Recent reviews by TheRomanRuler

One of the best RPGs of all time. I am not even especially big RPG fan, but if you have any interest, give this one a try. It deserves place among best games of all time list.
It has lot of freedom, and items don't just disappear because you don't have them. If you give someone a ring, you can complete a mission with/for them, and then pickpocket them to get the ring pack, or just kill them. You can in fact kill everyone in this game if you want. Reason why evil villains murder everyone? XP! But don't worry, this game is not over reliant on XP and grind.
And how you can use that XP is awesome. Just because you picked ranger does not mean you need to be archer and specialise in archery. If you want, you can become mighty sorcerer, even if you would still prefer to use a bow as well. There are some limits in the game, some skills can only be developed so much, but game does not force you to do anything.

Voice actors do their job, narrator is especially pleasant and i really feel they are welcome part of the game. For me voice acting adds so much, just reading text often makes me skip them even if it would be well written.

Elite Dangerous has made many design choices which are not wrong, just not what i enjoy. For example Elite Dangerous goes for procedurally generated galaxy that is endless(?) in scale. I would prefer smaller, more hand crafted galaxy. It also goes more for realism rather than rule of cool. Etc etc.
So its impressive that altough its not my kind of game, i still like it and see it as great game. I won't be spending hundreds of hours on this game (well, at the moment of writing. Lets see what future updates bring, i am very excited for Odyssey!). But i still am happy i bought this game and experienced parts of it.

Shout out to Fuel Rats, group of amazing people who helped me completely for free when i ran out of fuel due to not knowing how to play. Entire thing was one of the best experiences i have ever had in any game.
https://fuelrats.com/
https://elite-dangerous.fandom.com/wiki/Fuel_Rats

I can't say if space sim fans will like it, this was first space simulator i have properly played.

Most things about this game are good besides size of maps. They are way too small.

Great game, altough my eyes get really strained playing it. My eyes are trying to see enemies far away or at night, but because my monitor is right where it always is, they can't adjust, straining them. Its not only game that does this, but for some reason this game strains my eyes far more than usual.

Still a lot of fun so far

Altough i love the idea of combining HOI4, CK2, EU4 and Victoria into single game, this is not how it should be done. I agree that it would be way too much if you have all the micro from all the games put together, but how they did it means you need to do same things all over again all the time, there are little to no strategic decision, you just press button for boost because you have waited long enough (to gain enough mana)

I was hoping it would be something like where you control a single character just like in CK2, but you don't need to micromanage all the other characters, just yourself, others live their own lives and while you can interact with them, you are not baby sitting them. Large amount of provinces like in HOI4 is good, but there is actually no reason to have that many provinces at the moment, it just increases amount of tedious grind as you have to spend your mana and do all the same things in even more provinces. And from EU4 i wanted nation customization (national ideas), but what we got is national research tree instead. Not fun.

Even combat is not that great. Why not give us ability to split troops into 4 groups, the flanks, center and reserve like in Marc of the Eagles. it was literally only good thing that game had, it would be perfect here. Also, the battles make no sense, why are all my troops lining up into single line? That makes no sense. There should be battle map of for example 20x20 squares, and armies would form up and start advancing towards each other, and battle plays out dynamically. Often skirmishers would engage first, and if cavalry or infantry would charge at them, they would retreat behind the infantry line - sometimes they can't make it in time. And sometimes skirmishers spend good time just doing small scale combat, before one side decides its time to advance with their main force or their skirmishers get routed. Armies would not just form up in super wide line, they often need to have deep formations or enemy will just break through them. This makes it constant balance between making your lines longer or thicker depending on battlefield and what your enemies do and what you want to do. In real life side that had larger numbers did not automatically just outflank the enemy. I could go on and on about what could be done with battles. At the moment Crusader Kings 2 or March of the Eagles does it best, i don't remember how it worked in march of the eagles since it was not very good game.


Also, how come Romans don't have ability to levy troops? Lots of nations levied troops in lots of time periods, and Romans were famous for responding for news of their legions being defeated by raising more legions and sending them against enemy to try again. After war was over, legions disbanded so they lost all the experience they had gained. Not quite as simple as that but we don't even have anything like that, everyone just has standing armies from the very start.


I still enjoyed playing the game, but i am not playing it anymore, i am waiting until they add more features and improve the game. So i definetly don't recommend anyone to buy it at the moment. Wait and see after few years if game has improved enough and if it has, only then buy it. Don't buy this early access game.

Trouble finding players so i cant say how much i enjoy it when both teams are full of humans. But with mix of people and bots it has been fun so far.

I only wish i would be in in future playing sequel to this game. it is brilliant! Personally not fan of art style though. I dont need good graphics, just not fan of this style. Age of Empires 3 came out 2005, and i prefer graphics from that to this game. Or Cossacks 3. But that is subjective, and it does not reduce my enjoyment of this game. If it would have art style i like, then it would only increase my enjoyment.

