Birth of Rome is reviewed by Tacticular Cancer

[Ben]

They seem to enjoy the boardgame like aspects of the game. Interesting read.

http://www.tacticularcancer.com/index.php#4007

[Pocus]

Indeed, a good article, with the reviewer coming from the boardgaming school of thoughts

[ERISS]

Always the same AGE flaws (short tutorial, small fonts), even an effort has been made (at least on AJE).
However I'm planning buying the game.
This review has probably not been paid by Ageod.

[bob.]

Good review, I especially agree with this point

I was a little disappointed by the lack of flavor in the Options, especially for the likes of the Carthginians from which I expected blood soaked human sacrifices. Alas, they were considerably tame. I also feel the Options aren't as exciting mechanics wise as they should be, all feeling rather cheap and anticlimactic, rather than being game changing choices with big effects and terrible costs. The way the Options are currently implemented feels like a wasted opportunity to emulate the enormously consequential decisions leaders sometimes have to make.

For nearly all decisions the question is not IF you choose them but WHEN because most decisions are just so good that there is no reason to not choose them.

Maybe for the next expansions (I can't wait already!) you could try to make the decisions a bit more like.. decisions.. and not just bonuses?

[Pocus]

We don't pay for reviews, we deserve what we get (most of the time)

Some interface advances will be seen in ACW2 Eriss, you'll see we are moving in the right direction!

[Ben]

Agree in part with the review. Thing that bugs me the most in AJE and BOR is that many scenarios can simply run out of steam. Meaning that the AI sometimes goes very inactive or even when you defeat the enemy whole the scenario just keeps going untill it reaches the end instead of triggering a win when all objectives are lost or won or enemy morale is down the drain. That seems to me to point to either simple bugs, triggers not triggering or lack of playtesting. Some extra polish would be nice.

The engine itself is simply awesome btw and the better scenarios really are a blast. Hope to see a lot more of them.

[ERISS]

when you defeat the enemy whole the scenario just keeps going untill it reaches the end instead of triggering a win when all objectives are lost or won or enemy morale is down the drain.

'Sudden death' is not active? or maybe it has been set some uselessly too far.
At least, it's better than the reverse, where the game would stop in a balanced situation where everything can still happen..

[leftguard]

With regard to the tutorials, I must admit to thinking the AJE tutorial was surprisingly brief, and was glad to have been familiar with a couple of earlier games in order to get things figured out.

I think by far the best Ageod tutorial I've worked through was the one included in RoP - it followed through the first few moves of the introductory scenario, one turn at a time, and then sent us off to play the scenario itself, with it's slightly extended timeframe. In many ways I think it was the best strategy game tutorial I've come across anywhere, and might be a good model to follow for future titles. Yes, it's teaching veteran players things they already know, but you never know which game a new player will pick up first.

[Erik Springelkamp]

The tutorial for Napoleon's campaign was also pretty good: it also sent you on your way into a short scenario.

It was how I was introduced at AGEOD games, and from the tutorial I got the impression that it was easy to play.

Then I discovered the strategic depth of the real scenario's :-)

[ERISS]

With regard to the tutorials, I must admit to thinking the AJE tutorial was surprisingly brief,

Lol, I've found it longer and better than the RUS one. RUS one may be the worst so. So that at release it was giving 1/5 grade to the game (maybe for the DPI problem too) from some irritated newbs (it was not me, but it could, I didn't wrote bad on the game elsewhere than here..) (at release the tutorial even teached wrong things; I some rewrited it for corrections, included in patches, but it stand short).