Seneste anmeldelser af Stonewallis

Thumb up, but...

Good game for masochists. As this player is not one he cycles mostly between stress and rage quitting. Sometimes things go as planned and it's great. But some things will just screw you no matter what you do. Though at the price point it's not a bad game.

Some things are unique, for example your flying tower instead of the normal painting the map with cities and forts. The crafting system is top notch, and some combat features are cool (e.g. you can capture "souls" from enemies for crafting troops as a necromancer). Mostly combat seems a clone of Age of Wonder 3 combat with the added feature that auto-resolve is atrocious so yes you will want to fight almost all battles manually. This may be incorrect but it sure seems auto-resolve does not consider the various combat perks and healing units possess. A great feature is at least auto-resolve lets you know how bad it's going to maul your troops before you select it.

Some serious flaws which frustrate me but will impress masochists really make me wonder. No journal for quests is a big one others have mentioned. I have no memory of what I'm supposed to do with some of them so they're basically dead ends. In one case i couldn't continue a quest for a hero because the location disappeared or I had not discovered it on the map (and yes many, many turns were spent scouting for it). On level up your troops get a random selection of perks to acquire, meaning you will find yourself in situations where a unit is hardcore nerfed. Say for example your skeleton mage may never be able to heal or raise undead (which is the only two things they are needed for).

One game ended early when my 2nd apprentice (basically an army leader hero) spawned in a tower across a river whose only bridge I found for crossing was guarded by an enemy circle mage (i.e. enemy boss). This kind of thing isn't uncommon, so frankly this is by design and intended to be a challenge. I'm sure many players handle it but some folk say screw that. In another early game instance a major quest appeared in the lands of a particularly mean orc circle mage. The troops ran in to finish it and get out to piss him off as little as possible but he declared "cold war" (which turns out to mean hot war) and let's just say the play through imploded quickly. Why is this kind of thing happening in the early game.

A major gripe for many new players is that you are not going to know what you are doing for many hours. Tutorials are a 2 sentence blurb on a major topic that really doesn't explain anything. It's trial by fire which I don't mind so much as an unemployed bum there was free time to spend 35 hours getting a clue about what the heck was going on. Surely though some guides will pop up soon enough to help newer players (and me).

Note that currently there is no steam workshop. There was one clever mod posted in the steam discussions for the game where the random troop upgrades could be re-rolled. Purists will disagree, but Hallelujah. Searches for other mods have proved futile.

This game has gotten great reviews from other players so take this summary with a grain of salt. This mostly pertains to experience in the early game. Some of the issues highlighted are not concerns to many out there.

Originally got this game years ago for a few bucks on some steam sale. Never really learned it so it was uninstalled for the last 4+ years. On a whim reinstalled to see what was up and bye golly, this is a Creative Assembly masterpiece. Because let's be honest CA sucks massive ♥♥♥♥... This game is obviously some kinda mistake on their part because it's harder that heck and fun. I have no idea how this slipped past their head office but hallelujah. Highly recommend if yer an old wargamer who wants a challenging game that will take several futile attempts to learn.

Has real potential... Can't say it hasn't been fun to learn but certain features and bugs keep gnawing at me. This review is more like a maybe as opposed to a thumbs down. The game's design (WW2 strategic real time naval campaign with tactical battles) is right up my alley but the execution isn't there yet. There are also standalone tactical battles and an editor to make your own standalone battles. The developer is actively working on it and is present in the steam discussion forums for the game, including the bug report forum for the game.

The bug ruining my campaign is that sometimes after a battle each side's units become invisible to each other on the strategic map. My fix is to quit the game and reload a save, unfortunately you don't know the bug has hit until you've wasted some time, too bad if you don't have a recent save (If you're wondering I have no mods installed).

Things that make me scratch my head is that damage to ships in tactical battles do not transfer to the strategic aspect of the game. A ship barely afloat that can only push 4 knots is going full speed on the strategic map. Enter battle to finish it off it's still only capable of 4 knots. Torpedo bombers have an issue where most torpedoes usually pass in front of the target. You can have multiple sub pickets lined up in a narrow straight and a large AI convoy can slip through... both ways. Wanna have a fighter wing fly CAP over your carriers to fend of surprise enemy air attacks? It's not automated so you have to manually put it up each day (dunno why, scout planes are automated). Also I learned the hard way carriers cannot launch aircraft in a tactical battle (somewhat understandable, i.e. Midway but it should still be an option to take the risk). You have to launch on the strategic map before you enter the battle, however this isn't made clear and it's one of the most common questions on the forum. Figured if you're going to buy the game you should know that so you don't make the same mistake countless others of us have. I could go on but these are some main gripes about dealing with the game play.

