Kenshi is a very different kind of game. I had played the original Mount and Warblade and started it up with that in my mind as a comparison based on what i had seen, but what you get is a bit different. Mount and blade has some rather heavy emphasis on it's own peculiar and quirky Skill based (demanding on the player) Third Person combat system and multiplayer, both of things that really brings people in to love the game (The training part of that game with the archery challenges, especially on horseback is a very unique experience in and of itself) With some squad control and command issueing during engagment scenes. All theset things are Mount and Blades STRONG points. This game, focuses more on the 'fluff' and weaker points in Mount and Blade and ignore the strong points. Here the focus is more on base building and accumulation of spoils, as well as exploration of the world (Kind of like sightseeing in a bethesda game... well somewhat.) There is a strong disincentive to engage in combat unless very prepared. The world is seamless and there are not 'town' scenes or 'fight' scenes. It is a persistent world that updates itself over time. As you start the game, it plays strangely. Avoid combat, lure weaker enemies (preferrably humanoids) to guards or roving imperial patrols to be dispatched. Loot corpses, aquire gear or goods to sell to town vendors. OK this is a standard rpg style type looting, and getting started. In fact it reminded me of a Black Isle type game (I don't really want to compare it to Fallout 2, but the game IS in a post apocalyptic world, that seems like PostNuke Japan???) however the combat is impossible for low level players. Part of this is due to the fact combat in this game is completely automated. I have mixed feelings about this. It's nice to focus on the base building and exploration, but no game aspect of combat aside from personnel management in the engagement? Come on, now, that leaves a bit to be desired. M&B had a very intricate system of combat that was somewhat fun to play with (although i found it very overwhelming) This does the exact opposite, engage or disengage, and that's all she wrote.

Anyway the pace is slow, I think it might be a bit slower due to the combat system. It's very hard to level your PC up in combat, its very hard to make progress without doing a lot of travelling. and travelling is a bit dangerous Also hireing hirelings is another aspect. You don't die, but you go unconscious, and you get XP for taking hits... So that's good right? Not exactly, a lot of this game is just waiting. You can speed up time but it feels so slow, everything is just so painfully slow!!! You need guards and workers. And automate as much as you can. I hadnt been able to find workers yet, so i couln't create my camp to get industry going. Enough was enough, I installed a mod to recruit followers in bars of various stripes classes and skills, it gives you a nice Role-playing feel too. You simply have to get hirelings faster to make real progress in this game. This is a deal breaker, but fortunately a bit of mods (and possibly cheating) can fix that easily enough. Check out the Nexus if you play this and get the few mods that exist, they are worth it. The game is very unfinished. It appears only a small percentage of the game world is 'live' which includes what seems to be maybe three factions... but really its mostly just one.

here's an experience: I came across an abandoned village, presumable the inhabitants were killed offf, left in fear, or captured. It would be nice to inhabit that town if i could make it defensible since ther eare already homes at least in place (only industry) however you can't annex buildings in this game. In this example, it is a shame, it would be a nice undertaking to acquire Ghost village in this way. It would be nice to be able to attack and conquer villages, killing off the guards/hostiles and capturing the citizens and putting them to work, more or less enslaving the city, or recruiting some of the inhabitants. Slavery would be nice in this game too in similiar respect. You could raid cities, loot them for resources/building materials, have the slaves haul them back, then sell off the slaves or put them to work. (This might be implemented, or might be plan to do it as I have seen slavery items and you can be captured, and there are slaver factions but havent seen how it has been determined to be implemented) What you can do is get going and just attack cities for no reason other than amuzement (you dont need 'stuff') by then, to launch raids you have to automate the heck out of yourself.

