As a history major with a focus on Roman Civ I was really ready to like this game, and I did... Until I ended up watching fights and having my seemingly superior gladiators get their asses kicked in fights that they should have been winning. Look, it's no problem if that happens, fine. The problem is that there's no feedback whatsoever as to why this occurs. The action happens so quickly that you're left scratching your head as to why what happened occurred.
So after bumbling through blindly for my first couple of games I decided to consult some guides to try and figure out what the hell was actually going on during the fights. Turns out... There really aren't any to be had. There are guides out there that will tell you what upgrades to purchase, who to employ, etc. But nothing about what stats guide gladiators and how they interact with other types during battles. So maybe nobody actually knows? Maybe the stats play out somehow, or different types of gladiators beat other types in a rock-paper-scissors style triangle, but if there was some kind of framework guiding such interactions then I was blind to it. It seemed like the two sets of AI simply ran at each other until one randomly died. I couldn't tell whether superior equipment was the cause, or a stat like aggression or evasion came out on top. I'm not asking for the game to hold my hand, I'm asking for the game to be a game and allow me to learn and improve by having its underlying systems be identifiable. They are not, and as a result, it just feels cheap and left up to chance no matter what you do in your gladiator school, even on the easiest difficulty setting.
I ended up following a guide which said to increase your gladiators' AI all the way via meditation and hire key employees and take key skills, so I did that, yet the same thing kept happening. In some fights my gladiators would absolutely paste the competition, in others they'd just be completely ineffective and die. I had one specific instance where one of my gladiators was absolutely crushing the competition, taking minimal damage and 3-shotting enemy gladiators. Then, abruptly, against an enemy gladiator with seemingly inferior statistics, he got absolutely starched and killed. I still don't have a clue why.
After several more fights and continuing to analyze the stats to each gladiator I still had no clue whatsoever as to why this was occurring, so I eventually dropped the game in frustration and I can confidently say I won't be going back without a major overhaul to the underlying systems that guide the actual fights.
Maybe I'm just an idiot, but the entire thing seems broken to me.
⭐
Playtime: 2 hours
