Fire & Maneuver
Last updated: 2025-08-17
- Engaging and fun tactical wargame gameplay
- Unique Victorian era historical setting
- Poor UI, controls, and tutorial experience
- Unfinished, buggy, and abandoned by developers
- Weak and exploitable AI system
- Poor value and monetization concerns
Emotions
Players are highly satisfied with the game's unique setting, tactical depth, and engaging gameplay mechanics, particularly the combat system and troop diversity. The overall quality, visual style, historical accuracy, and lack of bugs also contribute to a fun and immersive experience, making it a standout strategy game for many.
Disappointment stems primarily from the game's unfinished state, numerous bugs, and poor performance, especially concerning AI and campaign monotony. Players are also let down by the perceived abandonment of the game by developers, leading to a lack of updates, unaddressed issues, and a feeling that the game does not live up to its initial potential or price.
Frustration is largely caused by persistent bugs, frequent crashes, and performance issues like lag and slowdowns. Players also experience frustration due to poor UI design, unintuitive controls, lack of proper tutorials, and the perceived abandonment of the game by developers, which leaves critical issues unaddressed.
Players express hope for the game's future, driven by its perceived potential and the belief that developers will continue to provide updates and bug fixes. There is a strong desire for improvements, including language support, and confidence in the development team's ability to enhance the game over time.
Excitement is generated by the game's historical accuracy, unique blend of strategy and history, and high-quality visuals and gameplay, particularly the musketplay and mounted attacks. Many players had long anticipated the game's release, finding it a must-have for strategy enthusiasts.
Verdict
Mostly negative
Summary
Positive 52% · Negative 48%. Score: 48 / 100
Positives:
- Players generally find the game enjoyable, fun, and engaging, highlighting its strategic depth and unique mechanics. Many appreciate its potential and the overall positive experience it offers, especially for a smaller developer.
- The game is highly praised for its unique 19th-century historical setting, particularly the Crimean War, which is rarely featured in strategy games. Players appreciate the historical accuracy and the feeling of commanding armies in this specific era, akin to tabletop wargames.
- The game's art style, visuals, and overall aesthetic design receive significant positive feedback. Players find the artwork amazing, unique, and visually pleasing, often comparing it to graphic novels or the Armchair Historian's signature style.
- The combat system is noted for its originality and depth, particularly its simultaneous turn structure and unique health bar mechanics (cohesion and losses). Players appreciate the absence of RNG, which emphasizes player skill and strategic nuance.
- The game offers a good variety of factions, each with distinct playstyles and balanced unit rosters. The voice acting is also highlighted as a positive, adding to immersion and quality.
Negatives:
- The game suffers from a poor user experience, primarily due to a confusing UI, unintuitive controls, and a severely lacking tutorial system. New players struggle to understand mechanics, and the campaign mode offers little guidance.
- Players consistently report that the game is unpolished, buggy, and feels unfinished, leading to frequent crashes and performance issues. Many believe the game has been abandoned by its developers, contributing to its current poor state.
- The AI is widely criticized for being broken, unintelligent, and easily exploitable, making battles repetitive and unchallenging. This significantly reduces the game's strategic depth and replayability.
- Many players feel the game is overpriced for its current state, especially considering the additional paid DLC content released for an unfinished product. This monetization strategy is seen as exploitative.
- Reviewers find the game's graphics and overall visual presentation underwhelming and uninspired. Despite simple visuals, the game is poorly optimized, leading to performance issues like low FPS.
Gameplay:
- The game is a grand tactical, turn-based strategy wargame set in the 19th-century Victorian era. It focuses on historical conflicts like the Crimean War, allowing players to control nations, choose regiments, and emphasize tactical gameplay.
- The game features a turn-based, simultaneous-play WEGO system with simple core rules. Players noted its ease of play and a lack of random factors, suggesting a focus on pure strategic decision-making.
- Gameplay involves managing unit types like infantry, artillery, and cavalry, with specific mechanics for movement, firing rates (e.g., breechloading vs. rifled), and environmental effects. Cohesion acts as morale, and some units have siege capabilities, though cavalry balance might need adjustment.
- The gameplay is generally considered decent and interesting, with a helpful tutorial. Generals issue orders, and troops move in real-time after orders are given. Game length is comparable to chess, and losses are attributed to player skill.
- The game features multiple European factions, each with unique stats and special features. Players can unlock several factions initially, though some, like the Ottoman state, are noted for their difficulty.
Performance:
- Multiple players report significant performance issues, including low frame rates and general lag, even on lower settings. This suggests poor optimization that negatively impacts the gameplay experience.
- While some players report normal hardware requirements and that low FPS is less critical for a turn-based game, the prevalence of performance complaints indicates that the current optimization is not meeting player expectations, despite the genre.
Recommendations:
- Many players advise against purchasing the game in its current state, citing various issues that make it not worth the money or time. They suggest waiting for significant updates or price reductions before considering a purchase.
- Player sentiment on the game's overall quality is mixed, with some giving high ratings and strong recommendations, while others provide lower scores due to perceived incompleteness or issues. This indicates a divided player base regarding the game's current state.
- The game is highly recommended for fans of turn-based strategy, especially those interested in the Victorian era or specific historical conflicts like the Civil War. Its unique theme and tactical depth appeal to this niche.
- The free version of the game is strongly recommended, suggesting it offers enough value to be worth trying without financial commitment. This allows players to test the game before deciding on a purchase.
- Players acknowledge the game's potential and hope for continued development and improvements. They believe the game could become much better with further work from the creators.
Miscellaneous:
- Many players acknowledge the game's strong core concept and potential, despite its current rough state. There's a general hope and expectation that the developers will continue to improve the game and address existing issues, including bug fixes and unexplained mechanics.
- A significant portion of the feedback expresses excitement and anticipation for the developers' next project, 'Master of Command,' with some suggesting that the current game's experience might pave the way for a better future title.
- The change from a free-to-play model to a paid one has generated some negative feedback, with players expressing disappointment or questioning the pricing, especially regarding base factions.
- Players are eager for new content, specifically requesting more DLCs covering various historical periods like the early First World War, colonial campaigns, and other 19th-century conflicts.
- The game offers in-depth tutorials, which are generally accessible, though some players still feel they don't fully grasp all mechanics.
