Dead Monarchy

This game deserves a more appealing thumbnail or title image! Playing it feels like Mount and Blade and Kenshi were both drinking a bit much at a party and 9 months later, SURPRISE! Kenshi's greatest strength is its ability to allow the player to play through bad situations and have them become part of the player's story in an emergent and organic way. Sadly, this game DOESN'T match Kenshi in THAT category. However, this game DID get me caring about my people, assigning "personalities" to them and thinking about "well, what would that character choose" instead of just min/maxing them for battle. You start of with 1 or a few dudes and get them gear and experience as you gradually grow your mercenary company to 18 people. You can build reputation with the fief or "Haven" area you're in and better people (more suitable backgrounds and level up bonuses) will become available. Despite that, after growing to 14...I couldn't just ditch my starters...not even the monk with stubby legs, frail bones, and a couple other bad traits that negatively impacted his RPG growth with zero good traits. As far as comparison to Kenshi, it's that "getting to know my crew and caring about them" feeling while playing in a game world where a mistake or bad luck can mean the end of someone. In games like this, I really like to keep everyone alive and that's an extra challenge since there is no reviving fallen fighters (and leveling a new one up takes time). The battles are turn based and VERY intuitive with several VERY nice features. I'd recommend this game just for how fun it is to complete a move/attack sequence and then still be able to move if I have movement remaining (or change facing, turn, which is always free if you have stamina). It's just REALLY refreshing. However, DON'T allow the game to auto move your pieces. It will drive into enemy zones of control instead of taking a sensible path to the destination square. The builds that you can make with various armor, weapons. and talents are....headache inducing in a good way...EXCEPT that there doesn't seem to be a "reset talents" potion and you have to plan ahead what you're going to choose for your complete talent loadout otherwise you just break that character (you earn attributes up to level 11 and talents up to level 21). Overall, combat feels good, EXCEPT there NEEDS to be a check on bad "rng". Yo, devs. If the PC gets ALL the good rolls and the player gets all the bad rolls, it's NOT RANDOM. Computer landed three 5% to hit in a row? It ought to get a cooldown. Player missed three 95% to hit in a row? Needs a cooldown on missing high chance shots. I've actually caught the software cheating (on the "normal" difficulty) in battle where it wasn't respecting the supposed cooldown on one of their talents (visible in battle by PRESSING the mouse wheel button). Shame shame, devs. Cheating code is sooo 1980s difficulty "adjustment". This is another way that most games just can't match Kenshi. Even when Kenshi is tough and unfair, it does it in an organic way that's immersive (even if it does stink, like a bone dog eating you in your first 5 minutes of play). The Mount and Blade reference is for how the overworld travel feels. Time passes as you move (but, oddly, guards and enemies keep moving while time is "stopped", so press escape to pause safely!). You drive around looking for fights that you're comfortable with for xp and loot (this is made easier by every big map page having the same basic type or "difficulty level" of enemies. You can travel around picking up trade goods for quests while avoiding fights you can't handle. SAVE AFTER EVERY GOOD RESULT. (win a fight? save. picked up loot? save, etc). Save BEFORE starting a fight with an enemy you don't know or fight quest you aren't sure of. The arena is TOUGH. Save before trying that. (You're going to load a lot of saves while learning but as long as you get in the habit of saving, it's actually not as bothersome as in a lot of games -oh, and you can quit out of a battle that goes very south, very early without having to trudge through it! It's a nice quality of life thing for a game that requires saving and loading.) I forgot about this game for years until recently scrolling through my library after trying "Low Magic Age". That game is based on DnD rules and...you pretty much have to already be a DnD nerd to feel comfortable with the complex systems in that game. I'm not and...it had a steep learning curve. THIS game was much more fun to jump into and play, if potentially much simpler and more brutal. I use "simple" here because the systems are simple but the combat can be very complex when you add in various talents, counter talents, weapon types, basic attacks, special attacks, and such. Fortunately, the dev has done a good job of allowing the player to run into more and more complexity as you level up and get more comfortable with the deceptive "simple" systems. Other than the PC fudging the "RNG" or occasionally blatantly cheating in some aspects, the combat and biggest part of the game actually feels really good. Managing food and payment for my troops isn't unreasonable (no cap on supplies you can carry or inventory limits for loot) and more gold is just a victory away. You also have the choice of how to grow your company. You can keep things more manageable by staying with fewer dudes or scale up at whatever pace you like. Oddly, if you have "everyone gets xp" instead of "only killing blow gets xp", EVERYONE gets the same xp for the fight. So, you don't share xp, everyone just gets full xp. This ended up leading me to expand my troupe more rapidly than was probably sensible which makes battles take longer as I went looking for tougher fights before I was comfortable with all of the ability/counter ability and just how long it takes 36 pieces to move each turn (fast combat is an option, though!). Staying smaller and just grinding on easier enemies while doing contracts for the local Haven mayor is probably a more sensible route as you get access to better troops before filling up your roster and having to let people go. I've enjoyed this game much more than Low Magic Age or Battle Brothers. The latter game, while beloved by many, just had the ai cheating way to often as a way of managing difficulty and I was too often getting ganked by encounters on the world map that I couldn't judge how tough they were or couldn't escape from. In fact, my only complaints about THIS game are quibbles -you can't let the ai auto move your units because it won't avoid zones of control. -pc sometimes fudges the "RNG" in a very frustrating way, it's a challenge when you can overcome it, frustrating when you have to reload -the map and battle map controls aren't fluid. scrolling the mouse off the side doesn't move the map and no option to do so. occasionally, the cameral will bug out and you cant see the battlefield well which forces a reload (but...we're saving after everything and before everything, right?) don't use "simple camera". if the camera bugs out, check and uncheck "simple camera", then reload a save. -there's no warning how TOUGH the arena is ....or that you've got to take a big bag of gold to northern towns to get competitive gear for the first southern arena. -no way to leave troops in the tavern or camp to adjust party without having to completely ditch people. ALTHOUGH, the official guide mentions such a feature, I haven't found it in game. -no way to reset talents once you realize you've made a critical mistake in building a character, requires finding a similar type of character, hiring, and leveling them with a plan in mind...or, start fresh? This game, while being simple on the surface is TOTALLY worth full price of $9 USD and is a relaxing, if sometimes challenging (remember to save!) experience. It also deserves a more engaging title image!