Millennia - Steam Next Fest Demo | Live Now!

[PDX Katten]

Moderator Action: Attention, the demo is NOT anymore available. The_J

Hello there! Community Manager Katten here, today we give access to the Steam Next Fest Demo! So this Diary is to get you caught up to speed to the question; What is Millennia?

Millennia is a revolutionary turn-based 4X game developed by C Prompt Games, a team of experienced strategy developers known for their work on the Age of Empires franchise. This game introduces innovative elements such as alternate history, custom tech trees, and a focus on both economy and combat.

Millennia stands out by redefining the 4X genre with dynamic historical progression, where your decisions shape the unfolding of different historical ages. Each age brings its own distinct gameplay challenges and opportunities, taking players on a journey from ancient civilizations to futuristic societies. With every choice holding significance, Millennia offers unparalleled replayability and strategic depth with its unique core pillars, so let's dive in!

A key innovation in Millennia is the Age-based design.

There are ten Ages in a “normal” game, ranging from the Age of Stone to the near-future. Each Age provides the experience of the Age – the Age of Iron has Iron Age technologies, Iron Age units, Iron Age buildings, and rules specific to the conditions of the Iron Age.

If you keep things within “normal” parameters, you might progress through 10 “standard” Ages, each delivering historical gameplay.

However, Millennia allows history to go off the rails. If you make some different decisions, you might steer your timeline into alternate Ages. These Ages are still historically themed, but explore some “what-if” territory. The Age of Aether is based on a history where the internal combustion engine doesn’t come about as soon as it did and steam-power develops further. The Age of Blood is based on a war raging out of control and spreading across the world.

Ultimately, most of the things you have to use in a game come from the Ages, so you can end up with very, very different scenarios depending on the specific history and alternate history your timeline moves through.

Think of National Spirits as “things a nation can be famous for.” Are your people known as great engineers? Is your nation seen as the center of global banking? Does the world fear your unbeatable warriors?

Mechanically, each National Spirit is a technology tree. You get to pick National Spirits from a set at different points in a game. Doing so makes the technologies of the National Spirit available to you.

Through National Spirits, you get to customize your Nation, to decide what you will be famous for, during the course of the game.

Economy and combat are key to Millennia.

As you lead your nation, you’ll need to design the right economy for your strategy. Not all resources in Millennia are the same. Cutting down trees for Logs can provide Production, much like mining Copper. However, with the right Improvements, you can create a chain where your Logs are made into Paper which is then made into Books, getting you Knowledge (or Religion or Government or Wealth) instead of Production.

Some resources are (like the Logs) broad and capable of steering into a variety of different Goods while others are more focused and less flexible. How you decide to structure your economy has an impact on your capabilities and your ability to respond to changing conditions.

One of the places this is felt is with combat. The best military for you to field changes based on your economic design (and the Age you have moved into and the National Spirits you have selected). You might be better off with more Production to train troops, or more Warfare Domain to support them, or more Wealth to pay the upkeep on expensive elite troops.

Beyond the economy, combat offers its own interesting decisions. Different types of Units have different capabilities. You design your Armies by assigning multiple Units to fight together, allowing you to create different Army types for different needs.

VIDEOS & DEV DIARIES
Here are also our series of feature breakdown videos that explain in more detail each system!

- Core Pillars
- National Spirits
- Economy
- Alternate History
- Combat

Here is also our list of Developer Diaries so far released, so if you want to get into the nitty gritty detail, let loose!

- Millennia | Developer Diaries List

DEMO
Now onto what you have been waiting for, the Demo. In the Demo, you have access to playing all the way up and during the 3rd age, within a 60 turn limiter. The Demo is Singleplayer only, but Multiplayer will be available at release.

The Demo is only available in English, with additional languages at release.

During the Demo, you might encounter bugs or find areas to give feedback upon. If that is the case, we would highly appreciate it if you would tell us about it on the Forum!



GIVEAWAYS
Now before I let you go, we have a Giveaway starting RIGHT NOW! Join our Discord below and follow the steps in the Giveaways chat for your chance to win a fancy Paradox Mug!



SOCIALS
Remember, if you want to keep up to date with all things Millennia, follow us on our Socials!



Wishlist Now on Steam!

 

[KayAU]

I have already played through the demo twice, and now I am going to do it a third time. There's a lot to like here, and for me, the resource system is maybe the best part. The 4X games I tend to enjoy most, are the ones in which I keep setting new goals for myself. Scout this area, exploit that resource, unlock this bonus. The early game in Civ tends to have a lot of this, whereas the later parts tend to have loads of busywork for relatively small rewards. Millennia seems to do a good job of changing things up between eras so you are always setting new goals. It remains to be seen how well it mitigates late game busywork.

