4X RPG 'Heart of the Machine' from Arcen Games (AI War) releases January 2025

It's on my wishlist from hearing about it before, as the idea sounds interesting. I'll give the demo a try and we'll see how it goes.

Dunno. I've had mixed feelings about a couple of Arcen's previous games. I seem to have liked them better in theory than in practice. I played The Last Federation for a while, and had some fun, but never finished a game because . . . like, you clearly had an overall objective, and you were like researching technologies and stuff, but I found it hard to tell if I was doing well or badly. It was like, OK, I've done some cool starship fights, and I'm taking in enough money to keep the operation going, but is my tech progress fast enough or is it too slow and I'm going to find myself behind the 8 ball in a while? Dunno. Am I making the kind of progress I need on the diplomatic front? Hard to tell. Are the moves I'm making even the kinds of ones I need to be making to get where I'm supposed to end up? Not sure. So my play sort of petered out.

And AI Wars I started a game and kind of bounced before I really got going. But in theory it seems like totally my kind of game and lots of people like it, so probably I'll try again, maybe after watching a video about it or something.

So their new one . . . maybe. I'll wait and see what people say.

Quoting: Purple Library GuyDunno. I've had mixed feelings about a couple of Arcen's previous games. I seem to have liked them better in theory than in practice.

Fairly accurate description of my feelings after playing the demo (older version mind you).

Game premise was really interesting, but execution was lacklustre. For example the way to get some resources is to attack and take over the corresponding production building then defend it. It works, but I was expecting something more... intelligent ? Like being able to covertly control the financial system of a big company to buy the land then erase it from their record.

I was hoping for a novel blend of stealth, economy, strategy and story. But got served a pretty average RTS.