Recent reviews by Bored Peon

The game just feels off and wrong.
- It takes like 4-5 turns to research something, but 12 to build.
- Populations are constantly starving and shrinking, rather than just having a growth cap.
- Population cost for army feels wrong because you make the unit in a low population city that does not matter it takes forever to build, yet using you good population capital reduces the population to a minor city.
- Policy blowbacks from other civilizations are basically a permanent stability penalty, rather than the limited duration it shows. They are also a pain to find in order to resolve so you can end your turn.
- Influence costs are high to prevent territory growth, but as soon as you stop your need for influence is gone too.

In order for the Martian Express DLC to be recommended you have to have the workshop fixes installed.
https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/filedetails/?id=2815070811

A train will transport colonists to work in another dome, dome area, or the station work area.
Trains will not transport colonists to use needs facilities in other dome areas.

I ran a really rough test using only trains for a supply chain between dome areas. Which meant no shuttles, no universal depot supply chains, or transport routes.
Dome are 1 was six Mega Trigon domes and Elevator, Dome area 2 was two oval domes, and Dome Area 3 was a Medium dome with Elevator.

It originally the supply chain failed, but after the recent patch in the workshop limiting good to 30 or 60 each of each type it now passes with flying colors.

The only remaining hurdle for the DLC is the it can only be used on flat areas. However I believe the author mentioned working on a tunneling feature which should remove that hurdle.

If you like turn based team shooters (X-Com, UFO:Aftermath, etc) this is a nice game, especially on sale.

Not sure what all the negativity is about. I do not really care because it seems over exaggerated.
150 hours and I had three crashes. Which since it saves at the start of each unit's turn there is nothing lost.

This is a really good conversion from the table top game. Much better than some of the other Games Workshop conversions in the past.

At first some of the changes from Skyrim were annoying and frustrating. However the game kinda grows on you because there is so much new and different.

The world building alone is amazing. You tend to forget it uses Skyrim assets until you see some that are jsut too familiar. Although it was kind of disappointing to have so many locations with no quest related to them. In other words you will run out of quests long before exploring it all.

The most annoying thing I have found is the dialogues. Too many NPCs have greetings "never seen you before" and that is their only greeting. Greeting sliek that simply break immersion especially when you own the house across the street form the store. That and some NPC after completing their quest simply have no dialogue at all.

If you are into exploring, building, survival, and shooting things then this game is going to be worth the money you spend.

Exploring
I can literally spend a couple days exploring one planet if I was to explore every bit of it. That is just one planet and there can be multiples in a system. Then you got vasts amounts of systems (vast enough it is lottery odds to see another player.)

Building
While the piece choices are somewhat limited the places you can build are not. Beach, mountaintop, underground, etc if you find the spot you can build there.

Survival
On normal the survival mechanics are kinda on the easy side. However you have the survival mode which limits how much of a stack you can carry, the conditions are more severe on a planets, and then you go more hostiles running around. If that still aint enough you have a permanent death option.

Shooting things
Combat has a minor role in the game. You can however choose to engage in it or choose to avoid it. You got everything from space pirates, Sentinnels who attack when they find someone plundering resources to wandering critter looking for lunch.

So if you are one of those people who values their money spent to time played ratios then this is one of those games you are going to spend a lot of time playing.

The improved garrison, compliance, resistance, intell system, and scout planes are a nice addition.

Garrisons use a template of your choosing. Then garrisons are off map units that use your manpower and equipment to maintain. Depending on how heavy the resistance is how much damage your garrisons take.

Compliance is basically how cooperative the people of an occupied country are. Higher compliance gives more manpower, resources, factors, less resistance, etc. You cna also use spies to create a collaboration government before occupying.

Resistance will start sabotaging a state and spread resistance bonuses to nearby states. Once resistance hit about 60% stuff will start being damaged as fast as you repair it.

Intel will give you better estimation of all the statistics of a nation. It also is what gives you the intel advantage or disadvantage when fighting. Intel is also affect by a variety of factors like which market is used (free trade has intel penalty to the nation, while closed economy makes it harder for intel), your captured spies and spies you capture give intel.

Scout planes are a nice addition and replacement for the way radar used to see into a country. Depending on weather conditions, intel, and such you will possibly see unit locations. Exact details can range form a marker to being able to see the template guess.

The Spanish Civil War is far more realistic. Depending on the faction you choose it can take years to win and years to recover. Which the speed is governed by the "weather mechanic" of Unplanned Offensive which reduces damage for both sides to -90% which places them combat in a deadlock. Each faction you choose has different focuses.

Overall it was a good addition as it brings more complexity to the game.

3,000 hours without the use of mods.
Mods like Sim Settlements just keep on giving reasons to play.

I hate the review system. This deserves a meh instead of a yay or nay.

The story is great because you get to see the Skalitz raid from another perspective playing as Theresa. Which makes me want to give a thumbs up.

However after the raid Theresa's story is done and you go back to playing Henry. So no sandbox mode as a female which deserves a thumbs down.

This is not FPS or meant to be a FPS. This is a recreation of the tabletop game. That is why it is turned based and it plays well as a turn based game.

It follows the tabletop rules very well. Everything is there, both the good luck and the bad luck. Ammo crits, knockdowns, called shots on downed mechs, heat can cause damage, jumping can cause damage, the quick kill and the why wont this mech just die. You also have the just because you can unload all weapons does not mean you should.

The engagements play like one long battle. Start on one part of the map and enemies keep engaging as you cross the map. The enemies first show up as just plain vehicle or mech heat signatures on the map. So any damage taken, heat accumilated (unless you pause to cool off), and ammo used up is carried on. Gun emplacements and the vehicles kinda seem like a joke at first, but if they manage to hit you and do damage it just weakens for what is in store on the rest of the map.

