Thea 2: The Shattering

Great TBS game, lots of fun. Combat still doesn't really make sense to me after hundreds of hours. Luckily you can auto-resolve all combat encounters. Tons of replay-ability with lots of Gods to unlock and many hidden events to explore. One of my favorite "just one more turn" addictions.

A very interesting game in theory, but marred by bugs, abysmal UX and very heavy RNG that will set the player back many many hours if not manually save-scumming. Game's auto-save function has both managed to corrupt itself upon load as well as trigger right after bad RNG events happen (that you have no counter for) instead of at end of turn like it does for 98% of the game. 90% of starting content options are locked behind gameplay. One gameplay loop will satisfy most people as a "finished game" with no desire to replay but unlocking all options will take upwards of 20+ loops. What options you get are seemingly RNG. Give it a pass unless you enjoy severe masochism and grind.

With a blend of turn-based RPG, 4X and rogue-like features, Thea 2 is a curious game. I've not experienced a game quite like this, and it's mostly to the good. As a rogue-like, expect to die and restart often until you start to understand the game. The very early game is just about survival, eeking out food, fuel and morale, and hoping for more party members. The story and environment work well, and I usually felt like learning more and more about the world. A strategy-lover can find multiple aspects to appreciate. The turn-based battles have enough options and abilities so you can perform better than auto-resolve. How to split your ever-growing group of followers. The choice about whether to create a village at all is a huge choice. Like a 4X, the late game is less interesting and more busywork. The cycle of "craft better equipment to do better fights" is less compelling. In the early game, optimizing gathering, cooking and materials is an engaging puzzle. In the end-game, you don't need or want to micromanage every turn. Unfortunately, it's possible to have villagers "stuck" without work to do if the numbers don't line up nicely. More automation of refining low-level materials into high-level would have been nice. Still, it's definitely worth multiple runs of Thea.