For future, personally i would enjoy getting more everything. More depth, more features, larger maps and scale, more details, multiplayer and most importantly, improvements of all kind - UI could be more informative. It does good job, but you can always improve. I would like to see more easily buildings that are in need of repairs, atm i need to manually search for them.

But today, i am very happy to play this as is.

Best (historical) Total War game since Shogun 2. Battles might be even better than in Shogun 2, but that is very debatable. They are step to great direction in any case. Campaign is somewhat worse. New features are great, but why are old ones removed?

+Battles are huge improvement over Attila or Rome 2. Infantry is actually useful, and my missiles are not murdering my own units who were unfortunate enough to stand 5 meters in front of them. Friendly fire is still a thing, as it should be. Units just recognize difference between friendlies and enemies now and try not to murder their own men.
+They remembered that colors exist and existed already back then (in fact, since it was harde to make colors in the past, people wanted to and would wear more of them when ever they coul)
+Missile units and cavalry are now smaller in numbers, giving more realistic army proportions
+ Soldiers try to hold lines bit better
+Morale system in battles seems realistic and brilliant
+Graphics in general are brilliant. Superior to Attila or Rome 2, now we are back to graphics that actually look better than Rome 1 for same perfomance
+Not stupid army limits in campaigns! You still need general to lead every army, but that makes sense. And you propably cant afford too many armies anyway. And you only have so many free generals, after that you need to start paying just to recruit generals. Which is good
+There might be some more

-Missile units are still way too strong against heavily armored units with big shields. Shield or armor alone are excellent protection against missile fire, and if you have both, you are not going to take almost any losses from the front. Missile units were not that useful at killing stuff, they were useful because they could shoot at enemy without enemy being able to stab you in the guts.
-Even your best units still have habit of breaking lines. They are in beautiful formations, and when enemy comes soldiers at the back of your own formations decide it is brilliant idea to suddenly leave formation. Why? Even soldiers at front of formations should do their best to hold the line. Especially when soldiers would naturally try to seek protection from each other. Maybe it makes sense for 2 handed axemen to make some room for themselves, but others should do their best at keeping formations. Formations were not for showing off, they were for fighting in. Soldiers would fight in units in formations, not on their own.
-Why are many campaign features from Rome 1 and Medieval 2 still not present? And why are many features that even existed in later total war games removed?
-Arbitary build limit to settlements. It should be time consuming to build everything in 1 city, and so much so that it would be better to specialize in merchant cities, garrison cities aka places you recruit troops from etc etc. But please get rid of arbitary limitations.
-To successfully defend in siege battles, you need just as many men as in field battles. This is complete and utter nonsense. Fortifications were excellent at reducing number of men needed to defend them. In addition cities would naturally have great chokepoints. It should be very difficult to even capture the walls, yet that is easily achieved all the time with small casualties. And castles might often even have something like only 20 men. That small castles dont need to be represented in Total War games, they cause attrition which is well present in the campaign. It makes sense to only include ones that actually would involve hundreds to tens of thousands of soldiers. But way they are done is huge disappointment.
Siege battles=regular battles in different location. In Rome 1, cities were defendable and it was hard to attack them, as it should be. Even villages were defendable. I also would like to have equilevant of town center brought back where soldiers make a last stand and fight to the death. It is not exactly realistic, but it was great for gameplay and allowed you to defend settlements better. Cornered rats fight like lions, but in this game they rout towards the enemies to get slaughtered.
-Still cannot develop small villages with population of 300 into huge cities with 30 000 people like you could in Rome 1
-Cannot build walls (you could in Rome 1)
-Cannot build forts (you could in Rome 1)
-No army traditions?? One of the few good things from Rome 2 are removed? Why so many features even from Rome 2 and Attila are removed?!
-i am sure there is more


I still think it was worth the purchase. I have not enjoyed Total War game this much since Shogun 2! For next historical Total war game we just need back all the good features from Rome 1 and fix all the things that worked well in Rome 1, and then we have one hell of a game!
But am i interested in playing this game much more? Well, sadly, no. It has a lot to do with the setting. I am just not interested in setting. Fix all the flaws in this game and i will play it a lot. But since it is flawed and setting is not that great... no thank you. If it would take place in late Roman Empire (like Barbarian Invasion or Attila TW) i would love to play it!

Also, it would be great if "alliance coloring" color setting would color soldiers in faction specific colors instead of yellow and red and blue. Alliance colors are brilliant looking, but i dont want everyone to be yellow or red or blue.
Without alliance coloring it is really difficult to tell friend from foe on battlefield. I would like to get feature back from Rome 1 where units you selected were nicely highlighted so it was clear who was who even if armies would have been grey blobs (and luckily often they are not grey in this game, or Rme 1 for that matter, colors exist!)

If only this game had Co-op...

This game series seems to evolve as slowly as Total Wars. Unlike Total wars, Men of War seems to only have improvements with no downgrades, but improvements come somewhat slowly.


Would love to get improved unit AI. I know this game is about micro managing, there is nothing wrogn with that. But some micro managing is completely unnecessary.


I think i have spent 90% of my time in map/scenario editor. Would be great if they would work on improving that as well!