The new strategy game “Millennia” has been on Steam since March 26th. MeinMMO’s strategy expert, Schuhmann, says: “I can’t get away from it,” but the game is everything but round.
What kind of game is Millennia? Millennia can be seen in two ways:
Both views were represented in a GameStar talk by content creators Writing Bull and Steinwallen. Both are true at the same time.
Every time I lose, I understand what I did wrong
What fascinates me so much about the game? The great thing about Millennia is that it is as understandable and logical as a game of “Mühle”.
Every time you run into problems, you can trace the difficulty back to mistakes you made 10 or 20 moves earlier.
The mechanics in the game are complex, but very clear. Everything has cause and effect. It is important to consider various priorities at the same time:
High replayability thanks to the modular principle
This is what makes it so special: Normally, 4x strategy games always follow the same pattern: you learn a formula and perfect it. Over time, you’ll rewind through the first few hours of a game as if you were in a trance. They no longer require the player to make decisions, but rather to play according to a blueprint.
If you know Stellaris, you could play blind for the first 2 or 3 hours of a game. It’s like the opening in chess: over time you memorize certain patterns.
However, Millennia has clever mechanics that ensure that the “basic rules” of the game constantly change. Because with 4 ages in the game you have the opportunity to specialize your people. The first decision comes early
The starting position of the first city and what resources you have available change the basic conditions and how you have to react to them.
The feeling of “I understood something” is addictive
This is what makes it addictive: Millennia has an incredibly satisfying learning curve because the game constantly presents you with puzzles that you solve and then have the feeling: I’ve understood something, I’ve really gotten better.
So the question is: “Where do I build my cities and how do I best expand them?” already a central game decision in which you understand something new and make a leap every 10 hours.
You can feel real progress here.
Even those who think it’s stupid can still fall for the fascination of Millennia
What do others say? I’m not the only one who has already spent 40 hours with Millennia in just a few days:
On Steam a user says after 36 hours: “Good game. A surprising number of ideas for a Civ-like game. I love the extensive construction part.”
Also interesting: There are several people who rate Millennia negatively on Steam after a few hours, but just can’t get rid of it
Is the game fun? Yes, of course it’s fun. But you can also see at every turn how raw the game is and that it would have needed a few more months of development.
Graphically, the game is weak, the fights are almost a joke, the user interface is so crumbly that you can only recognize a lot of important information when you know exactly where to look for the information: So I was puzzled as to why During a military passage my units simply disappeared.
Only when I realized that my financial balance sheet (a tiny display at the top right) was in the red did I solve the puzzle.
Nevertheless, Millennia has now grabbed me like a strategy game has rarely done in recent months. But I wouldn’t recommend anyone to get it on Steam for €40. It’s probably a game that will be significantly better in 6 or 12 months than it is now. Especially since the developers have cheekily announced two expansion packages that are scheduled to appear in 2024.
Because of all the problems, Millennia was punished by testers and both user reviews on Steam:
Strategy geniuses fail again – new alternative to Civilization is panned in tests on Steam