This is a game so good, Tesla’s CEO had to have it in his cars. The Battle of Polytopia Is the 4x strategy game developed by Swedish gaming company Midjiwan AB and released in February 2016. It involves a turn-based gaming system where you can play against up to 16 tribes to develop an empire and defeat their territories to become the conqueror of the world. The game plays on Android, iOS, Windows, macOS, Linux, and Tesla platforms.

Refreshingly Simplified Strategy Gameplay

The game takes place on randomly generated maps, and you battle with other human opponents or against bots for domination. You begin by selecting one of 16 tribes to play, and you can play with up to 12 other players. Four of the 16 tribes are available to you for free, while 12 others require purchase. Of the 12 paid tribes, 4 have additional special abilities and altered gameplay.

The gameplay is centred around building your cities, creating great structures, and harvesting the resources of your territories to increase your empire’s population. You craft buildings, train soldiers, and research new technologies that will give you the upper hand. Doing all these costs you stars, which are the in-game currency. To generate stars, you need to keep your population growing and your buildings standing. You acquire new cities by moving some of your battle units to an unaffiliated town to invade and claim it as your own.

Three main modes are available to you: Perfection, Domination, and Creative. In Perfection mode, you get 30 turns to achieve a higher score than all the rival civilizations. At the same time, Domination sends you into a straight-up brawl where you must conquer and eliminate your opponents. Creative mode allows you to set the perimeters of the game and play as you like. I enjoyed the creative mode best because you can develop your civilization by domination and otherwise.

You can also play in single-player, local multiplayer, and online game modes. The single-player and local multiplayer modes are free to play, while the online multiplayer requires a purchase. The game comes with difficulty options, ranging from easy to crazy. Many of the civilization series of the 4x strategy genre usually take a lot of my time to complete. Still, The Battle of Polytopia requires a short playtime because of its simplified gameplay. Your progress is displayed on the leaderboard, which displays the highest-scoring games of the week.

Cute But Clunky Graphics

The graphics accompanying The Battle of Polytopia are highly adorable. The art style is simplistic and can sometimes feel clunky. The visuals are still clear enough for you to understand what is going on. Although the tribes are based on ancient Viking civilizations and involve a lot of battle, the graphics introduces a charming façade over the brutality of war like many other games before it.

For a mobile game, the map can sometimes become too cluttered, making it hard to decipher what is happening on the screen. The map elements are not large enough to be seen, so when there are many units on the ground or buildings scattered around, the map begins to look like one giant mess. There is a limit to how deep you can zoom in, and you cannot rotate the map to get a good view of the situation. This low visibility sometimes affected my gameplay, especially on small devices. You can forget a troop was at an attacking location or lose track of your assault on a territory, which can cost you the game.

Cool And Contemporary Score

I enjoyed the music playing in the lobby’s background when setting up games. Although the score is understated during the actual match, the music playing in the lobby is surprisingly cool. It is a contemporary, hip-hop-infused Arabian score that makes you want to stay there.

Multiplayer Mode With No Multiplayers

One of the most exciting arenas for the game is the multiplayer mode, where you set up and play against human opponents. It is a battle of wits, and because everyone gets a turn, you need to be smart like a chess grandmaster to get the best of your opponent. This challenge adds a lot of excitement to the gameplay. However, trying to get an opponent can be somewhat hard and annoying.

I often get left in a lobby, waiting for an online partner to play with. It is unclear if this is a glitch or if there are simply no players waiting to battle with you. Since the game does not support Steam’s Remote Play Together function, the best way to get a partner is to add your gaming friends, which can also be an uphill battle. It is said that the game happens to screw up one of its key selling points by having almost no active online player base.

For a mobile game that was imported over to the PC, it has some intuitive controls and operates fairly well. It is quite easy to play and does not take ages to complete. However, it feels like the oversimplification of the game has ripped it off the actual strategy that makes strategy games interesting. The games devolved to simply sending units towards each other in a bid to outwit the other city and switch allegiances by capturing, releasing, and recapturing.

Conclusion

In Conclusion, The Battle of Polytopia is a classic strategy game that makes playing interesting and fast. It delivers on being the calm and direct game in the 4X genre, devoid of complexity, sometimes to its peril. Although the tribes are based on historical civilizations, it doesn’t make a point of trying to present history with accuracy, which is refreshing. You simply show up and battle for superiority like any other 4x game.

Depending on your difficulty level, the bots on the opposing side can sometimes be dumb, which means you have to turn the difficulty option to crazy to have a challenging experience.