In this video, I play Millennia, which is an upcoming 4X strategy game (release date 26th March), and talk a bit about how the gameplay compares to Civilization.
I totally agree that the UI is all over the place. On the other hand the fact that the distinction between civs is mostly dependent on your choices in game is a + in my book. I concede that it takes away from the personality of the civ but i think it’s something they could remedy by adding AI leaders that have differing tendencies even if there isn’t any bonuses tied to it. (Like warmongers/traders/industrialist/Gandhis)
There are some really cool ideas in this game. I think it's a reasonable compromise between something like Civ and some of the more management heavy Paradox stuff. But some polish would be nice. You are absolutely right. This game looks like it came out in 2004 not 2024.
I learned how to play CIV 5 and 6 from you marb and I highly respect your opinion and with me having less money it’s really helpful for me to see what to spend my money on . Thank you
Thanks for introducing me to this game. It looks really interesting, even if the UI is a little unpolished. I really like the idea of the different age options when you tech up. and the government customization looks neat. I think I'll give it a shot.
Just started the video but I think if they have the ai coded to go for certain national spirits if it's a certain nation or maybe depending on the nation that is picked the player (ai or human) gets certain discounts for certain spirits so if you pick a certain nation or have a ai as that nation the bonuses will make it more likely for them to go that route.
Even in the Research UI, they could do way better by just something like... different outlines around the unit picture for 'unlocking' the option to build it, the ability to 'spend' XP to generate some or 'spawning' one just by researching the tech, etc.
Speaking of combat animation, I remember Panzer General which is from '93 or '94, which had a nice quick animation of the units fighting and then taking damage (if they did). With sounds too (that I still have imprinted in my memory)! I guess in this game, you can see the modifiers. There's probably a combat log too. You can understand how the army composition work, I guess, like the order of the units in a turn, which can influence greatly the battle result. I'm not rooting out the idea that maybe later (both as in a later age, or later as in a new DLC mechanic) maybe you can also have some decisions in the battle window.... though that would mean things to do while the enemy turn is rolling... hmm, ok, probably not. Also, lol at the beginning 6:04 "so we'll just send them in opposite directions" - sends all 3 units to the north :))
For me, this game looks and feels like it should have come out 15 years ago. It looks old. The UI is really outdated imo and it reminds me of Age of Mythology most of the time. I guess you could look over this, when looking at a small indie team developing their first 4x game, but they shouldn't even be considered a Civilization contender with this product. Look at Humankind as a "real" Civ contender and you immediately recognise why this game here isn't playing in the same league as Civ.
Local reforms is always worth it btw, that power will carry you through the entire early game. It's a 50% bonus to all yields in your city for 5 turns, it's soooo strong. For example, usually that boost will give you more knowledge over time than a Eureka, in addition to all the other yields I think the best way to compare it to civ is by taking the civ 5 Golden Age, and supercharging it. Or a WLTK day. But shorter and much more powerful and only one city. But you'll have only one main city for a very long time.
They still don't allow you to pick the location of your initial city? I had some poor starting locations during the demo, where it took ages for the capital to build anything and had to make up for the production in clay pits. No forest in sight. If the starts look more like this video, maybe it wouldn't be so bad, but I doubt it's that consistently good.
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I loved Call To Power. Guess I need to pick this one up now.
Oh man, Call to Power was a real power fantasy Civ game. 100% Terraforming and those underwater and space cities really made it insane. Balanced? Probably not. Cool? YES!
Although I did leave a like, I can't say I'm enjoying watching this game... As you pointed out, it has an old game vibe to it that it's hard to shake off... And it doesn't even seem to improve on those old mechanics in any way. Maybe I'm spoiled after marathoning 9 hours of Age of Wonders. In any case, I'll keep watching it, since as you pointed out the fun part is about to begin.
I had the same feeling as far as readability and the way they present information in this game. Sometimes things like just knowing the values of things and other times things like having barbarians just marauding around in my territory and struggling to actually FIND them, etc.
