Millenniais perhaps the Civ-like that’s clung most tightly to the genre’s apron strings.
Unfortunately, it isn’t a particularly good student.
That’s… probably fine, I thought.
I like the idea in principle, too.
In practice, I never found these to feel very meaningful.
Honestly, I had a terrible time trying to remember where each of these abilities lived.
I could use Warfare points on military stuff, like healing units or ordering them on a forced march.
But then I could also use Government points to raise a tribal army.
Apart from that, though, is the role these play in the game.
There’s no quick way to check what’s already available in a capital region, either.
Finding the information I needed was, seemingly always, a tiring hunt.
This resulted in a failure cascade more violent and dramatic than anything I’ve seen in Civilization.
Successive provinces declared independence, and with my treasury drained, Millennia decided I was out of options.
Millennia has other problems, too.
Map visuals are all serviceable, but the battle animations are embarrassingly dated.
Something else I didn’t get to see was any non-white characters.
Millennia whiffs on some other fundamentals, too.
Diplomacy and trade both feel half-formed, with very few points of interaction in either system.
Frankly, any modern Total War game handles these with considerably more depth and nuance, which is disappointing.
Pivoting to fantastical alternative eras of history could have made for a wildly exciting story with each campaign.
This review was based on a review build of the game provided by publisher Paradox Interactive.
