I honestly hate to say it but this game is a failed amazing idea.

To put it simply the complete lack of any significant single player content simply murders this game. The quests are bog standard, repetitive and dull. (Deliver message, kill bandit lair repeat ad nausem.) The noble interaction is a complete grind. About as bad as the Oblivion wheel where you basically just have to do the same tasks over and over again in order to get some count in the middle of nowhere to like and support you. It's dumb, not fun, and grinding to the highest degree. Has no excuse not to be improved.

The combat here is this game's saving grace. It's simple and fun, and the feeling of cutting through flesh with steel is satisfying and something I throughly enjoyed. But you must realize you are not doing that at least 70% of your single player game time. You are grinding something. Training your troops, relations, trading. It is a chore to get to do anything significant in this game. You start at the bottom of the barrel, and must work your way up. How do you get money? Grind. How do you train troops? Grind. How do you increase relations? You can guess.

In the single player. (Which I am primarily reviewing this game for, since most people probably play this game for it.) the combat like I said is fine, but the A.I is simply atrocious. It's one strategy is to zombie like rush you. If you are fighting 50 to 50, they will rush. 25-90, they will rush. 200-1, they will rush with that one little peasant. The individual combat with the A.I is just as much as a let down. They simply try and hug you, rushing into your chest and swinging wildly. There is no grace or cool swordplay. No clashing against swords as you are parrying difficult blows. It is a screaming half naked man charging you with an axe, and all his friends are just the same, charging completely mindlessly. This will get you killed, and often. And everytime it is simply frustrating and annoying. A neat feature I noticed is when enemies rush you, and the one in front has a single sword, but the one behind has a sword and shield. The one behind the sword enemy can actually block attacks aiming for the sword guy, the hitboxes mesh horribly togeter and make it a impenetrable wall of flesh that pretty much beats you to death.

You might argue up above is that you simply need a better army, or that the better trained troops use skill. No. A majestic Swadian Knight unhorsed will charge just as mindlessly as some Forest Bandit, it is simply unforgivable in a game like this. You fight armies of zombies with your own army of zombies. And since the process of getting troops trained is a death march grind, you'll probably cry when you see your elite Vaegir Knight get taken out by a bandit. That's two more hours of grinding for you!

The single player is 70% of the time a dull chore with no highpoints and a constant format of boredom. It's you taking your small party across the wartorn nation of Caldaria to deliver the epic message to Lord #453 so that way your little green bar with him will go up with him by one so you hope for ♥♥♥♥'s sake you can do something fun at some point.

In order to get to any semblance of fun with this game you have to climb a mountain of dullness to get a single cool battle of your zombie army against the others.

PROTIP: 40 well trained infantry troops on a hill can pretty much kill any party in this game. That's how garbage this A.I is.

This is a mindless grind at it's worst, only backed up by great and fun combat, which the game seems to try and do it's best into making not fun. This game would be 100x better as a series of battles or a campaign, not this aborted mess of a empty sandbox. Mods might save it, so if you must play this game I highly recommened Floris Mod, or you should probably just play Napleonic Wars since it is much, much better in all regards.

And there's a mutiplayer too as well. That about sums up the mutiplayer really, it's there, it's nice and you can play with your friends. But public matches are really messy. You're better off with Napleonic wars.

TL:DR you'll watch hours of your life waste away as you grind to get to some sort of fun spot in this game. I ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ hate it. And i'm going to play it again because I desperately want to get to that fun spot. I advise you stay far away and heed this lesson of dangerous addiction.

I honestly hate to say it but this game is a failed amazing idea. To put it simply the complete lack of any significant single player content simply murders this game. The quests are bog standard, repetitive and dull. (Deliver message, kill bandit lair repeat ad nausem.) The noble interaction is a complete grind. About as bad as the Oblivion wheel where you basically just have to do the same tasks over and over again in order to get some count in the middle of nowhere to like and support you. It's dumb, not fun, and grinding to the highest degree. Has no excuse not to be improved. The combat here is this game's saving grace. It's simple and fun, and the feeling of cutting through flesh with steel is satisfying and something I throughly enjoyed. But you must realize you are not doing that at least 70% of your single player game time. You are grinding something. Training your troops, relations, trading. It is a chore to get to do anything significant in this game. You start at the bottom of the barrel, and must work your way up. How do you get money? Grind. How do you train troops? Grind. How do you increase relations? You can guess. In the single player. (Which I am primarily reviewing this game for, since most people probably play this game for it.) the combat like I said is fine, but the A.I is simply atrocious. It's one strategy is to zombie like rush you. If you are fighting 50 to 50, they will rush. 25-90, they will rush. 200-1, they will rush with that one little peasant. The individual combat with the A.I is just as much as a let down. They simply try and hug you, rushing into your chest and swinging wildly. There is no grace or cool swordplay. No clashing against swords as you are parrying difficult blows. It is a screaming half naked man charging you with an axe, and all his friends are just the same, charging completely mindlessly. This will get you killed, and often. And everytime it is simply frustrating and annoying. A neat feature I noticed is when enemies rush you, and the one in front has a single sword, but the one behind has a sword and shield. The one behind the sword enemy can actually block attacks aiming for the sword guy, the hitboxes mesh horribly togeter and make it a impenetrable wall of flesh that pretty much beats you to death. You might argue up above is that you simply need a better army, or that the better trained troops use skill. No. A majestic Swadian Knight unhorsed will charge just as mindlessly as some Forest Bandit, it is simply unforgivable in a game like this. You fight armies of zombies with your own army of zombies. And since the process of getting troops trained is a death march grind, you'll probably cry when you see your elite Vaegir Knight get taken out by a bandit. That's two more hours of grinding for you! The single player is 70% of the time a dull chore with no highpoints and a constant format of boredom. It's you taking your small party across the wartorn nation of Caldaria to deliver the epic message to Lord #453 so that way your little green bar with him will go up with him by one so you hope for fuck's sake you can do something fun at some point. In order to get to any semblance of fun with this game you have to climb a mountain of dullness to get a single cool battle of your zombie army against the others. PROTIP: 40 well trained infantry troops on a hill can pretty much kill any party in this game. That's how garbage this A.I is. This is a mindless grind at it's worst, only backed up by great and fun combat, which the game seems to try and do it's best into making not fun. This game would be 100x better as a series of battles or a campaign, not this aborted mess of a empty sandbox. Mods might save it, so if you must play this game I highly recommened Floris Mod, or you should probably just play Napleonic Wars since it is much, much better in all regards. And there's a mutiplayer too as well. That about sums up the mutiplayer really, it's there, it's nice and you can play with your friends. But public matches are really messy. You're better off with Napleonic wars. TL:DR you'll watch hours of your life waste away as you grind to get to some sort of fun spot in this game. I fucking hate it. And i'm going to play it again because I desperately want to get to that fun spot. I advise you stay far away and heed this lesson of dangerous addiction.