★★★★★ Great almost perfect!
Tue Sep 03 2024 UtahZenBoarderI’ve been playing this game for several years. It’s a wonderful simplistic game that passes the time nicely… In the higher levels of play, it does require some real strategy. The one complaint I have is this. In the smaller maps, competition AI gets a little illogical, broken down and downright impossible for most battle scenarios. The AI competitors can beat you with a 2 vs 3 Army attack many many times and you’re never able to beat them when you have 2 armies vs their 3. Also, often times the three AI armies will gang up on you or ignore obvious strategic advantages by attacking either empty spaces or other AI colors. It’s a glitch and they probably will never fix it but it’s just something that I’ve noticed and recorded on video several times. If the developers are willing to discuss this with me I’d be happy to share my evidence. Again, otherwise this is a really fun game and super simple that has survived the many upgrades of iPhone to still be a part of my game catalog!
★★★★★ Ignore the complaints from newbies
Sun Nov 22 2020 VDO-CutterDon’t believe the comments about the levels being all about “ridiculously impossible dice rolls” - that was clearly from a person who tried jumping to the “brutal” level before he had a grasp of the subtleties of the game. I only play in the “brutal” level and it is a true challenge (I win 60-70%), but you have to know what you’re doing. I suggest mastering each level before moving up - and disregarding comments of ignorance. It took about 80 hours to work up to “brutal” for me, and has kept my interest for 7 or 8 years now.
I do agree, however, about having to occasionally tap many times to eliminate the last one or two pieces (which is usually the result of poor planning on the player’s part, but I accept it as a kind of ‘punishment’ for not getting the end moves just right, driving my challenge right up to the last move), and that there could be an easy fix, but I find it hysterical that the complaint is coming from a screen name with “...Real Zen...” in it.
I play this game every time I have to wait for something (Dr’s. offices, on long flights, etc.) and it is a perfect challenge for me.
I highly recommend it.
November 2020 Update:
This game doesn’t appear to be compatible with IOS 14 - it just won’t open since I “upgraded” my IOS
★★★★★ Solid, simple, short, but still strategy.
Sun Jul 30 2017 anon_120Good strategy game. Fast to play if needed. Fun to toggle settings like size and full/empty starting map and experiment with different game setups that way. Fun to try to figure out the AIs and predict their moves. Fun to conquer the world Risk-styles. Fun to play on randomly generated maps that are always different and almost always interesting in some unique way.
The one problem is that your starting position largely controls whether or not you have a shot at winning this game. But even then, it is often fun to give yourself an inferior starting position and see if you can still win.
All in all, awesome game, well worth downloading.
★★★★★ So many problems, and they never get fixed
Fri Nov 17 2017 The Real Zen BoyThis is supposed to be a simple strategy game. Apparently, they mean simple as in simple-minded. There is no real level of play, the brutal level just gives the computer ridiculously impossible dice rolls. Also, you finish a game, later go back in and for some unknown reason you are in the middle of the game again. The computer players need to surrender when they are nearly defeated, or at least add an option to auto place armies, otherwise on the last turn, you have to tap 70 times to place your armies that have no chance of being used. There is an auto-place option in the initial game settings, but it makes the most inane decisions that only a fool would use it.
As one reviewer wrote, it’s obvious the devs don’t play the game, because so many basic playability features are non-existent in spite of the fact that most games incorporated them over a decade ago.
I play this game when I’m really bored of other games. Just can’t recommend it. For pure strategy, Auralux runs circles around this.
★★★★★ coalition strategies
Sun Nov 03 2019 omikron85The most subtle/interesting setups may be with coalitions, which is how I always play it. Give yourself a large board with 2 out of 5 colors, set to “brutal” and strategies naturally evolve such as buffer state, the enemy of my enemy is my friend, complicated lines of supply, sacrificial tactics, and curious dilemmas. Assign yourself a victory condition that both your microstates must survive, and it’s harder. How to play where 3 or more colors contact is often difficult, and chess terms like zwischenzug or similar restraint suggest themselves. Go qualities like efficiency, number of points of contact, and shape are also in the air.
★★★★★ Why can't the most fundamental problem get fixed?
Sun Mar 11 2018 MaxAgHammerThis game has a serious bug that the devs won't fix. As another reviewer has described, the game loses track of finished games and you'll find yourself prompted to resume playing a map that's already been completed. So, you've won (or lost) a game, but when you go to start another, you find that your progress has been undone (except for your win or loss, which was tallied), and you gave to finish the "saved" game from some earlier state ir else dump the game for a loss. Effectively, the computer player is taking a mulligan, since resuming the zombie game gives a whole new sequence of random outcomes, which sometimes leads to a reversal of what you thought was a resolved outcome. I've had wins turn into double losses because of this bug, and I want it fixed. One star until it gets squashed by these lazy devs.
★★★★★ One of my favorites but won’t open now
Fri Feb 05 2021 moodle 🐮This game is one of my all-time favorites. I have played thousands of games, and I love it. After a break due to working from home and changes in lifestyle I have come back to play more and am so sad that the app does not open on my iPad anymore. I am not sure why but there are no updates for the app, and it just closes itself immediately upon opening. Restarting my iPad did not fix it. I am very sad as I may lose my game history if I have to delete it and reinstall it. :(
★★★★★ Had this app for years.
Sun Feb 11 2018 X Steel x Fox xI’m not sure what these bad reviews are talking about. If you read the game rules and understand the game mechanics you’ll realize that it tells you how your armies are placed. If you don’t like it there’s an option to place them where you’d like them.
Hands down one of the best time killers out there. If I run out of space on my phone o keep this app as my last game because it doesn’t get old. It’s like a board game that you go back to because it’s solid.
