Reviews

• gamedeal user

  Mar 5, 2022

  If Gibbons were alive today, he would have bought this DLC
• gamedeal user

  Aug 6, 2023

  A Very Nice DLC, with a branching storyline, Different Race than the Base Game so quite a lot of Value.
• gamedeal user

  Sep 5, 2023

  I've only started playing Empire Aflame and so far I'm not impressed. Like Onslaught, the value isn't there. I think Empire Aflame might end up being better than Onslaught because Onslaught has procedurally generated maps, which are simplistic and boring. My biggest issue with both Onslaught and Empire Aflame is that new units aren't introduced, it is just more of the same. Given that FG2 is an enjoyable game that isn't the worst thing to get, but given the price I expected more. Also I think I will be really tired of playing the same units and facing the same enemy for so many scenarios. I'll recommend it for now, I hope it becomes more enjoyable.
• gamedeal user

  Oct 29, 2020

  This is the best expansion I've ever played. $15 for 100+ hours of strategy goodness. I will eagerly await the next expansion, and want to thank Gravity and Slitherine for making Empire Aflame. Please keep them coming!
• gamedeal user

  Nov 30, 2020

  Very good, I can't stop playing!!
• gamedeal user

  Feb 7, 2021

  Before I'm leaving details for the negative review here, I have to add a disclaimer too. I sincerely loved the base game, FG2, and all the reasons for my negativity could be fixed by patching the game (I mean the DLC). To be frank, I'm leaning toward a "not yet/neutral" option, because as much as I dig Empire Aflame, due to the bugs and some design flaws there is no way that I will give it a thumbs up in it's current form. So, I take you already know FG2, shall you buy this DLC? Definitely yes, long (new) campaign with lots of fun stuff, assuming you can live with a fair bit of shortcomings. And oh boy, shortcomings are there for sure. First and foremost bugs, there are many even after 3 months of release. It ranges from cosmetic, e.g. certain dialogues are repeated twice, till gamebreaking, like save games failing to load, or they load, just to be unable to do anything by showing a weird GUI and the scenery from bird view (like you are dumped into a debug menu of sort). Then there are the annoying mixed with borderline to gamebreaking ones... very mild spoilers incoming -> [spoiler]to overcome the main enemy's army in the game, will require some item(s), which will generate an aura to weaken them[/spoiler] Except that it's not working (for me), in the very first mission where I could use it. Moving from bugs, the game has some very questionable design decisions for me. Mission design seems to be rather odd, in the sense than the dynamics and variety of the scenarios definitely improved to a large extent. Except, that some missions expect you to either be a visionary and place your troops (especially your heroine, due to one of her skills) according to the mindset of the mission designer. If not, then you either lose valuable squads dime by the dozen or rush from one part of the map to the another, resulting in zero gold reward at the end of the mission. Which, equals to slow, agonizing death on the long run. Luckily, not all missions needs you to be a clairvoyant (or save scum), but way too many of them do. My last major grief ties partially to mission design and that's RNJesus. RNJesus in looting POIs and RNJesus in interacting with war camps. Here you won't obtain many weapons and armor, rather than you need gold what you can use to buy equipment and some cool squad level upgrades. Which means that those small amount of lootable POIs and the loot they provide are extremely crucial, especially that armours are ridiculously overpriced from merchants. Moreover, war camps became essential too, since some of the non-empire faction troops you can get from there are very vital to give you an edge in battles. Due to the scenarios presented, you need some troop versatility what empire doesn't provide, resulting in a need for fresh volunteers. And because camp reward is RNJesus, you either save scum or suffer the consequences. There are some other issues I have, but those are less objective ones. E.g. you can side with a faction early in the game (which I did), but that one means you can't side with another one later (which I would have preferred). Well into the campaign I found literally zero new artefacts (well, there are two new ones, but tied to the storyline). Anyhow, I don't regret buying, but am far from being satisfied!
• gamedeal user

  Mar 1, 2021

  This campaign was one the worst experiences I've had and this game is already full of it. All bullshittery from the main game came here untouched and improved: the AI now is not only dumb and passive - with introduction of defence missions it becomes dumb and overly aggressive, gladly exposing three of its units only to destroy one of yours and cripple your economy (in the mid-late game you can live with that, but in the early game this almost always means restart). The unit spam is also there and amplified to ridiculousness - 5 screaming harpies (put an end to my last campaign), NINE pegasi riders or nightmares is a common thing, and if the AI wasn't so dumb it would be impossible to even win this on higher difficulties (gladly, they all prefer skeletons instead of archers). The spawn genius from Sanctus Reach, apparently, still has his job (and his personal cauldron in Hell), so you will be overwhelmed from unexpected direction, like the town, that had one pikeman squad (you've checked), and now it has 3 bone golems and a squad of nightmare riders. And the last, but not least - the RNG. Oh, you want that armour, don't you? Ha, screw you, here is 100 (50/32/121) gold! But not only that - the mission difficulty also varies. You can faceroll the same mission on one occasion (like the trolls are not attacking you immediately), or struggling to win and fail in the other, because the game decides to send you a harpy queen with an escort on the second turn (also personal experience). This game likes to punish for things you don't have any control of: it likes to punish you for not knowing the map and the forces, that will attack you. It likes to punish you with unit spam. It likes to punish you with unit spawn. It likes to punish you with random. If you like to be punished for no reason - this expansion is for you. P.S And if everything I've described is not enough for you, there is a time misson in a late game! And if you are not quick enough, you will loose it and all your progress! Now you know, why no one beat this dlc with Iron Maiden mode on. Just no.