Hello!

Hi! I'm Heradite and I used to love the RTS genre. You know back when Age of Empires 2, Rise of Nations, Empire Earth, etc. were released.

I just learned about this game and I'm wondering: should I get it? I know coming to the official forums will probably give me biased answers unless they did something terribly wrong...

but the reviews seem to be mixed and I'm wondering if they've worked to improve any issues?

Yes! Get it!
I really love this game.

I would suggest heading over to the Videos subforum so you can see what the game looks like and how it plays, so you can see if it's for you.

This thread on Steam was very popular during a recent big sale. I think it does a good job of answering a lot of common questions and clearing up a lot of confusion, but I guess only you can really be a judge of whether you will like the game.

If a game has a bad launch/confusion in marketing pitch forks will be raised. Not just for PA, but for any game especially with the early access craze going on. Check out some popular/current version game play videos to see if you like the style. The sub forum DeathByDenim posted is a good place to find some

My advice is, do not rely on review sites. I've said this before and I'll say it again. Most modern games are ever changing due to various patches and dev support which also means that reviews are completely irrelevant unless they have been updated to include the changes in the games latest patches (Which is rarely the case).

Personally I love this game. It is currently likely on my list of most played games of all time. Of course there are many things which could be improved, but isnt that the case for everything. In its current state I find PA an absolute joy to play.

Really in the end just go to youtube and watch some recent casts/gameplay (I stress the word recent as this game has evolved since its frankly shoddy launch) and decide for yourself as no matter who you speak to we all have a biased point of view. Also ignore a lot of the hate online (although keep an eye out for valid criticism) as the game did indeed launch too early in development and that pissed off a lot of people. Heck nowdays its the cool thing to hate on kickstarter and early access projects, so be careful when taking peoples comments into consideration.

If you are an RTS nutcase like me (I've played and loved the all the games youve mentioned), then I suggest purchasing a copy as I am sure you wont regret it. But again, watch some casts involving the most recent patch and decide for yourself whether this is the game for you.

EDIT:
Incase your'e wondering some of the great RTS games that ive played are: Whole Age Of Empires series (yes this includes online which was below average), Empire Earth, Dawn of war, Command and Conquer, Total Annihilation, Starcraft 1 and 2 (Not a massive fan although I find it ok) and Supreme Commander.

There are more to that list, but these are just off the top of my head. So keep in mind that my comments about PA are from a person with a heavy RTS background.

The game had a notable amount of issues at launch. Less quality than being unfinished, tho. PA's devs are working pretty fast, and, at this point, it's a very fun RTS with small flaws and a bunch of crazy concepts. Not a masterpiece by any stretch and certainly missing the complexity and utter depth of SupCom, but something I'd recommend to every RTS-fan.

State of the game is launchworthy and it'd be a good game if the dev would just declare it complete (lots of big patches still coming out, tho). Biggest issue atm would be the lacking unit variety, but multiple planet/orbital gameplay/scalable economy make the game a lot more fun than it would be otherwise.
Just one thing, you should have at least 8 gigs of ram. The procedural planets are heavy on the memory.

If you're unsure, wait for a sale. The game was at 6 bucks at some point, and, all bias aside, it's probably very hard to resent buyin the game at that price.

The best thing about this game is that it constantly improves. The main complaints made in reviews when the game released have already been tackled. Offline play, ranked ladders, unit cannon and a lot of bugfixes and balancing etc has been added. The save/load feature is coming this month and they are working on galactic war changes. So reviews you find from a couple of months ago are already outdated and don't represent the game you can play now

I personally really love this game once you get the hang of the planet controls and this forum is the only forum that really kept me hanging around. So yes, you should buy this game and if you have doubts, wait until a sale

Go to youtube and watch some gameplay videos. In case you like the unique style of the game, you should buy it. It is a solid game under frequent development with a good mannered community.

Is that a recommendation for just PCs? 'Cause these is my machine right:

Not sure if that changes things.

Nope, that doesn't change anything. I think you are good.

Only get the game if you intend to only enjoy multiplayer. Apparently that is Ubers focus and single player is mostly neglected.

Ah, that's a good point. I'm primarily a single-player kind of guy and reading over this thread makes me want to avoid multiplayer.

That is kind of disappointing.

I was in the same situation last summer, I had only played AoE II before I played PA but I really wanted a modern, novel RTS. I gave PA a chance and it was the best decision I could have made judging from where the game stands now and what the RTS genre has to offer (virtually nothing new since StarCraft).

PA has had a lot, and continues to recieve a lot, of careful Tender Loving Care from the developers. They have fixed huge arrays of bugs, made vast progress on every aspect of the game and have added a swathe of content since release

It's definitely 80/100 where it is now, and should be seeing yet another load of optimisation and improvements soon.

I backed $100 :>

I also bought 17 command and conquer games off amazon for $5
I am not a big fan of cnc but even that was worth it
sales awwyis

Uber did mention quite recently that they are looking into the galactic war side of things again if that is what you are referring to. Single player vs ai in a skirmish match is perfectly fine although as with any game it can be improved further. Still if you do want a real challenge yes I would suggest looking into the online scene.

I never had many problems in multiplayer games, just sometimes someone who is not eco friendly and uses all your metal and energy in shared games. But normally I never have problems playing online.

But for single player, the Galactic War currently in game is not much of a galactic war, which is its main problem. It is not really a metagame as it was planned yet. But Uber is internally looking and testing on how to improve the Galactic War to make it awesome.

But normal 'skirmish' single player is great! The AI is very good, although it sometimes is suicidal. And what blightedmythos said, single player is not neglected. Galactic War is mostly neglected for now since they are planning on that huge update later this year, so any improvements made now will be useless in a couple of months. The single player skirmish game is updated just as much as multiplayer games, since any multiplayer improvements also improve the skirmish game.

Finally, for multiplayer, I also was a singleplayer guy before PA, but somehow I really like the multiplayer of PA and mostly play it online. The ranked games also help find 1v1 enemies on your level if they are available

Yeah I was pretty disappointed too. I can't really recommend the game at the momment. Maybe in six months. Supposedly they are "looking into" Galactic War the single player campaign. Whatever that means. Will it be small bug fixes or new content I have no idea. With how slow Uber's devolopment team is, expect changes in 6 to 12 months.

The pa multiplayer community is one of the nicest you'll find in any game. That thread was referring to a handful of idiots, though they are the exception rather than the rule.

By far the best way to play pa is get onto team speak with a few friends and play shared teams. opens up so many interesting plays, and allows the game to really show off its true scale (massive battles require more than one player imo).

If you really don't like playing with others though, the single player content isn't as fleshed out. I don't think @blightedmythos is correct about them being slow, just their focus hasn't been on things he enjoys (single player).

Personally I'd keep it on your watch list. The galactic war update is planned for March / April, and you can bet there will be a sale to go with it

The heck are you talking about. Since launch PA has been getting new updates on a very regular basis which have included many new features such as the system editor, subs, new air, rebalances, inclusion of community suggestions and etcetera. Don't know where you got the misconception that Ubers dev team is slow.