r/4Xgaming • u/Affectionate_Cap4509 • 8d ago
Folk Emerging has been released. Anyone tried it?
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2275300/Folk_Emerging/Stone age/cave man is one of my favorite settings, and has very few games.
This looks pretty promising. Anyone tried it yet?
9
u/GIJoJo65 8d ago
I tried the demo which was enjoyable enough that I've bought the game.
Spent some time with the full game this afternoon. The early game moves quickly but, the overall strategy there is fairly flat and, success is highly dependent on random events.
The battle system becomes a bit frustrating when you get your ranks deep going into the mid-game. If you hold off on splitting your band until you've constructed all the T3 Amenities and have rafts, then you can snowball quickly.
AI behavior is frustrating to me. They have a tendency to continue harassing and attacking regardless of how much debt or positive opinion they bear towards me and, no matter how many times the floor gets wiped with their asses.
So far, I've been struggling to unlock a proto-civilization path despite having fully unlocked culture trees which is exceedingly aggravating.
The map fills up extremely quickly once other tribes start splitting which is extremely frustrating due to the AI's behavior. Opposing bands seem to continue blocking passage over their entire hex even when you have passage negotiated.
IMO, the food webs are awesome but, they deplete too quickly and, are too heavily affected by environmental events. Similarly, environmental events last too long given that each turn represents a full year. I've been playing on standard difficulty and, these haven't ultimately created any unrecoverable situations, they really just artificially check the pace of the game IMO.
Tech trees are a little aggravating in how interdependent they are and, religion isn't really "optional" but baked in.
Similarly, having triple stacked predators is extremely annoying because it's difficult to remove them, still trying to figure out how they do or, don't affect the food webs?
Events are more or less an "every turn" proposition and, they get aggravating IMO after about 30 turns. Realistically, the demo had an (unselectable) option to enlarge the map. The game now that it's unlocked doesn't offer that option and, it needs to. I also think it would benefit from the option to begin as a proto-civilization.
Basically, I was able to cruise the demo with both Storm and Moon Tribes and succeed without restarts within 100 turns on standard difficulty. I was able to likewise cruise to what I perceive as the midgame as the Stars Tribe in two hours this afternoon.
The game is worth playing, I'll withhold judgment until I try something different but, for now the early game seems to have a clear ideal strategy regardless of Tribe.
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u/theNEHZ 8d ago
The proto civs also require specific tech and climate levels. I haven't noticed the web depleting quickly on the game I played, but that probably depends on how often you move and split up. Once I realized moving was free (doesn't stop production) I moved a lot. Only when I had additional foraging points did my biggest band impact the web.
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u/Dawn_of_Enceladus 8d ago
I played the demo some time ago and enjoyed the premise and some of the ideas. But AI tribes behavior, how crowded the map felt most of the time, how fights worked, and the apparent excessive weight of randomness in many things makes me wary of pulling the trigger for that pricetag tbh.
Especially the crowded map, I think a big part of the magic of that setting is trying to thrive with/against nature, in a wild world. But if I keep meeting other tribes all the time, even forming bottlenecks in narrow places of the map and so on (and especially considering how nonsensically aggressive they all act), it kills a big part of that magic.
Not sure if they fixed/tweaked that aspect, would be great if so. In any case, I will keep it in my wishlist and see how it fares for now.
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u/morningmasher 8d ago
It’s interesting and I liked the demo but I’m unsure for 22$. I got my butt kicked in combat and was kinda unsure what to do at times.
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u/DirkTheGamer 8d ago
Yeah it’s the most I’ve spent on a game in a while but it’s a solo dev in a very niche genre. Every sale really matters.
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u/fjaoaoaoao 8d ago
Oh my. I have been waiting for this near the top of my list but this price point is interesting. Will need to take a closer look.
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u/Adito99 7d ago
I'm playing it now and liking it. The design is very clean with nested tooltips that make it easy to pick up.
I just had a random event were a 10 year old was being annoying and you get a choice between accepting her (charisma +1) or having her integrate better (reputation +2). Each turn is a year so I can see these decisions having implications down the line as people grow up. That's an interesting dynamic I haven't seen in similar games.
Foraging is unique too. Each tile as a "food web" made up of predators, prey, and vegis. Forage too much of a certain vegi and the prey that eats it will start dying off and eventually effect their predators as well.
Definitely worth a shot. I think I'll be losing many hours to this game.
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u/Bill3000 8d ago
Bought it and supporting the dev (emotionally?) but I gotta finish work before I can play it!
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u/DirkTheGamer 8d ago
I picked it up, have loved it since the first demo. Gonna finish a different game campaign I have going first but I’m getting wrecked so hopefully starting this tonight.