The thing I am not a big fan of, and this might sound a bit shallow, are the terrain textures. It isn't ugly, and it is very readable, but to me the map just looks a tad too bright and bland. I think it would look better with something a bit more detailed and crisper, perhaps more in the direction of this Civ 5 texture mod:

Terrain Texture Enhancement 2k

Current version: V12 Overview Replaces most terrain textures of Europe, Asia, Africa and America with new textures that were increased in size, but will fit into the general look and feel. Standard texture resolution is 1024², I increased the resolution to 2048² and created new...

forums.civfanatics.com

Anyway, I'm off to play some more. I'm excited about this one.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Likewise, have played through the Demo twice today.

I'm not going to comment on the graphics, because I'm not sure I could stop before midnight. Suffice to say the map is useable, the Unit Graphics in the battle Scenes are execrable, and everything else falls in between.

My first game, I advanced to the next Ages well behind half the AI players. My second game, I advanced first to every new Age. In other words the game is not particularly difficult to learn to play adequately.

On the other hand, the game doesn't make it easy for you.
In Civ VI, I have to keep track of Science, Production, Religion, Culture. All of them are in one collection in the top lefthand corner of the main screen, along with access to Great People, Governors, and other useful stuff.
In Millennia, I have to keep track of Research, Culture, Improvement Points, Production Points, Influence, Government and Domain XP. And they are scattered all over the Interface: some visible on the main screen, some only from pop-up menus, and not grouped: it took me about a half dozen turns in the first game to realize that Improvement Points, which is how you build anything outside the City limits, were in the bottom lefthand corner of the main screen - all alone, well away from any other information.

In short, the User Interface needs a lot of work: more things to keep track of, and less organization of the information to help.

That said, once you get used to their iconery, the Resource Game is much more detailed than Civ - possibly too much so, because there are a lot of things to build, many of them fall into 'production chains' with other resource buildings, and all in all it is quite an intricate 'mini-game' all by itself.

I confirmed what Streamers already discovered: The Raider Domain selection is way, way OP: everything you do grants you 1 - 2 free Raider units: without trying, I had 16 armies roaming the map hoovering up everything in sight.

The biggest annoyance in the game (besides the UI) is an old, old 'friend' from Civ VI: Barbarians. They aren't too bad at first, but in the Bronze Age they start spawning entire armies and individual warbands roaming the map, and by half-way through that (the 2nd Age in the game) scouting becomes essentially impossible: your 'Scout Cavalry' spend all theiir time running for their lives or get whacked by 2 - 3 turns in a row of fighting off Barbarian units. In two games, although I fought enough battles to get Leaders and Veterancy points for a number of units, I never actually fought another AI faction - all the combat was against Barbarians and Barbarian Camps and Minor States (City State equivalents)

Since I'm not too certain how well all the resource minigame is going to work in the long run (I suspect that by 6 - 8 Ages' worth of playing it could get overwhelming and downright Tedious) the most impressive Positive for me was the organization of your 'civilization' on the map. The combination of newly-settled cities starting out as Vassels that had to be 'wooed' into full membership in your Civ, plus minor powers that you can Vasselize, plus Outposts you can use to 'grab' resources outside your borders, makes Settlement and Expansion much more interesting and dynamic than Civ's good ol' Build A Settler, Start a City routine.

Compared to Civ VI, or even Humankind and what I've seen of ARA (not really that much) this game downplays the individual Civs/Factions almost totally. There are no leaders, in fact no named individuals at all. The only indication that you are playing Spain, Sweden or Slobbovia is the faction name and the city names and a single variation of starting bonus (one out of over six 'standard' bonuses, so not a major distinction). I realize that one of the game's Talking Points is to Build Your Own Culture/Civilization without much in the way of restraints, but, frankly, it quickly makes for a dull game. There is very little variation on your opening moves according to who/what you are playing, merely in accordance with the map position. And this may be due to this being a Demo version of the game, but there was very little terrain variation on the map at all: I tried a half dozen starting positions with different given Factions, and all appeared similar to me: northwestern European biome, temperature forest. No 'extreme' terrain, no volcanoes, no Natural Wonders, no large navigable rivers. No sign of any variation that would even be appropriate to their provided countries, which include China, Brazil, Sweden, and the Zulu. If anyone out there thinks those cultures all started on the same terrain and biome, good luck on your next geography exam . . .

In summary, some interesting ideas, some good ideas, some very questionable presentation. In many ways, in fact, the game feels like a Throwback - a game that woulda been a contender if this were 2004 instead of 2024.

Even as a short-term Demo it is playable,, which is a Good Thing, but Replay value appears to be limited by bland maps, factions, and questionable Domain choices (an OP choice makes it hard to try any others for long)

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Quick correction: You can 'customize' your starting stats for any faction, selecting among about 21 different 'bonuses' for 6 you can use. That makes the playable factions much more flexible than I first thought - the AI opponents all had the same 6 bonuses except for one, which is what threw me off.
BUT
They are still graphically indistinguishable on the map, and you have to make the decisions on your bonuses before you see your starting position, which means you may select a starting bonus only vaguely related to what you might be able to use - for instance, getting extra Improvement Points when there are no resources in your starting position to be improved!

