"While the developers went to great strides to ensure that Millennia had something unique to offer, that Civilization did not, it appears in doing so, they ran out of time and resources required to make Millennia into an enjoyable experience. "
Singleplayer.
Co-op Multiplayer.
PvP Multiplayer.
Before we get into Millennia itself, we must look at the reputation of its publisher, Paradox.
Without a doubt, Paradox is one of the most well-known and highly regarded publishers of strategy games, with a long and illustrious history of excellent titles.
Unfortunately, that legacy has become rather shakey of late due to a series of poorly received DLC for otherwise excellent games and a string of titles that performed so poorly that the developers were forced to end development early.
Ending support for titles instead of fixing what went wrong is uncommon for Paradox, which has a track record of updating games for multiple years via its hybrid model of paid DLC accompanying major free updates and revisions, which often sees them going to great lengths to fix all but the most broken of releases.
The fact that Paradox has begun “quitting” on titles it publishes more often than before has resulted in newer IP and more experimental titles failing to attract a sustainable player base, leading to more titles sunsetting and even less consumer confidence in new titles published by Paradox.
A recent and particularly disturbing example is Star Trek: Infinite, which released in October 2023 and officially declared dead less than six months later, in March 2024.
While this is a recent example, it is far from the only one. Other prominent examples are The Lamplighters League, Empire of Sin, Surviving the Aftermath, and Imperator: Rome, which suffered from poor sales, generally unfavourable fan reception, and limited post-launch support.
While Imperator: Rome did receive a few updates after its official sunsetting, thanks to a joint effort by a handful of Paradox developers and community modders, these games were mostly put out to pasture long before reaching their full potential or, in the case of Surviving the Aftermath grew progressively less enjoyable and further away from its original vision with every post-launch update, before the developers were forced to move into other projects despite their best efforts to turn it into a title that could financially support long-term development.
I understand game development is risky and expensive. Still, as a longtime fan of Paradox games, I must admit I am less eager to purchase newer titles after a being a series of disappointing releases.
As a result, I now focus on purchasing DLC for established titles and the occasional new release of established series, such as Crusader Kings III, which is excellent.
While I am only one customer, a quick look at steamcharts shows that this appears to be the case for most of the Paradox community, with more experimental titles receiving only a fraction of the community support that more established titles enjoy.
A perfect example of this problem is Millennia, which peaked at less than 6k concurrent users on Steam, while Crusader Kings 3 peaked at over 98k concurrent users on Steam despite launching day one on PC Game Pass.
Unless Paradox finds a way to reassure its community that newer and more experimental titles will enjoy at least three years of support and updates, I feel it would be best for them to stick to publishing games from the established franchises that they are known for and leave more experimental releases and new IP up to other publishers, who are less risk-averse or at least have less to lose.
Millennia has one major issue that spawns a whole bunch of smaller issues, and that major issue is that it would have been a good competitor for Civilization II but a poor substitute for every Civilization game since then.
While It does do a few things well, many of its good points are mitigated by a counterpoint that essentially renders any potential gain moot.
For example, while the combat system is rather nice, and being able to engage in multiple rounds of combat between the two armies, vs the one-and-done combat encounters of older Civilization games, combat is pretty unbalanced in much the same way very old Civilization games were, such as some units from ancient times being equal to those from the modern age.
A perfect example of this is when, in a recent game where I was in a war with a rival civilization that was two entire eras ahead of me (more on that later).
Yet despite being so far behind technologically, I defeated WW1-era tanks and Vietnam-era helicopters and infantry with a mix of spartans, spearmen, calvary, and musket infantry.
Not only did I win that battle, but I was able to essentially obliterate the faction across a series of similar victories until they begged for peace and became an eventual buffer between myself and their much larger former allies, who I did not feel like messing with due to their superior navy and powerful fortifications.
Yes, which is my main issue with the AI in Millennia. It is not smart, crafty, or unique in any way; it simply cheats.
To test this theory, I focused on knowledge and put everything I had into generating knowledge.
I utilised every perk, building, and exploration event possible during the starter age to increase my research output, and yet, with the exception of playing on the very easiest difficulty setting (which is so easy it is insultingly dull), the AI would reach the bronze age (and all later ages) before me.
