I play it for 11 years now. - There is still some loot left to be found! :-D If you're a collector and like trading/hoarding/crafting loot, want to be an explorer of a mostly open large world and like easy but addictingly funny and charming quests, and lots of other ingame jokes, try this. It's not a thrilling game in the way that out of every bush an enemy ten times your level can pop out and will hunt you to a staggering death. Instead, with every choice of character and character modification, you can give yourself the challenge you want. It can be a comforting hack'n'collect, perfect after some long work hours, or a hard fight. I like it for the atmosphere, the large, large world, portals, and that it has bird's perspective view option (yeah, I don't like first person or looking over someones shoulder). So grab your sword, bow, guitar or whatever you found in your enemies' remains - and have a nice trip in Ancaria. "This world is Sacred!" (werewolves howling)
I like city builders and management games, so I bought this one recently. Pros: As listed before. Funny details (like the apes at the weaponary). Cons: As mentioned before: Crashes, bugs (e. g. a mine that no worker will work on, no matter what). This night-darkness. It's so tiring for the eyes, many long minutes of diffuse redish-brownness. One star down for that! Citizens, not seeing the things right in front of their eyes. I always liked control mechanisms like influence radii. :-) Here, say, a priest, may wander around and never get to the hospital right next to his home. Or just every other year or so. The game's reprodution model is still a puzzle to me. Everything is flourishing, and suddenly the educated die one after another of natural causes, and not a single child of all these noble families old enough to go to school and fill their place. So my scholars decreased from 17 to 6 in two years. It took 3 years to have 2 new pupils and a lot of prestige projects to keep the other citizens in a good enough mood not to leave. Immigration? - Unhappy /retired citizens leave the city. There is trade, there is war. A lot of border traffic. Why no immigration of workers and scholars (as far as I can tell)? So it feels like kind of a survivalist game to me, with the limited amount of new people, the arbitrary illnesses. Only difference: people here don't always act in their own interest. They are like real people. ;-) Unpredictable, taking the long way, making stupid decisions, taking others down in their own downfall, getting stuck sometimes. This, of course, could also be a Pro. It makes the gameplay interesting/challenging, as szenarios can become a bit repetitive. It's a nice enough game to spend some hours.