While I personally never really got into Old World, it's probably the best game overall out of those 3. And as it stands right now, I'd put Humankind above Millennia, if I had to rank them. So Old World > Humankind > Millennia. Just my opinion though.
Good to hear your opinion about this game, and reveal some major issues. The combat system is very outdated. The graphics are not great, and it matters, because you spend a lot of time watching the world map. Civ 5, while not technically beautiful, managed to give an enjoyable vision of the world you play in. And you're right about the UI/UE. Once again, compared to Civ 5 (especially with the EUI mod), it's inferior: Civ displays a lot of information while not being too intrusive. In Millenia, the left and right windows are too big, and a lot of space is lost in each UI screen by displaying big buttons, big images, big font... As someone else said, it looks like a mobile game, which is not good. I expected this game to be the next big Civ-like game (before Civ 7), using its best ideas and adding some interesting concepts (and there definitely are some good ones), but, as it is, I'm quite disappointed in Millenia.
When I tried this game, I was taken aback at just how hard the AI is. Not sure how good or bad that is. Alexander and the Greeks had a 64 strength army group very early in the game and he got aggressive very fast on me.
This game has a lot of promising and interesting mechanics which seem to be really held back by the very things you called out as problematic. I will probably wait to see if some DLC improves those features.
OMG, Battle Isle 2 - I remember that game is was great in it's time. I also loved Incubation by the same studio. Edit: The Battle Isle series and Incubation are available on GOG.
The UI definitely needs some polish, especially in making the tooltips more informative. The combat screen is in a weird place. It does not look good and I skipped it most of the time. But the different unit types do have different behaviours that matter in the outcome of battles. So you do want to look at them sometimes. I think it would be best to have a setting that treats your offensive attacks the same as when you are attacked outside your turn: you can view them afterwards, but the screen does not automatically open. As for the starting Nations not having unique buildings and units: I actually really dislike that about Civ. I think choosing them during the game in response to your situation works much better. Compared to Civ, Millennia as a whole seems to challenge your strategy throughout the game much more, rather than letting you follow a strategy you planned from the start.
The combat reminds me of Call to Power. Interestingly, the same kind of automatic stacked combat is in Unicorn Overlord, which just came out, and looks a lot better.
I think this game could be fun(I only played the demo). My issue is I don't think it promises $40 of fun. Gonna wait for a sale, which may be some time.
I only played the next fest demo, but the thing that I disliked the most was how huge a bottleneck production was. Most of the time your start has essentially no production tiles. This leads to the national spirits that give you free units being overpowered (especially the viking raider one). The game manages to differentiate itself from Civ, but most of them are pretty subtle and a they aren't all well thought out. The release date is very close, so it doesn't seem like they will change much from what we've seen already.
So this version is somewhere between the beta and release version as I understand it. If that is so, this is abhorently unfinished. This looks more like a company Alpha than anything else.
I have tried it. It's weird it's going to be released this month, it was like playing a Tencent mobile game. Whoever designed this needs to redo the game..core mechanics are interesting, but to undeveloped.
I think Millenia is just like a simplified version of Civilization, not to mention and compare it to Humankind. I would rather play Humankind instead because it has more advanced systems in many aspects.
I quite liked the demo, but was disappointed when I heard the release date, as the game seems to still need a significant amount of work. There's potential here, but as it stands, I'm not sure I will buy it.
The combat system (or lack thereof) just "kills" this game for me. The combat plays out like a something you'd see in a game from the 90s (i.e., the Warlords series had this) Some people might be able to get past it, but in a world with strategy games that offer a ton more options in combat, "auto-battlers" have to provide something more than just some janky animations and few pre-battle options.
Agreed, it really is a deal breaker for me, especially when combined with all the UI jank, as well as many, MANY small annoyances (that I could write an essay about).
@@mimir4965 wellp people should distance themselfes from having favourite- and/or hate-publishers, because the games can drastically vary in quality. Even EA as the worst of all the publishers, has games in its inventory, that are considered great. We all see Blizzard as an example of a game studio that went from "dearly beloved" to "hated with a passion" within the last years. So, yeah, Paradox has really cool games, but also they step into a turd here and there, as every other publisher does.
