Millennia Review

At the current rate, it feels like we’re getting a Civilization-like 4X game each year, and we’ve yet to see one of them truly become a worthy competitor which can make Firaxis rethink their strategy. It’s now Paradox Interactive and C Prompt Games’ turn, and despite some big swings, Millennia’s lack of attention to detail costs them dearly.

Mind you, the 4X subgenre has been anything but idle in a new Civilization’s absence, with major releases like Endless Space 2 keeping the spark alive by taking the formula to entirely new settings. But historical turn-based 4X games are an entirely different beast, as straight comparisons will be made no matter what, especially when you’re barely rewriting the rulebook.

This may look familiar, but has a voice of its own.

Amplitude Studios’ Humankind has arguably been the biggest attempt so far at quietly removing Civilization from the throne, and while its essentials and new ideas were very enticing, folks rejected its more convoluted systems and some wonky bits. Meanwhile, Mohawk Games’ Old World tried to focus on a smaller chunk of history and go deeper with Crusader Kings-like elements. As for Millennia, Paradox’s big bet for early 2024, it mostly looks and behaves like Civilization VI while trying to sell its bigger ideas. It turns out, unsurprisingly, that some work and others don’t.

For the most part, C Prompt Games’ entire pitch revolves around the general idea of exploring 10,000 years of human history, “from the dawn of humanity to our possible futures.” It does deliver on that promise, with Variant and Crisis Ages – which start under certain conditions – taking the game into uncharted 4X territory, and that is enough to spend at least a couple of games on Millennia, but the undercooked bits ultimately undermine the whole operation.

Combat sadly feels tacked-on and looks too cheap.

Things are off to a rough start when the game set-up screen looks so barebones, offering little in the way of advanced settings or even map customization. In fact, you can’t even change the game’s speed (turns required to finish tasks, research, etc.) right now, which is kind of a massive omission. Furthermore, nations are little more than an icon/flag and small bonuses, with visual identity nowhere to be found and leaders instantly becoming an alien concept.

Inside the games, therefore, recognizing and interacting with allies and enemies feels way duller and not as fluid as you’d like, since you’ll only be dealing with colours and text. Custom nations are a thing, but it’s just a matter of mixing the standard icons and bonuses, so it’s a rather pointless inclusion until mod support arrives.

The turn-to-turn gameplay and overall feeling of the experience is much better though. Millennia never goes to great lengths to distance itself from the competition and main sources of inspiration, instead betting almost all its chips on being the widest historical turn-based game around. That is, building, expanding, and evolving nations has all the decision-making and resource management you’ve experienced plenty of times before elsewhere if you’re not new to the subgenre, but the bigger picture quickly looks quite different from what you’re used to.

You’ll be spending a lot of time inside menus like this one.

Millennia’s strong focus on allowing players to reshape history and even coming up with early victory conditions largely pays off. From ‘national spirits’ (changes that add up and shape your nation’s personality and strengths) to Variant and Crisis Ages that add both opportunities and menaces to the board, progression is far from linear in this game. This ups the freedom of choice 4X veterans are used to, but the price to pay is that every nation, as we mentioned above, feels same-ish. For example, you can play as a French shogunate that eventually moves into a steampunk era, but in practice, there won’t be a major visual difference nor a cool twist on France, as there aren’t unique traits from the get-go.

The decision to make cultural, diplomatic, and religious progression (among others) work as point-based systems that can offer boosts, units, and passive bonuses is quite interesting too. This means you’ll be spending less time micromanaging and more time making decisions and paying attention to the larger board, which may be a big positive for newcomers to the subgenre. On the other hand, combat (already defined as “simple” by the game’s tutorial) is a boring matter of rock-paper-scissors and stacking expensive units and then watching mobile-game-ad-like battles play out. While they can be fast-forwarded, many will wish they could skip them altogether and go straight into the outcomes, especially when the AI isn’t great at them (but quite competent with the politics and management of it all).

Variant and Crisis Ages are Millennia’s most fascinating idea.

On a visual level, Millennia is good enough – battles aside – in spite of the more than obvious budget limitations. It’s clean and stylized, and favours readability over looking shiny and cutting-edge. Many players will miss cut corners such as leaders and slightly more attractive combat animations, but the essentials are all covered. A number of adjustments to the user interface could make a world of difference when it comes to noticing key events such as uprisings long before they happen though. As for the music, it’s calm and blends into the background, which is what you want from soundtracks in 4X games but don’t expect memorable compositions out of this one.

It’s obvious that C Prompt Games was passionate about making a historical turn-based game and has a vision for it. Millennia’s unique strengths might pay off in the long run if post-launch updates and expansions are good enough, but as it stands, it’s a game of many rough edges and ‘quantity over quality’ which the less curious 4X fanatics may choose to avoid and watch from afar. The lower 39,99 US$ price tag definitely helps it, but having an expansion pass already set in place when the base game is lacking many basic features, including simultaneous multiplayer and mod support, isn’t a good look.