Plebby Quest: The Crusades

A fun little game to get a casual map painting experience!

This game is imo a bit of a hidden gem. Some other reviews kept saying it is like a combo of Crusader Kings II and Total War but I disagree. It is more like what Total War would be like if it was a phone game. The game is quite simple in premise, it is turn based macro and real time micro. You recruit generals and every general gets to do 1 action per turn, you can have like max 9 generals when you have reached peak strength. The battles are 2D, your troops fight the enemy troops and you can send orders to like move your troops around a bit, so I would say that the micro is not too intensive in this game, but it does require you have a brain. The main issues with the game is that you can snowball quite quickly, the AI isn't expansionist enough to give you some big enemies in the lategame which is a bit sad, and the other issue is that the english translation has a lot of annoying grammatical errors. HOWEVER, both of these issues are made up for by having a fun and novel campaign. The campaign consists of 3 scenarios, and 2 extra ones with a DLC. In a scenario you get a more limited map, it is like the middle east in Scenario 1, Italy, Iberia and North Africa in 2 and in the third one it is Germany, France, Balkans, Italy and England. The scenarios have a story you follow, so your end goal is not conquer everything but do X, Y and Z. The tone of the story is quite silly, with many kinda stupid jokes but it got a few chuckles from me. The best part however is the timeline. The timeline shows you when you achieved certain steps in the scenarios, which gives you an understanding of when your current campaign is happening in relation to the previous campaign. The cool thing is that your previous campaign affects the next one in certain ways. For example in the first campaign your end goal is to defeat the crusader states as Rum, and if you do that in like April 1189, then in the next scenario in April 1189 that event triggers which gives your current scenario some additional game mechanics. I think it is quite a fun way of doing a campaign, and I only wish they had created more campaigns / more content. At full price I think the game is a bit expensive for the content you get, but when it is on sale I would definetly recommend getting the game + DLC. It is a simple but enjoyable game, fun for when you want to think but not get a headache from thinking too hard.

Conclusion
Get the game when it is on sale. It is a fun take on the strategy genre and while it doesn't have a boatload of content, the content that is there is decently fleshed out.

7/10 Quite a nice strategy/tactics game. I had enough fun!
3 interesting campaign missions. I'm gonna buy the DLC, to play the other 2.
My subjective "fun" grade is 7/10 (which is quite good, but not totally at the top).

Really gud

simple and occasionally pretty funny turn-based strategy war game! it's not too overwhelming or too boring, sits just right for me personally.

amazing game,one of the best indie grand strategy games out there.

This game really shows how wholesome the crusades really were

good and fun

way too grindy, there near no strategy to the game your ever stronger them your enemies and can defeat them or your not and trying to beat them is a wast of time.

This is the worst game I have played in some time. It's a go fetch quest to be able to do anything. You're constantly managing menus and requirements to get to the next thing. But the next thing doesn't work, you spend lots of gold to attack, inevitably you lose, rinse and repeat. There is literally no depth or role playing. Whoever thought this game was 'ready', a pox on your house and soul. This was a money grab game better suited for a phone, and it would still suck.

Pros:
- Great visual component. The way everything is designed - my respects.
- The game mechanics are simple but engaging, which makes it fun to play.

Cons:
- Every little action take aaaaages to do due to small unnecessary dialogs. I can understand this for the first time, but having to click through five interactions just to enter an inn is frustrating!
- The AI makes illogical decisions and seems to operate under different rules than the player. For instance, even if the whole world declares war on a bot, which should devastate its economy, it still manages to attack you every turn despite controlling only three cities.
- The scenarios have the potential to be interesting, but the main characters are so unlikable that it's hard to get invested. I had no desire to step into their shoes—they're outright unpleasant (at least in the first two scenarios, though I haven’t explored the rest yet).

Over all, I like the game. Sometimes you want to quit due to frustration with how long everything is but still, I enjoy playing it from time to time. Looking forward to a potential sequel!

Bought this game yesterday and already have 18 hours of playtime....that kinda speaks for itself.

nice

Very grindy, distracting dialogues, lackluster battle mechanics, lackluster strategy mechanics. It feels like nothing ever happens, everything takes ages to do. The interface is awful and badly designed.

There are comments for every little thing you do that prevent you from closing windows if you don't read them.

I feel like the game has potential but it really needs to be remade from the ground up. I was curious and brought it for 3,35€ and I would say it is okay but do not buy it full price, it is not worth it.

Simple and challenging