I finally managed to play Ara... how can it be everthing so wrong?

[Lazy sweeper]

Ara put limits and bottlenecks everywhere.
You can't build more than two cities
You can't build more than two melee units
You have to deploy a unit every time you have built it...
Only the scout can take stashes around the map
If a stash is in your territory you need a scout anyway AND the tile you can't use it...
You need a bunch of material for virtually everything.
Wonders require full zones, that are composed of multiple tiles, if only one tile is used, no wonder.
Enemy tribes are more than your troops, but you cant build more troops and send reinforcement, because of the troops limits...
Roads between cities must be on tiles you own...

I quit the game, its too much for me...
I thought Humankind was bad, but this is on a whole new level...

 

[Bosque]

You can build 3 cities from the start (assuming you have acquired enough food to produce a settler). You can build more cities if you have a Palace, the wonder Nemrut Dag, or a more advanced government such as monarchy or republic.
You can build as many melee units as you have resources to produce them.
You do not have to deploy a unit when it is built. I generally wait for 3 units so I can deploy a higher strength battalion instead of just a squad.
Roads can be between your own cities or another civilization's cities, and they do not have to be on tiles you own.

I admit there is a bit of a learning curve. But start on on the easiest level and you will figure it out.

 

[Kyriakos]

Imo those issues are just covering up what later becomes a far worse issue: this game is extremely easy once you understand how to build a military and have a good economy.
Most people (going from youtube videos) don't even build 3 cities btw - they win with 2. You can conquer others if you wish.

 

[Bosque]

You are right. It is extremely easy on the lower difficulty levels. If you don't find horses in range of your capital, build one settler to obtain the horses. Have a workshop produce wheels, and then churn out several battalions of war chariots and never look back.

The highest difficulty is another matter. The AI gets city walls before you can get catapults, and you find yourself hopelessly behind in prestige. Not easy at all.

 

[Kyriakos]

Iirc I played at the hardest difficulty level. Still lorded over the rest; walls did eventually get built, but I wasn't behind.
In total I played for around 10 hours so the learning curve is actually not bad.

 

[Bosque]

Did you get to the second act in only 10 hours playing? When I played the highest difficulty, I started out way behind in prestige and could never catch up.

Even if your economy and military are doing well, you get culled as having low prestige when you enter the second act.

 

[Kyriakos]

I was high on prestige but stopped playing at the high medieval age...
Maybe (if this has multiple higher difficulty levels) it was one difficulty level below hardest, I don't remember - been some time.
The game isn't bad, but it felt rather soulless. Perhaps future versions can change that

 

[Lazy sweeper]

What kind of meaning is limit units? I had two cities, roads between, horses, camels, two battalion, won a battle over some people, and then it kept outpouring rebels, no ways
to annex it. Then another indipendent village poured out berserker and annihilated my spearman-archer combo, whilst my other units blocked in the capital were
waiting for the possibility to be deployed, whilst being butchered... holy holy this is was on easy level... what was going on in their minds???

 

[Lazy sweeper]

You can build 3 cities from the start (assuming you have acquired enough food to produce a settler). You can build more cities if you have a Palace, the wonder Nemrut Dag, or a more advanced government such as monarchy or republic.
You can build as many melee units as you have resources to produce them.
You do not have to deploy a unit when it is built. I generally wait for 3 units so I can deploy a higher strength battalion instead of just a squad.
Roads can be between your own cities or another civilization's cities, and they do not have to be on tiles you own.

I admit there is a bit of a learning curve. But start on on the easiest level and you will figure it out.

Units were already produced, the deploy button was greyed out. I had two cities and two battalions of a spearman and an archer each, and two scouts, that's it... my swordsmans in the capital and horseman couldn't get out... also plenty of food but I could not produce the second settler for a third city.

 

[Bosque]

It's true that you can't deploy units if there are enemies in the city. You have to deploy them in another city and move them.
It takes 125 food to produce a settler. I am not sure, but I believe the city must also produce more food than it uses to build a settler. Sometimes it is easier to take a city from another civilization with your early units than it is to build a settler.

 

[Civinator]

It is becoming very quiet about Ara - no good sign.

 

[PMF]

It is becoming very quiet about Ara - no good sign.

Oh I've been actively in the official discord since the devs are there and it's convenient, I'm still enjoying it quite a lot myself fwiw. There's a balance mod that's helped a few pain points while they work on the 1.3 release, and I've been enjoying that

I was thinking on and off about what I might contribute to the subforum lately since yeah it can look bad if there's no chatter, but while it has polishing to do, I do genuinely have fun and I believe in the devs' desire to make it shine.

