Millennia - Steam Next Fest Demo | Live Now!

@Dale
With regards to mana buckets, I think it depends. I agree about using them to summon units, where there is already a perfectly fine mechanism for unit creation. For creating terrain improvements however, I think the way Millennia does it is very good. You talk about "pixie dust", but I don't see how this is any more abstract and magical than the abstractions used in for example Civ 5 and 6. In 5, you produce an immortal worker who will then work for 300 years to create a section of road next to your city. In civ 6, you have a worker who can instantly summon improvements with his limited pool of build charges, after which he disappears. I guess he is carrying the pixie dust with him. Oh, but do remember to swap in the policy card which gives builders more pixie dust for the one turn when you summon them all with faith. No, Millennia's choice of abstraction is fine in my opinion. Those improvement points are just another city yield, generated by structures (such as a Crane) or by running the "Levy Workers" project. The only real difference from other production is that the yields are shared between all cities (which corresponds to workers in one city building infrastructure in another), and that you don't lock in what you build until you have the required number of points. Yes, that last part is a bit abstract, in exactly the same way Civ 6's builder charges are. But from a gameplay perspective, I think it works better, as you don't have the chore of moving the "build charges" around the map, and you can differntiate the costs of different improvements, as well as modify them with bonuses.

What I really like when it comes to filling buckets though, is when you use it to unlock permanent upgrades and bonuses, especialy where there is choice. Civ 5 does this with Social Policies. Beyond Earth has a more complex system of Virtues, and Stellaris has Traditions. These kinds of systems are popular for a reason, as "leveling up" your civ/faction/nation is a satisfying game mechanic. Millennia also has this with its Government and National Spirit bonuses, and I think it is good.


Go play Old World - an historical strategy game where you lead your empire through multiple generations, building a grand legacy to last beyond your own years. This is an era of great leaders, from the revered to the feared. Which will you be?

That's a great idea. :-) It's a been a long time since last I played it, and I'm curious to see how it has developed. Old World had a few issues of its own the last time I played, but overall, I found it ot be a very enjoyable game, full of innovative new ways of doing things. So, good job on that one. :-)
 
Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of valid criticisms here, but I do find the basic gamepay quite enjoyable. I always play in a peaceful builder style, and this part of Millennia I think is quite promising.

One of the criticisms I fully agree with, is that the game is moving way too fast. Now, I am use to playing Vox Populi on marathon speed, so I may not be typical om this regard, but the eras go by way too quickly for my liking. I hope there will be a setting for this.

Another is about the UI. Someone said it seemed designed for mobile, and that makes perfect sense. I do think it needs a redesign for PC.
 
@Dale
With regards to mana buckets, I think it depends. I agree about using them to summon units, where there is already a perfectly fine mechanism for unit creation. For creating terrain improvements however, I think the way Millennia does it is very good. You talk about "pixie dust", but I don't see how this is any more abstract and magical than the abstractions used in for example Civ 5 and 6. In 5, you produce an immortal worker who will then work for 300 years to create a section of road next to your city. In civ 6, you have a worker who can instantly summon improvements with his limited pool of build charges, after which he disappears. I guess he is carrying the pixie dust with him. Oh, but do remember to swap in the policy card which gives builders more pixie dust for the one turn when you summon them all with faith. No, Millennia's choice of abstraction is fine in my opinion. Those improvement points are just another city yield, generated by structures (such as a Crane) or by running the "Levy Workers" project. The only real difference from other production is that the yields are shared between all cities (which corresponds to workers in one city building infrastructure in another), and that you don't lock in what you build until you have the required number of points. Yes, that last part is a bit abstract, in exactly the same way Civ 6's builder charges are. But from a gameplay perspective, I think it works better, as you don't have the chore of moving the "build charges" around the map, and you can differntiate the costs of different improvements, as well as modify them with bonuses.

What I really like when it comes to filling buckets though, is when you use it to unlock permanent upgrades and bonuses, especialy where there is choice. Civ 5 does this with Social Policies. Beyond Earth has a more complex system of Virtues, and Stellaris has Traditions. These kinds of systems are popular for a reason, as "leveling up" your civ/faction/nation is a satisfying game mechanic. Millennia also has this with its Government and National Spirit bonuses, and I think it is good.

Technically workers aren't "pixie dust" (just realised I spelled it wrong above) since you use city production to create the workers. You're putting in a tangible game asset (city queue time and hammers) in a future benefit (build turns). Like I also said above, Military XP is probably a better example of the mana bucket spell casting. Military XP == 2 raiders == Military XP == etc. It's a totally unconnected system that results in a snowball loop. You invest a small amount of initial Military XP to get into the raiders system, and then it not only perpetuates its own motion, it actually increases the speed of its own motion.