 

[Nico_D]

Tried the demo last night, didn't get far. Actually the first battle animation against some barbarians is where I went to bed instead. Maybe I'm shallow or maybe I was tired but that didn't look good or even make much sense: why have such an animation in the first place if it's not interactive in any way?

Everything else I saw felt so Civ-like that I couldn't get invested to find out if there's actually any new ideas there. And the modern game design of having different kinds of currencies with which you can buy something: culture points, improvement points and whatever the third was, feels so bordgame-y.

It may turn out to better when it launches but probably not my thing.

 

[KayAU]

@Boris Gudenuf
I can't comment specifically about the Raider domain, as I haven't tried it, but hopefully balance will be improved. I am not too worried about the resource game becoming tedious, although I haven't seen enough of it to know for sure. My guess is that once you have played it a few times, you will have internalized the rules, and it will not require too much effort.

I agree the UI needs some work still, I also took a while to find the improvement point pool.

I like the mechanism of using improvement points quite a lot though, I think I prefer it to both Civ 6's builders and Civ 5's workers. For those who have not yet tried, your cities generate points, which work kind of like builder charges which can be spent to improve tiles in your territory. Improvements are generally unlocked by tech as usual, and have different costs (which may be modified by things government policies). Improvements are the usual ones like farms, quarries and plantations, as well as resource processing buildings and buildings which give housing. Once you have enough points, building an improvement is instantaneous.

The resource system and general city development is probably the biggest reason I like this game so much. Again, for those who have not tried it yet, you will find various resources on the map, which can be extracted by building the appropriate improvement, as well as having a pop work the tile. Each resource gives a certain yield, such as food, wealth or production. However, resources may also be processed into higher yield resources. Your quarry generates stone, which has a production yield, but if you build a stonecutter tile improvement, and have a pop work in it, one unit of stone can be converted into "stone blocks" (I don't recall exactly what it was called), which has a much higher yield. My understanding is that you will get more complex chains later on. The whole thing reminds me a bit of The Settlers, or the classic Impressions city builders, except the resources are ultimately converted into civ-style city yields. I like it a lot. In addition to tile improvements, you are also producing buildings, units and projects in the cities the normal Civ way. It's a bit of a mix between the unstacked cities of Civ 6, and the stacked ones in previous civ games.

Further, with the appropriate buildings, resources can be exported and imported between cities. So for example, if you build a new city, you can send lumber from an established city to help it produce things more quickly.

With regards to barbarians, I don't mind them being a major factor, but I understand people have different preferences. Perhaps this will be configurable? I don't share the experience that scouting becomes impossible. Scouts are poor attackers but decent defenders, and if you put 3 (or later 4) of them together, I find that they can easily withstand most of what they encounter, especially if you try to avoid leaving them out in open terrain when close to large groups of barbarians. They also have the ability to heal immediately by using exploration XP. In my first run, I promoted one to a Leader, but this was due to a lack of understanding of the mechanics. The Leader unit is less mobile and can't instantly heal, and will slow the group down, making it harder to run away or find defensible terrain. I have found it better to go with just scouts for my scouting parties.

I agree about the factions, there is nothing to really distinguish them. This is the one thing I think Civ 6 does really well, and while I understand that Millennia is going in a different direction, some uniqueness to each faction would be very welcome.

Finally, the one thing I see people keep bringing up: the combat animations. This is an odd one. It reminds me a bit of what you might see in a classic JRPG...which is charming to me, although it is not visually impressive by today's standards. I also don't see much point in it, as it is not interactive at all. I suppose it lets you see in a more detailed way how combat results are calculated, but I don't imagine anyone actually watching these past the first couple of games.

 

[Solver]

I also played some, so the following is based on two playthroughs through the three ages, and a bit of random clicking as well. This is of course my personal opinion and not in my professional capacity. My overall impression is that the game is weak, with multiple baffling choices and not much innovation. A few ideas are good but the design doesn't seem to add up to anything coherent, and there are massive presentation issues. I see strong evidence that the game is actually going to target the mobile market mostly, where I can imagine it doing well.

The most enjoyable part of Millennia so far is the resource / improvement system, that also being one area where it's more engaging than Civ6. Improvements are constructed via a CtP-style Public Works-like system, which I've liked ever since CtP, and there are production chains. Production of goods may not be anything new, it seems to be pretty much the same as in Colonization among others, though it seems later ages can add more steps, which is promising. Building small towns to grab some promising terrain where you then set up an industrial operation is satisfying. I am not convinced if any of the goods you produce are going to matter in the end - I haven't seen indication of such strategic depth - but that's at least a fun minigame.

Everything else... well, it's less fun.

