Empires and Tribes
- December 21, 2023
- empiresandtribes
- 20h median play time
Get on Steam
Get on itch.io Store"Empires and Tribes" is a medieval city-builder and role-playing game hybrid, set in the 13th century. Oversee your city's growth, resources, and technology, while navigating political power struggles and raising a formidable army for protection. Experience immersive RPG elements, such as first-person perspective exploration, as you make critical economic and diplomatic decisions to maintain your position in this challenging world.
Reviews
- The game has a unique blend of city building, RPG elements, and first-person gameplay, providing an immersive experience.
- There is a lot of potential for future updates, with many players expressing excitement about the game's concept and mechanics.
- The graphics and building progression are visually appealing, making the development of your village satisfying.
- The game is riddled with bugs and performance issues, including crashes, AI pathfinding problems, and glitches that hinder gameplay.
- The tutorial is poorly designed, leaving players confused about mechanics and objectives, which can lead to frustrating experiences.
- Many players report that the game feels incomplete and lacks essential features, making it difficult to recommend in its current state.
- graphics26 mentions
- 23 % positive mentions
- 65 % neutral mentions
- 12 % negative mentions
The graphics of the game have received mixed reviews, with many players describing them as outdated and reminiscent of early 2000s titles, often comparing them unfavorably to more modern games. While some appreciate the visual design of buildings and find them satisfactory for a non-AAA title, others criticize the bland textures, clunky animations, and various graphical glitches that detract from the overall experience. Overall, there is a consensus that significant improvements are needed to elevate the game's visual appeal.
“The visuals of the buildings - watching your buildings upgrade from wood huts to fortified stone keeps is very satisfying.”
“The graphics might be on the bland side, more so if you compare them to games like Kingdom Come, but if you think of this as a colony builder, not as a first-person game, then the graphics are quite acceptable.”
“The graphic is fantastic.”
“Just bought the game, played for 10 minutes and asked for a refund. I think the game has a lot of potential, but the game designers obviously did not put the time into it; the graphics are absolutely horrible, 1999 video game quality.”
“I was taken aback by how poor the textures and graphics looked in-game, even at the highest settings, and the horrible animations - it made me feel like I was playing a medieval Minecraft from 2008 and not a life/city simulator.”
“Despite the promising concept, between the super clunky, unintuitive UI, lackluster graphics, and written content that is in desperate need of editing, this game veered quickly into the not fun™ camp.”
- story25 mentions
- 16 % positive mentions
- 72 % neutral mentions
- 12 % negative mentions
The game's story and quest system are criticized for their lack of variety and depth, often revolving around simple fetch quests and repetitive tasks. While players appreciate the integration of city-building and RPG elements, many find the quests uninspired and the overall narrative lacking polish. Despite these shortcomings, the game offers a unique blend of mechanics and activities, with potential for improvement as the developers continue to refine the experience.
“The game does include quests which can come from your residents or directly from the king via his messenger.”
“Walking through your city, visiting the church, attending council meetings and court hearings, events, and quests also fill your time spent in the game with proper activities.”
“You have RPG experience points-based progression, and quests that can be given by your villagers or by the king, that will ask for tribute now and then.”
“I have to turn in a quest and I have no idea where the quest giver is in a town of 200 people.”
“The quests are simple and not fancy, and there is little in terms of variation.”
“The quests your villagers give are boring; sadly, I hope newer versions of the game will have more dramatic quests, as for now it's mostly uninteresting fetch quests or characters asking for wood or food.”
- stability22 mentions
- 0 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 100 % negative mentions
The game's stability is heavily criticized, with numerous users reporting frequent bugs, crashes, and game-breaking issues that significantly hinder gameplay. While some players find enjoyment in its potential and early access charm, the overwhelming presence of glitches, unresponsive controls, and AI problems make it difficult to recommend in its current state. Overall, it is viewed as an unfinished product that requires substantial improvements before it can be considered stable or enjoyable.
“Honestly can't say to recommend this game because it's so buggy and crashy as it stands right now.”
“This is an early access game, it's not finished, and at this moment, the game is filled with bugs and glitches (you can watch any videos or look around the community hub's screenshots), you'll probably encounter game-breaking bugs (it took me 2 tries to finish the tutorial because of game-breaking bugs), and many things are broken or yet to be implemented.”
“This game is currently a buggy mess for me, as such I can't recommend it, only get this to support the development of the game at the moment.”
- gameplay22 mentions
- 14 % positive mentions
- 73 % neutral mentions
- 14 % negative mentions
The gameplay of this title is a mix of city-building, management, and RPG elements, offering a unique first-person perspective that some players find engaging and reminiscent of classic titles. While the mechanics are intriguing and provide a solid foundation for replayability, many users report significant bugs, AI issues, and a confusing interface that detracts from the overall experience. Despite its flaws, players see potential for improvement and enjoy the depth of gameplay, especially if they are willing to navigate through trial and error.
“Although this game looks outdated, gameplay-wise it not only clicks with me, it is a hidden gem I was looking for a long time — basically, this is a Guild 2 from a first-person perspective, with more autonomous and smarter AI, and less need to pause the game to decide something about production.”
“The game mechanics allow for your style of play; e.g. you can run around and build everything you want or instruct villagers to go and build for you. It also allows you to engage in simple combat with animals and people.”
“The game combines city building and management mechanics with top-down RTS, RPG progression and quests, castle building, and first-person combat.”
“While it all looks very pretty, the actual gameplay is a confusing mess.”
“Besides this issue, there are a massive array of other gameplay issues that render the game very low quality and quite boring most of the time.”
“I do not recommend this game at this time as it's still riddled with bugs and gameplay issues.”
- optimization6 mentions
- 50 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 50 % negative mentions
The game's optimization has been criticized for significant issues, including massive save file sizes and frequent crashes after short play sessions. However, some players have noted improvements in performance following updates, suggesting that the developers are addressing these concerns. Overall, while there are signs of progress, the game still suffers from fundamental optimization flaws.
“Performance improved.”
“I think the performance update made a huge difference for me.”
“Edit: Performance has gotten better, thanks!”
“The game is severely deficient in polish of the basic things such as optimization, character animations, and the quest pool, bandit encounters, combat in general, as well as having no mounts in a giant land and no siege engines, but magical ability to tear down stone walls.”
“Save files are massive, optimization is so bad, and the game closes itself after 30-45 minutes.”
“Not sure if it's related to memory/game optimization.”
- humor2 mentions
- 100 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 0 % negative mentions
Players find humor in the game's quirky bugs, particularly the amusing lag that occurs when building multiple guild halls. Additionally, the transformation of a small village into a bustling town provides a lighthearted and entertaining experience, especially from a first-person perspective.
“It is very funny seeing your poor little village evolve into a nice town, especially from the first-person view!”
- grinding1 mentions
- 0 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 100 % negative mentions
Players find the grinding aspect of the game tedious, particularly due to the repetitive nature of searching for hidden "evidence" in familiar locations throughout the town. This mechanic may lead to a lack of engagement as players become accustomed to the usual hiding spots.
“Sadly, the court mechanics are based on looking for 'evidence' that's hidden in different parts of town. I can see this mechanic becoming tedious once you know all the usual hiding places.”
- emotional1 mentions
- 100 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 0 % negative mentions
Users express disappointment in the game's emotional impact, citing poor graphics and animations that detract from immersion, likening the experience to outdated games rather than a modern life or city simulator.