I'm not against bucket filling, I just think there's better implementation examples out there in other 4x games.

That's a great idea. :) It's a been a long time since last I played it, and I'm curious to see how it has developed. Old World had a few issues of its own the last time I played, but overall, I found it ot be a very enjoyable game, full of innovative new ways of doing things. So, good job on that one. :)
Thanks, we've kept working on this issuing consistent patches to fine tune and fix things. There's a few DLC now which add new nations, some scenario campaigns, an event pack (which expands religion), and a wonders and dynasties pack to expand the number of wonders in the game and expand the number of dynasties in each nation you can choose at the start. :)
 
first impression: I like the basic gameplay, being on more-peaceful civ player, I like how you build & expand the cities

battle screen is unnecessary, IMO, also the UI is confusing, and era feels too fast
 
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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.
Understand perfectly.
But my point was that the excessive Barbarian spawning affects a number of other things, like what you focus on., On a relatively 'empty map' (5 - 6 Factions on a large map in the Demo, for example) the map space will be filled with Barbarian camps - all fortified - and roaming Barbarian armies of 2 - 3 units each by the mid-Bronze Age (at least, that was my experience of 2 games played through the Bronze Age yesterday). If you are trying to play a peaceful Builder game, it just ain't happening, which means the gamer's choices are limited by this one bit of Imbalance.

On the other hand, all the extra Barbarians are easy meat if you go Raiders, because you have stronger units and more of them very quickly. That simply magnifies the already OP militancy of the Raider effects. When I played a partial game with Raiders and a relatively empty map, I was absolutely stunned at how fast whacking Barbs brought in the Warfare XP and allowed me to practically pile up Leaders and veterancy. If Raiders alone is OP, Raiders plus extra Barbarians is simply ridiculous.

Unfortunately, it is only one among many aspects of the game where the gamer is struck by a Double Whammy: the basic mechanics are not coordinated with each other and the details are badly done, and the combination makes enjoying the game more of a chore than an entertainment.
 
I took the demo for a spin tonight, not having watched any gameplay videos and only have read a couple of the dev diaries, the one I remember better being on ages and the bonuses available in age 2/4/6/etc.

I like it. The turns went by quickly, the tutorial did a good enough job explaining what was going on, and it didn't take long until I was making plans for the future like I would in Civ. Yes, there are areas of potential improvement, I wouldn't say it should be released as-is next week. But the core mechanics - Civ-like, with some resource inspiration a la Jon Shafer's At the Gates, but with a less punishing implementation if you aren't an expert - looks potentially promising. And the resources are hardly touched in the 60 turns of the demo, I built a mill to create flour from wheat and that's as far as I got. Would certainly be curious to try it a bit longer and have the domestic resource routes, I can certainly see how shipping grain around domestically could be quite useful, if the interface was not too clunky.

Early impressions are positive on the government/tech/culture/exploration/warfare/arts points. I focused mostly on tech, researching all of the stone and bronze age techs, and reaching the Iron Age, although I also racked up a lot of exploration points with all my Scout Cavalry. The barbarians besieged Rome at one point, but thankfully I had enough units there. I also decided to fight my nearest neighbor, China, to see how that went. I destroyed one of their towns on the second try, but was rebuffed when I tried to take Beijing. Probably good for the AI that I couldn't storm in on my first try and take their capital.

I can definitely see replayability potential, with different focuses. The "Improvement Points" is also a kind of neat alternative to Civ's worker paradigm. It took me a while to realize that China was far more populous than I was due to their farms and dwellings. Then I built a crane and started narrowing that gap.

Weak points? The combat resolution screen jumps out as one. I have played games from 20 years ago that had better combat resolution screens. I like that Millenia is not 1 UPT, and I can see that the goal is to show what each unit is doing in the battle, but it just looks silly with units running forward, attacking once, and running back. I wonder if the visualization is even really a benefit? That's probably the #1 example people will cite if they complain about graphics, and maybe it would be better to just give a summary that shows the damage by each type of unit? If I see that the enemy archers dominated my units, that's still useful and actionable even in summary form. That would also be quicker; I can already see that viewing the combats could get tiresome once there are enough of them, but it would be nice to have some takeaways from combat.

