A Monotonous Conquest
Empire: Rising Civilization is a simulation strategy game developed by OneGame Holding Limited. The player is a citizen of Camelot who ran away after King Arthur was overthrown. Now you are building your own army to one day take back Camelot and restore the kingdom.
The story for Empire: Rising Civilization makes the game sound fun. The actual gameplay does not. Like other mobile army building games, the player’s objectives are to raise an army, harvest resources and conquer other lands. You can enter the world and go on a series of campaigns against enemy armies. The gameplay is simple with battles being computer controlled. The battles get boring quick, but the game does offer a skip button. You must wait 10 seconds to use the skip button unless you are a paying VIP member.
The game’s tutorial shows you how to do all of this. The tutorial feels unending, with the player constantly needing to upgrade their resources to unlock the next objective. This becomes tiresome fast as you need to cycle through every new building and upgrade individually. The game does offer an auto builder for 40 Diamonds, an in-game currency players can purchase with real money. The auto builder has a limited number of uses and its price doubles after your first purchase. This money wall is a recurring issue in all aspects of the game.
Pay to Change Your Name
Empire: Rising Civilization loves its microtransactions with its purchasable currency of Diamonds. My character’s name was Lord@3a2e75d. I did not pick that, and I’d have to buy 1,500 Diamonds (which requires spending $9.99) to change my name. The game eventually did let me change my name for free. Why it did after multiple times of me trying and being told I need to pay for it, I don’t know. I tried to pick a simple name: Lord Maximus. I was told it had sensitive words and couldn’t pick it. The only name I could pick was one of the game’s randomly generated names like HannahWallace or Morgan. I settled on HannahNewton.
Leveling up buildings, armies and other parts of your developing kingdom are entirely at the control of your campaign progress. The game lets you instantly upgrade your resources for free when it wants you to upgrade that specific resource. For instance, the game let me upgrade my gold mines for free because that was my objective at the time. Any other time that I want to upgrade resources or buildings, it requires Diamonds or hours spent waiting.
The game forces you to follow its repetitive cycle of battle and upgrade that quickly grows stale. It also forces you to follow a set path instead of playing the game the way you want. You can focus on resources or training your army first, but it’s going to take a lot more time and money.
Nice Visuals
The battle animations of the soldiers soullessly swinging their swords grows old fast. The designs and references for some of the heroes are fun to look at, however. The Game of Thrones inspired heroes lead your armies into battle with some style. The art style carries the rugged feel many war-based games have. Though you mainly fight in large meadows, size of the map makes up for its lack of variety.
Character designs do reference popular franchises and mythological creatures. They can be a bit much though, as the characters look more like a copyright infringement than a reference. The soldiers you lead and the enemies you fight all have basic designs. There are different types of enemies you fight, but they all have generic designs and lack any real variety.
Overall, the game design isn’t spectacular. It passes as a mobile game with just enough detail to make it look nice. The game lacks any spectacular design ideas or nostalgic callbacks to help boost it to a higher quality.
Run of the Mill
Empire: Rising Civilization does nothing to stand out in the sea of mobile strategy games. Its rinse and repeat formula falls flat early on and never picks up again after that. The game does give you free resources and upgrades but only at specific points. You as the player are forced to follow the game’s set path to receive the free upgrades. Overall, the game doesn’t leave a lasting impression, though it can be a nice time waster.
Is It Hardcore?
Meh
Empire: Rising Civilization misses the mark. Its strategy gameplay loses its flare early on with paywalls popping up every other mission.