Can you conqueror the other player's cities without crippling your economy? I don't play Civ because of that mechanic, which stops it being a wargame! Having unhappiness or unrest from the glorious conquest of our enemies is way too annoying to put up with! :D I would play a wargame version of Civ for sure....
I totally agree that the UI is all over the place. On the other hand the fact that the distinction between civs is mostly dependent on your choices in game is a + in my book.
I concede that it takes away from the personality of the civ but i think it’s something they could remedy by adding AI leaders that have differing tendencies even if there isn’t any bonuses tied to it. (Like warmongers/traders/industrialist/Gandhis)
"Civilization: call to power" also had this battle system I believe.
And the improvement system too I think.
Battle Isle 2 ❤ I played that one on my Amiga500, no CD there.
Good old 3,5 floppy disks and several of them...
Ah, those were innocent times😅
There are some really cool ideas in this game. I think it's a reasonable compromise between something like Civ and some of the more management heavy Paradox stuff. But some polish would be nice. You are absolutely right. This game looks like it came out in 2004 not 2024.
No need to apologize, your comments are on point.
Battle Isle was fantastic! Not to mention History Line 1914-1918.
I learned how to play CIV 5 and 6 from you marb and I highly respect your opinion and with me having less money it’s really helpful for me to see what to spend my money on . Thank you
Thanks for introducing me to this game. It looks really interesting, even if the UI is a little unpolished. I really like the idea of the different age options when you tech up. and the government customization looks neat. I think I'll give it a shot.
Just started the video but I think if they have the ai coded to go for certain national spirits if it's a certain nation or maybe depending on the nation that is picked the player (ai or human) gets certain discounts for certain spirits so if you pick a certain nation or have a ai as that nation the bonuses will make it more likely for them to go that route.
Even in the Research UI, they could do way better by just something like... different outlines around the unit picture for 'unlocking' the option to build it, the ability to 'spend' XP to generate some or 'spawning' one just by researching the tech, etc.
Speaking of combat animation, I remember Panzer General which is from '93 or '94, which had a nice quick animation of the units fighting and then taking damage (if they did). With sounds too (that I still have imprinted in my memory)!
I guess in this game, you can see the modifiers. There's probably a combat log too. You can understand how the army composition work, I guess, like the order of the units in a turn, which can influence greatly the battle result. I'm not rooting out the idea that maybe later (both as in a later age, or later as in a new DLC mechanic) maybe you can also have some decisions in the battle window.... though that would mean things to do while the enemy turn is rolling... hmm, ok, probably not.
Also, lol at the beginning 6:04 "so we'll just send them in opposite directions" - sends all 3 units to the north :))
That game really looks half-baked in a lot of ways.
Thanks for these impressions - and the Battle Isle memories.
I loved Battle Isle haha
If I end up playing some retro strategy games at some point, it'll definitely be on the list
For me, this game looks and feels like it should have come out 15 years ago. It looks old. The UI is really outdated imo and it reminds me of Age of Mythology most of the time. I guess you could look over this, when looking at a small indie team developing their first 4x game, but they shouldn't even be considered a Civilization contender with this product. Look at Humankind as a "real" Civ contender and you immediately recognise why this game here isn't playing in the same league as Civ.
Amazing that is the same combination I have on my luggage!
Indeed
I did play call to power but don’t remember much from it,😅which I didn’t replay also
Call to Power was my favorite of all the Civ games, and I've been playing since Civ1.
Local reforms is always worth it btw, that power will carry you through the entire early game. It's a 50% bonus to all yields in your city for 5 turns, it's soooo strong. For example, usually that boost will give you more knowledge over time than a Eureka, in addition to all the other yields
I think the best way to compare it to civ is by taking the civ 5 Golden Age, and supercharging it. Or a WLTK day. But shorter and much more powerful and only one city. But you'll have only one main city for a very long time.
