8 – Veterans: Napoleonic Wars
It’s hard to believe it has been 12 years since the first Ultimate General game, titled Gettysburg, came out. Released in 2014 and developed by the guy behind the fan-favorite Darthmod for Total War, it was a breath of fresh air by giving the player the gameplay depth a serious strategy game needs, alongside the ease of control and user interface that makes everything easy to understand at a glance. It was a masterclass in game design, so it’s no wonder it went on to inspire other titles. Veterans: Napoleonic Wars, being the one who treads the closest to it, and finally delivering on what strategy fans have been asking for years, by setting the game during the Napoleonic period.
My first impressions of it were somewhat positive, and the fundamentals of an Ultimate General game are all here, and the game plays remarkably close to its inspiration, even if some things still need some tuning, in my experience, with the first one being the melee combat, which is super weird to see units instantly gaining double speed and clipping in and out of the fight. The second thing is that the game is a bit too fast-paced for my liking at the moment; however, the AI isn’t all that great, and enemies go back and forth doing nothing. If I may do another suggestion, just in case a developer reads this, is to add the same kind of line formation mechanic that Ultimate General: Civil War has, instead of having to manually move one battalion at a time, in order to form a coherent line of battle. Do give it a go if this interests you.
7 – County of Fortune
I hadn’t heard of County of Fortune until I started to do my research for this article (I guess that the Steam Next Fest is serving its purpose, then), and I was rather intrigued by its strange sight and setting. Players will build a whole medieval county (composed of several towns), and the scale zooms out a bit from what we’re used to seeing with things like Manor Lords. The management aspect of County of Fortune is all about where you place your towns, and each one will specialize in what it will do, and how they’ll interact with each other, to make sure everybody prospers. Soil quality, mountainous terrain, and rivers will be deciding factors in economic and logistics matters. Very cool take on the medieval city-builder, or should I say, medieval county-builder, instead?
6 – Roguecraft DX
The last couple of years for strategy games have been filled to the brim with fantastic turn-based combat games with roguelike mechanics. While it’s currently on-vogue to call out every roguelike experience as uninspired, I would be lying if I said I didn’t dislike it. In fact, some of my favorite games are roguelikes, and I’m extremely excited to see strategy games embrace some of their design decisions. Roguecraft DX is described as a semi-casual turn-based roguelike with a penchant for Lovecraftian horror and some banger retro-inspired aesthetics. Having played it, I think it goes full casual, and that’s perfect, because I came out of playing it with the impression that this is, undoubtedly, a very simplistic game, where it’s a great experience to have if you’re strapped for time, and don’t want to start a massive new title. Also, the game has really aggressive chickens, for some reason.
Leave a Reply