Ages progress so quickly there's no real possibility of building up an age's stuff. I'm in Bronze, Age 2, I unlock a tech to construct a new building, by the time I build it the age is almost over because all it takes is a handful of techs to advance. This is admittedly a difficult problem, having a game that spans all of human history means you either make it very long, or the individual eras are short. Fine. So these Ages are supposed to be the big innovative feature of Millennia. It may seem so to inexperienced 4X players but I don't see that much innovation. The Civ6 Age/Dedication system is similar, except Millennia applies the effects to all players but the main difference is, as usual, that Civ makes better interacting systems. At one point I was killing off AIs and informed that I'd be in the Age of Blood next. It's probably supposed to be punishing, it's not really, but the bigger issues is - confirmed upon reloading - that I can avoid the Age of Blood (and presumably any other crisis age) by making sure I am not the first to advance. I can slow down my Knowledge rate, let someone else advance and boom, crisis averted. [Checking some of the later ages, they seem interesting on paper but also probably short or with other problems. Age of Ignorance has slowed research but can be exited with 2 techs. Age of Heresy can spawn cultists globally, which may well be an advantage because I was able to greatly benefit from a similar global spawn of Barbarians after waging too much war. Then again Cultists can lead to the Age of Old Ones, which appears harder.]

The various domains are a mixed bag. I like the idea, and Domains/National Spirits provide a nice way for your empire to evolve into something as the game progresses. That's pretty decent stuff! It readily appears superior to Humankind's poor attempt at national evolution, but really domains aren't that different from for instance Civ5's civic trees. I have reason to believe it gets better later in the game, as in the demo you can neglect a domain entirely but later parts of the game can give you penalties for doing so. The big problem I have with the domain powers is that they undermine the nation-building part of a 4X. During my conquest run, the vast majority of my army was from Warfare Domain powers and events I got for conquering minor nations. I produced a couple units but may as well have skipped that. During my builder run, I mostly benefited from Culture powers, with Arts and Exploration domains. The cities were mostly to boost my production of XP in the relevant domain. I get it, the powers are fun to use, but it also breaks any sense of historical immersion or nation-building when most of the good stuff is spawned for XP.

Actual city management, apart from the on-map improvements, is uninteresting and dated. You need food to get more population, which you assign to various tiles and you can micromanage it every turn to get what you need. We've had this exact system since Civ1. For construction, the city has one queue where everything is built with one yield, and you can rush that with money. Other than the nice detail of putting rushbuys behind a tech, this is the same as every Civ game. Or, given the way improvements are built on-map, there's no difference at all versus Call to Power. I understand the need for PDX-written blogs to appear innovative (and PDX isn't a 4X company anyway) but the designers should be well aware that this is an exact repeat of what we had 25 years ago.

Combat is yet another aspect that would be passable if this was 2004. I've long wanted to see a return of combined armies, but this isn't the way to do it. You have no tactical control due to the random elements, so for the most part it comes down to making small mixed stacks and sending them out. The overpowered near-infinite Raiders are boring, but going Spartans instead, put a couple of those in front of an archer and enjoy having a strong army. Most of the demo is spent fighting Barbarians anyway, which spawn in very significant numbers. They're not challenging but they're numerous - this is the kind of thing that can be tweaked easily, but doesn't give a good impression. Conquering a neighboring nation was easier than dealing with Barbarians - I needed most of my units to fight barbs so a couple stacks could be freed to conquer Persia nearby, which was less defended. On the combat side, I'm not seeing any actual mechanic design. Is the combat tactical? Definitely not, which is fine, a valid design approach. But what choices are there to make for me as the player? Pretty much none aside from overall unit composition.

Here I have to mention the combat screen. It's so, so unbelievably bad, I laughed the first time I saw combat animations in a gameplay video and it's even worse on my own screen. Low-detail 3D models against a backdrop of terrain from the early 3D era, and these units are performing slapstick run-hit-run-away animations that remind me of games circa 1990, except not in a good retro way. And this screen exists for no reason as you get no control. The game could be improved significantly by removing it altogether, but I expect the animation is necessary for the mobile release. The problem is that it very much looks like that, a mobile game from ten years ago. Like many veteran strategy players, I don't care much about graphics one way or another, but this is one of the graphically worst things I've seen in any game. If I'd seen the animation without context, I would have thought someone who just learned Blender made a parody. Seeing your unit run up to a wall, hit it, run back, then the barbarians open the gate, run out, hit your unit and run back in, that is comically bad.

Back to the game. Millennia has to resort to the same old heavy handed approach to punish the player for undesirable actions. Raze a minor city? Let's give you a big Chaos increase. Waging war? Let's give your regions War Unrest. It's absolutely a necessary part of design to create penalties for some kinds of choices. But we have, in the three decades since Civ, seen improvement and subtler ways to treat these penalties instead of having an increasing Evil Meter that fills up as you do Bad Thing, and you have to stop doing Bad Thing so the Evil Meter drains and disappears. I would not say this is bad necessarily, no, it's functional. But like so many other thing about Millennia, it is a repeat of old mechanics and makes me feel I've already played this game many times.