ART STYLE
Not a big fan of the art or the looks of the mechs, but since the game mechanics are sound it makes up for it. I personally preffered the old school art styles of the mechs instead of this newer look.

INTERFACE
The user interface has just about the right amount of clunkiness. Once you adjust to it for things like movement and firing at multiple targets it aint too bad. Witht he movement it is basically if you do your full mvoement do not expect to get a full facing change you desire, so might have to hit esc and back your target hex hex up. For firing at multiple targets you have to click each target to put a A, B, C on them then select the weapons to fire at A, B, C targets.

MECH CUSTOMIZATION
The mechs are customizable, somewhat. I say somewhat because you can not change out the weapon types (ballistic, missle, energy, support) for another type, nor can you increase the amount of weapons past the initial amoutn of hardpoints. This kinda makes the smaller mechs a bit less customizable, but a larger one with multiple hardpoints in a location you could make one smaller and the other larger, etc. You can also find rare versions of weapons and equipment in the stores and battlefeilds that is an improved version.

CAMPAIGN MODE
This is all about making money. You have bills that just keep coming so you constantly have to take jobs. Keeping in mind your profits on a job is going to depend on your damage taken. If you go guns blazing and reckless into the fights and take lots of damage then that comes out of your profit margin. On top of that you have travel time to and from jobs, travel time which is downtime for making money, but that dont stop the payroll and bills from coming.

The other thing about campaign mode is the repair time for mechs, customization time, downtime for injury. You could easily end up losing money because your mechs or pilots are temporary out of commision.

Then of course you have reputation factor in the game. Repuation affects jobs you can take, people you can hire, and the prices you pay. Of course having bad repuation with a faction causes issues as well.

Overall I think this is one of those games I will definitely get my play time out of it.

Tropico on Mars only without the fixed elections.

The game started out seeming very micromanagement heavy. Had I jumped to write a review at that time I would have given it a thumbs down like many others did. However once learning to play the micromanagement was self inflicted.

The biggest misconception to micromanagement is the AI workforce. The AI prefers to keep all your building operational so it will take specialized people (ie scientists, engineers, etc) and place them in other jobs. The common mistake people make is to reassign the workers, the correct response is to get more colonists to fill those jobs or close the job slots. The job slot system is very similar to their Tropico series. If you close slots or shifts you lower the available jobs so colonists go back to their proper jobs. Sometimes it takes the AI a minute or two to catch up, but it will eventually put all the workers in the right places once you have enough workers.

Once you get past the urge to micromanage the game becomes fun for a while. The problem being a lack of end game events. Once you get past the first 100 sols (years) and establish two to three domes the challenge is gone. However it is fun getting there. So short game starting out is great, long game just becomes boring.

You have a bunch of sponsors to choose from each have different perks and drawbacks and then you also have a personal skill to take. So it gives a good chunk of variety on starting out.

The tech tree is great. It is random every game. Their is like four different teirs of tech for the different tech trees, each teir is randomized for order each game. Then you also have super tech tree with breakthroughs which are random every game. These can add all sorts of different abilities.

You also have mystery event which occurs once you reach 100 population which can be turned off, set to random, or chosen specifically. Some events are easy and some are hard. However the second time around you know better so they lose their edge.

The other concept is each dome is meant to be an indiviual enviroment (or city) meaning you need to choose wisely what to put in it. Each specialized jobs wants different comforts and failing to provide those comforts leads to them going insane or hopping on a rocket and going back to Earth. Domes are self contained enviroments which do not share indoor buildings with other domes. Outdoor buildings can be shared if the outdoor workspace overlaps. Power, air, and water can be shared simply by connecting them.

Then you have the random maps depending on where on Mars you choose to land is how many resources are there, how bad the weather effects can be (Dust Storms, Dust Devils, Meteors, and Cold Waves.) The more dangerous weather (scales 1 to 4) can be extremely brutal.

Sanity. This is a key resource colonists have. They lose sanity performing jobs outside the dome, working at night (3rd shift), and working heavy loads. They all stack so having the new guy from Earth work 3rd shift doing a heavy load outside the dome is a sure way to make them insane. Sometimes they develop a flaw (gambling, drinking, idiot, etc) and other times they run outside the dome to kill themself. To restore sanity they need the proper comfort buildings or techs and perks that avoid them. Idiot flaw is the worst because they literally become Homer or Peter Griffin and break down whatever building they are working at.

Maintainance. All buildings require maintainance paid with materials. Run out of the material it breaks down and can not be used. So you either need to establish an economical production line on Mars or export rare metals back to Earth and buy at their inflated prices. Which requires a rocket which takes about year to go there and back. So becoming self reliant on Mars is a big key. Failing to establish a proper economy either way leads to a long spiraling death of your colony.

Dust. Your worst enemy for maitainance. Almost everything blows dust from rockets taking off, shuttles flying around, mining extractors etc. That dust gets blown around to nearby buildings and speeds up the need for maintainance.

Resist the urge to spam buildings. If you spam domes and buildings all willy nilly then most likely your economy is going to crash as some point. Whether it is you no longer have the materials to pay mainainance or you can not ship out enough rare metals anymore to cover the cost of buying maintainance materials.

As I said before the end game is just blah. After you have done your 100 year evaluation and mystery event the game is like watching paint dry. After about 500-1000 population the game pretty much plays itself if you set everything up right. Unless you are playing on a very brutal weather location then it just becomes torturing yourself for excitement.

Right now there onr bug with the AI pathfinding for tunnels going up and down elevations is wacky. It uses it right sometimes, sometimes it refuses to use the tunnel, or it uses the tunnel when it does not need to change elevations.

Viva La Mars !?