Still find hours of enjoyment and challenge! From a time when games only went out after rigorous play testing in house, so bugs were rare and game functions all made sense because they were tried! Playing this since it was first put out. Had to get it on GOG which makes older good games work easily on newer systems. That's the point of GOG, right? Thanks!
Not Successful. You WILL have to micro manage, and SEARCH on your own how to do it! There are no instructions on where and how to implement changes anywhere in your Empire. Not intuitive, with Poor metrics. Spaceship design, upgrades, and implementation is not handled well by your forces below you. Science development gives you 11 labs maximum to fit into 5 categories, but if you finish studies in any category, you can not remove 1 last lab to go to other categories! It's wasted, and you get a warning every turn for not studying that area which has no more to study! Managing your Court is overly complex. You need Focus Points, Administration Points, Money, and Private Funds to do actions. But moving one person sometimes needs two actions and some actions require 5 Focus Points! You must wait 10 or 12 turns to get 7 more Focus Points. Advancing or approving a Courtier also takes Points. How foolish if you just want to put the best people in the best places. Firing people to get new people also takes Points and sometimes 2 actions to Demote them and then to fire them! Managing your Nobles is disheartening. Achieving Marriage, Unity of opinion, Alliance of Houses all is for naught as the game throws you a "hardship" that leads to a "Grievance" if it sees you are doing well. Having a fantastic Court and Ministers after many hundreds of turns, the game throws you a loop that is totally out of character with what you accomplished. What is the point? The Victory Conditions are Poor with some unrealistic requirements. You need 15 out of the same list of 21 achievements regardless of difficulty or galaxy size. Really? After 736 turns, I had 14 achievements. Available was controlling 80% of the Galaxy as a minimum! or 140 planets minimum! or 350 billion people or more (I had 170 billion), or 99 Royal Authority (I had 85). No instructions on how to increase that. You may have built up Favors with any House but no way to use them! Poor presentation to the player. Not mod-able.
Very disappointing. This game is very frustrating for any pleasure you might get out of it. The controls for manipulating things are poor and or unusual causing more time to do any task. This game is Real Time and the lowest speed setting is just NOT slow enough to figure things out. You will waste time trying to figure out how to do things AND there is no way to pause the game. Getting better at doing things takes MANY failures and it becomes a Hand Twitch type game to master. This bad hand control ability is way more necessary than any decision making needed in the game. Your character WILL die (and end each game) in many battles till you figure out how to use controls. You need to make better weapons AND figure how to get your NPCs to help you fight any enemies. Sad. Poor control. Poor thinking. Can not recommend it.
Overall poor design while using older PC graphics and programing ~The main maps are too small for scale of combat, and must omit many vital geographic locations and resources ~You can make your own maps but you'll be limited by overall size possible ~The zoom function only helps to go out to a world map but not inward enough to see units better ~The screen often scrolls while you use your cursor to touch units or to use buttons at edge of screen ~Poor methods for locating your troops, you have a "next" button" that often sends you to your allies units first! ~No place (or list) to see how many total units you have and what type they are or their location on the map! ~Poor design in the Order of Battle which omits many historical units on both sides of this war ~Notification Pop ups often close before you can read all the information because they don't wait for you to click them to shut off! ~Poor controls and map tools in the Editor where shapes of terrain and patterns of roads or rail do not cover all needed possibilities and some available choices are ridiculously complex, not realistic, and still don't solve what you need to do on the map! ~Poor unit statistics during attacks, where one Polish Corps unit needs 2 or 3 tactical bomber units to properly weaken their defense and 2 or 3 ground units to make them at least retreat one hex, armor units get to attack twice but they should be leading the attack for a breakthrough and they don't have enough stats to do that! ~Still uses the old formula of one unit taking up one hex (including air and naval units) which do not allow any other unit to "stack" with them ~Many errors in the Manual including the suggested turn by turn practice plans ~No way to name or edit your saved games ! With just date and scenario name you may not recognize an earlier bad trial from a newer game ~Years ago older games with these graphics were better thought out and play-tested for success. I Can't Accept this game has been properly designed
No wonder years in development. Too much to manage by one player. Real companies have many people managing many departments. Original DETROIT (1994) game this is based upon was very manageable. Those designers understood "simplicity" for a person to play it as a game. But here is too many details and sub panels to control. Many events happen in a 1-month turn; competition, new tech available, government offers, military requests, new construction, labor issues. There is no advance news of what might be coming up as in real life. Screens and pop-ups are poorly organized. Many cover over each other, and Help/Tutorial screen has the same color as normal game pop-ups! Controls you need to access are covered up. Moving a pop-up screen may not move the ghost highlight for a button you must press! Poor Panel Design! They should "dock" in one location and not cover needed sub panels. This is what clean game design is about! Background music