Recent reviews by El Dialectico

Peak

This *is* Fentanyl Gaming

In what other game can you die ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ yourself in Prison and witness the horrors of childbirth

Game of the Year 2024

It's rare for a city builder to do "what happens next" but it works really well here.

This is a completely game from Frostpunk 1. If you go in with that mindset I think you will appreciate what they are going for.

Promising City builder in the vein of banished and the impressions city builder games. Brings a classic feel with modern systems, and already has a lot to offer just in this free alpha stage. Bonus Points for the setting, Mesoamerica being ripe yet untapped by good games. Hope to see more from this game soon, and will be following its development!

If you like colony sims/city builders give it a go, it's free for now anyway, so you might as well try it.

And the Kingdom rejoices for the heir to Banished has finally arrived!

Feels like Banished and Ostriv had a lovechild with the vibes of AOE and the Guild.

Very polished, beautiful game with minimal bugs, all from a solo developer.

Very immersive, you really feel awe at how your small camp turns into a village and then a city before your eyes. Already has a third-person walkaround feature (which is the best feature to have in a city builder game)

It has that great blend of immersive relaxation and tension that a good Banished type city game needs. You're always planning for the winter, but you find yourself just watching the townsfolk go about their day. Then you get too distracted and here come the bandits to steal and burn everything.

Can't wait to see what else they do with this.

Rare to see something this polished on day one of EA.

I wishlist and watch almost every City Builder I see and I played the demo for this before it came out. I enjoyed it then, and im glad that hasn't changed.

If you're expecting a colony sim or something like that this isn't it, this game is, like other reviews have said, more like anno In that the game is more about production chains, infrastructure, and spatial management. And it does what it sets out to do extremely well. The game is very chill and the graphics are beautiful.

Cant wait to see what they do in the future with this.

Once again Torpor games turns my autocrat run into a man of the people run because I'm a family man

10/10 would reconsider my morals to be a good father again

we still reconquering Pales tho

Clown makeup on already for buying the same game every year or so.

Played 2k15, 16, 18, 19, 20, 21, 23, and 24. Mainly Myleague and MyGM, sometimes with friends.

In each installment the games have gotten progressively worse in almost every aspect. From Character models that look like play doh (this game is slightly better in this regard i guess) to crashes that destroy entire online Myleague saves (this one in particular) this game runs and plays like an engine 30 years past its prime. Add on top of that the fact that each game 2k makes small, esoteric adjustments to shots and layups, and you're guaranteed to come back to the same game, but slightly worse each time. Last game, the Shot meter felt off or way too finicky/precise, this game its fine but now every other layup feels like its going to miss. Contested shots are all ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up, slowing down players and making you miss shots even when they're NOWHERE near you or with no hands ANYWHERE close to you. Devs took a raincheck on this game a loong time ago and keep giving us basically the husk of the console game each year. not buying 2k25 for more than 5 dollars.

Guomingang Guomingang Guomingang

Great for Grand Strategy Players and those that are big into the Warlord Era of China.

Been following this game since it was announced years ago, it's been a long time coming, but it was clearly a labor of love, these guys built the engine from scratch and have continued to consistently update the game adding new content. Ancient Cities brings a lot more immersion and potential for depth in comparison to other "Caveman City Builders" like Dawn of Man or Sapiens. While Dawn of Man is a stellar game, its development stopped some years ago and it never really reached its full potential imo, and What AC has over DoM in my opinion is a sense of natural progression and a deeper immersion into the culture, with AC having Actual Tribal leaders (ableit in a barebones way atm) and such, but especially in regards to the tech tree. This game is a lot slower paced than Dawn of Man, and much more than other City Builders. You start as Mesolithic Hunter-Gatherers and if you run out of local resources or game to hunt, you have to migrate somewhere else (Across an actual zone of the real map you choose, btw). Food and such is sparse and a big population isn't necessarily a good thing, and you can't just click a button to research farming, better tools, etc. instead, your focus is just on keeping people alive, the "tech" comes through the individual knowledge your people have, and they share that knowledge between themselves, and can lose it, making the acquisition of new Tech in the game much more interesting and important. You're not just clicking your way to the Bronze Age, You're scavenging by until someone figures out how to plant a seed, just like in real life. The Recent patches added things like Animal Husbandry and I know the Release build will have Trade and Raids and other Cities/Tribes on the map. They even have a sort of culture system based on the material/regional culture of your people that has massive potential for future expansion (I really hope we expand to more cultures outside the Atlantic Meso/Paleolithic).

Tl;Dr: this game is a Slow Burn, but if you want the real, genuine, bonafide Hunter Gatherer-to-Agricultural Revolution City builder experience, it's worth it.

Don't be scared by the Mixed Reviews. This game is a great sequel to one of my favorite games from my childhood.

The Charm is still there, the music is great, the game runs smoothly (at least in my experience)

I will agree the schemes get a bit repetitive but by and large Rebellion did a good job in this installment. Can't wait to see what the new evil genius is!