Diplomacy is another. I assume that it's already on the docket to add some polish and pizzazz to diplomacy. But I also couldn't figure out how to make anyone like me. Eventually, everyone - China, India, and Germany - entered hostilities with me, all before I decided to see how combat worked with China. And none of them would end hostilities, nor would China ever consider peace. I sent an envoy to Germany hoping maybe that would change things, but nope, they were still hostile. Maybe if I'd built a few more envoys and sent them to Germany? I think there needs to be more feedback to the player on this though. Or perhaps a tutorial entry or two on it; otherwise the tutorial seemed to cover the concepts fairly well.

One other small note - there seems to be no maximum number of autosaves. I set it to autosave every turn as I figured better safe than sorry - but no crashes! - and now have a save from all 60 turns.
 
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Weak points? The combat resolution screen jumps out as one. I have played games from 20 years ago that had better combat resolution screens. I like that Millenia is not 1 UPT, and I can see that the goal is to show what each unit is doing in the battle, but it just looks silly with units running forward, attacking once, and running back. I wonder if the visualization is even really a benefit? That's probably the #1 example people will cite if they complain about graphics, and maybe it would be better to just give a summary that shows the damage by each type of unit? If I see that the enemy archers dominated my units, that's still useful and actionable even in summary form. That would also be quicker; I can already see that viewing the combats could get tiresome once there are enough of them, but it would be nice to have some takeaways from combat.

Yeah, I personally don't care that much about the graphics for this screen (the map visuals are far more important to me), but it is clear that it has hurt the first impression for a lot of people, and the usefulness is dubious. The only use I can think of is that it visualizes the combat rounds, but I think most who care about that would be happier with a type of combat summary popup. I think combat screens make sense if they are interactive, like in Age of Wonders, Fallen Enchantress or Conquest of the New World.

I too like that you can group units together, although I would like to see more than 3 or 4 units. Maybe this is already in the game, and will be unlocked in later eras. In general, I like having the concept of armies in the game, whether it is done with full tactical combat or some kind of auto-resolve. There has been so much talk about 1 UPT and carpets versus stacks of doom, but army systems have been around for a long time, and are in my opinion just a better way of handling combat. Here's one example, from 1996:
d7d772fe20d20006c8358251f6aabec49ff764a8f169f9af414742186ed17ed5.jpg

I use Conquest of the New World as an example of tactical combat due to its simplicity. It has a very limited 3x4 grid and a simple ruleset, but it still manages to capture things like flanking, combined arms and leader abilities in an enjoyable way. Of course, you could also do these things without full tactical combat, just using math. For a game which has a larger scope where you don't want to move away from the strategic map more than necessary, that could be a better way of handling it. The challenge then becomes putting together effective groups which synergize well and are effective for what you are using them for and what they are up against.
 
Here's one example, from 1996:
View attachment 684145
I use Conquest of the New World as an example of tactical combat due to its simplicity. It has a very limited 3x4 grid and a simple ruleset, but it still manages to capture things like flanking, combined arms and leader abilities in an enjoyable way.
OMG CotNW!!!!

You, sir, are my new best friend!!! ❤️
 
OMG CotNW!!!!

You, sir, are my new best friend!!! ❤️
:-D I'm happy to accept on the basis of our shared love of CotNW. I feel like it's a bit of a forgotten gem, and it had a bunch of cool mechanics. Like how you got to name and received points for discovering significant terrain features.
 
^Is it expected to based on the system requirements? If so, they may be interested in the specs.

Took it for another spin, planning to play builder-y as the Aztecs. Didn't turn out quite that way. France settled their second city, Lyon, close to me so I decided it should be an Aztec city instead. And it was... for a while.

I wound up being one unit short of triggering the Age of Blood; Germany triggered the Age of Heroes first. Lyon was easily taken and the Aztec armies marched on Paris. Its nearby town of Limoges was destroyed - incidentally, the popup should ideally not appear at the start of the combat screen, if combat screen is the way it's going to be. But then we saw two large French armies marching on our second city. We decided to trap them, and marched south from Paris behind their lines.

Unfortunately, it didn't work that way. Our second city fell, France got some new armies, and our armies that were intending to envelop the French were themselves enveloped.

I managed to recapture the second city with a new army, but it was back to vassal status - a good reason not to lose cities. Meanwhile, the 60-turn limit proved to be something to be thankful for, as the French seemed intent on destroying me. Lyon revolted back to France, my second city was essentially under siege, preventing the army there from doing anything else, and a curious phenomenon emerged.

My capital's population started falling.

This is an area that could use some additional user notifications. The capital's population had been somewhere around 6, and I noticed the problem when it was around 3. Eventually it sunk all the way to 1, and rebels started appearing on turn 59. There was plenty of food, nothing was pillaged - I think it was due to the very high amounts of chaos, and the ensuing unrest (level 5 unrest for a pop-1 city is probably a lot?). I don't know how much chaos France had, but Paris wasn't shrinking, so I suspect if the game had lasted another 10 turns, the capital would have revolted, and they would have retaken the second city at some point.