volume depends on the song played NOT the overall volume and often drowns out the tutorial voice. Some songs are barely audible. Changing the volume makes other songs too loud when they pop up. The game tells you how many months an action will take, OR it only tells you a future date and you must find the current date (very tiny) and figure how many months that will be. Glitches occur, like the ability to let time pass a certain number of months. Often this doesn't work and only one month will pass! One "bottom line" report for all factories and dealerships is presented each month. Details are elsewhere! You can't just duplicate a current factory. The game requires you to Upgrade or Redesign your single factory! Designing an engine that has to "fit" in a chassis by inches with a slider that moves by 2 or 3 inches... come on! If adding complexity, you better make it manageable! As a designer, you just have to know your limits. Sorry, but this labor of love ruins the final "picture" you are presented with, even if you wanted to like it
A management game + poor mechanics. Can't see info you need as you move around to do business. Character heads cover shop icons. Arrow graphics block shop info. No way to record the connections of who knows who, so you need to re-click over and over. Character names and shop names are not shown together, you re-click to confirm who runs what. The list of cars doesn't show what is being carried unless you click on that line, but this info erases as you click elsewhere to move or to conduct business! You can't move items (even cash) from one car to another except to drive to a warehouse to unload items to it and then to another car. Paying salary to people running businesses for you forces you to drive with cash to them. Failure stops production. You don't decide their salary! A turn is a week, you drive a car, you go 10 blocks! Small gangs control areas costing extra movement. The city is an "unknown" till you "unfog" it (extra movement). Finding new shops costs Action points to "unfog" plus extra Action points to speak to them! You have 3 Action points + 10 Movement points per week! Trying to count before moving on the map is linked with moving so you may go by accident! Economics are Poor. Profit selling booze is low versus bribes, business costs, buying a skill, or finishing a mission. Places to sell/buy are usually too separated to do one trip a week. Cost of ingredients is high. Gangster activity is poor. Drive to a gangster, loose all movement, pick a fight. Hurting or killing them will take a few weeks! Can't hit hideouts till you kill a boss. Can't attack shops to intimidate or plunder. You force stores for "Protection" but you pay a nearby shop to do the collecting. With 2-4 stores in an area profit is low. You bribe a single police character (a whole precinct) to do bad actions including murder in that area! The interesting deals and missions generated by characters don't make you feel like a gangster. It's managing too many small details that keep hurting.
Looks beautiful. Sounds beautiful (yet the actual bird songs are way too low! This should be the loudest). But the tutorial is not up to the task of teaching a total new player. I like complex games, but this game takes the award for unnecessary complexity. Other reviewers also mention that solo play is not great, and I agree. I really tried to enjoy this but I just seem to watch as I feel lost by the switching between habitats just to link with birds in another habitat so you can lay eggs on these birds which get accessed in a habitat that these birds do not reside in. What? Yes, this what you will need to wrap your head around. It unfortunately does little to teach you about birds except in the abstract. I was shocked. Adding eggs, using birds special abilities, removing eggs, removing food (understanding the specific food types) getting more points all in the most convoluted way of interaction has me stumped! Not what I was expecting at all! I had hoped to learn about birds, but I see that going online and reading some good books or going into the field will get me that knowledge, not this game. Sorry to say it.
Crossing the desert to fulfill quests in ancient Arabia is quite well done. The visual mood and music is perfect. Game is calming and rewarding. Don't worry about replay value as you will enjoy the journey, and you just might want to see if you can do better a second or third replay with some of the quests or battles you will encounter. Helpful Notes on play [A] If you have a random encounter in the desert and are asked if you want to buy something or to help someone or investigate something or take something along with you, you only get one chance. You can't check prices and get back to them or check your inventory. Interaction starts a script once you begin it and if you back out, it is not possible to click on things again at that scene. No big deal with Traders since I find their prices too high. [B] Battles may be tough and only involve the ONE character you choose to enter the fight. It's not automatically you and your whole Caravan versus the enemy. This is why you may want to give a hired Fighter [or yourself] in your group a riding animal or weapon to add to their attack and an Assistant to absorb hit points [maybe to die] so you can fight on to a win. [C] Water is crucial. ALWAYS fill up at stops and carry EXTRA to be able to lose some in a random event so you can go onward. [D] You can only go FORWARD towards your destination. No reversing course in the middle of a trek between towns. It's an enjoyable game.
See my full review under Standard Game. The bad issues have NOT all been fixed. Latest version 1.14.1-27369, downloaded March 13, 2022. You get the very beautiful scenery + trains + music shown in advertising [worth the 2 stars] BUT there are horrible Cartoon Characters to deal with through the whole game. Economic model is poor. Train Load management is very poor. The AI characters still cheat with simple track. Maybe more appealing for kids. It's fun to ride on a train. Not a good Railroad management game.
