have been looking for in a game for the past few years.

It runs very well on my computer, no lagging or glitches yet (although I am not very deep into it). It doesn't overheat it or even make it run hot which is ... refreshing. I do wish there were more screen options, I have yet to find a way to window it. I work with a lot of screens so I like having numerous things going at once, that doesn't seem to be an option here yet.

***EDITED***
In order to get to a windowed mode, you have to go into the settings, change the resolution, and press ALT and ENTER to get the settings changes to apply.

Also, keys 6, 7, 8 and F7 are all extremely useful for keeping an eye on your people. allowing you to see who is idle, what tasks are pending, and what information you have yet to unlock to get farther in the tech tree. The map is massive so finding idle people is easiest through "6".

After 15 hours, I got close to the last era, and suddenly had too many people and too little food and have to try again. The game is surprisingly challenging, even on normal mode. I'm going to try again and make sure I stockpile EVERYTHING and not grow too fast. I can't even imagine this game in hard mode...
***END EDIT***


All in all though, I'm pleased so far.

I absolutely adore this game. I'm an archaeologist with a speciality in the paleolithic and this is the first game about early humans that I have ever enjoyed. I love the art, I love the mechanics, I love the population dynamics, the tech tree, the animals, the tools etc. Everything about this game is a delight to play.

Mechanically, the game does a really good job of allowing you to micromanage to the extent that you want, I love the gridless system for building, and while there are a few bugs with the way people move around the map, it's largely well done and really enjoyable to watch your people set out to do their tasks.

The updates thus far have all been really enjoyable and added to the game well. I hope they keep adding to it! All in all if you like simulation and strategy games and the neolithic I highly recommend getting this game. It's genuinely really exciting to find a game that cares about getting prehistoric details right!

This game had me hooked from the start. 13 hours straight. I've not played a single player game like that in a long time. The game is polished. The grouping makes it easy to manage who does what jobs, and the management system keeps control over how much is gathered. The camera angles are fantastic and the animation rigging and models are very well done. Not a lot of goofy noises clicking on characters to see their stats. The Crafting system is a breeze, and will make one or continuous materials. Later in the game the random attacks are always at the worst possible time.

The tech tree is very simple but a lot to do before advancing to each age.

Best recommendation is the tutorial is a must F7 and TAB are your friend. Not a lot of cutter on the screen unless you want a screen full of status bars. Start out slow and get food and clothing stable and then grow your population. The game is balanced nicely and I didnt experience any bugs yet.
I would recommend this to anyone who is a fan of building / survival simulation games.

It's a shame the game was left as it is. It's still great but I feel it had more potential than what it is now.

****BUY ONLY ON SALE***

I will not deny it. I have enjoyed my time playing Dawn of Man. However, it has its problems. I enjoyed the start of the game, the abundance of animals to hunt, the joy of watching your budding settlement rising from a couple of tents to a large village. Unfortunately, the game feels very empty near the end.

I find myself not using Copper or Bronze since you advance so fast in research that you just think "Why bother?" . just go straight to Iron. Even Steel is a waste of time. It hardly offers better quality than Iron.

Hunting should have been an exciting aspect of this game. Normally, back in those times, people would form hunting parties and would pack enough food and provisions to last them a few days before going to hunt. In this game however, you can only hunt the animals close to you because if you try to hunt an animal far away chances are your villagers are gonna starve, get thirsty, exhausted or lose morale before they make it halfway to the prey.

Domesticated animals don't make much sense. Goats provide the same amount of Milk as cattle but they reproduce faster and eat less than cattle. Why bother with cattle then? Pigs are almost useless in this game. They eat a lot are only good for meat. Might as well invest in Sheeps as they are the most valuable animal in the game. Cattle should have more uses than simply provide milk (Females) or just take up space until they get slaughtered for meat (males). A better way to utilize them is in planting crops or use them to pull carts. I mean Ox carts do ring a bell right? And finally Horses. The most useless animal in the game. They require an entire tech to research and they do the exact same job as the donkeys. True they live a little longer but that's it. In fact they provide less materials than donkeys when butchered.

This game has a lot of potential. Unfortunately, right now it feels more like a demo. It needs a lot of work to be done and to add a lot more features. So why do i recommend it? because its still fun and i'm helping out an indie company so if they read this review, I hope they implement a lot things in this game.

I would have loved if there was a coastal map that would have us rely heavily on fishing to survive. Including building ports to trade and fishing boats to fish. Speaking of fishing, why the heck would you use fishing rods when the casting net would be a lot more efficient? all it take is two units of linen and voila. Also trade, there should be a system where you send explorers to discover other villages and then you find what can be traded between you so that you don't have to hoping that the next trader has something you need.

