Anyone here playing or played this game?
I’m looking for general opinions on it. I bought it a couple of days ago. It is one of the best games I have ever played, but it is seriously flawed.
I’ll save my comments until after a few people post.
Thanks.
your comments are pretty apt, a patch was promised but it never appeared. At one point Jowood banned the lead designer from posting in the official forum.
It is one of the best games I have ever played
I`m sorry, but I cannot agree. I really liked i at first too, but after a week or so, I put the game down. At first glance, the game seems to have a lot of exciting features, and I truly expected it to continue to grow on me for a long time.
The main problem with the game is that it is too easy. The main challenge lies in understanding what it is all about. And when you do, there is little left.
And to be honest, after a while with getting heaps of children, and breaking news about who marries who, I found that I couldn`t care less.
One question to anyone who tried it: How do you make money being a money-lender? I owned all the money-lending businesses in town, set interest rates at 5%, and still no one came…
Money lending is broken. It’s one of the things that was supposed to be addressed in the patch which doesn’t look like it will ever materialize. I’d love to know some of the internal politics on this project. Arx Fatalis has seen, what, 13 patches since it was released? And yet 4Head only managed to get one update out the door: a patch for the german version which created more problems than it solved. JoWood published both these games, so it doesn’t sound like it’s all their fault.
I liked this game, and it’s one of the few games my girlfriend was interested enough in to play on her own instead of just watching me. But it’s got some bugs and in the end the gameplay is a little bare. The potential was certainly there…
ian
I think the game still has lots of potential. The AI is seriously holding it back. There is alot of depth though, if you want to look for it.
Managing a family, political career, personal growth, businesses, properties, supply chain, etc.
There is a wealth of things to do, but the only problem is the AI. The AI opponents can make your life slightly difficult, but they don’t feel very aggressive. Same thing for the automated master’s you can put in charge of your businesses. My five thieves guilds and two robber baron forts should not have a hard time making 15k a turn with the AI behind the wheel, but they do.
The late game is a major pain in the ass because you simply must control everything in order to make any money and controlling seven business while trying to manage a family and political career doesn’t feel like fun, it feels like work.
But that first half of the game where you only have one or two shops, that is where the magic that this game can muster resides.
It’s seriously addictive for maybe a week, a fortnight…depends how long it takes you to win a couple of times on the higher difficulty settings. After that, there’s nothing to bring you back. Some very nice ideas though - I really enjoyed it while it lasted.
If a patch that made automation more useful came out, I would not stop playing this one for a long time. It reminds me of medievil monopoly with a few twists.
Yes, there are some flaws, but I’m looking forward to the sequel nonetheless.
I wonder if the expansion will be coming to the states. I don’t think it sold that well, and alot of the fans are tearing 4Head up on the Jowood forums.
I kinda hope they release a patch that fixes the interface issues and graphics glitches and release the add on.
I too really enjoyed the game for a few weeks. Thanks to Spoofychop bringing it up here at Qt3 a few months ago. I put it down in the hopes of starting back after a patch came out. There still has not been one, right? JoWood giving little to no support of Europa here in the states and then banning the developer from the game’s forum was just insane. He had complained about that lack of even minimal publicity and was yanked. JoWood can put their hands on some interesting titles, but they sure as hell do not market them well over here.
Are they just dumping titles in the U.S. to get the JoWood name on shelves before starting to push games they have more hope for? Why bother publishing them in the US if they are not going to put any publicity behind them?
It was as if Jowood marketing had ordered for outlets to hide the game.
They banned the developer from the forums?
That’s just extremely fucked up. No wonder the Jowood Europa 1400 forum is a graveyard. I thought it was because the game waned in popularity, but maybe everyone just got banned. :lol:
It was as if Jowood marketing had ordered for outlets to hide the game.
From what I heard, some areas had this game and some areas didn’t. My area was one that didn’t. Software Etc, EB, Best Buy, no one had it.
I had to order the jewel case only version for $19.90 at gogamer.
I picked it up with a go game order a little while ago, it’s been patched now and I think it’s a lot of fun. I has that one more turn mechanic with each day and so far I’m having a blast.
The patch is up to 1.5 so if you have this game already I’d highly reccomend pulling it out of the closet and giving it another chance.
Wow. Serious thread necromancy ;-)
I’m playing Hardwar at the moment, but maybe when I’m done I’ll get the latest patch.
Fantastic game…very original.
Isn’t the sequel either out in Germany, or close to release? I dumped an insane amount of time into the first game over a long weekend, and never touched it afterwards, but I’d like to see what they do with the followup. E1400 had a lot of medieval charm, but the patch situation was just stupid.
Ok I give up on Hardwar. Just a bit too underdone. I’ll try Europa again now.
(Can you tell I ran out of new games to play?)
Have you tried the beta, fan-made patches for Hardwar? They add a lot to the game.
I did add the DirectX 9 patch from Captain Zedo’s but I still just felt the game was a bit less polished than i remembered.
I just tried playing Europa but was having some serious graphical glitches.
Now I have to dig out another game from the archives…maybe Medieval TW or SMAC or Zeus/Acropolis or 1503.
SMAC or Zeus seem to the be best from that lineup, IMO.