In addition to needing a UI to let the user know their empire is crumbling, the diplomatic option remained off-limits. Maybe France really did want to destroy the Aztecs, I couldn't really blame them. But some options/feedback beyond, "Propose peace, get declined" would be nice. Propose peace with tribute? Confirmation that the French planned to crush us like a bug?

On the plus side, despite not officially being an Age of Blood, locally it very much felt like an end-of-Bronze-Age collapse. Which is cool in that that is possible, but it may also turn away some players without better UI alerts and potentially some off-ramps.
 
I have to admit, I'm convinced. I'm having fun, and even though it is amplified by the "wow, it's new! Let's learn the mechanics!" feeling which is only temporary, I see the potential in the game. It strucks a good balance between simplicity and deeper, more "micromanagey" mechanics in my opinion.

I absolutely love the Domain Power mechanic and the freedom it brings (combined with Culture Power). There is a wide variety of things to do with them, and you just can't have enough of them, which is a good design. I realized only after a few playthrough how deep actually is the synergy between Domain Powers and the more "traditional building" mechanic in Capitals (aka Cities). You build a Building that gives a specific Domain Power, which then can be used for a lot of actions. But you need basic economy and industry to build them in the first place, and you need to decide what do you prioritize. There is a lot of variety, a good synergy and circulation in the system. Not complex enough to fulfill my Needs (pun reference intended), but it's perfectly sufficient. Also, the fact that all Domains are useful (I was afraid that Diplomacy or Art for example will be weak or "meh", but it's actually the opposite) is excellent.

Expansion is also very good in my opinion, lots of options and opportunities. Quite simple once you learn the basics, but has enough depth and variety to be much better than brainless settler spamming. I also find excellent how there is no clear best way how you manage things. Having lots of Vassals and a few tall Capitals feels just as viable as the opposite (although I'll try to experiment with this better, so far I find a balance between the two the best, but obviously only in 60 Turns it's impossible to have a definitive judgement on this). Enchanced by certain modifiers, such as for example Kingdom "feeding" on lots of Vassals, while Imperial Dynasty government prefers more of a "tall" approach with one palace building that you constantly enchance, you can focus even more what you prefer. Outposts are also an amazing touch, giving more flexibility and usability.

I like the Unrest system too. Extremely simple, but does actually have an effect. For example, I had a game where it was no problem at all, while just in my last game it actually caused me considerable pain (mostly due to the penalty to yields). I expanded quickly with lots of Regions, without sufficient army to suppress, coupled with insufficient Needs. I actually felt (and saw) how my yields go down and progress slowed down (having aggressive neighbours this is even more scary). I like when the scale is large enough that you actually feel the weight of your decisions - like ignoring Unrest which then come back to bite you. Apparently even new Nations can form from rebellions, which is just the icing on the cake for me. Combined with the other dimensions of the game, this makes good managing rewarding, which is a fantastic feeling.

Goods and resources are another example for the "extremely simple yet giving you lots of options" theme. I was desperate to gain more Culture, so turned my grapes into wine. Had to build up the infrastructure for it tho, which shifted my priorities. I had a goal, and it felt rewarding achieving that goal. I really, really hope that there will be even more options for such customization and manufacturing, and it won't end up being "only" better yields conversion. This system has an enormous potential.

I like the innovation and the chaos meters too. Nothing amazing, but slightly expands the dynamic of the game. I would like to see better UI however there, what brings up my chaos meter (a summary of unrest for example). I'm not sure how I feel about however, that I chose an option for an event very early in the game (get a Crossbow at the expense of chaos after I cleared a barbarian encampment), yet it has effect forever (to be fair at a heavily reduced amount after the meter fills up). I'm not necessarily against it, but feels a bit "weird".

And finally, food not necessarily equals more growth! I was wrong at first, I thought it will be the case in this game too just as for most 4X, but actually after you have your 200% Needs, it doesn't matter how much more food you have. And considering that there will be plenty of Needs (9 or 11 or something like that at the end) and they come online quite early (at the end of the demo you may need housing and sanitation for example), this actually makes city planning and managing even better! I absolutely love it!

The technology progress is nothing revolutionary, but it does its job. The alternative ages give more variety and better replayability, makes the game more interesting and dynamic, so that's an excellent idea. I just hope that they won't take the game into silly areas with Age of Aether and such (a healthy amount of "what if" is good, but it can easily go to the extremes).