They still don't allow you to pick the location of your initial city? I had some poor starting locations during the demo, where it took ages for the capital to build anything and had to make up for the production in clay pits. No forest in sight. If the starts look more like this video, maybe it wouldn't be so bad, but I doubt it's that consistently good.
I loved Call To Power. Guess I need to pick this one up now.
Oh man, Call to Power was a real power fantasy Civ game. 100% Terraforming and those underwater and space cities really made it insane. Balanced? Probably not. Cool? YES!
Although I did leave a like, I can't say I'm enjoying watching this game... As you pointed out, it has an old game vibe to it that it's hard to shake off... And it doesn't even seem to improve on those old mechanics in any way.
Maybe I'm spoiled after marathoning 9 hours of Age of Wonders. In any case, I'll keep watching it, since as you pointed out the fun part is about to begin.
Looks like an interesting game with some different ideas
Nice
your videos never fail to make me smile
I had the same feeling as far as readability and the way they present information in this game. Sometimes things like just knowing the values of things and other times things like having barbarians just marauding around in my territory and struggling to actually FIND them, etc.
I had thought the visuals were just like... unfinished. If this is the release version... Yikes.
Battle Isle...classic!
I loved Call To Power.
Nice and honest review 😌.
The RPG Maker equivalent of a Civ game.
Which would you say is better, Millennia, Old World or Humankind?
While I personally never really got into Old World, it's probably the best game overall out of those 3. And as it stands right now, I'd put Humankind above Millennia, if I had to rank them.
So Old World > Humankind > Millennia. Just my opinion though.
Good to hear your opinion about this game, and reveal some major issues. The combat system is very outdated. The graphics are not great, and it matters, because you spend a lot of time watching the world map. Civ 5, while not technically beautiful, managed to give an enjoyable vision of the world you play in.
And you're right about the UI/UE. Once again, compared to Civ 5 (especially with the EUI mod), it's inferior: Civ displays a lot of information while not being too intrusive. In Millenia, the left and right windows are too big, and a lot of space is lost in each UI screen by displaying big buttons, big images, big font... As someone else said, it looks like a mobile game, which is not good.
I expected this game to be the next big Civ-like game (before Civ 7), using its best ideas and adding some interesting concepts (and there definitely are some good ones), but, as it is, I'm quite disappointed in Millenia.
I did play Call to Power and the sequel.
When I tried this game, I was taken aback at just how hard the AI is. Not sure how good or bad that is. Alexander and the Greeks had a 64 strength army group very early in the game and he got aggressive very fast on me.
that's a nice change of pace
This game has a lot of promising and interesting mechanics which seem to be really held back by the very things you called out as problematic. I will probably wait to see if some DLC improves those features.
OMG, Battle Isle 2 - I remember that game is was great in it's time. I also loved Incubation by the same studio.
Edit: The Battle Isle series and Incubation are available on GOG.
The UI definitely needs some polish, especially in making the tooltips more informative.
The combat screen is in a weird place. It does not look good and I skipped it most of the time. But the different unit types do have different behaviours that matter in the outcome of battles. So you do want to look at them sometimes. I think it would be best to have a setting that treats your offensive attacks the same as when you are attacked outside your turn: you can view them afterwards, but the screen does not automatically open.
As for the starting Nations not having unique buildings and units: I actually really dislike that about Civ. I think choosing them during the game in response to your situation works much better.
Compared to Civ, Millennia as a whole seems to challenge your strategy throughout the game much more, rather than letting you follow a strategy you planned from the start.
The combat reminds me of Call to Power. Interestingly, the same kind of automatic stacked combat is in Unicorn Overlord, which just came out, and looks a lot better.
Wow, the combat screen looks absolutely terrible. And you are right, it looks like something from the early 90s.
I think this game could be fun(I only played the demo). My issue is I don't think it promises $40 of fun. Gonna wait for a sale, which may be some time.
It's Paradox. They will add 200 DLC to this game.
