I loved many of Bullfrog’s games (Theme Hospital, Theme Park World, Syndicate/Syndicate Wars) and games like Dungeon Keeper, Populous, Magic Carpet are widely respected (I didn’t get to play them back in the day).

The problem is that Peter Molyneux has arguably become a scammer.

Before even launching his previous “game”, Legacy, he got £40 M selling virtual land where making real money was the key driver (the theory was you would rent to players who didn’t join the pre-sale) .

It was a complete failure and the core gameplay was shit. Like playing an underbaked, extremely grindy mobile strategy game, but on PC. I played about an hour of it out of curiosity.

Molyneux claims money from Legacy is being used for Masters of Albion. That may not be as good of a thing as one would imagine (what he said can interpreted in different ways); as Masters of Albion looks and feels a lot like Legacy.

The trailer from last year does not inspire confidence.

Not to mention Molyneux’s output over the past 15 years has been extremely underwhelming. His last game, Legacy, was crypto/NFT scam and I get the feeling Masters of Albion is largely based on Legacy as the product management and city management style look similar. I played Legacy for an hour (just for fun) and it was a terrible experience.

I think it’s done well, with style and flair.

Noticed that as well (even though I didn’t include it in the heading). :)

Fair point, I honestly didn’t notice the idle tag.

The graphics and concept looked appealing and the highlight text or “About this game” text didn’t mention anything about this being an incremental game.

Cheers!

That’s not fully true, a decent amount of Steam games have zero DRM. It’s not as convenient as the GOG installers, but you can make an archive of the installed game and run it again without Steam.

I say this as a long time user of GOG who tries to get games from them over Steam (when possible).

I would argue Mars isn’t that distant and it is highly likely Mars would continue to depend on Earth for specialized products (e.g. an EUV machine for semi-conductor fabrication).

Yeah, that sounds about right. Although it does a bit funny. :)

I largely use the same approach with 4X and strategy games in general.

I actually dislike strategy games where combat is the only option or the only truly fleshed out option (some RTS games notwithstanding).

There is no mention of asynchronous online gameplay on their page. Just single player or “classical” coop.

I clearly am a gamer, but I hate that term. I wish there was a more neutral, almost formal term.

I am not American, I have a completely different perspective on this topic than most North Americans (lived there for a decade, as well as Europe and Asia for many years).

I was using the term in a very broad sense. Think of it as more of an “off the cuff” remark.

I generally use Steam forums/news for relatively niche indie/AA games in the economic strategy/city-builder genres. Rarely do you encounter overly heated discussion with some exceptions around Denuvo use or a particularly intense debate about gameplay approaches.

But I have seen some sections of Steam that honestly look surreal due to the level of toxicity and the overall bad faith tone.

Valve should honestly police this stuff, they have more than enough resources to do so, but they won’t since it goes against the “scalability and automation” mantra of modern technology companies.

P.S. I don’t consider free speech issues to be relevant in this case. One can always start their own site/forum and spam it with whatever they like. If product owners finds this valuable, they can join the shitbox.

Is is just me, or is the announcer actually the same person who did the announcer voice for the original Majesty? The voice sounds very similar.

Not to mention you can get all sorts of crazy map generation and custom maps mods for the earlier games in the series.

My favourite is the Dune map generator for the Civ 4 Dune total conversation mod. You can actually win by converting a large part of the map into a lush paradise.

For some reason, I find the art in this game very striking. The concept sounds interesting too.

I am surprised UI was one of the main weaknesses for the new Endless Legend. Endless Space had a very good UI interface.

The mix of RTS, 4X, god game and even “detective work inspired by lore” sounds very appealing.

The Roottrees Are Dead are on my wishlist, promising to hear folks give good feedback in the wild.

For what it’s worth, sales upon early access release (or even 1.0 release) is somewhat common in the indie scene.

I believe the goal is to try and convert as many wishlists into sales.