[h3]Performance is not great.[/h3]
Anno 1800 runs faster and looks better, however, this game can benefit from modern upscaling, so it can close that gap this way.
Timberborn gets me 4x more frames. I will admit that Whiskerwood looks better in this comparison, but even with low preset (that looks similar to max Timberborn) I'm getting only half the performance of Timberborn.
[h3]Too much micromanagement[/h3]
If I don't take care of farms, their crops will waste away during winter. Workers will not predict this, and just let it happen, even if they are from the farmers guild. So, I need to guess when to click on all of the fields and press "harvest early" thing, and also change the crop type to "fallow", or else they will waste time planting it again. Then I need to remember to change it back to whatever crop used to be there, if I can remember.
Fields can be really big, but then they will be inefficient, because workers won't harvest crops until everything has fully grown, and growth is not uniform. They would also waste time doing nothing, once they have planted, because if there is only one big field, then it can only be in harvest "mode", planting, or growing. For this reason, it is almost necessary to make many small fields instead. This makes micromanaging winter that much worse.
Heating needs to be micromanaged. Heat sources need to be manually turned on and off. Early heating even needs to be manually topped up with fuel! Later you can assign workers to refill them, but don't forget to micromanage that job too, or else you will have a couple of workers idling during warmer days, or your heat sources will run dry if you forget to re-assign fuel haulers.
Policies that give various buffs can and likely will consume all of the loyalty points, which are required for various things, so I end up having to micromanage that too. ARGH!
[h3]Landscaping is a mixed bag[/h3]
I enjoy changing terrain in video games, and in this one it can be enjoyable. Trouble starts with big projects, since at that point workers might spend 80% of their time just climbing to their job spot and only 20% on actual mining. They will mine one rock and immediately bring it back to their station, even tho they can carry more. So, you will either suck it up and have very slow workers (on big projects), or you will micromanage (again!) with your own custom scaffolding and paths.
Another problem, somewhat related, is the amount of rocks that I get from this, and a very limited storage for them. About 70% of the available space went to warehouses. I will admit that flattening the main island is maybe not necessary, but building on an island that is essentially just a mountain sticking out of water... well, it is not optimal. Settling on other islands is not really looking like a better alternative (many of them are such mountains too, and all of them are smaller).
[h3]It does have potential[/h3]
But I'm not gonna recommend a game, just because it might be OK in the future. I don't have a crystal ball to figure that out.
One thing that I can say is that, so far at least, updates have been frequent and reasonably "meaty", so there is a [b]chance[/b] that issues I mentioned will be addressed at some point.
