Recent reviews by Mathellian

Bought the game on 6th january, was hooked and spended 40 hours in 3 days to complete the campaign. Good game

I like this game, it's gameplay is like a simpler Arma (my opinion) but it is great. It is fun to have this anxiety over you as you never know if you get shot in the back by someone you did not know was there, aswell as the adrenaline building up as you reach the final 10 last players.

If you got friends, this game gets even better as you got the possibility too
1. Use them as cannon fodder as the idiots they are, WHY DO YOU RUN INTO THE OPEN !!!!.
2. Make them pick up the stuff you want because YOU ARE 10 x BETTER THAN YOUR FRIENDS AND YOU KNOW IT!!!.
3. Pick up their supplies because they died as ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥
4. I heard that they sometimes do see other players and can give information, have yet to test this out

It is an Early Access game and you can feel it, will it be released? Devs say so, it is yet too see as most of us have experienced the bad parts of Steam Early Access. But for slightly less than 30 euroes (Atleast in my currency) i think it is worth it based on the fun i have. I use a gtx 970, but as far as i have learned, the game is a lot more CPU heavy in this stage due to it not being optimized, as far as i know (might be wrong) games tend to lean heavily on the CPU until they optimize it too render more on the GPU, do check out guides on improving your framerate and similar, as i have experienced that can be quite gamechanging. I do though think that this game can prove too be a lot of fun once it is fully optimized and lead too some fun ways too improve your teamplay or prepare you for Arma if you want too try something with similar yet more casual gameplay.

Will update once it is released fully.

Highly realistic warsimulator. This game is 13 years old but delivers like a boss. You will feel the importance of keeping a wellsupplied artillery line and how devastating they are towards infantry. It is hard to find things that is bad in this game, you can see the importance of keeping a strong supplyline, using the advantages of placing out mines, anti tank obstacles or making trenchen. Even swapping from explosives to smokegrenades on your artillery will prove to give you an tactical advantage over your enemy in some cases.

What Nival has done is adding elements of realism into a simple game, by showing how dangerous a simple hidden gunspot can be, or how important it is to avoid destroying trees just to keep a stealthy approach with your small amount of armor units. Perhaps the only things that can draw this game down is it's stability on modern computers, while i do not experience many crashes i will have some occasionaly along with framerate drops if i increase the game speed too much. Otherwise the game might be quite tough for new players as the learning curve is quite high, but once you experience the game properly you will begin to see how dangerous certain combinations is and how important it is too use certain tactics against certain positions.

One of my favorites of RTS games, 8/10

Best game narrated by Sean Bean




(And he actually does not die, like what is going on?)

Fun little DLC. It does not change anything in the gameplay but adds some small new things to your workshop. I love to have elevators for my tall settlements and think this is a good dlc. Is it worth the money? If you got a seasonpass, who cares . . . But if you don't, Well look at the dlc and see for yourself, i would only reccomend it if you want more constructionoptions for moving parts in your settlement. If you do not build that much, don't get this one.

Otherwise, i believe this dlc will give some nice new things for the modders to deal with.

Grand Ages: Medieval

Well, let us call it Medieval instead.
As you probably can see, i did not play it for long before i settled my mind, i dislike this game rather badly, i have never asked for a refund but on this game i felt that was what i wanted.
Now the reason i disliked this game and do not reccomend it is that for me, it looks like you mixed Settlers (the board game) with a mobilephone strategy game. It is a economic simulator more than a strategy game but it is simplified, so simplified i will rather sit with friends drawing cards for wood, clay, sheep, and rock while using my gold, books or rolls of wool to upgrade my society and i find that more fun.

The game looks promising, but the fact that it has allready shown that you will need DLC's to unlock more of the game when it is brand new is rather bad, i want a game where a DLC is an addition to the game, not a part to complete it with. Otherwise, for you that are like me and loved Grand Ages : Rome, DO NOT and i repeat DO NOT buy this game if you like the Grand Ages Series, This game spits on the Grand Ages, as it is nothing like the previous one. Partly because it is not the same developer, only same publisher. I did see trailers to it, gameplay videos and similar so i knew that it wasnt like the other one, yet when i tried it i felt so locked down. I could not really do much, i was stuck with these allready formed villages that i did not really decide how they would look like in the end. So to summarize i will add some pros and cons to the game.

Pros:
-The graphic is decent enough, may look bad next to all big games for 2015 but for its genre it is rather good next to the size of the maps in the game.
-The Trading system is easy to use, either automatic or by your control
-The diplomacy towards the AI is decent enough, simple but okay.
-The random events are rather fun, even though historically there would not be volcanoes spawning around Scandinavia (That's where i started) in the medieval times.
-The upgrades are well thought off and simple
-Animations are decent enough
-I like how you can fasttrack or put everthing on pause or superslow, that is good.

