Jon Shafter worked on the Civilization V strategy and decided to go his own way. But not so different, so his indie remarkably reminds of the popular cult series. So many elements will be aware of you, but it does not mean that it is just a simple, clumsy clone that can only be thwarted by the success of civilizations. At The Gates, trying to do things in his own way and places, the game is good, but he can not get close to his big pattern yet.
You can see from the very beginning that you had to make a modest budget. It has its own style and a very nice watercolor visual and pleasant musical, but also some coats. It offers a campaign with a randomly generated map and ten nations, and that's all. Do not look for the story, the cut scenes, the multiplayer, the workshop, the more detailed statistics, and the no-nonsense conclusion. But even so, it could be enough, but it is mainly playability. Initially, it seems like it is, the introduction is imaginative and interesting to compare the game with Civilization, notice differences, adopt tactics. At a later stage, when you've done all of this, you realize that At The Gates is rapidly falling into a stereotype and has nothing to surprise.
In the first game you have to play Gotov - the other nine nations, including Franks, Huni, Avari and Slovan, must first unlock. By creating an alliance with the leader of the selected fraction or destroying the capital, in the available mining. You get to do it after hundreds of rounds, At The Gates is a pull-up and, in the first place, an economic strategy that is not going anywhere. One of its problems is the fact that it has too lengthy processes, even when compared to Civilization. You do not need to do it at start-up, but gradually the situation changes.
During the training, creators draw attention to three distinctive elements of the game. First of all, unlike Civilization, you will not control a few places, but only one. You will concentrate on the management of the raw materials and members of your clan and you spend the most time - that is the second point. And finally, you can expect roguelike playability, the course of which is more unpredictable than in other 4K strategies. It is more or less suited, although in practice it is not so convincing.
You begin with a small nomadic seat, which you can freely move to until you announce it as kingdom. But it will happen much later. In the beginning, you will be notified of three clan members who need to be employed as soon as possible to start the economy. You have to assign each professor gradually and wait for a determined number of moves until he / she learns it. First, the choice is modest, and perhaps the first choice will be the explorer who relatively blatantly reveals the shrouded parts of the map and its interesting places. Then a collector and a hunter - a giant bush, the second one to secure the meat, but first you have to locate the place of the game and identify it before the hunter. Everything takes a few laps. Keep in mind that almost all objects, crops and minerals need to be traced and identified (even if you've already encountered the plant or ore already) and can do just the selected occupations. Once the clan meets the conditions, each member of the clan generates the raw material until the source is removed.
Get more professions by studying professions. All technologies are actually just new classes for your population and they are divided into six basic categories that are gradually branching out. Cults include military occupations, as well as guards who extend your territory to patrol towers. Agriculture focuses on crop production and harvesting, cattle breeding for domestic animals and meat. Another industry is metal processing, then craft production and finally discovery. Gradually, you get over one hundred jobs that you can still improve, but it takes a certain number of rounds, and you also need certain raw materials.
The choice is really great - you can have hunters, grooms, miners, blacksmiths, armourers, potters, glassmakers, engineers, barbers, merchants, sculptors and many other jobs. It sounds good, but you will soon find that you will never use most of them. And those preferred professions are often created artificially to make them more. For example, you have specially cutters for surface ore and miners working in the quarry. Or there are mobile woodcutters and then what they are working on. Kovacov is just a few - one is just processing ore, the other manufactures steel, third iron tools, fourth steel tools, fifth basic armor, sixth steel and so on. It's really illogical that each of them only learns one kind of product. In addition, it is a problem to provide and train as many members of the clan at all. When there is no transition to a more modern era, it is a great shame that at least new inventions can not be achieved. Progress that would bring some economic gains, acceleration of movement that is terribly slow even on the road, for example by means of cars and the like, is very much absent here. But no such technology is found here, you can only discover new professions. Whereupon their division is complicated and unnecessarily fragmented and their use in practice.
Some masters automatically do this when they stay at the headquarters. But many have to go to the terrain, where you define their activity and activity. It would be okay if some things were not solved again. For example, you come across cows. The hunter has all their sacrifices and you have only meat. If you send a traper instead, you get either parchment or skin for clothing, but no meat. Another option is to make the pastures - there are animals in the house that change the barn at the headquarters. The grain is moved by mobile workers, or by the farmer you build a farm, where the crops are soon gone, and if you want a regular harvest, you must instead plant a plantation.