The UI is very lacking and displays a mobile-first approach. A prime example is the improvement button - a very important one - tucked away in the lower left corner by itself. That's clearly a bad UI practice, but why is it the case here? Well, you're probably supposed to build improvements by clicking the tile first and then going through this second menu. Which is very mobile UI with its few, big buttons.

The city screen is perhaps an even more mobile UI as it's split into two tabs with enormous elements. Worker assignment on one tab, builds on another tab, where the buttons are so big you have to scroll down despite relatively few choices. Unlike Civ6, the game doesn't have a "you're always on the map" UI. Unlike games with a dedicated city screen, most of the information is still unavailable in the city screen without checking additional tooltips or scrolling - this isn't a PC game UI. Oh and you can't even see what a city is producing from the map view.

My final point for now (trying to be brief here!) is the complete lack of personality, best exemplified via rival nations. So nations in Millennia have no inherent bonuses, which is fine in terms of design as it's more about building your own nation. Okay, but every other nation I meet looks like this:

There is no difference except their flag, and all messages come in a truly Spartan popup with one of several uncreative strings. I am not saying the game should have Civ-style leaderheads. It's easy to see why they would not be a fit. But how about... something? Can Persia have a drawing of an unspecified, unnamed but Persian-looking ruler? A unique audio cue? Anything? Again, Civ1 had more personality to the nations you met. Civ2 had a unique drawing for each in the diplo screen. Millennia has nothing, repeating the rather sad state of Call to Power, where the civs were only distinguished by their name and never anything else. Which was considered pretty weak. In 1999. And this lack of personality extends to everything in Millennia. It's incredibly sterile.

I can think of a SMAC tech and hear the quote in my head. Humankind had a narrator whom some players can find annoying for sure, but that was some personality. Civ has a wide array of quotes ranging from religious texts to classics to modern pop culture. Millennia? If I'm being generous, I would say it aims for educational quotes except they're such basic descriptions that it's hard to see any educational value either. Farming: "Farming fundamentally changed society. For millennia, humans had survived in small bands of nomadic hunter-gatherers. As crops became a dependable source of food, permanent settlements took root and populations swelled". People playing this game probably know what farming is. Maybe later ages are better? Hmm, Standing Army: "The military needs of nations continued to evolve, and so did the professional forces they maintained. The rank-and-file soldiers received more training in the latest weaponry and techniques, while the logistics of coordination and oversight grew in scope and complexity." I just get irate because I have, personally, written or picked better quotes than that.

A week ago I was more excited for Millennia. After a couple hours with the demo, it will be hard to convince myself to give the full version a try. Seeing that the game was already in development in 2020, so we're looking at a pretty decent development length, I am not optimistic about improvements being made before final release.

 

[MrRadar]

Oh and you can't even see what a city is producing from the map view.

You can, if you center on the region, the top centre UI updates instantly showing its current production, needs, etc.

 

[CivLuvah]

You can, if you center on the region, the top centre UI updates instantly showing its current production, needs, etc.

Even I didn’t notice that, and I was trying to look for the same thing.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

As @Solver pointed out perfectly, the game appears to be a large bag of previous game mechanics and systems dating back 25 years and thrown together in some sort of tossed game salad: Civ's resource gathering, tech-type tree, barbarians and 'goodie huts'; CtP's combat screen and purposeless tactical display. Tech quotes (which I confess I ignored completely after the first one) because hey, you gotta have Tech Quotes! - Even though an elementary school teacher talking to 6 years olds would be more informative . . .

What I think annoys me the most is that virtually every system in the game as a result of this Grab Bag approach has been discussed, dissected, and improvements/alternatives suggested REPEATEDLY over the past 20+ years in various Forums: starting with the old Apollyton, now on CivFanatics. There is, literally, a multi-Gigabyte Data Base of ideas (many, I freely admit, purest Guano, but even Guano occasionally reveals a nugget of Value when washed) available, if any game design group bothered to look.

Even some of the Millennia systems that work could have been done better:
Resource 'chains' and productions could have been married to much earlier and easier trading (possibly Limited) with Minor Cities to provide Raw Materials not in your (limited) early territory to 'jump start' Production chains. Why delay one of the best parts of the game until later Ages? (Historical Note, which I cannot resist including: Uruk, the first really big city in the world, from before 3500 BCE was trading with two "fortified copper mining towns" [Hacinebi and Arslantepe] far away in the mountains of eastern Anatolia - getting raw materials of copper to 'feed' the larger city: there's no need to delay this sort of thing)

The perils and problems of various Combat Systems have been debated at length - I vaguely remember some of those dating back to CtP's original Combat Screens - which had the same problems of complete lack of any real Tactics or gamer agency in the combat system. Especially when you include a system for producing Leaders, why that didn't allow the gamer to indicate, even in a very basic fashion, HOW he/she wanted the battle to be fought simply boggles my mind. They already divide units into Ranged, Line and Mobile. Doesn't that imply that Mobile could be told, generally, to try to Outflank the enemy Line? Couldn't Line units strong in defense be generally told to Stay on the defense and use their better factors somehow?

