Recent reviews by Isserye

I don't get the negative reviews at all, this game is ruining my life.

I love this game. I keep coming back to it even though it's frustrating. And each time I come back I learn something new about the systems I have to work with. is it hard to keep lords 100% pleased all the time? YES. And I'm completely obsessed with it. No matter what you do, some petty, landowning freak will suddenly hate your bishop over being slighted and now your prince wants to murder the head of the church in your town. Duel in the town square when they could be doing work? Awesome. Love it.

I'm not being sarcastic. These characters, while the interactions are (kinda-ish) limited right now, feel like characters. No matter what I do, I'll never be able to completely stop the bishop from having wild, unprotected relations with the lumberjacks. I can distract him sure, but he'll manage to find a way. I like that my king will miss his friends if he doesn't see them for a long time. It makes me want to set up little play-dates and make him happy.

I like that I can plan an alliance with a neighbouring lord, marry into his family, and all of that can come crashing down because his brother who absolutely despises me wants him dead. Do I send my weak military to try and stop the rebellion, leaving my streets undefended from criminals? Or do I just ignore it and take the loss? These keep the game interesting!! If the only thing I was doing was winning I'd never recommend this. If my peasants and lords were just constantly pleased I'd probably hit the limit of stuff you can build in a couple of hours. The game does a truly fantastic job of limiting you just enough to keep you engaged. The setbacks seem almost meticulously planned to keep you from fully dedicating your attention to one problem. You're always running around putting out fires. And again, that's why I love it.

Another thing that really gets my goat is the fact that I really feel like my family is just one in a much larger world. Even though there's only one map, and not toooo many regions, I feel like I am at the whims of the world. "I could never be able to control all of this" is the thought I have a lot. I can try to influence other families, I can go hunting with other kings, but in the end most of the world is happening away from my little clan. Bandits, Wars, Rebellions, Interpersonal drama. It's just HAPPENING and all I can do is watch for a majority of it. It makes your interactions with these events feel so much more meaningful. Joining an alliance of cities really feels like you're part of a country. I can't really tell the head of it what to do, why would I be able to? I barely know the guy and he's 3 regions away from me. His army is five times my size, why should he care what minor nobility thinks?

I'm glad it doesn't have free-building like Rimworld. Focusing on production chains is a lot easier when I don't have to genuinely build every single workshop or tavern. Setting it up in this style (closer to ANNO than anything) makes it so that I can dedicate a little more attention to the needs of the lords and the people.

I think saying this is like Rimworld is a huge disservice. It's not Rimworld. The characters have traits that inform their moods and actions, and sometimes an event can happen that totally derails your plans, but outside of that it's a different beast entirely. Crusader Kings is definitely a closer comparison.

Do I think there need to be improvements? Yeah, probably. An easier UI to navigate the interactions and relationships between characters, maybe some expanded personality traits, ways to increase your lord limit, and quality of life stuff. Maybe a rebalancing of fatigue, because my peasants always seem to be some varying level of fatigued even if they have enough to drink. Expansions to interactions with other kings would obviously be appreciated, especially those you're in an alliance with, but all of these will (presumably) come in time.

You really should give this game a chance. The learning curve is a little steep, it'll involve more restarting than you'd think, and if you're not into that then maybe don't. But if you're willing to try, try and try again, then it'll sink it's teeth into you.

Shadows of Doubt is weird.

The first case (that was proc-gen'd) i did was pretty enthralling. But it's kinda cuz i'm dumb and didnt check the city directory thoroughly enough to find the name that matched the jumbled up clue. Because, as it turned out, the killer lived on the same floor as two of the three victims.

The reason i didn't think of this is because it would be very, exceedingly stupid to murder two of your neighbours. But that's how it happened.

So i made a couple new worlds, but the issues i had with the first one continued. On my most recent world, the first murder was done by their next door neighbour, and i found this out because the fingerprints at the crime scene matched up with the fingerprints on the neighbours door. next murder was in broad daylight by the place the victim worked at and had a business card nearby with prints on it. I ran to their workplace, took the prints off of the receptionists desk and immediately matched them with the crime scene.

The third case, and this is where I started to realise the problems fully, was a murder clearly motivated by romantic obsession. and the murderer wrote their first name on the wall. so i looked at the address book, found the name, and went NEXT DOOR and arrested them.

Is it just my worlds? luck? The game isn't particularly good at hiding who did the crimes which it probably should be given the murder mystery thing. if there's a business card clue, it's probably a coworker. if it's not clear by the method of the murder, don't worry the suspect has written their name down somewhere. And if all else fails, literally just check next door, not even on a different floor.

The jobs tend to have a little more variety and detective work because they let you have way less information. You have like, height, hair and the building they live in and you go off of that. And it's way more interesting but even that can get tedious.

I'm not trying to dog on the game that much, it's early access and the developer is obviously committed to improving and completing the game. But in its state right now I think it'd be wiser to maybe wait a bit before pulling the trigger on this purchase.

Good game, especially with the warpath DLC!