millennia

[Raghar]

New Strategy from Paradox. This time it's attempt to copy Civ.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1268590/Millennia/

 

[Jrpgfan]

Let's hope they get it right and it gives the genre a breath of fresh air, because it's become really stale and uninspired IMO.

 

[Anomander]

I played the demo and it could be ok. It is hard to say, because it is too short. It looks ok and may be something interesting, but for sure I found some issues. First you don't get a settler at the start, but the city. And you can be fucked with resources (like me) and only solutiion is restart. I only got some grasslands so I could only generate food. The time when I got access to some production (forest) it was like turn 50, so it was the end of the demo. And you need to build some buildings to start generating other resources (see below). Without them you will be fucked.
There are also some interesting ideas - there are "goods cycles" - you can build for example mill that will create more food from raw food resources. The same with other resources (logs -> sawmill).
There are also multiple "production" resources. You don't create for example worker to build improvements. You generate a resource called "improvment" each turn and use that to create improvments (farms and so on).
The same is with diplomacy - but this is completely weird for me - you can talk with other civs, but for the independend cities you cannot do anything without an Envoy that cost diplomacy resource (and in my 60 turn play I haven't generated enough to do anything).
There are also multiple "XP paths" - you can generate XP and use that to buy some things (with exploration xp you can buy scouts, with combat xp you can create a warrior unit, etc).

There is combat animation, but it is completely unnecessary - you can see how they bang each other, but you cannot control anything, so it is only a waste of time (but you can ignore that, so anyway this is a waste of resources).
Balance for now is completely broken. My scouts couldn't run from anything (despte being on horse), barbarians are overpowered etc. But this can be tuned later.

In summary it shows some promise.

 

[Catacombs]

This a blatent copy of Civ.

FTFY

 

[Raghar]

Well, if Paradox needs to do a blatant copy of Civ, that means Paradox is creatively bankrupt.

 

[Axioms]

CPrompt Games contains many devs who worked on Call To Power, you may notice elements from those games like the annoying battle screen. However this really isn't any more of a Civ clone than Old World, also Paradox is publisher, not dev.

In any case the different ages are actually pretty cool. Heroes and Blood both play *way* differently than Iron, which is the default age.

I managed to score a 15 pop region playing the Age Of Iron., right on the last turn of the demo. I think I could hit 20 with a lucky map seed and my now advanced experience farming pops. My main issue was I was short on production options. I mean I had several forests in the last few turns and then also some Iron resources that were close to being in my city radius, but that was too late to do much with them.

Note that you can win in ~55 turns, depending on RNG using Age Of Blood with the Raiders National Spirit.

Age Of Heroes with way better RNG could maybe win the game, hard to say. Some of the Quest rewards spawn Oni based on some factors if you have researched Storytelling.

Raiders, going for Heroes, and something like Moundbuilders all play very distinctly. You also have wide vs tall stuff with the God King vs Kingdom governments.

60 turns *does* feel way too short IMO but at the same time the demo can't let you play the whole damn game.

I think their version of building the city onto the map is vastly superior to that of Civ, whether 3 or 6. You can't get too far into the building chains but you can sort of taunt yourself with what you could do if you had 40 more turns.

 

[Raghar]

Looks like it's only 9 days until release, and what I saw from gameplay, it looks like it's decent.

 

[REhorror]

Humankind 2?

 

[Axioms]

Humankind 2?

Humankind was "great" graphics and mid gameplay, minus half-decent innovations like the "nomadic age". Millennia is very mid graphics, plus the heinous battle screen animations, but very awesome min-maxing gameplay while also having many valid strategies to choose based on geography.

 

[Nirvash]

I see a fuckload of streamers pushing this.

Humankind 2?

Looks like some civ4-5 megamod to me.

 

[Axioms]

I see a fuckload of streamers pushing this.

Humankind 2?

Looks like some civ4-5 megamod to me.

Paradox is sponsoring lots of mid-list streamers but also the game is just pretty fun. And of course the streamers didn't have to pay the $40 for it either.

Personally I'd only pay 25$ for the base game.

 

[thesheeep]

I see a fuckload of streamers pushing this.

Same.
Truth be told, if many streamers (most of which I know usually play strategy games that are more.. uh... visually appealing) choose to play this without being sponsored and are obviously having a good time, that's a pretty good sign.

I'm swamped with new games to play, but this one is definitely on my list to buy sooner rather than later.

Neither Civ5 nor 6 could really hook me - every game with those feels pretty much the same to me - but this one's replayability seems fairly apparent right from the get-go.

 

[Baron Tahn]

Civ is missing two things last time I played it. 1) The cool little diorama of the city and its population you used to get in Civ I. That was cool, with little rioting dudes when there was unrest. 2) Combat sucks ass. I get that its a diplomacy game first and everything and theyve done a lot there, but couldnt they do a little graphic thing a la Endless Space or something? Maybe a few more unique units? Doesnt have to be much but watching little stacks bump each other till one dies is a bit lacklustre.

Edit: Oh. Point is thats what this game might try to be better than Civ if Civ wont do it.

 

[Cyberarmy]

Legend of Total War played it via Paradox and kinda liked it. He isn't a fan of Civ 6 either.