My main gripe about this game is that since it's abandonment by the devs. The devs haven't allowed modders free reign to complete what they left off. All of the mods in the workshop(as of now) are just different maps, starting scenarios, and adjusted rates.
Allowing the modding community to do what it does will make this game better. period

Realistic review after 20 hours of gameplay:
Potential: 9/10
At this moment: 7/10

TLDR:
This game is fun. Chances are, if you bought the game, you are a fan of the genre and this game won't disappoint you. The price tells you this is not an AAA game with lots of details you would expect from a 50€ game so for this 20ish€ you get what you pay for. Ton of fun, hence 7/10 despite great issues. The fun, music, overall atmosphere and mood in the game is great.

There are some issues that will be annoying after awhile so I would really like the devs to hear the fans while working on updates or DLCs.

Spoiler alert (long text ahead alert).

Workers
First issue is workers AI. Workers carry only 1 item/product although they have free slots available (2, 3 or more). When you have population 120 it is impossible to micro all workers. Up to pop.20 its is manageable.
Second issue is AI decision making. Why would anyone go hunting for mammoths with empty stomach, meanwhile my bread in granary has gone bad because nobody eats it. Clearly people had backpack of some sort back in a day so please add a slot for food/water carrying. Had the same problem with Banished. "Kruggerbrethgt died from hunger", and there are more then 700 food stuff all around, not to mention the berries bush not 3 meters from the dead lady.

AI not intelligent
Why would only one guy pull 100 ton megalith? If you let it to AI, workers will, one by one, try to pull megalith (spoiler alert, you need 2 to move it an inch), if you micro the workers, you assign 5 workers but then after a minute, one of them is hungry, second one is unhappy, 3rd one is thirsty and you are left with 2 workers pulling the damn thing.

Religion stuff makes sense until the beer comes :) Once you start producing beer everyone is happy, workers(people) tend to eat 1 bread per season, but beer.. oh boy, I had 2 bakeries along with 6 breweries. Even after you hit pop 100+, you can sell excess bread and flour but you can never produce enough beer. But, make sure to have enough shrines and stuff before the age of beer.

Workload
One thing you should have in mind is that you will press "7" a lot. In banished you have clear view on "who's working what", in DoM it is an utter chaos. Peoples work is season dependent. IE they have more work in Fall if you have lots of crops, so be careful not to make new buildings in Fall season (and late Summer) otherwise your animals will die because animals need hay during winter, and hay will go bad when left on fields (because workers carry only 1 product even if they have 2 slots..). There should be better solution than pressing "7" every minute or two because "Workload is too high" even if you "didn't do nothin".

The walls are pretty much for aesthetic reason. You can build reinforced doors but they don't "snap" to wall so it's a bummer. For now I didn't find walls to be a necessity, maybe on harder levels. But the "army mode" should either have more depth in it or there should be an option to turn it off.

EDIT* there is "Creative mode" like stated in the comments (I was glued to the game and forgot to check out the stuff I unlocked), but.. I still find the "army aspect" of the game bad. Purpose of the Raiders, in my opinion, is to justify the walls which are here for aesthetics only. You will have far more problems with walls then you can expect. Once you build, lets say east side wall with doors, people (workers?) tend to gather there (near the doors) after you press the Raiders alarm button, even if the raiders are coming from the west. (I didn't have this problem without the walls). Another problem is that a bunch of raiders with steel swords can easily demolish your stone wall (Age of empires logic) which is, if you ever saw a stone wall - quite hard to do. In my opinion, the game should have "No raiders" option in default. Once the devs introduce the full army aspect of the game (horse training, archers, professional army, guards, shields etc) as special DLC or an update, then it would be fun to have an enemy which can come from nowhere in anytime. But then they should develop better (or more appropriate) Tech Tree with some army stuff to research. But once again, this is sold as an Mammoth era city builder game where 90% of the players bought it as an city builder. Once you have that working, add Army dlc, Migration dlc, Seafarer dlc etc. At this point i feel like the devs made the walls because they needed nice pictures for advertisement, then they added some raiders just so they can say "fight for your tribe against bla bla...". If it is not good, remove it until you work it out. Until then nobody will cry because of the lack of the raiders. Let us make our huts, shacks and cottages in peace.

Maps
You can walk with your workers (so can the Raiders!) on the highest of the peaks, but if there is an even slightest slope or incline, you cant place a house, stable, or even crops?! over that area. The maps should be more flat (but not unrealistically flat like Age of empires flat) but they can't all be this mountainous and hilly. By the time the stone walls come to play, you are already expanded on every flat surface available and the only free real estate for stone walls are hills around your perfectly balanced opus. But you can't place them there. I would prefer if there will be a button "No Raiders", because that aspect of Banished I liked the most. The game can be challenging without the "army" aspect. You can always add new era later on with army mode, barracks etc.

So in conclusion I would like the devs to:
1. Add backpacks for food and water.
2. Add better menu for workload and seasonal changes in workload.
3. If you need 5 people to pull megalith, don't start pulling until all 5 of them are available to start working simultaneously.
4. Add diverse maps.
5. Add "snap to grid" because nobody buy's a city builder game without an OCD for perfection building planing.
6. Add "No raiders option", or add more depth to defense/army system. Maybe with additional eras in the future.
7. Remodel the grids. For the love of god it is not 1990.
8. This game has great potential, please make use of it.