Being a fan of both, RPGs as well as building simulations, Pathfinder: Kingmaker (PK) sounded like the perfect game for me. Becoming king in an high fantasy setting and shaping the future of your country and character should be an intriguing combination after all. Regrettably, the game's flaws prevent you from truly enjoying your time in the "Stolen Lands". In the following i will focus on the kingdom building aspects due to the restricted number of words i am allowed to use. My biggest issue however is the kingdom building aspect of this game. Instead of creating vivid towns you only build buildings on three different archetypes of layout grids. The buildings you build have no effect on the world expect for passive secondary kingdom stats like "Relationship" boosts, which in turn allows you to train your advisors which allows you to claim more land, build more, train more, etc. Its a pertetuum mobile of standarized repeating actions. Meanwhile when you visit those settlements with your party they will always look and offer the same, no matter their development. As a critique without advice for improvement wouldn't be fair i will try to offer ways in which i believe his could be improved. Firstly, use unique locations from the map as groundwork for your towns. If their is a story relevant trading post then build the village around it. Add quests to turn it into a center of trade. make each settlement unique instead of a copy paste procedure. Secondly, tie world map improvement of your town to personal experience of your characters. Build a tavern in the city, be allowed to rest there. build a shop, trader pops up. Build a smithy, traders starts to deal in arms and armour as well... All in all, the game was a dissapointment becasue even though I invested a lot of time into it i never really felt invested in the story and the characters and that makes this game below average.