So many missed opportunities for want of a little searching through old Threads and archived sites . . .

 

[Nikolai II]

What I think annoys me the most is that virtually every system in the game as a result of this Grab Bag approach has been discussed, dissected, and improvements/alternatives suggested REPEATEDLY over the past 20+ years in various Forums: starting with the old Apollyton, now on CivFanatics. There is, literally, a multi-Gigabyte Data Base of ideas (many, I freely admit, purest Guano, but even Guano occasionally reveals a nugget of Value when washed) available, if any game design group bothered to look

Indeed. I read The List from Apolyton pre Civ3's release with glee, so many great ideas, some even implemented later! I was one of the list masters for The List for Civ4. I have both Lists on my HDD to this day. (Can attach if any interest btw!)

 

[MrRadar]

Even I didn’t notice that, and I was trying to look for the same thing.

Yes, it’s kinda very well hidden in plain sight, although being right into your face I’ve found the spades for the tile improvement labour sooner than this, and this was the last UI discovery, after the thought ‘what the hell, it must be somewhere’, and then catching the changing production display with the corner of the eye, while dragging the map. Most satisfying

On the whole, I’m liking the the game so far, it’s a cute little mishmash of different elements, mostly already present in other games, with an add-on of production chains that I’ve wanted most of the time in some form in Civ. Shame that the demo is only 60 turns, that’s far too little.

 

[Chiyo]

I have played two games now. I have to say that 60 turns is not enough to fully judge a lot the features. So far I find the game interesting. One minor thing I did not like is that I cannot decide where my first city is located. In one game I did not have any useful tiles in the starting era. Why would my people settle there if just one tile further I could have had two wheat resources? The major thing I did not like is diplomacy. The other factions do not have any personality and feel rather boring. Someone in this thread mentioned that it is obious that you cannot have leaders like in Civ in this game but I do not understand why. If you do not want real leaders let me at least talk to an ambassador who looks like he belongs to that country. And we need more diplomatic actions. Except for that I am interested to see more.

 

[Dale]

I've now played 2 run throughs of the demo. I feel really put off the game for a few big reasons.

1. I am not a fan of filling a mana bucket, to say a spell and magically create a unit/improvement/whatever. Cities should make stuff, units should do actions, and characters should interact with each other. Keep it simple, stop introducing magic buckets to make stuff and do actions and use what is already existing. If you want to have buckets of mana fill up, have them result in something else. Allow rush buys of units with Military XP. Allow units to use Improvement XP to put things on the map. Have diplomacy and national actions require Government XP. Oh wait, Old World does that already (training, orders, civics).

2. There is a distinct lack of character to my civ. When playing Civilization, when you meet Montezuma, or Gandhi, it means something. Humankind went the total polar opposite with culture switching turning your civ into an ever-changing colour blob that was completely confusing who you were and the other civs were. At least with Millennia you stay who you originally were, so when you meet China, they will stay China the whole game. But there's no characters to attach meaning to. So like Humankind, civs in Millennia just become sterile colour blobs. The only good thing, is that colour and name at least doesn't change throughout the game.

3. The systems in Millennia seem all confused and disconnected. Civ has a core set of systems that are finely intertwined, and give a complex gaming experience. Again with the Humankind comparison, Millennia gives the feeling of systems thrown together with either no thought on how they interact and relate to each other, or they are simply intended to be something taken totally separate to the rest of the game. I think mostly this is occurring because each system fills its own magic bucket, and allows magic spells to create its own stuff totally in isolation to the other systems. For instance, Military XP is used to make units, in isolation of every other system. The worst of this system isolation would be resolved if the different systems created stuff that related back to point 1, cities making stuff, units doing actions, and characters interacting with each other.

4. The UI is absolutely horrible. Full stop. I don't need to say the exact same things listed above by many others. The only thing I'll say is this: what is the point of the battle scene? The game would be MUCH better if that battle scene was totally removed, and instead the battle notification (top-right) centred the map on the battle, and the battle crest (crossed swords on the map) gave you a battle result tooltip when hovered over. The battle scene gives you nothing, get rid of it.

At the end of the day, I won't be buying Millennia. The four points listed above, I don't see how they could be fixed without MAJOR design changes, and at this late point in development I don't think it'll be done. There is also the big "Paradox" point. Paradox is involved with this game. Yeah yeah, I know they aren't the developers, but they are involved in publishing. From a game industry point, I can't go on without pointing out the toxicity of this company. There are repeated reports over a number of years of worker discrimination at Paradox and associated studios by high level management against their workers. Paradox is also known for treating their customers poorly, with criticism being forcefully shut down, eleminated, and those players banned from Paradox controlled areas. Of course, Paradox cries "toxic community" every time this happens. Add to that, years of games released in very shallow states and then DLC'ed to hell. From an industry standpoint, I cannot support anything Paradox is associated with. They are toxic at EA/Activision levels. As someone in the games industry myself, I feel I need to speak out against this corporate toxicity to support my fellow devs at those companies.

