This game is a fun mix. It has the atmosphere of Stronghold, the gameplay mechanics of an ANNO game, is fun to watch like a settlers game and has combat controls similar to a Total War. The Medieval setting is very beautiful and not bloated with unnecessary stuff. No stupid and arcadey effects. People and buildings seem to be realistically scaled and everything has that slightly dirty but incredibly fitting medieval look. And you can go into 3. Person to just walk around and watch your people work and live their lives. The gameplay is varied in a fun way. You can build your town your own way. Your people have demands, but you have multiple ways to fulfill those demands. And you can plan, depending on what kind of city you want to build and what ressources are nearby, how you will fulfill those demands. Thus you can play the early stages of the game multiple times without doing the exact same thing. Of course the game is still early access and therefore it's a rather short experience and many features are still missing and bugs exist. Nontheless you can have fun with this game. Some features are also poorly balanced so far. For example trading between your own settlements is way too slow or requires too many of the same buildings, which looks stupid and takes up too much manpower, making it less of a real option. The combat seems like a simplified version of total war. Units can go in formations and get exhausted when they run a lot, reducing their combat prowess. Other features that are typical for Total war are missing though, it seems. Like increased effectiveness of hammer and anvil tactis and so far I haven't seen Armies that are even close to the sizes of Total War armies. Overall a solid game with potential. A fun little thing in it's current state that I would consider worth buying for about 20€. But even if it's 30€ it's still a good deal, if the developers can turn the potential into a solid game.
I never played this Game as a kid, but always heard good things about it. After finally playing it, I have to say the game is as good as it's reputation. Of course it's a bit dated in terms of graphics and gunplay. That is to be expected. But I played this game and finished it after 17 hours of fun. As mentioned, I didn't play this as a child, so there is no nostalgia for me here. It is simply a great game that aged rather well.
