homepage Forums SimHQ Community Screenshot & Video Gallery Seizing the Medea (UA: AoS)

Just a few pics from the single battle 'Spanish Gold'. A small English fleet confronts a similar Spanish force en route to Cadiz, in an effort to capture gold and other stores said to be aboard one of the Spanish vessels, the Medea.

Looks nice 33lima. Love the age of sail setting. How would you rate this game?

Overall, I'm impressed and really enjoying it so far.

Positives for me include:
- lovely visuals and effects, not least the ships, seascapes and landscapes;
- good animations eg sails setting, crew movement aboard ship (on decks but not aloft), infantry reloading
- very effective sounds, including cannon and musket fire (and the absence of cheesy voiceovers)
- nice music score
- good UI and control system
- AI appears at least adequate
- very high production values including menu screens
- the branching campaigns, though linear, seem well constructed and engaging
- the mix of naval and land battles is working well for me, despite being interested principally in the former
- game mechanics seem pretty comprehensive and well-executed eg musketry between close ships, grappling and boarding, landing and recovering troops in ships' boats
- stable, no crashes or glitches (apart from flags still sometimes showing in mid-air after a mast has been lost)
- ability to clear the screen of all interface clutter as well as to selectively declutter sensibly eg turning off display of individual hit damage.

Negatives for me are:
- just a handful of single battles included, which with the small number of campaigns and some other factors listed below, limits replayability, compared to what it could have been.
- custom battle generator is included, but provides ships which need guns, officers and crews added first (might have been a late addition based on the in-campaign system for 'buying' more ships)
- some things seem to happen unrealistically fast eg weighing anchor, units responding to orders, speed of rowed boats.
- defeated ships seem to strike their colours much more rarely than in real life (sinking seems the most common outcome)
- camera can't be lowered as far as deck level
- no option to sail ships by setting a compass course
- apparently thanks to the Ukraine War, expansions & further work ceased after the Barbary Pirates DLC was released
- appears not to be mod-able

There seems to be no strategic map for the campaigns though their battle-to-battle nature seems to render this entirely un-necessary. Not sure yet if there's much if any variety in sea states, tho rain/murky conditions are featured.

Still early days but its got me hooked!

Thanks for the mini-review, pros and cons. Looks fun.