The UI isn't the worst out there but it isn't intuitive and takes time to learn. Frankly it's awkward and something I'd expect from a game much older(EDIT: I know it's not easy, I find the fleet management UI in HOI4 utter garbage, at least in this you get the status of the ship damage, cargo, and munition stockpile when you select it in the UI). The AI leaves much to be desired in certain situations. Right now submarines are OP because enemy ships do not react to torpedoes until a hit is scored on the fleet. It can be the middle of a sunny day with calm waters and they just don't react. Although I'm not sure they should because the AI controlled ships like to collide with each other, and will even ignore land (with funny but arcade like results). Yea, collisions during operations are common in real life but in this game it's just about guaranteed if there are more than a few ships. How the heck does a destroyer run into a sinking battleship that has been stationary for a long time.

From my standpoint it's been mostly enjoyable but the patience is wearing thin, and therefore will wait to see how things turn out over the next few updates. This could turn into a gem.

** Update (Sept. 4). I lied... buggy POS garbage, specifically franchise mode. ***

***UPDATE: I'm playing around with the current (as of Aug 20) Beta version...Not bad. It's not much improved over the previous few years of OOTP releases, but it seems pretty solid now. A lot of the ridiculous bugs are squashed. ***

Garbage in it's current state. As a OOTP fanboy since 2012 even I am disgusted at the positive reviews ignoring all the bugs. So I have a lot of hours in this version but this is a spreadsheet game so it's typically idle on my 2nd screen while I do useful stuff. Like reading the Bible at Sacred Texts. Because God has certainly forsaken the release of this game. If things go well it'll get better over time but something has changed with this team, and the winds are blowing the wrong way.

Funny story the devs were loudly telling us to please leave a review on Steam... For a crap game. So here ya go. Fix it and this review might change.

Buggy mess, like most Paradox DLCs. Yes they will fix most of it eventually... Thanks to us free beta testers. As a former Paradox fanboy why do I keep coming back after repeated abuse.

Well designed game, with some caveats. This could be a great game when early access ends, really impressed by the campaign. Tactical battles less so, which may be the focus of the game. I think the game design is to make tactical battles a chess match. Unfortunately I't doesn't reflect the strategic map. So I ambush somebody, but now some of my troops must spawn in the middle of the enemy formation. Not much of an ambush. I've learned the mechanics enough to overcome these bizarre tactical spawns but it totally breaks immersion.

Also, there are some other tactical issues. You can have one of your mercenaries killed right off the bat in tactical battles if you don't know the mechanics, or have bad initiative. Many enemies can hit your mercs hard immediately, because spawns are so close and intertwined. It is manageable after trial and error (for me mostly error), but I'm not a big fan of this style myself so take this as my subjective opinion.

Also note leveling your troops is capped at a low level at the moment, and will not improve until further updates.

Really impressed by the strategic design and missions though. I thought I was getting a bare bones game but there is a lot of content and well designed story line. I will admit I did get stuck on the story line a few times because it's not clear how to advance it in some instances.

Not sure I recommend getting it now though, I will give this a thumbs up but I do wish I had waited until it was a little more refined.

Hot damn. Story mode is better than a modern movie, which to be fair isn't hard. Still though, incredible. Haven't tried online yet, probably won't based on what I have heard.

Potential to be my favorite game ever. Great concept, just waiting for better implementation.

Gave it a go but I found things awkward and didn't wan't to go past 2 hours for a return. Still, I'm drooling over what this may become and will keep an eye on it. Really impressed with the developer's vision, however I can't recommend it at the moment if you are like me and don't want to deal with early access growing pains. Otherwise I say have at it.

Hope to reverse this recommendation in the future.

I do like this game, but meh. Paradox making money of cosmetic HOI4 DLC's while the AI has been retarded from day 1. Seems like the last couple of years their whole business model is to put lipstick on a pig. Been a fanboy for many years but that ended. CK2 is great, EU4 great, Stellaris they ruined, and I knew better than to buy Imperator with my new found skepticism. Turns out it was right.

Good simulator as a single payer or online league game. Don't play "perfect team" tho, sheckel trap. I did my time in Perfect Team but never spent a dime so I'm up against dudes with 100 level payers who embrace spending the ((sheckels)) while I got my best player as Troy Tulowizski(rated 80), great player but not exactly up to par. I feel sorry for that snaggle cuck, must suck to sell your soul. They don't even pay him enough ((sheckels)), which would be negative hopefully for serving the devil. This developer used to be good but pretty sure this and all future models will involve ((sheckel)) extraction. Yes I'm mad.


UPDATE April 4 2020. Perfect Team scam is worse than I thought. I figured it was perpetual considering it's pay to win but they shut down the perfect team servers a year after the new game comes out. So you start over with nothing every iteration. So guys are paying to win for a season. No way this business model lasts, and long term supporters of the developer like myself will evaporate away with the wind. What a dirty scam.

To reiterate it is a great baseball simulator for single player or online leagues (not perfect team). Every year they release a new version for full price that basically has just updated rosters, so it's suggested you buy the OOTP version over the past several years that is cheapest.


Edit for grammar