Think Civilization Meets Europa Universalis With Extra Steps
If the dumbing down of the Civilization series has you frustrated and the questionable return of a mechanic resembling a poor take on the Stack of DoomTM in the latest version of that series isn’t satisfying, you might want to check out Ara: History Untold. It’s almost a year old but hasn’t received much press, but it happens to be 50% off on Steam and Version 1.4 “The Living Strategy Update” just dropped. This makes the incredibly complex game a little easier to manage thanks to some major changes to the UI, not the game mechanics, as well as making it easier to figure out what is happening in battles with your troops … who are in one stack while traversing the world and spread out to fight, in specific formations you’ve researched once battle is joined.
The overall map of Ara: History Untold, which you can make resemble Earth or randomly generate, does resemble older Civ games, and the provinces are assimilated manually; you choose which one to attach to your city instead of waiting for your amorphous blob to expand the way you have been hoping it would. However it then shows a different side as each province has several areas inside, depending on it’s size, in which you can build a single improvement somewhat like Civ games. There are improvements with synergies, for instance building a water well next to a farm will boost productivity, but there are also improvements which create specific goods for your empire, from ropes to feasts. These goods aren’t primarily for sale or trade, you will research advanced buildings which will produce advanced goods, but which will take dozens of turns to do so, unless you provide them with rope or whatever particular goods will boost your production.
This only touches on the early era, you will play until you are running a modern empire which need modern amenities to produce what you need in a timely manner. There is a lot more to the Ara: History Untold, if you want something a little more complex you should check out a few gameplay videos or just grab it while it is on sale.