So for these reasons, I'm out.

Edit to add a couple of positive things:
A few of the positive things I saw in the game.
1. Production chains. Refining resources into goods is a good step. I would love to see Imperialism level industrialisation processes (transportation, labour, facility management for production chains) but the game doesn't go far enough to highlight if that's available.
2. Combined units. I've always been an advocate of combined units (see my Civ4 combat mod). Not stacks of doom, but a few select units working in conjunction to effect/support combat. Humankind was good in this respect too.

 

[Solver]

Someone in this thread mentioned that it is obious that you cannot have leaders like in Civ in this game but I do not understand why.

Because actual leaders, as in historical named characters, have a design purpose contrary to what Millennia is trying to do. Leaders not only represent the nation, they have some kind of personality. If you meet Genghis Khan, you're not expecting him to be an enlightened patron of the arts. Millennia is about defining your nation through gameplay, building whatever national spirits you want, etc. That clashes with well-defined leaders. Unlike Humankind, Millennia is at least smart enough not to implement features that directly contradict its design goals.

An ambassador, envoy or some other representation would of course be superior to the current lack of any personality.

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Played two more partial games (40 turns or so) this morning, and so far I stand by my original contention: Barbarians dominate the map after the Bronze Age UNLESS you pick a medium/small map with all 8 provided Faction slots filled. Then, basically, on a Continent type maps at least, there's no room for Barbarians to keep spawning.
Give them more room, they fill it: at least that's my finding from 2 complete and about 4 partial games (through 1.5 to 2 Ages) so far.

Second thing I confirmed this morning: Ages zip by much too fast. Greece in one game today managed to get to the Bronze Age by the 15th turn, and the average in all the games so far has been 20 - 25 turns in each age: in the two games I finished to 60 turns yesterday, I was over half-way through the Iron Age (finishing my 3rd Tech) before the game ended. This implies, with 10 Ages, that the game will last no more than 150 - 200 turns. I averaged less than 80 minutes playing 60 turns once I figured out the basics, so roughly an 8 hour game, much faster as the gamer gets more proficient. Both Humankind and Civ are planned for a 500 hour game (although in Civ VI you've got to really work to make a game last over half of that) - so I understand Millennia trying to make a 'zippier', faster game.

But the result is that you cannot begin to accomplish, build, form, do anything within the ages. Every game I was still building Bronze Age things in the Iron Age, and Stone Age until well into the Bronze Age. Over in their Discord, people are commenting about going back later and picking up 'cheap' Techs you missed in earlier Ages, because the game doesn't require you to get or use all the techs in each Age. Fine, but that provides yet another conceptual Disconnect in which your folks are fielding Roman Legions or their equivalent and building Iron Age government and civic structures while paddling dug out canoes because, like my first half-dozen starts, I never had a city, village or outpost near the coast and so ignored the entire Sea-related Tech line.

At the very least, the full game has to provide some variation of Game Speed so that there is something besides a mad race through the A ges, barely getting a chance to taste the effects of any single one before reaching the artificial Victory Ages at the end.

 

[The_J]

I've now played 2 run throughs of the demo. I feel really put off the game for a few big reasons.

1. I am not a fan of filling a mana bucket, to say a spell and magically create a unit/improvement/whatever. Cities should make stuff, units should do actions, and characters should interact with each other. Keep it simple, stop introducing magic buckets to make stuff and do actions and use what is already existing. If you want to have buckets of mana fill up, have them result in something else. Allow rush buys of units with Military XP. Allow units to use Improvement XP to put things on the map. Have diplomacy and national actions require Government XP. Oh wait, Old World does that already (training, orders, civics).
[]
3. The systems in Millennia seem all confused and disconnected. Civ has a core set of systems that are finely intertwined, and give a complex gaming experience. Again with the Humankind comparison, Millennia gives the feeling of systems thrown together with either no thought on how they interact and relate to each other, or they are simply intended to be something taken totally separate to the rest of the game. I think mostly this is occurring because each system fills its own magic bucket, and allows magic spells to create its own stuff totally in isolation to the other systems. For instance, Military XP is used to make units, in isolation of every other system. The worst of this system isolation would be resolved if the different systems created stuff that related back to point 1, cities making stuff, units doing actions, and characters interacting with each other.

I have not played, so can't fully understand everything, but I would guess that this makes the gameplay possible smoother in later ages, when you have too many cities, would have too many builders, etc

An ambassador, envoy or some other representation would of course be superior to the current lack of any personality.

I think an ambassador (or whatever) could go very well together with the build-your-nation theme. A civ picked the raiders trait? The ambassador comes on horse. A civ picked XYZ, has trait ABC, the ambassador gets a silly hat, a specific robe, etc.

 

[Dale]

Barbarians dominate the map after the Bronze Age

I saw this too, but I put this down to balance, rather than a design decision/fault. I tend not to comment on balance during dev stage (unless I'm actually QA'ing it) as things like that get (hopefully) resolved before release.

