izigame.me

I do like the game. Sometimes even love it. Other times I hate it with passion. Would I recommend it? No. It's a tough decision but since there is no neutral option I am going with negative.
First, let me say that the game hasn't received patches, updates, or additional content for some time. That is not even a critique but merely a warning as to what to expect. What you see is what you get.
Now what I like. The presentation. The entire theme of being a young mage, ascending to the highest circles of power where people use entire armies as a bait, or sacrifice without any remorse. You start with almost nothing, while they are already established. You are struggling to survive while they are merely playing a game half of the time.
I adore the fact that so much is done through your magic book and you literally flip through pages as you add more. You also have a moving tower, and while other games have fixed territories you have limited abilities and have to make some tough decision as to what to approach. Generally you can either attempt to lay low and slowly build up your power or rush toward the next objective, knowing you will anger other mages and just hoping you get enough power to face them when the time comes... The reality operates on some rules and every time you play in the early and mid game you get a unique combination of ways to bend and break those rules. Fantastic. You also need to actively move around the map which is quite unique.
Now why do I not recommend this?
TLDR:
The game is incredibly rough on the edges. It's a bunch of really cool ideas and concepts that ultimately fail to make a coherent whole. Do not treat this as a strategy game, it's more like an RPG with some strategy elements. It's your journey to become a powerful mage, but the 4X elements are half-baked. I finished 2 full playthroughs (one on the Explorer and one on Balanced difficulty) and made notes what I would change/add/remove and I have dozens of them. So many design choices make no sense and QoL features are missing.
The long version:
There is no diplomacy. You get random quests and dialogue options that are specific to each mage. And your response can either anger them, do nothing, or rarely improve your relationship. You can't send them gifts, bribes, conspire with them against others, intimidate them, nothing. You can merely anger them by intruding into their domain or defending yours against theirs... And once you slip into Cold war with them they will send units after you which means War is just a matter of time.
Every time you get stronger, reach some important milestone, or post offensive memes on social media, the Circle will take note and this decreases the reputation. Which means you are on a clock. You either win before they get angry, attack first, or wait as long as possible and attack then.
You can interact with neutral cities a bit more, but those are all spells. Like I get that pouring mana into a spell to improve relationship with a city is a spell. But giving money to a city to do the same is also a spell. Specific to one school of magic which you might not get for the entire playthrough... Otherwise killing bandits, doing quests, or having an inn within your domain improves relationships with that city.
All research is done through pages so the spells you can have are set. You can occasionally buy a single spell from a merchant. There is no tech tree to speak of.
There are also "neutral" enemy factions such as bandits, beasts, racist dwarfs, undead etc. Those hold buildings, randomly roam the map, or very much nonrandomly target one of your buildings.
The enemies scale in power as you do. So the strategy element goes out of the window. They can also spawn units and structures randomly with no reliance on territory or resources (except spawn buildings). You on the other hand are bound to that (which makes the game very frustrating until you get recall and teleport spells) so you will need to defend multiple locations.
You can't siege or surround an army or a fort. It's always 1 army vs 1 army. That makes weaker armies and harvesting/mining parties more of a liability than utility. And since the enemy doesn't operate on the same rules as you, the only one suffering from attrition will be you. They will, in time, simply spawn more.
Music, units, and maps are... limited. Common maps you will fight on so often you will recognise the few maps very soon. And the fact that every mage tower isn't a unique map is just a sin. Also units have like 2 voice lines they usually use. Some share those 2 voice lines. Music isn't that pronounced but it's basically the same one theme of somewhat epic orchestral tune with zero diversity.
The balance of some units is of the whack. And the only way to defend against that is breaking the game more.
You can choose three "professions" - necromancer makes LEGO units, glyph smith makes permanent upgrades, and alchemist makes mostly consumables. While you can eventually find spells from schools of magic you didn't start with, this choice is permanent and one-time. I like alchemist the most because every single unit can use consumables with basically zero restrictions (a golem won't heal from a potion, but it can still use it on others). Do you know what an ancient shaper golem, an elf ranger, a wolf, and a goblin have in common? They can use the same consumables. So you can spawn a load of trash units, and have one of those who survive the next turn throw a silence potion on the enemy mages...
And often you need to do this since the random pack of bandits that are outnumbered, on fire, and poisoned, will often target that one single unit that is hurting... It feels less like fighting a neutral army and more like you are playing against a game master that is your angry ex girlfriend... Aside from that enemies are dumb as bricks.
Some units and spells reveal garrisons and their strength. Otherwise you might need to attack to find out, and then just retreat. You have no way of knowing (except prior experience) if this quest is a trash fight against two goblin units, or two battles against powerful beasts with no time for rest. And often quests and battles pop at random, so weaker armies will again get destroyed or you need to skip on loot and opportunities. The story clashes with the strategy elements often.
And I could go on and on. Literally have dozens and dozens of notes. From what I gather from community channels the game didn't sell gangbusters so it will get only limited attention. So we will need to live without such luxuries as rebinding keys or the ability to set the number of competing players (it's locked to 4).
It just pains me to see the potential this game has go unrealised. And I am not even talking about DLCs, expansions, sequels, more maps (you get one map where some things are set and some are randomised). I am talking mostly about balancing things, small additions/changes to existing systems, and expanding on what is there (like variety of combat maps).
I went into this expecting 4X strategy not RPG with 4X elements. That might be the source of my disappointment. I still enjoy the game and will give it more time occasionally but there is a plethora of reasons why this didn't become the next huge hit (even among strategy games). And with the poor balancing and some awful or missing mechanics, and little variety in places you will see hundreds of times during every playthrough it doesn't have the staying power either. And that sucks because it nails the "just one more turn... oh shit it's 3 in the morning" feel perfectly.