It's a nice game. But it requires a special kind of patience. Having lost 6 runs, I can say the game is not for everyone. It's extremely unjust. You'll be besieged and threatened from every side, and you can insta-lose the game if you make bad decisions (which you'll most likely have no idea about). Some examples: did you spend precious Fate Points to get a really, really good counsellor who gives you the dice you need for your chosen playstyle? Tough luck, almost certainly you'll lose them soon by a random event, right when you need them the most. Did you maybe spend a lot of points subverting a city or two and converting them to your Ally? Wow, what a waste you did - an Ally is much less economically viable than Dice 3 smuggle/trade friendly city! Have 8 Espionage dice? You will replenish only 4 of them when you need them because of a roll. Etc. etc. The game *will* grind you to the dust. First, you don't know strategy and mechanics. Then, you'll get crippling random events. Each turn. Then, you will get a certain event that will slowly start to turn everyone against you. Good planning? Everything's random. A random event can foil your plans completely. The turnly dice gain is based on a dice roll. Every action on the map is based on the dice roll. Rerolls are nigthmarish - a lesser reroll will allow your enemy to use his whole set of dice, but only a part of yours. You have to pay 2 Fate points for a whole reroll. And when some losses result in game loss... well. Exploration is also random. Each random lair or monster (explored either by your army, which you need to defend your city, or scouts) gets a random item, which gives additional dice to random stats. Progression is very uneven - you can get worthless items which you can only sell for Fate Points. Overall, I have mixed feelings about this game. You have to be a masochist to enjoy it, no beating around the bush.
How can you make a game that old look worse than it was before? It should be an achievement somewhere. But not here. The writing is cringeworthy, there are memes abound, the game is a buggy mess and the writers have absolutely no respect for the source material or the predecessor and stated it bluntly. Then she said "deal with it". I'm doing it right now.