I love the art of the game, the units, buildings, different pictures are absolutely gorgeous in my opinion. It's a shame that the lack of a coherent UI, fragmented interface and often frankly just abysmal icons spoil the experience. Just having an incredibly simple shield icon for example would be a thousand times better than the current "tent in the woods" icon for 'guard' command for units (skip turn likewise with a bonefire). The red trash icon for deleting units is - I'm sorry for saying this - something unbelievably horrible. If it's not possible to hide it (how often will you delete your units anyway?!) then please, please change it to something else. A lot of icons walk in similar shoe, I really hope that there will be an overhaul (or better quality remake) for many icons and art assets. The card theme of units and buildings in the city screen is also weird a bit, but I can live with that, no big deal. (similarly the worker screen, which could be much better, but not the end of the world)

I also really like the improvement system, especially how it's synergized with other aspects of the game economy. I'm not a huge fan of a worker unit placing an improvement for 10 Turns, so for me it's convenient. But seeing the yields what you'll get when you place the improvement down should be there. Also, being it a tiny panel at bottom left is... it must be an oversight. It's one of the core elements of the game and it's borderline hidden from the user. Often I was like "oh yeah, there are improvements in the game lol". That interface element should be 10 times bigger considering the impact it has (and it'd still be not too big, it fits very well into that part of the screen).

National Spirits are decent, even if they are ultimately "just" a social policy tree from Civ5. There is a good variety of them, offer flexibility and some even have very cool ideas and features (just one example: hunters reveal elephant resources on the map, and their archer unit can harvest wild animals). If there is a good balance between them and clever / interesting ideas, it'll be also an excellent dimension to the game. (my biggest concern however is that you can go from a peaceful "knowledge focus" Nation to a world conquering threat with just one click by picking the "mongols" in Age 4...)

I personally don't mind the graphics, I find forests even actually quite pretty with lots of trees with variety, densely populated (but my expectations are rather low in this regard, I have to confess). The hills however could get some (= a lot) love, those plain, low quality grey textures are ... ugh. Other than that, I find the game visually perfectly acceptable. How cities and tiles develop and get additional features (I assume throughout the ages even changing and improving) is fantastic. I use banner view for units however, I find the game much-much better that way (not just because 3 meter tall 'Leader' units are... silly, but generally it feels better, like you actually control armies and not 15 men). Thank you devs for having this option! :) (but please please have an option too, to hide on the map which tiles are worked in Regions by workers (I mean that that little circle under each tile))

I find the battle screen rather amusing than annoying. As others have pointed out, defenders running out from behind the walls and attacking the besieging units is... yeah. I hope a quick combat option will be included. Speaking of combat, I found no relevance of army composition at all so far. I really, really hope that at least some degree of tactics and warfare input will be included (anything, like you can choose your stance, or focus, I can imagine a lot of opportunities (focusing on attacking the enemy army's morale for example) that would spice up this aspect of the game). What we have so far is okay, but extremely anaemic while the potential is there. I'm also curious how naval warfare, aerial warfare (and a combination of these) will unfold later in the game.

My biggest concerns are the lack of proper immersion and consequently the replayability factor, and how the mid- and lategame will look like. I'm desperately curious about the Faction mechanic, which we know nothing about so far. I really hope it won't be just an " Ideological Needs fulfiller for Regions" and it'll have more depth. Diplomacy feels a bit shallow, the basics are there but the room is there for expansion and improvements (could also be done in DLCs and expansions). Also, there is no religion in the game? At all? (update: there is)

The AI feels okay in the demo, they often get ahead of me in tech, they expand rather decently and create some armies. I'm a little bit concerned how clever will they ultimately be, there was no developer video about it or mentioning if anything special was done in this field. But, it definitely feels decent so far, the automatic battles and not 1 unit per tile mechanic also helps them, so I think we can be optimistic.

The sounds and musics are decent so far in my opinion, the throat singing - shamanistic sound in the age of stone is excellent, later I found the musics to be a bit more generic and uninteresting maybe, but overall quite decent, and it can be improved easily. For example with culture-specific musics, changing musics depending on what's going on (just one example: being in war. Note to myself: let's try it in the demo if there is actually a good "war pumping" music). The sound effect of some UI elements are weird and not fitting too well, but that's probably just a personal taste.

Overall, after playing several runs in the demo, I like what I've seen so far. Simple yet relatively deep, functioning mechanics and lots of options with a healthy amount of variety. The game won't take the torch out from Civ's hand in my opinion (which ARA tries, from the impression what I've seen from them), nor it implements truly revolutionary ideas such as Old World (which is a perfect example in almost all aspects: familiar, traditional 4X elements coupled with tons of new ideas, salted with beautiful art and fantastic UI (personal opinion), fantastic immersion and interesting content. Shame that it's Classical Age only ;) ). It does not have the capacity and the ambition (and the budget) either.