I only played the next fest demo, but the thing that I disliked the most was how huge a bottleneck production was. Most of the time your start has essentially no production tiles. This leads to the national spirits that give you free units being overpowered (especially the viking raider one).
The game manages to differentiate itself from Civ, but most of them are pretty subtle and a they aren't all well thought out. The release date is very close, so it doesn't seem like they will change much from what we've seen already.
So this version is somewhere between the beta and release version as I understand it. If that is so, this is abhorently unfinished. This looks more like a company Alpha than anything else.
UI look a bit blocky?...
Is this a Mobile game?
On another note, maybe the combat was meant to be something like age of empires but got scrapped later on. As it is right now could be an autoresolve.
No chance of that, they deliberately wanted to limit how much time you spend on controlling combat.
Y'all remember that game on the Sega Genesis called Warsong? Those battle sequences were way better than this game by far.
I have tried it. It's weird it's going to be released this month, it was like playing a Tencent mobile game. Whoever designed this needs to redo the game..core mechanics are interesting, but to undeveloped.
I think Millenia is just like a simplified version of Civilization, not to mention and compare it to Humankind. I would rather play Humankind instead because it has more advanced systems in many aspects.
I quite liked the demo, but was disappointed when I heard the release date, as the game seems to still need a significant amount of work. There's potential here, but as it stands, I'm not sure I will buy it.
The combat system (or lack thereof) just "kills" this game for me. The combat plays out like a something you'd see in a game from the 90s (i.e., the Warlords series had this) Some people might be able to get past it, but in a world with strategy games that offer a ton more options in combat, "auto-battlers" have to provide something more than just some janky animations and few pre-battle options.
Agreed, it really is a deal breaker for me, especially when combined with all the UI jank, as well as many, MANY small annoyances (that I could write an essay about).
visuals dont matter a wink, civ6 looks amazing but they had to cut the maps in half so the game could be played without killing pc's.
What is the point of 250 year turns initially? Just so they can boast about having 10 000 years of game-play? This means nothing.
Wow this game looks.... Rough
That´s being very dishonest to be fair.
Welp, time again to wait to at least a remaster for Alpha Centauri until we all die I guess.
i hear Paradox i lose all interest but thanks anyway you are a great guy.
fwiw paradox is just the publisher
@@gcm4312 iS juSt tHe puBlisHer. Heard about development hell and paradox dlc policy?
@@mimir4965 it was just an observation. Go touch grass.
@@mimir4965 wellp people should distance themselfes from having favourite- and/or hate-publishers, because the games can drastically vary in quality. Even EA as the worst of all the publishers, has games in its inventory, that are considered great. We all see Blizzard as an example of a game studio that went from "dearly beloved" to "hated with a passion" within the last years. So, yeah, Paradox has really cool games, but also they step into a turd here and there, as every other publisher does.
This looks like a mobile game.
And not a good one either.
Paradox game feels half-baked at launch and you just know that it will be showered with bare-bones DLCs? Huh..
It's baffling to me that Paradox could publish something as lackluster as this.
Civ v looks better than this... Is It better at procesing turns?
There are some significant performance issues on bigger maps, as well as in late game.
Age of War mechanics lmao
There is Old World, we don't need another dumbed down Pdx title.
Can you conqueror the other player's cities without crippling your economy?
I don't play Civ because of that mechanic, which stops it being a wargame!
Having unhappiness or unrest from the glorious conquest of our enemies is way too annoying to put up with! :D
I would play a wargame version of Civ for sure....
Yes, the combat is fing ugly. Sigh. Id rather play Civ 5 lol.
Same!
Paradox new games becoming more and more lackluster or worse
humankind have the best combat imo out of all 4x. milenia combat has a very bad combat what is the point of it tbh?
Meanwhile I quit playing Humankind specifically because I found the combat so tedious and frustrating, and slow.
@@michaelstepa8748 there are tastes my friend
Civ, after 30+ years is still the best 4x series
Kind of crazy how paradox keep publishing these horrible third party games. Kinda smearing thier name in the mud.