Jon Shafer's At the Gates
Review
To Conquer The World...
by Sergio Brinkhuis
reviewed on PC
Detail
Yet not every clan will be happy working in every profession, and this is where At The Gates’ many details come into play. Clans have one or two traits that affect how well they play with others and their willingness to work in a specific profession. Feuding clans, or clans forced to do something they’re not interested in doing, will lose efficiency. In the early game, resolving such issues can often set you back a bit, or even make you change your strategy. Imagine having trained a clan of spearmen, sending them out to the border, and having them complain that they want a settled profession instead. The feuds are the most interesting aspect in this regard - if you want to run your empire efficiently, you’ll have to figure out a strategy to keep everyone happy.
And there are lots of other details to reckon with. I already mentioned winter being bad for food production, but it can also put a dampener on your war plans. Knights, the game’s strongest warriors, require a lot of supply, causing them to almost grind to a halt in winter when supplies are low. Any type of clan can also get stuck in when a plain floods which can happen at any time throughout the year.
Rough edges
At The Gates is lots of fun, but that doesn’t mean there are no flaws. For starters, the AI can be a little flat. They’re not seeking dominance themselves, their ability to wage war is limited - war isn’t fleshed out much, period - and they’ll generally just coexist until you decide that should change. There is barely any diplomacy and it might as well not have been put in at all.
The lackluster AI plays into my second gripe with the game, and that is that it can get pretty long in the teeth once you’ve reached the point that your clans provide you with everything that you need. To be fair, has done a lot to speed things up in the later game, and provided ways to minimize some of the micromanagement. And you can even alleviate things further by choosing to capture the capital city of either the Eastern or the Western Roman empire, which provides far more entertainment than opting to take Rome from within by sending men to train as Roman Legions.
Besides these two larger issues, the game occasionally crashes (but saves every turn) and there are a few minor bugs that don’t really affect gameplay.
Refreshing
At The Gates feels a bit like a flawed gem. It’s far from perfect, but full of intricacies, and it offers a wonderful new take on the 4X genre. Having spent almost 50 hours with the game, every minute has been rewarding. In fact, it’s easily the most refreshing strategy game I have played in years.
I am positive that Conifer will be putting in more work to improve the game. They have been very responsive to inquiries and updates and fixes have arrived almost daily. Already announced post-launch updates include the AI and warfare, addressing both of my main issues. Yet my score has to reflect the state of the game at the time of writing - which is that of a flawed gem. That said, I am completely captivated by the idea of what At The Gates - might - be in the future.
7.2
fun score
Pros
Refreshing new 4X mechanics
Cons
Poor AI, slow endgame
