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The Emperor Arrives

The Emperor Arrives

The Emperor
August 01, 2023

Welcome, citizens to the inaugural Nero Gaming (NG) newsletter. The Emperor is excited to have you here.

NG is the Iron Weapons of gaming media—it’s better than everything else and if you don’t use it, there’s a chance you might die.

Let’s dive in.

Here’s what the Emperor has for you:

Awesome Farming Mechanics in Farthest Frontier 🌻
Why Elite: Dangerous is Still Crushing It 🚀
What NOT to do in a sandbox sequel 🤦

Farthest Frontier Makes Farming Great Again

Workers Plant Crops —> Wait —> Workers Harvest Crops. This is the extent of farming in most city builder games. But Farthest Frontier—a recent colonial survival city sim still in early access—has decided to level up… and the Emperor is most pleased.

Does the Emperor care if the peasants will be eating carrots for two years? No!

Let’s be honest—farming is overpowered IRL. It has elevated the human civilization to ridiculous heights. In many survival and city sim games, developers try to add some balance to farming by limiting farmable land (which can be very frustrating to try to solve).

Instead, the FF devs have just added a bit more complexity. It feels a lot cleaner and comes with it’s own rewards.

With mechanics for soil mixture, fertility, field maintenance, crop rotation and more… FF really allows players to invest their energy into farms (should they want to). As someone who recently got several fields to 100% fertility, 0% weeds and 0% rockiness … let me tell you it feels AWESOME.

To offer even further balance, food VARIETY is a requirement—and veggies are all lumped under one label for this mechanic. In practice, this means players can’t meet all the food needs of their people exclusively through farms. However, they CAN use high performing farms to feed their livestock or make bread and beer (as well as occasionally trade away excess crop yields).

All in all, it’s a job well done and is part of why Farthest Frontier has reportedly sold near a million copies! 😮

Hunting Is Still Boring in Sengoku Dynasty

Toplitz Production revealed more about how hunting will work in their upcoming feudal Japan open world city builder “Sengoku Dynasty.”

We’d like to say it didn’t disappoint, but a noble Emperor never lies.

If you’ve played the games prequel “Medieval Dynasty” …it seems to be a carbon copy of the system from that game (but this time with Foxes, Rabbits, Boar and Deer).

It would have been great to see more interesting twists to hunting like tracking or “boss fight” type raids. We definitely can’t say this won’t ever happen, but it doesn’t seem to be coming anytime soon.

Deer From Sengoku Dynasty

By Imperial Decree: “If it ain’t broke don’t fix it” is great for lawn mowers… but not for immersive open world experiences.

It Still Holds Up

It’s time pay respects to games that are quietly crushing it after their hype cycles have come and gone.

Today’s choice is Elite Dangerous.

Coming up on 10 years old, Elite Dangerous has become a powerhouse name in the sci fi sandbox space. It’s an odd mix of MMO and single player open world and still has nearly 200,000 active players.

HUD for First Person View in Elite: Dangerous

Here’s what the Emperor finds so impressive:

An incredibly robust open world to play in: The Elite: Dangerous game takes place in a much more interesting version of the Milky Way galaxy.
Awesome ship simulation: The game features no shortage of ways to customize your ship, with many players using HOTAS / Joystick setups
A strong and robust community of players

Truly, Elite: Dangerous is still in it’s own class when it comes to Sci Fi gameplay. It’s not a pick up and play (by any stretch)… but players who invest the time and energy to learn E:D are rewarded with an immersive sandbox experience they can’t get anywhere else.