Cons
-The AI's seems rather plain, like there is no real difference between the ones in the game, none of them speak different languages during a game, i dont want the entire Europe speak English, i allready got that in movies. To be hones they kinda reminded me of Skyrim's voiceactors, only two voice actors that do most of the voices in a entire game
- Things are too simplified, even at the highest settings (pro) so it feels rather simple for a strategygame'
-You can't really design what you build.
-No strategy in the army system, like in the Grand Ages : Rome you got special attacks and such for the units, right now it was just big army vs other big army = biggest army wins.
-Not remotely close to Grand Ages: Rome
-The system of only getting upgrades by increasing in rank is rather boring for a RTS, that would work better for online play then single player.
-Gets boring quick as you learn the game fast without any real struggle unless you don't understand english.
-All armies look the same, except colour and coat of arms.
-Seriously, when did every medieval city look exactly the same? Not everyone had the castle in the middle of the city, some had them outside on hills overlooking the city.
-Again, it is not like Grand Ages: Rome and i don't think it should call itself Grand Ages: Medieval, as using a series name without looking similar to it is just bad. I think it could rather just call it Medieval and i would like it better.
-It lacks real depth
-The Tradesystem is so simple that you try to just get like one more coin than what you got earlier for the same trade to attempt to make some coins.
-Seems to be dependent on having a DLC, which is bad as a game should be strong enough on its own, a DLC should not be a part of what makes a game complete.
-Seems to much of a mini game

TL;DR If you want a simple minigame that is more suited for a mobilephone, get it. If you want a proper RTS game that challenges you, go somewhere else.

Ok, making a more serious review. After testing the game after the release i have gotten a more inside of what you get in the game. For those that are unsure if they should buy or not, i would say yes you should. The game has a great mechanic which ensures realism, like when you fire a catapult stone on a wall you might knock of archers or other units killing them instantly. It is filled with fun things when creating a custom skirmish like adding random events that may give you bonuses or penalties, depending on your luck.

The game is packed with action, strategy and economy. You have to watch everything from ale distribution to how many candles you make. As in previous stronghold games the key concept is always there, build a castle worthy of your people and destroy other lords and their castles. There are some things you might have seen in earlier Stronghold games that is missing in SC 2, like moats but again, you are in the deserts and where shall you get enough water to fill your moats?

Some may have said the game is bugged, unstable or lagging. This is of course factors that you find in any game that have just been released, but if you have noticed, a patch was recently released which has removed a lot of the lag. Improved the stability and fixed other bugs that have been there, so you can expect a stable and good game.

Now, what about graphics? Many sees graphics as an important part of a game and i can understand that, SC 2's graphics are quite good, i have not tested the highest levels of graphics due to lag but from what i have seen the graphics are quite decent. Of course they could be better but that would inflict on stability and general lag, remember that a strategy game's mechanic is a bit more advanced than a first person game, they have to take in mind of big a game can end up to be, the troop counts for an example, so unless you got a really good and expensive gaming rig you might not manage to run the game on perfect quality without experiencing lag.

So, what else to tell about the game? Well, the game is a massive upgrade as a sequel to stronghold crusader 1, you got more units with fun abilities or gameplay, like ordering your archers to fire a volley on the enemy, sending macemen to run over an attacking force creating havoc or maybe send explosive burning wheelbarrow things towards the enemy. There are loads of units to explore and tactics to learn.

Is there no cons? Well actually, there is some cons to the game in my opinion, like 3 units i used to love in stronghold crusader is gone. These units are the tunneler, ladderman and siege tower. I do not know why the siege tower or ladderman was removed as they were a core part of the medival strategy to attack castles but i guess the gamemakers have their reason. Other then that, you might think some of the animations of the units are stupid or weird but that is kinda up for the individual to decide.

So my conclusion is: This game is worth the money, it is not as expensive as all the other games in it's genre. It is filled with all the fun you could want as a Stronghold fan or a general strategy/castle sim fan. It has interesting combinations of units and tactics making each game a new from the other, especially in the multi player. Fun AI's to battle. A nice setting and decent graphics. + a fantastic soundtrack. I will give the game a 7/10, but if you really want to know how the game is, try it out. See for yourself how the game is, read others reviews and make a decision, i know i don't regret buying it and i recommend it to everyone. I hope you will buy it and enjoy it as much as i am.