And I am not talking about just 1 or 2 dominant factions, but with very few exceptions, almost every AI player would reach the next era multiple turns before I was more than halfway through the current tier, even when I was doing everything possible to level up, including spending every culture “bomb” on additional knowledge (eureka skill), and in later ages every art point into creating artists, which in turn triggered further culture bombs (and eureka uses).
After multiple test runs, I found the reason for this (and the related phenomenon of the AI triggering either a bad or generic option for each era): the AI would research the bare minimum amount of tech needed to reach a new era, leaving the vast majority of units/buildings unresearched, despite magically having access to them anyway.
In short, the AI isn’t playing the same game as human players.
While the option to unlock different versions of each era is fantastic (and one of the best things about Millennia), unless you are playing against humans or novice AI players, the human player will never get the chance to decide which version of each era is entered, as frankly, the AI is too busy blundering into the most generic (or occasionally plague-ridden) option for each era.
In short, The fact that the AI reaches every milestone first ruins almost every unique aspect of the game due to the AI getting early access to new national spirits, governments, innovations, and technological advancements well before human players have a chance to take advantage of the current era and its benefits.
Another issue with Millennia is that it feels like a game made on a shoestring budget. The UI and character models are dated; even the flags used for characters feel like something you would find in an open-source game.
It doesn’t even have leader portraits, something Civilizations has had since the original game’s 1991 release.
Unfortunately, visuals are not the only area in which Millennia is lacking. With diplomacy being so basic, it might as well not exist, especially when almost every AI will either beg to be friends or declare open hostility within moments of knowing you exist.
In one playthrough, a nation declared “hostility” towards me despite us never encountering each other and existing on opposite ends of the map. While I am sure one of their scouts may have walked past my nation, we certainly were not rivals operating in the same area, nor did we have any reason to be locked in a cold war, considering neither of us made any moves to expand beyond our own borders for like… 200 turns?
In Millennia, players are punished for creating more than a handful of regional capitals (cities), and production is very slow for the vast majority of the game only the capital region is a viable producer of units until well into the game’s later stages.
While I eventually came to the point where I could produce units every turn or so, without the ability to queue up multiple units (due to the build queue being limited to a current project + 1), an immense amount of micromanaging is required to get anything done, which when coupled with terrible performance in later stages of the game, I found my desire to play ebbing with each turn in which the AI cheated, my FPS dropped to the low teens, and I was forced to manually set build order for each of my regional capitals (cities) every few minutes.
A little automation would have made Millennia more enjoyable. While the ability to auto-explore, auto-build, etc, has not always existed in 4X games, these features have been part of the genre long enough that when they are missing, it quickly becomes clear why they have been part of almost every major 4X title released in the past 15 years.
Millennia does some things right, such as the ability to enter alternative eras is excellent, especially those which radically change gameplay, such as the post-nuclear polyene age, which turns Millennia into something akin to a Mad Max 4X game, with unique mechanics and unit designs.
Alternative era aside, I like how failing to handle unrest can lead to the creation of new factions. These factions often reach out to enemies of their former homeland with offers of alliance, which makes international diplomacy a little more interesting.
I must admit that seeing my enemy (Spain) split into warring factions did take pressure off my northern border, and while I never allied with the Spanish rebels (as they seemed to be at war with almost every other major player), seeing them survive until the end of the game, was cool, as many breakaway factions in similar games only last for a short while before being conquered by their former overlords of opportunistic player or AI neighbours.
Millennia is a 4x strategy video game developed by C Prompt Games and published by Paradox Interactive, it was released on 26 March 2024 and retails for $39.99.
Millennia is available exclusively on PC.
The following peripherals are officially supported:
Millennia is unrated and contains:
Ultimately, Millennia is not a bad game.
I enjoyed playing it, and it incorporates multiple mechanics that would have caught my attention if they had been implemented better; however, with Paradox’s recent trend of ending support for underperforming titles and the imminent release of Civilization VII, I struggle to recommend it.
Even if the developers manage to improve almost every aspect of the game before Paradox decide it is not worth supporting, by the time that happens, Millennia will be so far behind the competition that giving up on Millennia and moving on to other projects will be the only real option the developers have open to them.
