Jon Shafer’s At The Gates Review for Mac

Nine years after Sid Meier’s Civilization V was released, former Firaxis Games lead designer, Jon Shafer, is back in the spotlight with the release of his new 4X strategy game, Jon Shafer’s At the Gates. Taking place at the end of the Dark Ages, At the Gates tasks players with the daunting proposition of conquering the crumbling Roman Empire. Shafer injects new life into the turn-based 4X strategy genre with the novel ideas he imbues At the Gates with, as he focuses his scope down to a more human level than games akin to the aforementioned Civilization V. However, despite his innovations, Shafer fails to make his game particularly endearing.

Especially for newcomers to the 4X strategy genre, At the Gates has a steep learning curve. Shafer incorporates many screens full of tips describing possible actions players can take, but many of these instructions are thrown at players as soon as they begin engaging with the game. There’s a heap of reading to be done before players can actually delve into the gameplay of At the Gates, which presents a huge barrier to potential players. Offering something of a guided tutorial map that disseminates new instructions and tips either each turn or after players trigger certain events would have helped ease in newcomers to the 4X strategy genre.

Shafer couldn’t have been more honest when he stated that “At the Gates is a hard, slow game.” Players initially begin At the Gates playing as the Goths (with the ability to unlock other clans to control later on) in 400 AD with the ultimate goal of overthrowing the Roman Empire. But players should not think they will be achieving that objective anytime soon. Even though no two in-game maps will be exactly the same, all players will need to worry about much more pressing exigencies than going on the warpath. For instance, one big trial that players will need to overcome soon after beginning their sessions is getting their clan through its first winter, when most all resources dry up.

To survive and ultimately thrive, players need to train the members of their clan in professions and disciplines. Professions become more specialized as players train a given member of their clan in it. For example, it may only take a player a couple of turns to train a clan member into a Gatherer or Digger role, but it will take significantly many more turns for a clan to ascend to the highest level of a profession tree. Disciplines augment a given clan’s proclivity towards certain particular professions; the higher a clan’s discipline level is, the quicker it takes that clan to learn a profession related to that discipline.

The main drawback of this system of professions and disciplines is how it compounds with the turn-based machinations of the game to make taking a single action excruciatingly slow. Each turn represents approximately two weeks in game time. It may take multiple turns for a clan member trained to be an Explorer to reach an unidentified resource (which many of the tiles on the map start out as). It will then take many additional turns for the unit to finish identifying the resource. And before players know it, they will have just spent over two in-game months to determine that there’s something like a field of wheat on a specific tile. This type of occurrence transpires frequently and is frustrating; it makes players realize just how long they will need to be playing to make a huge change to the in-game world.

At times, it seems like At the Gates is as excruciatingly slow-paced as it is solely to drag things out as much as possible. The combination of disciplines and professions has potential, but it currently contributes toward making the game feel like a slog. For ardent fans of 4X strategy genre, this game may be a welcome addition with housing some new ideas. But for newcomers, there are better options out there.

Rating: 6/10

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Jon Shafer’s At the Gates is available for PC, Mac, and Linux for $29.99 via Steam.