But for me it feels like an amazing game so far, and definitely has the potential to be a good alternative for a Civ fanatic like me (especially with good modding support). Considering this is just a demo, balance changes can be made (as others have pointed out, Raiders for example), notifications can be added (a LOT should be added), and the fact that many of my complaints can be easily improved, I'm quite optimistic. With a reasonable price tag I think this will be a good deal. Fingers crossed for the developers!

(I'm back to the demo for experimenting and min-maxing things)
 
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Very interesting to read such a positive perspective, too!

Religion appears to be present later. There's an age where you can found a religion via a culture power, alternatively you can use the Arts domain to join a religion founded by another player. In addition to the expected bonuses, that adds Faith as a new kind of Need to your cities. Other religions will contribute to Unrest. There are spirit choices for Theologians (spread your religion peacefully) and Crusaders (spread your religion peacefully, after killing everyone unwilling to accept it peacefully). The mechanic can give you an Age of Intolerance crisis if you can't meet Faith Needs.
 
Very interesting to read such a positive perspective, too!

Religion appears to be present later. There's an age where you can found a religion via a culture power, alternatively you can use the Arts domain to join a religion founded by another player. In addition to the expected bonuses, that adds Faith as a new kind of Need to your cities. Other religions will contribute to Unrest. There are spirit choices for Theologians (spread your religion peacefully) and Crusaders (spread your religion peacefully, after killing everyone unwilling to accept it peacefully). The mechanic can give you an Age of Intolerance crisis if you can't meet Faith Needs.
Thank you for your feedback! I actually missed that part, but that sounds nice.
 
I have to admit, I'm convinced. I'm having fun, and even though it is amplified by the "wow, it's new! Let's learn the mechanics!" feeling which is only temporary, I see the potential in the game. It strucks a good balance between simplicity and deeper, more "micromanagey" mechanics in my opinion.

I absolutely love the Domain Power mechanic and the freedom it brings (combined with Culture Power). There is a wide variety of things to do with them, and you just can't have enough of them, which is a good design. I realized only after a few playthrough how deep actually is the synergy between Domain Powers and the more "traditional building" mechanic in Capitals (aka Cities). You build a Building that gives a specific Domain Power, which then can be used for a lot of actions. But you need basic economy and industry to build them in the first place, and you need to decide what do you prioritize. There is a lot of variety, a good synergy and circulation in the system. Not complex enough to fulfill my Needs (pun reference intended), but it's perfectly sufficient. Also, the fact that all Domains are useful (I was afraid that Diplomacy or Art for example will be weak or "meh", but it's actually the opposite) is excellent.

Expansion is also very good in my opinion, lots of options and opportunities. Quite simple once you learn the basics, but has enough depth and variety to be much better than brainless settler spamming. I also find excellent how there is no clear best way how you manage things. Having lots of Vassals and a few tall Capitals feels just as viable as the opposite (although I'll try to experiment with this better, so far I find a balance between the two the best, but obviously only in 60 Turns it's impossible to have a definitive judgement on this). Enchanced by certain modifiers, such as for example Kingdom "feeding" on lots of Vassals, while Imperial Dynasty government prefers more of a "tall" approach, you can focus even more what you prefer. Outposts are also a nice touch.

I like the Unrest system too. Extremely simple, but does actually have an effect. For example, I had a game where it was no problem at all, while just in my last game it actually caused me considerable pain (mostly due to the penalty to yields). I expanded quickly with lots of Regions, without sufficient army to suppress, coupled with insufficient Needs. I actually felt (and saw) how my yields go down and progress slowed down (having aggressive neighbours this is even more scary). I like when the scale is large enough that you actually feel the weight of your decisions - like ignoring Unrest which then come back to bite you. Apparently even new Nations can form from rebellions, which is just the icing on the cake for me. Combined with the other dimensions of the game, this makes good managing rewarding, which is a fantastic feeling.

Goods and resources are another example for the "extremely simple yet giving you lots of options" theme. I was desperate to gain more Culture, so turned my grapes into wine. Had to build up the infrastructure for it tho, which shifted my priorities. I had a goal, and it felt rewarding achieving that goal. I really, really hope that there will be even more options for such customization and manufacturing, and it won't end up being "only" better yields conversion. This system has an enormous potential.