I reccomend starting the RP selection for getting a band of player characters started, to speed things up, there is really no need to grind your way through this slowly. In fact feel no shame in trying the mods on nexus sites. Nothing wrong with starting your main at 100 in all skills and a decent weapon and armor. It's hardly game breaking. The NPC Mod is a vast improvement, since it lets you recruit different characters rather than just fighters (I was unable to find workers/farmers laborers in the unmodded game V .93)

You can automate your workers to go through several tasks. If one task cant be done it will go down the list. This is the most amazing and functional concept i've seen in the game and it makes you wonder why you do not see more managemnt games operate with such simplicity. You can say have a rock quarry, an iron mine, and two machines to harvest what is gathered from it, as well as storage boxes to keep what end products your industry makes from these resources and refining machines. You can then have 3-6 workers, all working on these two resource sources and 2 refining machines, storing the mats when finished. IF too many workers are on one machine, no problem, he will go work the other machine, or empty the machine the workers are busy with to store what its produced. Such a simple idea and easy to implement for an AI and gee is it nice in such a game. I am glad this works well in the game, if this were bugged it's a deal breaker but for most part things run smoothly.

So you can have 12 dudes with low combat skills and cheap backpacks and no armor being farmers and workers, you cna have maybe a squad of 2 acting as a trader and an armed escort with a pack animal to take what you produce (or collect from your raiding part) and take it to the nearest town to trade get better stuff,and recruit more bandits. you can also have the bandit parties themselves. I found i needed about 30-40 peeps to get things going. I needed like 10-12 just for turrets.

Conflicted about Kenshi. I didn't buy it i got some alpha i 'looted' somewhere... Most people seem to lose interest in it rather fast. It's worth checking out but looking at this game it is unfinished and just leaves a lot to be desired but at the same time offers something wildly differnet. Kenshi really is at heart, a wonderful recipe.... a real feeling of adventure in a unique world that is mysterious and interesting, comprised of beautiful landscapes interesting dialogue bits all wrapped up in the guise of an open world RPG. Stunning and brilliant game design but just needs a bit more work. This setting is really interesting, yet unforutunately there is not too much story. There is some random dialogue that might explain a bit about some of the weird alien like factions that are littered about this strange setting that is almost post apocalyptic mixed with what seems like a pre-feudal japan, but that's all you will get. It requires a lot of time and work to advance, though it's rewarding if you like base building games (use mods to help get started) The combat system (or lack of one) is offputting but not a dealbreaker. There are some technical issues. Reload/save scumming can glitch up the game world, essentially restarting the daiyl schedules of NPCS. Item spawns are also affected. (it's still plenty easy to steal stuff) stealing and stealth is very buggy and dangerous, i learned to be careful in towns and use multiple save slots. It's not a bad idea to steal some mats or knock out guards for decent starting gear. There are also memory leaks and other thingies that aren't so great. This could be in part due to the persistent game world aspect of it... a lot is going on and you can control multiple bands of raiders/workers/bases all over the world and when clicking your different personnel groups will warp to them (never seen a game quite like this) so that has to be pretty taxing.

Playing this game makes me think of a modern game like ARMA, Jagged Alliance 2 or XCOM, something (more like 7.62 High Calibre/E5 Brigade) A game somewhat like this but in a more modern military setting *MERC WORLD* it would be the best game ever since Jagged Alliance 2! Just add some ability to engage in conflict/engagements to give you somewhat of an 'edge' with one of your units that you directly control while still relying on as much automation as possible with your other units or base management, for a very interesting involved and adventurous game that is perfect for that franchise to evolve into. I can see a 'smart pause'/active battle real time tactics type system (like mount and blade) working really well and being much more approachable (and liked) than the dogged down turn based tactics that result in lots of save scumming (lets be honest) as long as there were decent AI.

Worth a review. I figure I can write something on it having played it (it's open so i dont think you can 'finish' the game) even though I cheated my way through it this is only barely playable as is game and has a built in cheat mode... but even then you really ought to resort to mods, in addition to the preset squad to get a proper feel for this game. Also some of the graphic settings need be toned down, as they are for the most part irrelevant and just system hogs.

I liked the game enough to keep playing it for a while (part of it is due to time investment) and want to check out Mount and Blade 2 sometime.