Recent reviews by WimpyTheWarrior

I absolutely HATED this game until I found the Build Helper button and screen, which immensely helped me understand the mechanics of the game.

I'd recommend this game if you like the interplay of various systems in your 4X games. There is the usual food, hammers, research, money, and culture that Civ fans will be familiar with. Millennia adds Domains (governments, exploration, warfare, engineering, diplomacy, & arts), and your nation evolves over the eras via choices in governments and national spirits.

It still needs improvements and you can view the roadmap, but I'm enjoying the game.

TL/DR VERSION
It's a Civ game, but not like you know it. You have to accept what's different from other Civ games to enjoy it. And Rising Tide is a must-have; the game did not fully form until RT was published.

LONGER VERSION
It's a Civ game....and it's NOT a Civ game.

My recommendation to enjoy the game is to accept the game as is, and try not to spend too much energy comparing it to other Civ games.

Civ BE:RT is a Civ game
The basic gameplay elements of Civ BE:RT will be familiar to any Civ player, 1 settler, found your capital, limited buildings and units, tech unlocks more stuff.

The basic resources of food, hammers, beakers, gold and culture. One per game Wonders, diplomacy, and multiple ways to win. Culture, border expansion, and 1UPT like Civ5 & 6.

So, if you like the Civ series you should also like Civ BE:RT, but the Steam ratings say otherwise. Why is this?

Civ BE:RT is a NOT Civ game
For me, the key to finally liking Civ BE:RT was to accept what was different.

Affinity
A key difference in Civ BE:RT from other Civ games is the Affinity system. From tech and game events you gain Affinity Points. Each affinity has a unique victory condition, unique units, in-game buffs, and diplomacy impacts.

Unit upgrades
Real unit upgrades come with affinity levels. The Civ BE:RT progression is not directly achieved by Tech (research X to unlock Swordsman), but instead by Affinity level gains.

Diplomacy
With RT, diplomacy is based on fear (comparative army size) and respect (similar affinities, trade deals, alliances, and actions). You can achieve diplo goals by being nice or being big.

Tech web
The tech tree is a web and you start in the middle. There are branches (main research) and leaves off the branches. It works.

Aquatic cities
A minor point, but there are unique properties of aquatic cities, notably the ability to move the city tile by tile over the map!

Don't sweat the names
Lastly, I always struggled with the odd names of tech, units, and buildings. Our historical knowledge accelerates our play of the usual Civ game: "My cities are starving - I need to research agriculture or fishing." In Civ BE:RT, it's "My cities are starving - do I need advanced fizzination or thermodynamic hypernodes?"

The names always sounded like conditions I describe to my doctor, hoping they had a cure.

The filters in the Tech screen are the key to resolving this.

And my doctor says my advanced fizzination should go away in a few weeks if I use the cream daily.

As so many others have pointed out - this game has limited features and there have been no updates since 23-Dec-2017.

The game is 'playable' in that for me it did not crash and it responded to mouse & keyboard commands. I don't see a lot of evidence of any real game in there; it just kind of simulates one interpretation of prehistoric life with a handful of simplistic tasks.

There are six resources and four villagers. There are maybe 10 workstations to build? (I stopped playing before reaching the end of anything meaningful.) There is no Tech tree but I vaguely recall 'unlocking' newer workstations to build. Once the workstation is built you can build a tool to improve a task; for example building a hand ax to improve the collection of wood.

Villagers run out of energy and require sleep and food to recover energy. There are no RPG elements; the four villagers are generic collect-bots.

I think I just described the entire gameplay!

Graphics are like mid-1990's quality.

Boring, forgettable, and easy to put down and NEVER pick up again.

Well I have over 3,200 hours played, so I guess the game is 'OK'.

I've always thought of Fallout games that have VATS as FPS games for people with slow reflexes and bad vision. That's me!

FO4 added collecting EVERYTHING for the OCD among us; that tin can might come in useful one day. (Yet I pick up nothing in my house IRL, odd.) And there's enough sub-systems (crafting, settlements, companion perks, etc.) that a min-maxer will never run out of things to do over to improve.