I like the innovation and the chaos meters too. Nothing amazing, but slightly expands the dynamic of the game. I would like to see better UI however there, what brings up my chaos meter (a summary of unrest for example). I'm not sure how I feel about however, that I chose an option for an event very early in the game (get a Crossbow at the expense of chaos after I cleared a barbarian encampment), yet it has effect forever (to be fair at a heavily reduced amount after the meter fills up). I'm not necessarily against it, but feels a bit "weird".

And finally, food not necessarily equals more growth! I was wrong at first, I thought it will be the case in this game too just as for most 4X, but actually after you have your 200% Needs, it doesn't matter how much more food you have. And considering that there will be plenty of Needs (9 or 11 or something like that at the end) and they come online quite early (at the end of the demo you may need housing and sanitation for example), this actually makes city planning and managing even better! I absolutely love it!

The technology progress is nothing revolutionary, but it does its job. The alternative ages give more variety and better replayability, makes the game more interesting and dynamic, so that's an excellent idea. I just hope that they won't take the game into silly areas with Age of Aether and such (a healthy amount of "what if" is good, but it can be easily go to the extremes).

I love the art of the game, the units, buildings, different pictures are absolutely gorgeous in my opinion. It's a shame that the lack of a coherent UI, fragmented interface and often frankly just abysmal icons spoil the experience. Just having an incredibly simple shield icon for example would be a thousand times better than the current "tent in the woods" icon for 'guard' command for units (skip turn likewise with a bonefire). The red trash icon for deleting units is - I'm sorry for saying this - something unbelievably horrible. If it's not possible to hide it (how often will you delete your units anyway?!) then please, please change it to something else. A lot of icons walk in similar shoe, I really hope that there will be an overhaul (or better quality remake) for many icons and art assets. The card theme of units and buildings in the city screen is also weird a bit, but I can live with that, no big deal. (similarly the worker screen, which could be much better, but not the end of the world)

I also really like the improvement system, especially how it's synergized with other aspects of the game economy. I'm not a huge fan of a worker unit placing an improvement for 10 Turns. But being it a tiny panel at bottom left is... it must be an oversight. It's one of the core elements of the game and it's borderline hidden from the user. Often I was like "oh yeah, there are improvements in the game lol". That interface element should be 10 times bigger considering the impact it has (and it'd still be not too big, it fits very well into that part of the screen).

National Spirits are decent, even if they are ultimately "just" a social policy tree from Civ5. There is a good variety of them, offer flexibility and some even have very cool ideas and features (just one example: hunters reveal elephant resources on the map, and their archer unit can harvest wild animals). If there is a good balance between them and clever / interesting ideas, it'll be also an excellent dimension to the game. (my biggest concern however is that you can go from a peaceful "knowledge focus" Nation to a world conquering threat with just one click by picking the "mongols" in Age 4...)

I personally don't mind the graphics, I find forests even actually quite pretty (lots of trees with variety, densely populated). The hills however could get some (= a lot) love, those plain, low quality grey textures are ... ugh. Other than that, I find the game visually perfectly acceptable. How cities and tiles develop and get additional features (I assume throughout the ages even changing and improving) is fantastic. I use banner view for units however, I find the game much-much better that way (not just because 3m tall leader units are... silly, but generally it feels better, like you actually control armies and not 15 men). Thank you devs for having this option! :)

I find the battle screen rather amusing than annoying. As others have pointed out, defenders running out from behind the walls and attacking the besieging units is... yeah. I hope a quick combat option will be included. Speaking of combat, I found no relevance of army composition at all so far. I really, really hope that at least some degree of tactics and warfare input will be included (anything, like you can choose your stance, or focus, I can imagine a lot of opportunities (focusing on attacking the enemy army's morale) that would spice up this aspect of the game). What we have so far is okay, but extremely anaemic while the potential is there. I'm also curious how naval warfare, aerial warfare (and a combination of these) will unfold later in the game.

My biggest concerns are the lack of proper immersion and consequently the replayability factor, and how the mid- and lategame will look like. I'm desperately curious about the Faction mechanic, which we know nothing about so far. I really hope it won't be just a " Ideological Needs fulfiller for Regions" and it'll have more depth. Diplomacy feels a bit shallow, the basics are there but the place is there for expansion and improvements (could also be done in DLCs and expansions). Also, there is no religion in the game? At all?

The AI feels okay in the demo, they often get ahead of me in tech, they expand rather decently and create some armies. I'm a little bit concerned how clever will they ultimately be, there was no developer video about it or mentioning if anything special was done in this field. But, it definitely feels decent so far, the automatic battles and not 1 unit per tile mechanic also helps them, so I think we can be optimistic.

