I'm writing this as a recommendation because despite my issues with this game (which I am about to make readily apparent) it is still a very enjoyable game and one that I hold dear. So I hope the developers can take something from this review so that I can have more positive things to say. And there are a lot of good things about this game, ones that I believe make this game well worth playing, so if you think you might enjoy the game go ahead a get it. In fact I'd recommend playing the game yourself rather then read what i have to say as I don't want to ruin the experience for you. But if you want to know what I think is this game's biggest problem, then just know you have been warned TL;DR Please devs fix the balance I beg of you! I love this game so much, but the balance is keeping me from playing! I need both the player and the NPC's to start in the same position (population/combat level) please I beg of you! With that being said, this game has a balance problem. Whether the actual difficulty of the game is well adjusted or not I'm not sure, but at the very least it FEELS unbalanced. The biggest offender of this is the starting combat level between you and the NPC kingdoms. You start the game with the bare minimum about of equipment, and no warriors of your own. (Which makes sense, you're just starting after all) However each other kingdom starts with MIDGAME level armies and equipment! This by itself simply feels awful, it never feels good when others have an unfair advantage over you. Now, I believe I understand why this is the case. It's most likely to offset the fact that you as the player will most likely be growing faster than the NPC's and this is to prevent you from immediately overtaking them. However this is still very problematic. Firstly, it simply doesn't feel good for the first 10 or so hours of your campaign to be simply catching up to the NPC's. Secondly, since having a strong army is a requirement for forming alliances, it means that you are practically guaranteed that every nation around you will form an alliance with each other before you even have the option to. Thirdly, it makes conquer playstyles nearly impossible, the fact that you have to face an opponent far stronger than you, who most likely will have an alliance with 2-3 other kingdoms that are also far stronger than you, and on top of this you are making an enemy out of everyone else, including the church, who are one of the only suppliers of the most essential resources in the game. And what do you get after surmounting the odds, and setting yourself up for failure? A handful of coins for tribute everyday, and an enemy that you have to keep down for the rest of the game unless you be killed in your moment of weakness. It simply is impossible to work with, maybe it's just me, maybe I'm just bad at the game, but I've tried many, MANY times, all with a variety of tactics, and perfecting my playstle to get as strong as possible, as quick as possible. But every time it takes at least 6ish hours (or about 13ish in game days) to even be on the same level as the NPC's and that's only if you play perfectly, which brings me to my next balance problem... Your position in the game is far too fragile, perhaps it's just me, but it feels as if either everything is fine, your struggling to overcome every obstacle that comes your way, but you make it through. Or something goes wrong and now it's irrecoverable and you have to reload a save or restart. It's simply too volatile! Potentially due to the fact that you need to struggle to surpass the NPC kingdoms, but it simply feels like there's no room for any error. Out of the many many problems that you can face (which I may add are very interesting and I like a lot, no problem with the crisis situations themselves, simply the fact that you can't afford to fail) if you fail to fully fend off ANY of them you're simply doomed and need a do over. Now, how can we fix this. Firstly, everyone NEEDS to start at the same point, you could maybe say that a FEW kingdoms can start in a better position than others but it would need to feel like they are there as a challenge for the player that will come eventually, not a constant threat or the status quo. This will also help offset the pressure on the player and make failure to overcome some challenges to not feel game ending, simply unfortunate set backs. There are still a few challenges that need readjusting, but I have yet to experience all of them in the latest version of the game, still I believe fire hasn't been reworked much, and that was the worst offender. As last I remember how it worked was simply if a fire gets started nearly everyone dies, and your whole place is destroyed. (I believe this was fixed at least to some degree, but I'm not sure) Lastly, and also as a final complaint as well, idk if it was simply a glitch, but I would find that after a kingdom would lose a vast majority of their forces, if I were to declare war on them, they'd suddenly magically have a large amount of troops again. which... yeah, that shouldn't happen. All in all, I really love this game, and love how attentive the devs are when it come to listening to feedback, which is the whole point of this review. I didn't write this to complain, (although it was pretty nice to voice some of my complaints that I've been bottling up lol) I wrote this because I have hope that the developers might see this and might consider making some changes, or at the very least take note that this area of their game is an issue for some of us. An issue that at often times is keeping me from playing the game at all. I've been watching the game update and expand with excitement, eagerly awaiting each patch note, wanting to playtest every beta, but this has been something that has been preventing me from enjoying the game for a while now, and I was hoping it'd simply be resolved with time, but if anything it's only gotten worse. So this is my message to the developers of the game I love so much. PLEASE, PLEASE, FIX THIS IN SOME WAY I BEG YOU, I REALLY WANT TO WRITE A REVIEW SINGING THIS GAMES PRAISES! PLEASE PLEASE! I THANK YOU FOR ALL THE LOVE YOU'VE POURED INTO THIS GAME, I ONLY HOPE I CAN HELP! NO PRESSURE, AND THANK YOU FOR YOUR HARD WORK!
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