Not bad, but it could have been so much more!
Please note that this Review may contain spoilers from the Base game
Some key points that this game add on has to offer:
- New Game World
- New Mechanics
- New Recipe’s
- New Enemies
- New Buildings
What’s New
Similar to the previous DLC’s, Heart of Evil shares the exact same replay value, albeit with key differences. It’s a struggle for control with the map being divided into two sections. Good Vs Evil, and endless struggle to see who will vanquish who.
Your role here is to explore the vast fortress that you find yourselves in, build a base and scavenge resources that can be found throughout the fortress. There are AI ally dwarves present that will fight independently against the evil forces with you.
Not only are there plenty of resources to be found, but there are also plenty of enemies to be found in every nook and cranny of your fortress, so as you explore to collect resources, you must also protect and guard what you have.
There is also a raid system where the forces of evil will teleport into your fortress and you will have to defend against them and drive them back.
MGR Gaming’s Conclusions:
It felt like I should have said more, but as fun, as it sounds, it quickly comes to an end. They did an amazing job with this new world. Its massive, and full of treasures that are just waiting to be found. From already constructed rooms and buildings to treasures. However, the sheer size of this world does not work well with the general AI of the game. Dwarves get lost or stuck for no reason, there are teleporters set up for them to help with navigation but it works and doesn’t work. Navigating this world quickly becomes difficult and tiresome.
The AI also does not function properly where your allies come in. They are a bigger threat to your defense than the actual enemy. They lack strategy and basic attack or defend function. They are essentially just cannon fodder, that ends up making the game harder. As much as I like a challenge, this current state of the game and the mechanics of how everything functions makes this DLC way too hard from the get go. You barely start the world and before you realize it you are in over your head and not prepared for the fight you find yourselves in.
If you do manage to keep yourselves alive in the beginning and the RNG allowed you to obtain the recipes and ingredients you needed to start a simple base and work on upgrading it. You will quickly realize how every raid you managed to survive along with every enemy wave you pushed back is a slow death to your dwarves. The difficulty scales up very steeply very fast which essentially takes away from the fun that the game has to offer.
This DLC has a lot of potential if they can boost the AI for the game; the AI in CTW has always been a bit lacking, so I’m hoping they can improve and even update it.
This has always been an amazing game and to date, I have well over a thousand hours in it. I was a bit disappointed to see the outcome of this DLC, especially after how much fun the previous one was, but I am positive that the developers will work on improving the game.
