If you ask your mother from the again seat if we are able to get Sid Meier’s Civilization, and she or he shoots you down by insisting, “Now we have Civilization at house,” Millennia is the Civilization at house. Which will sound a bit harsh, and it isn’t like there’s nothing constructive to spotlight about this history-spanning 4X contender. But it surely breaks all the way down to a handful of fine concepts that wobble below the load of faltering fundamentals. Like On the Gates earlier than it, Millennia focuses an excessive amount of on the methods it desires to combine up the Civ components with out constructing the bottom of a powerful Civ-like first.
Similar to Civilization, Millennia is a turn-based empire-builder impressed by actual historical past, and a little bit of alternate historical past on this case. My largest elementary challenge with it’s what I’ll name the tile financial system. Each tile on the planet could be claimed by your cities, after which you’ll construct enhancements on them to generate sources. That looks as if fairly commonplace stuff, however I nearly all the time discovered myself working out of room earlier than I may even present for the fundamental wants of a bigger metropolis. Many crucial sources can solely be produced by tile enhancements, and most tile enhancements can solely generate precisely one sort of useful resource. There is not any solution to hybridize, and the buildings within the metropolis itself are intentionally restricted in a variety of methods.
Which means principally all of my cities ended up trying like Coruscant earlier than the Renaissance. Each single obtainable tile was stuffed up with some type of infrastructure. It does not look good. It does not seem like an actual metropolis. It does not mimic real-world improvement patterns. It is simply type of a large number, and the graphics depicting these tiles could be fairly sloppy, too. Roads can run beneath buildings, there are locations the place two tiles meet and the freeway is extra pixelated on one aspect for some motive, and neighborhoods will even sprawl out into the center of a river. The terrain itself appears to be like alright, however it’s nearly all the time coated up by crap after the primary 200 turns.
There are some methods to ‘construct tall’ that unlock later, like with the ability to course of grain into flour, and ultimately bread, to supply extra meals utilizing much less house. These manufacturing chains can get fairly advanced, particularly if you think about commerce between cities, which added an additional layer of engagement I ended up having fun with. But it surely wasn’t sufficient to alleviate my frustrations with the tile financial system. I discovered myself lacking Civ 6’s districts, which had been a pleasant compromise between having nearly all the pieces crammed into the capital and this unwieldy sprawl.
What makes it even worse is that you do not unlock the power to clear forests till the Data Age, roughly the Nineteen Seventies. Excuse me, what? So when you spawn someplace half surrounded by bushes, which I did nearly each time, I hope you want lumber camps, as a result of that is the one factor you can construct on this land for 1000’s of years. I do not know if this sport was designed by the Lorax or what. I am a reasonably inexperienced individual in actual life, however I am additionally pretty certain we found out tips on how to clear land for farming earlier than we had Wi-Fi. It does not make sense traditionally or balance-wise.
I do not wish to harp on this one design failure for the entire evaluation, however it will get much more irritating as extra, complicated sources are added in later ages. Do you wish to construct oil wells? You want a particular sort of tile enchancment factors known as “Specialists” that symbolize educated folks in your society. So constructing colleges will in all probability get me these, proper? Nicely, no. Schooling is a totally totally different factor, that represents one of many varied Wants your cities can be obligated to meet as they develop bigger and your society turns into extra advanced. It is also a unique useful resource from Data, which represents your scientific development. And Specialists, because it seems, are nearly completely by tile enhancements known as Mind Trusts.
We ran out of flat land some time in the past and nonetheless have not invented Digital Forestry but, so Sid solely is aware of the place we will discover room for these. That is so weird. I could be method forward in tech and have probably the most educated metropolis on the planet, however not be producing any “Specialists” who know tips on how to construct an oil effectively. These three swimming pools are utterly unconnected. Why they every wanted to be a unique useful resource that’s produced by its personal unique line of buildings is mindless to me on a logical stage, and it isn’t even enjoyable from a gameplay perspective.
Weirdness apart, I do just like the system of cities having varied wants to meet with a purpose to develop previous sure thresholds. At first, it is simply meals. When you get sufficiently big although, you will even have to fret about sanitation. In a while, cities find yourself needing schooling, electrical energy, and web entry. A few of them make extra sense than others. I am unsure why social media would enhance inhabitants progress velocity. (That ought to in all probability be the other, proper?) However that is a kind of handful of fine concepts that assist Millennia stand out no less than a bit of bit.
Alternate ages are one other cool concept, in principle. There’s the usual development from Bronze to Iron to Renaissance, then ultimately house and past that we’re all acquainted with. However you possibly can unlock alternate ones with their very own tech playing cards, just like the Age of Heroes through which you will march your mythic founders round finishing quests, or the Age of Conquest in which you’ll finish the marketing campaign early by reaching dominance via gunpowder. The issue is, I discovered that sure ones had been very tough to unlock or keep away from when you did not actually exit of your method to take action. I’ve by no means seen the Age of Blood occur, however the steampunkish Age of Aether appears nearly inevitable. And also you just about need to science rush in order for you any say in any respect, as solely the one who is furthest forward in know-how will get to determine which age comes subsequent.
Warfare could be thrilling and enjoyable. The AI is definitely competent at launching offensives. The battle animations look hilariously outdated, however this did not hassle me that a lot. It is type of charming, truthfully. What did often bug me was not understanding how issues like initiative work. There does appear to be some type of flip order, however it’s by no means clear who goes first or how pleasant and enemy models decide their targets. Some models will even get to assault twice in a row often. And there is no solution to see a prediction of how a battle will go earlier than you decide to attacking, apart from the relative whole energy of the stacks.
I additionally want to speak about efficiency, as a result of within the late sport it’s downright atrocious. The flip restrict is 500, and hitting the “Finish Flip” button for Flip 499 on a “Enormous” measurement map took a whopping one minute and 40 seconds to resolve on my Ryzen 7 3700X (I timed it). This was with solely six different nations other than myself nonetheless alive. The primary 30 seconds did not even appear to be the AI taking turns – it was simply Millennia freezing utterly, and giving me a Home windows “stopped responding” warning if I attempted to click on something or tab out. In instances the place I wanted to attend a number of turns for a constructing to complete or one thing, it may very well be upwards of 5 minutes of sitting on my fingers. The notification that the marketing campaign was nearly over got here as a mercy.
I used to be additionally disillusioned with the marketing campaign set-up choices. There are solely 18 nations to select from, and so they every include a single, small, considerably generic steered bonus that may be swapped for one more at your leisure. You may’t management the marketing campaign size in any respect, which made the early ages all the time really feel like they flew by method too rapidly, as somebody who usually performs Civilization on Epic. However to be honest, I used to be glad I hadn’t been given the choice of an extended run once I hit these late sport finish flip occasions. Additionally, the map era choices are very restricted.
You may customise your nation all through the ages with Nationwide Spirits that add issues like the power to construct pyramids or rent samurai. And new taste mechanics like social material and ideologies hold including layers of attention-grabbing differentiation as you progress. However with no distinction in structure or base models and no speaking leaders, the flavour between nations is total very missing. It’d shock you that these white guys in fantasy barbarian armor are purported to be Zulu.