Recent reviews by alejandromartinez

Game is a buggy mess that is not worth keeping in your inventory. Shame on Steam for not allowing refunds for this game for those of us that tried to give the developer the benefit of the doubt and improve the gong show that is this game. Now I'm stuck with abadonware and frankly a new distrust in Steam and their refund policy.

If you're a fan of the series, you'll be a fan of this game. It plays a bit faster than the older versions but it's just as fun and the core elements are all there (including being a medic, crossing the battlefield and having the player respawn as you're on top of them). No noticeable bugs on my end. Balancing needs a bit of work, as always. Maps are large and complex.

Beautiful design, easy UI (after you get used to the layers), chill gameplay.

The addition of the bird facts and animations really bring the virtual version to life.

An intimidating game from the outside, it's actually fairly easy to learn on PC. The rules and math are taken care of for you by the computer, with a variety of drag/drop, double-click, etc functionality, so it's easier to learn here, in my opinion. Tutorial is excellent in keeping you interested and explaining the rules and functionality.

A great mix between Civ and Wingspan. Unlike Wingspan, you have the ability to affect other players beyond the draw card pool. There's a lot of freedom in strategy to build your civilisation as you see fit, with each decision, each round making an impact on the final outcome. Well balanced and competitive, even against the AI.

Single Player, Multiplayer and the option of having a MP game played asynchronously, to make it easier to get friends to play, and lose :)

I have this on three different platforms. Great game to jump in and out of. Easy to play, hard to master. Lots of (sometimes racist) trash talking which could be lessened in my opinion but just ignore it.

XCOM meets FTL meets chess.

Positive:
Every decision matters and every upgrade is fought for. Battles are earned through taking the time to plan your attacks and adapting to the ever persistant enemy. It becomes so engrained that when you do get that odd easy map win, it feels a little hollow so you push for a harder map on the next turn. Campaigns are trying but the Roguelike aspects aren't overly defeating. You can lose a campaign with a poor map or two but the desire to simply pick up and start again is ever present. It's easier to quit something like Civ where even small victories are drawn out over time, but this is harder because the victories are every turn you're still alive.

Negative:
While I really enjoy this game, tying squad unlocks to achievement progress is silly in my opinion. I'm sure some people will enjoy it but I can't be the only one who doesn't want to play throw-away campaigns with units we don't want to play with simply so I can get "12 electric cloud damage in a round" or "have five enemies on fire simultaneously" just so I can get that one or two extra coins to get the next squad. Out of a game so well designed, this is so out of place to me.

Overall great simple game with many layers that will be a constant install on both my desktop and travel laptop.

Great game for a quick in-and-out version of XCOM. Doesn't take itself too seriously and the advantage of creating your own hit percentages (versus XCOM's dice roll) is a nice addition.

The only item I noticed was the difficulty scaling. On my first run, I played on Experienced. Game was still a challenge but the levels would vary somewhat, instead of becoming progressively more difficult. I found the hardest level to be in the second world and the third world was easier than the second....or maybe it was just my play style.

Wonderful game overall and it makes me want a more full-fledged version - or a mod like TLW with XCOM2.

Pleasant surprise from the Humble Bundle this past month. Simple, yet fun game with some strategy involved.

I have completed all victory types in this game and put in a respectable number of hours at this point to come to some conclusions;
Pros:
- Research and Civics trees are good. Allowing the player the pivot as necessary. However some techs can be researched out of line in terms of natural progression
- New UI is great, however when fighting, the fact that the attack button menu rises and falls is a bit annoying
- Graphics looks great
- Armies and Corps
- New update fixes a lot of small issues
- Culture is probably the most rewarding victory type (if you can survive all of the surprise wars)
- Local happiness is a nice change but it needs a bit of work - maybe an extra early/mid-game building
- Barbarians are nice and aggressive

Cons:
- War. Surprise wars never change. I have only played one game where I haven't had one or many surprise wars declared upon me. Sometimes forcing me to simply go for a domination victory because why not at that point.
- I wish there was a system of warnings you could send to other players similar to what they do to you. Right now it's either live with it, denounce, or war.
- Diplomacy is useless
- AI always hates you
- Random enemies don't seem very random. Typically get placed against the same group of enemies.
- Religious fights between apostles are always in favour of the AI, regardless of difficulty.
- On immortal dfficulty, the game has crashed taking a city. I was taking the second last civ of a domination win and basically wasted a bunch of hours
- No proximity warning for units
- Various other nit picky things

Overall it's a great step forward, they just need to iron out some details

- Go into game blind to avoid spoilers and strategies
- Finally set up a great farm with high yield crops
- Earthquake comes to wipe out said crops a day before they're ready for harvest
- Seems about right with my luck

10/10 would live my life again