Other complications bring seasons and weather changes. At first glance remarkable, but realistically it is rather counterproductive and annoying. During the cold months, your collectors, hunters and farmers will automatically stop working so you do not have food. You do not have to worry about the supplies, if you have a lot of fun in the summer and autumn periods. In addition, your seat is regularly visited by a caravan, where you can buy and sell food, raw materials and products. But your staff has 10 moves (as long as winter does) have nothing to do. Either they only stand, so at least in each round you have to confirm that they are camping or take them to settlements because they mostly complain about the winter. There you can also train them, but in a few months you can miss their former professions. Similarly, they stop working when they are extremely hot or, on the contrary, rainy, sometimes floods. Then I can not even move. But these weather fluctuations would be accepted and let's say it is a game expansion. Hanging out of the cold winter, with the constant clucking of unused clan members, is poisoning.
Your plans may also shorten the shortage of clan members. You will not have hundreds of them, but only a few tens, and it takes a long time to reach these numbers. Although it can be accelerated to a certain extent. The frequency of gaining new people depends on the level of your glory. And, for example, bard or other professions that generate it are glorifying. But you will still suffer from an acute shortage of people, especially if you will be part of the martial arts. You will always be missing someone in some areas, and often you will be able to deal with them from one job to another.
All of this should also take into account the assumptions and moods of your betting partners. Usually you come to no knowledge, but with some advanced disciplines that predestine them to work in selected sectors. Disciplines can also be changed and trained to others, but you will lose experience in the past. Humans also have some requirements, or somehow hinder them. One is annoying, so he is annoyed, someone else does not like his jokes, occasionally someone is committing a riot (you can punish him), and others upset. It's a good thing that clan members have different personalities and you ought to consider it, but do not worry that your indifference to them will have more serious consequences.
Overall, however, it must be said that, despite considerable difficulties, the economy functions well. The combat component no longer. Fighting is trivial - with one or more connected characters you mark the goal and expect the experience and the result. Alternatively, you can choose a simple form of siege and try to starve the enemy. The defender will help the camp again, and then they will be more resilient. OK, we know this style and it's acceptable in this type of game. However, it is not conscious, for example, the protection of the seat. In the first attempts, it occurred to me that bandits or enemy rides broke into my territory, and either I was without army or succumbed (other occupations do not fight and the adversary conjures them). The attackers destroyed my buildings and re-established a home, which in itself has no defense. When they left a little bit, I settled the settlement and began training the soldiers. The enemies have returned, they have been stripped of everything and once again waiting for it to be rebuilt. I had to start soldier production again. Another attack and the same course - the enemies did not break up, they did not even steal the money, but they simply did not let me stand up again. Playing away was not meaningful. However, it has to be said that artificial intelligence is rather passive. Other factions usually have minimal activity, practically do not even develop and fight only a little in the fight.
Diplomacy is only symbolic. At least this was in the review version and I'm afraid nothing has changed. The bargaining options are limited to a few actions - when the leaders are addressing you, you can politely or unequivocally answer or give a gift, later call for a war or propose an alliance. However, ways to lean other leaders are minimal, and you usually do not even have the opportunity to communicate and make suggestions. Even more is the choice of a change of religion, which is actually only a cosmetic supplement.
You can win the game in two ways. Either you will conquer the capital of one of the two Roman factions, or you will achieve Magister Militum status. So send your 5 people to special training to become Roman legionnaires. Training takes 24 moves, and besides clan members requires plenty of steel armor and steel swords. You either make or buy.
In the third attempt, I was already well aware of the principles and the pitfalls of the game. By experimenting, I gradually found out how to speed up the production of clan members who occupy the wages to train and who, not how to successfully repel and defeat enemies and tighten it to the overall victory. Suddenly, everything was also simple, not at all demanding, unnecessarily precombined and lengthy ... and, unfortunately, increasingly boring. And with this statement we can slowly end it.
At The Gates is such a younger sibling, Civilization, who wants to do things after his own, but has not yet grown to a successful older brother. Well, maybe he'll do it in the future. So far, of course, not. The new approach to the familiar background will initially attract, but will soon come to the surface many shortcomings that the game suffers. It is a tedious, inconceivable, precombined place, there is no progress and the evolution of a society that, if not removed directly, has at least slowed down the rapidly growing stereotype.
