Ara History Untold: Anniversary Edition

Gutes Spiel, aber Zeitintensiv

I Played ARA 70 hours. Nice artist work but poor game design concerning Diplomacy and Technology tree. Diplomatic relations are treated in a very basic way and are very repetitive. Technology tree is a nonsense as there is no strategy available. The overall feeling is a nice looking car with a poor engine. Humankind, Old World and Civ offer a much better strategy diversity and game experience.

I thought it was a very interesting game, but the Japanese is terrible. I wish they'd have the current AI translate it again.

Best contender to CIV.

The game is beautifully crafted. A much more in depth version of the civilization series. I enjoy how much you can control production and bonuses in the game. i would recommend this game to everyone to try.

He jugado apenas 3 horas y he visto realmente un juego bastante solido. Ademas no paran de mejorar por medio de actualizaciones el videojuego.

This game is a unique take on the 4X Grand Strategy formula. With an emphasis on securing resources to maximize output, complete crating production targets, and provide powerful bonuses to your empire, the game naturally encourages you to expand and develop in search of new or rare resources. I'm surprised out how much I consider raiding neighboring empires just to secure silk or gems to boost my economy. The recent update really simplified the whole process, which is both good and bad. In the early ages, it seems too simplified, where I find myself skipping thru 5-10 turns at a time during peacetime because i know my resources and boosters are being automatically allocated. However, in the late game this helps out a lot as prior to this update, a turn could take a good 15 minutes of carefully checking every corner of the empire to make sure everything is set properly. Note, that this automatic management system is optional and can be toggled off if you prefer full manual control. The new culture system is fantastic, a good reason to focus of cultural development for the first time in a 4X since Civ 5. You can claim territory and add cultural perks to your nation by spending acquired culture points. There's a couple places where the game is still a bit lacking. This is going to sound like a rant, but it's just areas for improvement, I would still play this game and recommend it even if nothing that follows gets fixed: War. Combat is bad, which is a bummer because this game does a great job of creating natural border friction and competition for resources which encourage nations to go to war. However the combat is just really boring and I'm not sure what would be a good fix here. Chasing down a enemy unit that's one tile/region away turn after turn is awful. Having your legion attacked by a squad or brigade that takes 3-4 turns at least to complete the battle is awful (although, without the extended battles over multiple turns system, it would be difficult to reinforce and turn the tide of a battle). Overall there isn't much to the battles. As long as you have the most modern versions of each troop type available and bring a larger force formation, you'll win without needed to do anything extra. I feel like games like crusader kings and EU have more meaningful battles. The 'watch battle' option is meaningless, a nice visual but doesn't matter as by the time you watch it, the results have already been determined. BTW, this 'watch battle' feature is what is frequently shown in the trailers as if this was a critical element of warfare and battles, its not, its purely a visual representation of a calculation that happened at the end of the previous turn. Re-thinking the force formation system and utilizing the tiles within a region as part of the combat could help with this area some. In the later stages of the game, more advanced units are available, but it can be tricky to meet all the requirements to actually use them effectively. For example, I think I managed to get an airbase in range of a target city in only play-through for only a handful of turns before the target was erased by land forces before i could airstrike it. The recruitment and army building system doesn't make much sense either. As any city can recruit land and naval units into the reserves, but can be deployed or 'mustered' at any dock or city regardless of where they were produced. It kinda ruins the idea of balancing your empire's ability to regionally maintain and produce military forces as any city (including recently conquered and assimilated ones) regardless of size can suddenly muster your entire reserves out of thin air. I like that its not a Civ clone, but its not better that Civ either. I think what Civ 7 did for combat is better than this, heck, even Humankind's combat is better. Because the AI behavior is still erratic as heck, combat seems to be the best way to deal with them, so this being maybe the worst part of an otherwise excellent game is the main reason its not a perfect 4X, yet. Trade. On trade, this system is ok as I do end up going through every nation's trade offers to see how I can quickly build larger stock piles of resources and goods that I am not producing myself yet. The AI tends to build way more crafting buildings than anything else, and as such, they have a good variety of goods to trade for. However, trade is kinda a loose term here as its more of a just a temporary pseudo-production for you while the AI doesn't seem to really get anything out of it, or at least its hard to tell what they get from it. I also don't understand what makes AI actually want to enter a trade agreement or not with you. I've entered trade agreements with a nation I was at war with and almost entirely decimated 5-10 turns ago, but my ally of 50+ turns won't renew our trade agreement? Events. The events that pop up aren't great. In the early game, they ask too much of the player (the tribe faction requests) and its no guarantee that doing things just to increase a tribe's relationship will really pay off. I often completely ignore or forget about the tribes, only choosing the choices that will most benefit me and not cost me as much, and somehow I absorb the tribe nations from this. I wish they were more like city-states that were more persistent over the ages, and could potentially be sources of bandits and raiders if left unchecked or maybe if relationships soured enough. In the early game, you'll also get pop up events with requests from other nations. These are pointless and typically benefit the AI way more than the player. I picked 3 consecutive choices that were supposed to significantly improve relations with the same faction only for them to attack me a turn later. I'll be honest, I kinda liked the surprise war here, caught me off guard, but made me wonder what was the point of all those event choices. Now I typically pick the things that benefit me more and the AI less and diplomacy/relations seems the same. Same goes for open-borders, I never need open borders and approving it really just sets up your neutral or allied nations to settle a new city in the middle of empire in the last unclaimed region there. On that note... AI Settling. How the AI picks where to settle cities needs rework. In early ages it should be programmed primarily to seek land and territory expansion (as not all resources are known yet), in middle and later ages, when the AI decides if a tile is a suitable to settle, it needs to consider the 2-5 tile radius of the surrounding tile. Check for things like, Is the allied player's capital one tile away? Yes? Then don't settle there. Do we really need to settle where there's 5-6 regions of terrible natural resource availabilty? Should we settle this 2-region island with no fish or rare ocean resources with 7 tiles? Probably not. Nation Wipe. I like that you can toggle the faction wipe that occurs when an act transitions, but i do wish the wiped nations instead become volatile regions of instability with bandits, aggressive/defensive rogue sub nations, pirates, or something. For a nation with 4 rather large cities and tons of claimed land to suddenly disappear is a bit jarring. Religion. Religion is really only useful to gain a Holy War casus belli now and then, and gain a ton of free buffs. It doesn't do anything to change how you really develop your nation or engage with other religions/nations. I honestly forgot about the religion system until its time to 'add a new verse' which is just get a free perk essentially. Religion was way more important in Civ 6. Building / Triumphs. In place of Wonders, we have triumphs. They are very powerful but expensive as in they require an entire region to build. A region provides anywhere from 2 to 5 tiles to place buildings on depending on the region's size. You need city growth or cultural points to acquire new regions so to spend an entire region on a wonder is alot. This needs to be changed.

The latest patch (2.0 at the time of writing) made this game a definite recommendation for those looking to scratch that 4X itch. Ara uses the tried and tested formula of playing as one civilisation from start to finish, and patch 2.0 added more identity to each leader for even more replayability. What sets Ara apart from other 4X games is its supply chain system, that adds focus on resources and goods --- something you would expect in a grand strategy game rather than a 4X game. Try this one out, and see for yourself if it's something that will bring joy back to 4X gameplay for you.