I've played this game periodically ever since it was first released on GOG, and I feel like I'm always finding something new. There are a truly staggering number of events and variations on those events. Your clan ring advises you every step of the way not just based on their skills and primary god, but also on about 20 personality traits that make them real people with real foibles. Your ring might have an elf-hater, dragon-lover, misogynist/misandrist, bully, or coward, and it might be some time before you realize it for sure. Three years of playing this off and on, and I can still find a new little bit of advice that I've never seen before. I've seen similar things in AAA titles like Guild Wars 2 or Skyirm, but a little-known game from 1999? This is a level of care and passion that you just don't see every day. The gameplay almost feels secondary to the story, not that that's bad because I do like the story a lot. Once you kind of know what you're doing, there's a certain path to success. The most difficult part of the game is surviving the first few years where you are poor and weak. Once you reach a certain level of power and wealth, you become essentially invincible and might just be waiting for the main plot to progress. It can get boring. I'm rating this only 4 stars because I think the remastered version is one step forward, two steps back. Some of the changes they made have (perhaps unintentionally) made the game extremely easy, even on the hardest difficulty. In particular, merging your livestock into abstract "cows" only seems to have resulted in their population growth being much higher than the 1999 version. Once you get to around 1200 cows, it starts climbing so fast that your wealth becomes effectively infinite. It turns an already easy mid- and late-game into a bit of a farce. I still do enjoy the game though, and everyone should play it at least once. The first playthrough is the best one.