 

[Dale]

I have not played, so can't fully understand everything, but I would guess that this makes the gameplay possible smoother in later ages, when you have too many cities, would have too many builders, etc

It's that the system is in total isolation to everything else. You generate Improvement XP, then take some of that glorious Improvement XP pixey-dust and sprinkle it on the map to conjure up a tile improvement. Civ uses workers on the map to move to a tile to use charges (Improvement XP) to build stuff on the map. Imperialism uses yields collected off the map (ie: stone/wood/iron) to allow tile improvements on the map. What Millennia is doing is akin to CtP public works. I may have failings of time, but I do seem to remember public works being pretty integrated with other systems in CtP and not just some mana bucket filled with pixey-dust to cast spells on the map.

A better example is Military XP. The raiders line, each unlock gives you two free raiders. Those two free raiders are fantastic at generating Military XP (from combat). Thus the entire raiders line is a massive Military XP snowball where the more you use those free raiders, the more free raiders your generate. It doesn't tie into any other part of the game to try to balance and regulate the usage. For instance if Military XP was spent to rush buy units, at least you're still clogging up your city build queues. Your decision to spend on guns, affects your city's ability to focus on butter.

 

[Solver]

Despite my negative impression and criticism, I want to see the good in this game so I went for another match, decided to play builder style. Not bullying the neighbors, smaller amount of units and a non-military national spirit. Spent the first two ages building improvements, set up some nice goods production, expanded borders, built outposts. Vassalized some settlements I took over, went Imperial Dynasty.

It's not quite bad, but I'm not seeing where the system leads either. At least the goods I had were getting converted to other usual yields. Getting Iron let me convert to Production, I could make Leather that gives Wealth and so on, but what it amounts to is getting tiles that have a higher yield due to ongoing conversions into goods. Again, not bad, but very simple. I did not see any goods that would unlock new types of construction, or abilities otherwise inaccessible, or such. Maybe there is some in later ages but not so much here.

Got the Age of Heroes (it requires discovering landmarks). I didn't engage with landmarks at all but saw that one AI was going into Age of Heroes, so I let them do it instead of advancing myself, seems pretty easy to get good ages at least some of the time without doing anything yourself. That spawns a Hero I can send to do quests, and doing 4 quests will unlock the Parthenon. Sounds cool! I take my hero unit (a pretty strong melee fighter), go to the first quest. The entire substance of that, however, is just bringing the hero next to a druidic-style thing that shows up on the map with a special label. Okay, go there, trigger the quest, where I am met with the following text.

Legend tells of a Hero who would save the people in their time of need.

And then I get a pick of two different rewards. That's the quest. I dearly hope the above text is a placeholder (the text is marked QUEST_TEST_B so it may well be) but the other quests, which refer to specific legends and aren't marked as test internally, aren't much better.

Anansi has captured all of the world's wisdom.

or

Yggdrasil's many branches turn the forest into a mighty labyrinth.

That is the demo shooting itself in the foot. If the text is placeholder, you don't want any players to see it without at least clearly marking it. If the text is final, well, it speaks for itself.

I built two Wonders. Parthenon unlocked for completing the quests, and Colossus unlocked via Innovations. The latter wonder just providing some mediocre yields, I was getting better than that from other improvements. Nothing really special about seeing a wonder being built.

Continued for a bit longer. Sure I unlock techs and build stuff, but there doesn't seem to be anything the whole process is building up to. The only external pressure comes in the form of chaos events, and the game mostly just... goes on. When I can integrate one of my vassals I end up having to build a stone age building again. The game doesn't break down, but it wanders aimlessly as I finish the third age. If it takes another three ages of similar gameplay to reach a victory, it would be a challenge to keep my focus that long.

Also realized another thing, the usual tribe camps are one thing, but then the ones with a border are Minor Nations, technically a different thing. What do Minor Nations do? Nothing, it turns out. At all. They're just camps with slightly higher defense. The only things to do with them are to conquer by force, or absorb peacefully by sending an envoy. But they don't do anything. There's no special ability like in Civ6, no gifts from them or preferences like in Civ5, nothing. Even absorbing them peacefully isn't noteworthy. Civ5 had Influence you build up in various ways, in Millennia you spawn an Envoy, and send to the Minor to get an absorb button.

And in the overall spirit of lacking personality and immersion, why did I see minor nations called London and Vologda? The game is pulling unused city names for minor nations (which I confirmed, it's really grabbing names from an NTT_City and possibly also NTT_Town list that's unused). Sure we're all used to Civ-style oddities like Egypt bordering Japan - an inevitability - but having London show up as a Minor Nation is actively immersion-breaking. Again, this could be placeholder / incomplete, but then the demo is doing a poor job selling the game. It releases this year and has been in development for four years and has a demo out. At this point the game is closer to released than to early production, so this looks sloppy at best.