As a Civilization veteran, Ara: History Untold amazed me

The monumental construction project of the Great Pyramid of Giza has been smiling at me for ages. But I’m always missing just a few stone tools. Without them, I can’t issue a construction order. So, I help out my workshops with some money from the state coffers to speed up the production of missing parts. Building the pyramid would earn me a lot of prestige.

Oh sorry, let me introduce myself. I’m the glorious Empress Zenobia, ruler of the Palmyrene Empire since the humble huts of early history to the distant future. I command when and where our people found new cities. I decide on a form of government and which technologies our scientists’ research. It’s up to me whether I’ll tolerate my neighbour’s lousy cities. Ugh, Americans… And I’m just as happy as my subjects about the completion of the pyramid right next to my capital Palmyra.

Does the gameplay sound familiar? I’m not surprised.

Is Ara just another Civilization clone?

I’d like to briefly talk about the elephant in the room: Civilization. I could’ve written my paragraphs above back in 1991, when the first Civilization game was released. Since then, the series has truly shaped the turn-based grand strategy genre – no, it’s dominated it.

Ara is one of those games that looks like a Civilization clone at first glance. Just guessing, I’d say about 75 per cent of the gameplay, interface, the visuals and audio in Ara is classic Civilization. I myself have played every Civilization game and am therefore biased. This review will focus on what makes Ara different.

Two major differences to Civilization are immediately apparent: the map isn’t divided into hexagonal fields, but into regions. This makes it look like a real landscape and not like an artificial game board. What a refreshing spin! The second important difference: production chains. An amazing idea, and implemented largely successfully.

All about regions and zones

The game map is divided into regions. Like puzzle pieces, they come in different shapes and sizes. Each region I incorporate into my empire adds zero to four units of food, wood, building materials and coins each turn by default. Cities grow when they produce a surplus of food – the surplus is then available to other cities surrounded by less fertile regions.

Regions in turn are divided into two to six zones. Each zone provides space for a building – think a farm, a sawmill or a workshop. With these buildings, I can increase the basic yield of a region or manufacture new products. Some zones also contain other raw materials I can mine with the right buildings – sheep, gemstones or spices. No building, no production.

Production chains in a Grand Strategy Game?!

Raw materials and products have a completely different significance in Ara than Civilization. As in the newer Civiliziation games, I need metal to produce certain units. But it isn’t enough to simply mine iron ore somewhere. Iron ore first has to be processed into ingots.

I build a forge for this, but it only works very slowly. If I stock it with so-called supplies, it’ll go much faster. Supplies include various tools and later on also electricity. Naturally, I also have to produce supplies somewhere else first. Manufacturing products can also be accelerated using additional materials. For bread, that would be flour and salt. With other products, I can also help out with money – lubricating the wheels of production, if you will. Supplies and materials are optional, but useful for efficient production.

This system runs through the entire game. Later on, for example, fresh coffee increases research speed in the observatory. Many products also have a direct impact on the well-being of my populace. If I provide them with bread, they increase the global food yield. Flower decorations increase happiness and books smarten up citizens so they can research faster. If I build residential buildings for my citizens, I can equip them with furniture, candles and games consoles, which also has an effect on the happiness of my subjects.

Branched production lines make Ara much more complex than Civilization. I really like the system as a whole. The best part? Everything’s optional. I don’t have to manufacture every item, but I get rewarded for what I do produce.

Prestige is everything

Civilization has multiple victory conditions, such as military, cultural or religious. In Ara, there’s only one way to win: having the most prestige points at the end. I’m constantly collecting them. Among other things, they become available for increasing population, researching certain technologies and, of course, on the battlefield.

Ara is divided into three acts, each with four technological eras. If three nations reach the next act, all remaining nations get shunted out. If you don’t have enough prestige, you die out. No ifs, buts, or coconuts, they’re out of the game. All that remains are the ruins of former cities, which I can visit and plunder.

Since I don’t have to commit to a certain playstyle from the start (cultural victory, military victory, …), I’m freer to design my game. However, this also goes hand in hand with a certain aimlessness. In Ara, there’s a myriad of different technologies I can research. Can, not have to: I can deliberately skip research and still win the game. However, as I move into a new era, I will lose access to research from the past. This always leaves me spoiled for choice: do I still need candles now or would I be better suited moving to a new era that gives me access to new technologies?

In addition, not all research is available on every turn of the game. Things get shook up. For example, I can produce stained glass windows in one game but not in the next. On the one hand, this makes technologies feel a bit irrelevant – I don’t really need them. On the other, this increases the replay value considerably.

There goes the city: war in Ara

In Ara, I combine my military units into formations that can provide tactical advantages. I can also easily stack several formations on top of each other, roving across the countryside with a powerful army. Skirmishes between armies can last several rounds, depending on their strength.

I had to learn the hard way that conquering cities is comparatively easy. But to start a war, I need a reason. My hated neighbour, President Washington of the United States of America, once invaded me, so a war of retaliation is an option. I also have to specify a city I want to conquer. This then kicks off a certain number of turns to fulfil my war goal.

I want to tick off Mr Washington, with eyes on his capital… also Washington. During my spat with Washington the city, Washington the president sneaks a catapult next to one of my biggest cities, Karrhai, and positions it there. Karrhai’s city walls are destroyed in one turn. One turn later, the city falls and changes hands.

I sit in front of my screen in disbelief. It’s that fast? Captured with just a single siege engine? Civilization has conditioned me that capturing cities is no easy task. Even small towns can defend themselves for a while – here in Ara, I had no chance of sending relief in time. I rage and swear by all the gods to liberate my city as quickly as possible. Yes, yes, it was all my fault.

Unfortunately, I also conquered the city of Washington in two turns, thus depriving the war of its goal. It ends automatically in my favour. I’m left standing with Washington the city, and mourn the loss of Karrhai. I now have to wait 20 turns until the truce expires and I can take it back from Washington the president.

In some places, Ara’s still rough around the edges

Despite getting a full release, Ara: History Untold still feels unfinished in a few places. Take the overview, for example. For example, there’s no comprehensive list of every sawmill or all raw material deposits. Instead, I have to trawl through every city and map icon. That’s tedious and unnecessary.

The building overview also becomes chaotic as the game progresses. I’m always researching more and more new buildings and building upgrades. Eventually, I have to scroll through an endlessly long, alphabetically sorted list during construction. I’d really like some filters here so that only buildings that improve happiness, for example, are displayed.

Wars are also too unbalanced so far. I haven’t found a way to upgrade older units, so I still have archers and cavalry in my formations during the atomic age. But that doesn’t matter, since several archers with musketeers and trebuchets will still result in a decent total strength value. And that seems to be the only thing that matters. Formations apparently can’t be disbanded either, so I can’t regroup my units. Once in a formation, always in a formation. Shame, there’s a better way to do it.

Diplomacy as a whole is also somewhat underdeveloped so far. There’s very little communication with other rulers. There are the usual options such as agreeing open borders or research agreements – but there’s no simple trading or asking for help. Unfortunately, the rules of diplomacy are very concise. Every now and then there are events I can sometimes use to improve my reputation with other nations. They just feel completely random.

There are also other problems, such as the use of masterpieces. They’re special works my artists and researchers create. All of them are revealed with an animation, but there’s no information on them, nor do they feel relevant. They give me some prestige, and I can later exhibit them in museums. But apparently I’ve missed out on researching museums so far. Looks like I can’t do anything with my huge pile of masterpieces yet.

Ara: History Untold will be released on 24 September 2024 on Steam and is included in the PC Game Pass. The game was provided to me by Microsoft for testing purposes.