The sounds and musics are decent so far in my opinion, the throat singing - shamanistic sound in the age of stone is excellent, later I found the musics a bit more generic and uninteresting, but it can be improved easily. For example with culture-specific musics, changing musics depending on what's going on (just one example: being in war. Note to myself: let's try it in the demo if there is actually a good "war pumping" music). The sound effect of some UI elements are weird and not fitting too well, but that's probably just a personal taste.

Overall, after playing several runs in the demo, I like what I've seen so far. Simple yet relatively deep, functioning mechanics and lots of options with a healthy amount of variety. The game won't take the torch out from Civ's hand in my opinion (which ARA tries, from the impression what I've seen from them), nor it implements truly revolutionary ideas such as Old World (which is a perfect example in almost all aspects: familiar, traditional 4X elements coupled with tons of new ideas, salted with beautiful art and fantastic UI (personal opinion) and interesting content. Shame that it's Classical Age only ;) ). It does not have the capacity and the ambition (and the budget) either.

But for me it feels like an amazing game so far, and definitely has the potential to be a good alternative for a Civ fanatic like me (especially with good modding support). Considering this is just a demo, balance changes can be made (as others have pointed out, Raiders for example), notifications can be added (a LOT should be added), and the fact that many of my complaints can be easily improved, I'm quite optimistic. With a reasonable price tag I think this will be a good deal. Fingers crossed for the developers!

(I'm back to the demo for experimenting and min-maxing things)
I have just completed my 3rd run and was going to write some impressions, but I see you did an excellent job, I can subscribe under most of what you say and fully under the gist of it :thumbsup: Count me among new admirers of this game! My wail of despair gets ever louder every time I hit the 60 turns limit again :lol: Honestly, if further turns are able to fulfil the promise they imply, I will... uninstall Civ VI forever...
 
Considering I can run Civilization V and Crusader Kings II just fine, I wasn't expecting to have any problems running a game that looks like it should run on your browser
Those are quite old games, though, about 14 and 12 years old respectively. How the graphics look, especially taking into account things like art style, is not necessarily indicative of system requirements, and apart from the battle viewer, I don't think Millennia's graphics are necessarily that low fidelty:
Spoiler :
ss_1aff0d29958d1e7981b44ad681be694b130831e0.1920x1080.jpg


Anyway, these are the minimum requirements according to Steam:

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS​

  • MINIMUM:
    • Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
    • OS: Windows® 10 Home 64 Bit
    • Processor: Intel® Core™ i5-4690K | AMD® Ryzen™ 3 2300X
    • Memory: 8 GB RAM
    • Graphics: Nvidia® GeForce™ GTX 660 (2GB) | AMD® Radeon™ R9 380 (4GB)
    • DirectX: Version 11
    • Storage: 10 GB available space
 
I agree that more info about yields in general would be nice. One specific example is that the Infopedia doesn't tell you what the yields of improvements will be.

Played another couple quick games. I think my inclination is to expand too quickly, in my Swedish game, the Americans promptly took an underdefended city. I thought I was doing well, with two cities (one just promoted) and two vassals, but America thought it was doing better with a large army.

I had more success in a Germany game where I only built two cities, but built them up and made sure to keep armies nearby. Egypt kept an army stationed halfway between them for about 10 turns, but then sent their army back. And I finally had some diplomatic success! Open borders with the Swedes!

The Germany game also let me get deeper into the building side, which was a lot of fun. I took the Hunters focus since I had lots of Cattle nearby, and came up with with the innovation of spicing the meats, providing culture, and the Hunters' Smoked Meats sub-focus meant that hunting camps and cattle pastures were highly profitable. Hamburg, my capital, also built up quickly, aided early on by Germany's +1 production. I peacefully revolted to an Imperial Dynasty. Which, UI note, both on the governments and national focuses screens, it isn't initially obvious that you can click on an option to view the tree and go back to compare or select the other one. Built a Palace, started improving my government, built Plazas for Arts points which I didn't get to use because of the turn limit :(. Researched an Iron Age tech for the first time, and was starting an Aqueduct when the game ended to help Hamburg keep growing. Although it was tempting to start building The Colossus, even if it wouldn't finish until after the demo.

Another UI note, tooltips on what the difficulties affect would be nice. I've just gone with the default Adept, which seems well-named.

I agree with MrRadar that if the last 3.5 millennia of Millennia can equal the first 8.5, then Civ VI will be in serious danger on my machine. None of the things that make Civ VI tedious - most notably, 1 UPT movement/traffic jams and calculating adjacency bonuses and ranges on tile improvements - are present, so the pace is more like the older Civ games, with nice new twists.
 
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