For my tastes, console commands are required for the game in order to get around minor bugs and irritants. And mods. Lots of mods.

The GOTY edition goes on sale regularly so just wait and grab that when it comes up.

Rise and Fall has made it interesting and enjoyable. My play style is more as "an empire builder sandbox" so the crappy AI & diplomacy does not diminish my enjoyment. There are lots of interacting systems (governors, great/dark ages, Eurekas/inspirations, district placement, housing, amenities, etc.) to fiddle with.

If you love the uber-detailed Civ, the min-max micro management, the sandbox, get this game plus the awesome Caveman2Cosmos mod. https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/caveman-2-cosmos.288570/

TL/DR
This is not a game yet. It appears to be maybe ~60% complete?

There is no manual, guide, or tutorial so your first challenge is the figure out what to do. Pity there isn't a Steam Achievement for that.

MORE DETAIL
In a post in the Discussions, the developer states that the in-game Help system is sufficient. I don't agree with this statement. The in-game help system is 6 screen shots with a poorly phrased sentence or two for each screen shot.

There is no mouse-over text or right click context menus. The 6 help screen shots are ALL YOU GET.

CONFUSED ON THE DIPLOMACY SCREEN
Here's an example from the Diplomacy screen in the Help system (sic): "Each round the relationships has add. How much? It depends on the current relationship". There is a GIFT button for each country and four buttons with 1) a dove, 2) a scroll, 3) a sword, and 4) a wheel (not sure...) You can click around and figure out that the scroll and sword button declare peace and war, which you can do as often as you want without impact. All diplomatic offiers appear to be accepted. I don't know what the dove does (allies?) and the wheel is a mystery to me.

THE MYSTERIES OF RESEARCH
In the lower left corner of the main screen the (wagon?) wheel appears. I click on it and the Tech research screen appears. It's the start of the game so I can only research Gathering level 1. The requirements are listed as '5000 Food, 2000 Production'. I check my inventory (expand upper right chevron on main screen) and I see I have '12100 / + 2904' poultry legs (food) and '8550 + 1283' pick axes (production). Right, should be good.

Back in the tech research screen in the lower left, it shows 'Technology Points (wagon wheel icon) 2600 / + 156'. Then an arrow to the lower middle, where I'm told 'Research points (eyeglass icon) 0'. Huh? So I have heaps of 'Technology Points' and sufficient 'Requirements, but no 'Research Points'. Sadly the Help system offers no screen shot of the Tech screen.

There is an Economy button with six slides (Birth, Food, Production, Science, Army, Money). There is no on screen guidance to what these adjustments affect, and the inventory screen does not change unless you open and close the chevron. The economic sliders do not appear to be connected so I can't find amy reason to not set all six to maximum.

MAIN MAP AND 'BATTLES'
The main map has different icons for various cities but it is never explained if there is any context to these different icons or if they are just style. The help system declares (sic) "The resource growth depends on the cities which you are manage and current season of the year. As larger the city, then is more it produce.' I have not found any way to determine the size of a city on the map map or anywere else.

The 'battles' consist of a click-fest reminiscent of 'Whack-a-mole'. Can you click faster than the CPU?

TL/DR
This is a good game for:

• People that love point and click games
  
• People that want to love point and click, but are not good at them
  
• People interesting in the subject of Marco Polo or the Silk Road

LONGER

This is a well-designed and executed point and click game. I am NOT GOOD at point and click games but in this one, there is just enough logic in each sequence to figure it out. The in-game help system is also well designed.

The in-game help system is well thought out, and only releases a single clue with each mouse click. So instead of revealing the entire point and click sequence at once (and ruining that screen), the in-game help just release a single clue at a time. If you're really stuck then sure reveal the entire sequence, but maybe you figured most of it out except one thing.

The puzzles are also reasonable. There is a pattern that can be deduced, and there is a hint with a timer if you can't find the last one of 'find X pieces of the map'. type puzzles. A few puzzles can also be skipped entirely.

There are a few screens where historical information is shared about technology brought back to the West from China.

As others have mentioned the game is short, but worth it.