 

[KayAU]

Oh I've been actively in the official discord since the devs are there and it's convenient, I'm still enjoying it quite a lot myself fwiw. There's a balance mod that's helped a few pain points while they work on the 1.3 release, and I've been enjoying that

I was thinking on and off about what I might contribute to the subforum lately since yeah it can look bad if there's no chatter, but while it has polishing to do, I do genuinely have fun and I believe in the devs' desire to make it shine.

There are many areas which can be improved, but I think the game is already good, and judging by the patches, it is headed in a positive direction. I am not currently playing, but that is due to taking a break from strategy games overall. I usually alternate between strategy and role playing, and recently started playing BG3 (which it turns out, is very, very good).

Ara is quite different, and there seems to be a threshold for players to get into it and understand the gameplay mechanisms. I feel like this thread illustrates this to some extent.

 

[KayAU]

There's a balance mod that's helped a few pain points while they work on the 1.3 release, and I've been enjoying that

Has there been any mention of what the 1.3 release might include? I am in Act 3 of BG3 right now, so I expect to be getting back to Ara in a few weeks.

 

[PMF]

Has there been any mention of what the 1.3 release might include? I am in Act 3 of BG3 right now, so I expect to be getting back to Ara in a few weeks.

Oho, nice!! I've been meaning to play more of that. But yes! 1.3 is broadly focused on diplomacy! (as usual based on player feedback/requests, although they haven't released many specifics sadly)

Warfare is almost certainly the next feature to be expanded on after diplomacy, that's a big one too (I think they have been doing work relating to this in the background for a while)

I think that they want to avoid getting drowned out by the genre news in the next couple of weeks so you have some time. They did release 1.2.1 just a day ago in the meantime, smaller update but has a few nice fixes/changes/additions (like rivers providing wealth to adjacent regions, improved plows)

 

[KayAU]

Oh, that sounds good. The quality of their patches have been pretty great, and I'm very curious to see what they are going to do with diplomacy. It is rather barebones at the moment, but diplomacy is something which can add a lot to both immersion and gameplay. A full "world congress" kind of system might be a bit much to hope for in a content patch, but I have a feeling we're going to get something pretty substantial.

 

[Lazy sweeper]

It is becoming very quiet about Ara - no good sign.

It's way too expensive for what it offer.
At least they should try offer some free copies for a weekend, so more people could jump in...
but there is MS behind Ara...
Humankind was free one month ago and now it's 9 eur, 29 full with all DLC ( not that that matter to me, the base game still gets all important updates, and the completely broken worldbuilder)

 

[KayAU]

It's way too expensive for what it offer.
At least they should try offer some free copies for a weekend, so more people could jump in...
but there is MS behind Ara...
Humankind was free one month ago and now it's 9 eur, 29 full with all DLC ( not that that matter to me, the base game still gets all important updates, and the completely broken worldbuilder)

Humankind was released in August 2021. Ara was released about 6 months ago, in September 2024, so I don't think the comparison is fair. Ara is only about halfway through its first year of free content updates.

As for whether it's worth the money, you're welcome to your opinion, but I bought it at full price, and am very happy about it. It's an ambitious, large scale 4X, and a new IP which does things quite differently. I am not trying to invalidate your opinion, and I have no problems understanding that Ara may not appeal to everybody, but I think the fact that it is quite different, while having the same basic scope, played a part in why some bounce off it. If you go into it expecting it to play exactly like Civ, your expectations will not be met. That's not to say there are not legitimate criticisms to be made, but some of the criticisms I see are simply factually incorrect, or based on a very limited understanding of the game's systems.

If you are to compare pricing, it makes more sense to me to compare it to Civ 7. Ara is 72% of the price of Civ 7 in my region. During the last sale, it was 36% of the price. It is receiving substantial free content updates, and will continue to do so for at least another half year. With Civ 7, they started selling exorbitantly priced DLC on day 1. "Crossroads of the World" was sold on release, sits at 12% positive reviews, and in my region costs 369 NOK, significantly more than what Ara cost during the sale. You may argue that Civ 7 is a higher budget game, and in theory at least, higher production value. But even so, I don't think Ara is the overpriced one.

Again, it's fair if you don't personally like it. But a full scale new 4X released at 600 NOK with 1 year of free content updates instead of paid DLC seems good to me.

 

[KayAU]

It is becoming very quiet about Ara - no good sign.

I honestly think MS/Oxide are doing a very poor job of promoting the game, but since this was posted, Ara has received 2 patches, and early next week we should finally be expecting a roadmap.

I don't know exactly what they are working on, but I know greater differentiation between nations and UI has come up a few times, and I know there is a new terrain shader in development, which should improve performance while making the game even prettier.