Recent reviews by Mayhem Effect

presently botched due to a "hotfix" they have not sorted graphical issues and it causes nvidia drivers to crash regularly.
it is only getting worse with each 'fix'

It ended all to soon.

Not even getting past the tutorial before getting frustraited the game is astonishinglty lackluster. The tutorial and further gameplay is surprisingly lax in direction or feel for accomplishment. You can figure out that you are going to be trading with people but this is not explained or even well detailed. Combat for what I saw was slow and unnuanced with what appeared to be a single fire button, I did not manage to play long enough to buy fleets, nor did I even know how that eould occur or what the impact might be. I found out how trade missions work and got a few reputation points. i played the whole thing from the map mode which ruins the immersion that much more.

It plays and feels like a game that comes from the end of the DOS era, so for retro gamers this is good. This may be good if you have an elementry child that wants to get into strategy games but does not sell me as something that a serious or even casual player will enjoy.

I am hesitant to give an early access review, but this one has been sitting and waiting for a while.

This game has a solid grasp on it's basics, knows what it wants to be and is doing a good job of it. This game is a simulation/RTS in the style of Majesty. It has an interesting game mechanic where you can move and shape the floating islands around you, a unique feature that also alters the strategies that work. When before it was always a choice of race to build and swarm or turtle and triumph neither one is a complete strategy because you need to gather islands and find a few choice resources and also find the enemy.

The graphics are smooth and colourful, the UI is a bit small to read at times with the basic settings but there is a slider for that. It has simple intuative controls and pleasant ambiant music. There are three playable races with a fourth in development at the time of this writing.

While I can reccomend this game as one to watch there is still some features that are in development that some people are going to be disapointed in if it is not there when they first open the title. The Campain and multiplayer experiances are still in development as well. With any RTS style games these are a nessecary feature and the developer knows that (he already has options in the menu for them). As an early access title this is not yet complete but in the less than a month of looking at this title I have seen multiple features added and they are still months from the original estimaited completion.

Long story short, this is a solid game presently in a late alpha phase. Put it on a wishlist and keep an eye on it. Early access is at a reduced price so see if that makes a differance to you. Development is active so weigh the reviews based on date. Once complete this will be a fun relaxing RTS you can play with your friends, one where you actually can steal the ground out from under them.

This turned out to be a nice light table top game with short battles and fairly simple rules. You "buy" boster packs of minitures or cards with currency that you get from daily rewards quests. While for some this may be a little grindy it does provide a reason to keep playing each day just a little, instead of binge rushing to a finish in 24 hours and never looking back. Right now there is no pay to win method that I can see, I can not find any form of online store and that is very refreshing with anything with a CCG or collectable aspect to it.

You play simple rounds with up to ten units on your own team on a hex map in a fuedal japan setting. You have minitures for units and a small hand of supporting cards that you can use for tactical advantage. Units can level up based on both their type and rarity and have unique abilities that help ad flavour to their play. You can customize your teams for both online PVP or solo campaign play, though it looks like you can only level up units in the PVP area.

The aesthetic and music go well with the feel of the game, it is running smooth with few lag issues or load times. Some of the symbols are a little hard to understand at first glance but become apparent once you play a round or two.

I will be coming back to this when I want something light to play with a nice tactical feel to it.

a sample of the early 90's strategy games. Focus on story and core gameplay with simpler graphics and animations. Fun to play with a story that is worht the reading instead of skipping to action sections it sets a tone to your adventures. They pay attention to classic fantasy settings and aspects that come from the old dungeons and dragons and implement that into the gameplay

The strategy itself is slightly simpler, but it has moved away from any form of grid system to give you a more free range of movement in order to impliment your strategies.

The game is constantly being updated (something like once every week or two) at this time so there is alwasy room for more growth in it.

(version 0.89)

This sits somewhere between Heroes of might and magic and Settlers of Catan, There is a lot of board game influence in the design from the Artwork and map design that looks like hex tiles to the simple resource mechanics and deck building.

At this point in development the UI needs work because not all the details are intuitive and leaves the player asking questions. While the tutorial is good overall for playing a simple match it does not properly fill in details that occur in the complete scenario.

