Not Too Long Didn't Read

I will paste the Steam review below, but for NTLDR will preface that with I started this game on Steam after being invited by a friend. Found out I could play on the PC, on a tablet, or even on the phone and more or less seamlessly go between the platforms. And my good friend was playing… So for me to later dump it means I had a truly bad experience. Not so much with the game itself, but with the bad business practices of the developer, and the lack of customer support that might have saved them from this bad review. I will also mention that this all goes back many months, so for me to be inspired to write about this after many months, it really stuck with me.

Here is my Steam review of the RTS game, Castle Empire by Haoplay.

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Posted: Oct 22 @ 4:54pm

This game is not for everyone. It was not for me. So my review will be honestly written from my point of view. Which from my point of view, this game warrants a negative review for any players out there like me.

This is my positive paragraph. If you are a player who truly loves Real Time Strategy (RTS), and are willing to be a slave to the game, like forever, and maybe do not mind a game that constantly displays ads, then it may be to your liking. The other really cool thing about this game was the international community of gamers. I found that aspect super cool. I got to interact with people from all over the planet. Translation awkwardness aside, it was a lot of fun to do that.

Up front, I disliked being forced to play silly castle defense games in order to unlock the real game, which is a grand scale Real Time Strategy game. I could live with that as they later make it another way to gather certain resources, albeit in a grindy way. I mean. all the grinding, each and every day, if you want to make progress.

When I say Real Time, that is no joke. To play this game with any effectiveness, you need to be part of an Alliance with globally staged members, or at least with people who never sleep. You need to play regularly, and if you plan to take a day off, you will be considering spending either game resources, or else real money on silly protective bubble force fields to protect your character. There is absolutely ZERO pause in this game and when you are offline, your castle is still very much exposed to all kinds of hostility.

Your castle can be attacked at any time, and the game even arranges special automated challenges to put your castle at risk from NPC attacks so you must arrange your real human life in the real human world around these events, or risk losing your progress, health, and resources. No joke that and probably the main reason I got burned out and could not be long term happy playing this game. I have other games I have spent thousands of hours playing, but none of them forced me to play continuously… That is a nasty business practice intended to force game addiction in my opinion. The base game is free, so you may form your own opinion. Just be aware.

Next, the game is designed to encourage force the player into a pay to play mode. The Ads are constant and never ending. Yes, you can grind resources and make mediocre progress, but then the pay to play folks are still going to wipe your face on the rug in open competition. There are a handful of free to play players who have been at this long enough to be competitive, but the game is rigged to get you separated from your money. You can play for free, but you must play a lot.

Next, the coup de grace… They will take away your resources, perks and even your character if you ever take a break. I had six characters in two accounts that were making good progress. Mostly free to play but I confess I dropped about $100 USD into certain things… I had no regrets doing that, until… I took a break for a few weeks, or maybe it was months. It should not matter.

When I got back instead of expecting six worn down castles as a known consequence for my absence, I came back to no working logins for the two accounts. All six characters completely toast.

I went a few rounds with the so called support from HAOPLAY, but got no support. Just some BS answer about not logging in often enough. I eventually walked away. I did not get any money back. That money went into the black hole of no refunds. My character was never restored, and I never went back to this game.

Mileage may differ and I still know people who love this game. But they play it all the time, so have not taken a break. It is their thing. Not my thing. And I have zero hesitation not recommending this game to most people, and at the same time, if I meet an RTS enthusiast, I might tell them Castle Empire might be their new game addiction. Just so long as they walk into it eyes wide open.