" was playing this game for like 6 hours straight per day. I don't play much civilization these days so I really can't compare it to the current state of civ 6. Millennia isn't my new favourite game but I've now got 100 hours in it and I've really enjoyed it. The game didn't crash once. I think this is the kind of game you can really sink your teeth into for a week or so and then come back to it every now and again when patches and dlc drops, assuming that's what's going to happen. It's not priced at AAA prices so the cost to entry isn't as steep as Total War or games that have 10 years backlog of dlc. Ultimately I'm not trying to sell you the game, just showing it to you. You have to make your own minds up. Just because I enjoyed it doesn't mean you will."

 

[wwsd]

Also came to this thread because YouTube streamers are shilling it pretty hard. 4X + Paradox DLC model could be a money maker.

 

[luj1]

This a blatent copy of Civ.

FTFY

Civ II and SMAC cannot be topped, Idk why don't people try something new

 

[Modron]

Also came to this thread because YouTube streamers are shilling it pretty hard. 4X + Paradox DLC model could be a money maker.

Civ 5 and 6 proved this model can work.

 

[Raghar]

Games like this work well only when they are released fully without DLCs, or only with at most one expansion.

 

[Axioms]

Millennia is a complete game except for the pre-stone age pick your own starting city location DLC, that should be in the base game. One there's a bundle with the starting city DLC and a decent sale I'll buy it. Not paying $40 for it though, especially when you can't pick your own city spot in the base game.

Everything else is fine IMO. There's a lot of viable build variety, the Ages/Spirits and the Goods Chains are great, and Improvements being placed without tedious worker spam is also a great move.

 

[Axioms]

Leana Hafer, who is relatively famous among Paradox GSG players for various stuff, gave Millennia a 5/10 for IGN. Now obviously Leana was going to hate Millennia because it isn't full of dumb RP and faux-immersion nonsense, but she also straight up lied about the game. Maybe she took the wrong techs or maybe she just never checked the Engineering menu, but she claims you can't cut forests until the Information Age. Which is the 1970s and roughly age 9. But in fact you get Clear Cutting as an Engineering power in Age 5. A reviewer from a similar social sphere writing for RPS, Ian Boudreau, gave the game a 6/10 or something like that. All his complaints revolved around him sucking at the game or the game not having enough diversity, ignoring the dozens of existing examples of non-white character portraits and images, including the Popstar. He was absolutely terrible at the game based on his review comments.

Notably obsessive Civ players generally will probably suck at the game because they don't space their cities out enough and they try to send out settlers too fast.

Seriously prominent game reviewers, more than just these 2, who I personally know have a deep background in strategy games including 4x, are somehow completely and totally horrible at Millennia. They can't do basic stuff, they make terrible game choices, and they can't escape the chains of their obsession with Civ 5. Yes nearly all the reviewers who gave Millennia low scores because they are terrible at the game have historically been huge boosters of Civ 5, objectively the worst Civ.

 

[Anomander]

Yes, I've read that IGN review and she focused on completely irrelevant things. Cities don't look like real life, hahaha. "I found myself missing Civ 6's districts". Ok, that's all I needed to know. I don't read reviews there days, but is that common? Some random people writing for large portals? In the old days when I read some magazines (yes, I am a boomer) there were reviews that I could trust. I mean isn't IGN one of the largest portals? WTF?

 

[thesheeep]

Ok, that's all I needed to know. I don't read reviews there days, but is that common? Some random people writing for large portals? In the old days when I read some magazines (yes, I am a boomer) there were reviews that I could trust. I mean isn't IGN one of the largest portals? WTF?

One of the many reasons game "journalism" drifts further and further into irrelevance with lower and lower numbers of readers/audience.
These people simply suck something fierce at the games they are reviewing.

Add to that their hacktivist needs of injecting their personal politics into absolutely everything and you can just sit back and relax and watch the decline of mainstream gaming mags with great satisfaction.
We're better off without any kind of larger-scale gaming journalism than with these incompetent fools.

 

[thesheeep]

Notably obsessive Civ players generally will probably suck at the game because they don't space their cities out enough and they try to send out settlers too fast.

Which makes sense, right?
But why would anyone see that as a negative? "Game that isn't Civ demands somewhat different strategies than Civ" ... yeah, wow, incredible

 

[Baron Tahn]

Humans cant do reviews anymore, especially not for 4x or longform games.

Noone pays them more than a couple of coffees and a bag of peanuts which is worth about 30 minutes work; so the writer takes a look at half the title, eats breakfast and shaves while they flick through one playthough at most on the easiest difficulty and then writes a review - and they are still getting the short end of the stick. If it aint in the tutorial how they gonna know? They need to write another 10 reviews this week and go to their other two jobs or they aint making rent.

They arent going to learn the game or actually play it 'as a gamer', even though I assume some might want to. Theyve got to fight off half a dozen other hungry beggars with an arts degree with one hand while they at it.

 

[kris]

Yes, I've read that IGN review and she focused on completely irrelevant things. Cities don't look like real life, hahaha. "I found myself missing Civ 6's districts". Ok, that's all I needed to know. I don't read reviews there days, but is that common? Some random people writing for large portals? In the old days when I read some magazines (yes, I am a boomer) there were reviews that I could trust. I mean isn't IGN one of the largest portals? WTF?

It is probably 15 years since I last read a review of a game outside part of the ones on the codex. they are just terrible at informing a customer like me on whether I should buy the game, not to forget they are terribly written to begin with.

I will likely get this, maybe tomorrow and can then report back by or before easter.