The deckbuilding is fairly simple when you find it and play with it, but complete information on deck regulations is not available.

The artwork is nice with a painted image style that is animaited like marionettes paying homage to the board game influences that easily appeal to a niche market. The developer tries to fill in a story instead of just making a hack and slaugher stragey game and also uses the artwork to add to that.

This is the type of game that will appeal to euro game fanatics that are fans of strategy and filling time between classic table top sessions with friends.

Being as it is still in early access at this time any UI issues can still be fixed for new players and with a little exporation and testing anyone can overcome them.

This does not meet my expectations for a Civ 6 DLC. Simultaiously they add a single Civ expansion which on it's own is acceptable yet weak.

This on the other hand is just filler and a minor mod package and would have hellped complete the other DLC package.

As a deluxe edition purchaser I find this unacceptable and with the present pricing scheme I do not see any real savings in purchasing so the future ones need to be bigger, or that promise of savings will not be met.

incomplete, development suspended.

This is not your grandfather's civilization. This is the biggest evolution that Civ has seen yet. Gone are the old tried and true tactics that work in all situations. With Civ 5 they unstacked your armies creating tactical combat, with Civ 6 they unstacked cities creating tactical city development. The new inspiration/eureka system allows a player to strategically develop in a method that advances sciences and policy evolving gameplay even more.

Debates over the cartoony art style are petty and irrelevant because it was designed to make the map more readable, and it achieves that. Though the UI and options could use some updating it is not unusable when the player learns to read it and redefines a few hotkeys. Becoming accompanied with the new lenses views helps with this.

On city growth this is the biggest change and one that everyone must learn to adapt to. No longer can a player just decide that every city is a build everything one stop production facility. In part because of the new district system that forces players to focus each city in what they geography is suited for, and in the other part because you no longer have the time to really build everything with abandon. You actually can make mistakes that later on can cause you regrets. Learning to read the land and plan each city in advance proves to be a most important skill.

Government and policies are a new feature that replaces the pre-existing civics system of just leveling up features of your civilization. Now you must pick and choose how your society operates and one choice must come over another, not just the constant improvement without any real mistakes possible.

Religious combat adds a new level to gameplay offering tactical religious spread and defense. There is even a promotion for your religious units that can aid your standard combat units.

Espionage has altered and takes a small amount of management but this allows for targeted missions and benefits. You can again steal and sabotage and you can now steal great works.

Great people are now more individual offering varying differences that each civilization must compete for. One great scientist may give you science inspirations while another builds a university and another improves all your science buildings. These variations apply to all the versions of great people.

Diplomacy has been improved offering all the old options and a few new effects like causus beli and information levels allowing you to peak into the motives and activities of your opponents. The new system used in regards to city states offers improved benefits for being their ally (now called suzerain) with the offset that it is more difficult to be everyone's friend. Your resource to secure them is how many envoys you can generate with them and not an object that you can buy with infinite cash. Suzerain bonuses are also unique to each city state so far and depending on how you play can be spectacular.

The game plays at a much faster speed than previous versions allowing for people to complete a game sooner, personally I play on epic speed (50% longer game(I think it is actually 100% longer)) to help maintain the speed I am used to. It also offers some scenario mods for fast play multiplayer games.

Overall this is a much deserved improvement to the series and the designers achieved a sincere effort on making the game more accessible for fans of the series. The UI features do make for more management in large games due to lack of automation utilities (though if you are automating everything you are missing out on the point of games like this anyways). The player will find the UI counter intuitive if they are coming out of previous Civ games and will need to learn to adapt. Some information is not clearly labeled in a numerical representation that avid gamers desire to make calculations. Players must now make decisions and choosing may result in hind sighted regrets giving each choice more impact as the game progresses. Almost all core mechanics have been improved and stability is strong and noticeable bugs are low.

TLDR: Do not do that, this was written for a reason.

A solid rebirth of the classic X-com. All the gameplay and difficulty of the original with a few added twists and improved graphics and easy to use UI. The game sports an excellent difficulty progression and speed settings to cater to long or short games.

With the additional expansion "enemy within" there are interesting and complex maps, new technologies and features and additional missions available.

A definite buy for anyone who was a fan of the classic series and a good buy for people who are new to this style of game.