समीक्षा

• gamedeal user

  Sep 3, 2019

  Funny name for the game. As if there were any "kindly bankers" in the world... In fact, there are. And you can be one of them with that game: you can help numerous states raise their well-being with your funds and long-term investments. But... Yeah, that would be boring to do only good things when you have the power, right? So, "Evil Bank Manager" is the financial strategy game where you start in the year 1500, either in Europe or in Asia, choosing one of the 8 sets of perks, and starting to do some speculative business in one of the countries, eventually branching your brand all over the known world map (Europe, Asia, and North Africa). It's a turn-based game, and if you're familiar with global strategies, you'll pick the pace rather quickly. Just imagine a world map with states and provinces, like in Paradox "Crusader Kings" or "Europa Universalis". You can't own the land, but you can control some facilities in every province. Some of them will generate for you gross income, some - resources to sell on the global market (food, iron, jewelry, etc.) Your bank has 4 departments: one is for those investments I already named. Second, obviously, looking for people in need of money and granting loans. The third department enforcing your will throughout the world: collecting debts, doing favors for the official authorities and magnates, sabotaging the work of other banks in the world. The fourth, diplomatic department, is collecting the reputation you make and channeling it to the further bank development, like support from local authorities, lower real estate prices and taxes, assistance in competition with other banks - we call GR now. You can even wage some wars indirectly! The only difference from the real-life bankers is that you need to choose which side you're on in every conflict which you support. In reality, it is not a problem to invest on both sides. Especially if you can sell them your weapons for the gross profit... All specialists in all four departments generating some expertise points, which you can invest in the research tree, which is looking much like we had in Firaxis "Civilization". Also, all your departments, starting from headquarters, can be upgraded, which will allow you to hire more men, with better expertise. Each upgrade will move you closer to the development of the world currency issue, which is one of the game goals. Actually, like in "Civilization" series again, you can win by one of the possibilities: either you build the global reserve all by yourself (like the space program), or you can get the majority in that Global Reserve, by the cumulative influence calculation ("cultural" victory). You can rush into R&D and achieve Science victory. Or you can undermine the budgets of all other banks in the world and make yourself a monopoly and Conquest victory... Any way you like it. Speaking of the game quality, I'd say, it's above the medium, by the strategies standards. There is a tutorial to learn the ropes, UI is obvious enough, the game is stable and if you like the diversity of approaches like I just said, there are at least 4 different paths to ensure the victory, so, replayability is also there. Sure, the game is not that big as the "Europa Universalis" or the "Civilization", it will take like 10-20 hours to earn all the achievements and be done with it... But those are good hours. Sure, there are small things that some players can call downsides. Like some states on the world map are hard to click - especially in Europe, with its total fragmentation of the time where each province was called a state. Some say the tutorial ain't clear enough, and UI is confusing, but that goes from people who are new to the strategy genre. From the other end, some complain that they don’t have enough statistics and graphs - they definitely came from Crusaders Kings or Victoria, or any other Paradox title... Oh, well. I'd say, it's fair 6.9/10. The game is totally worth its price. Decent visuals, decent gameplay (opponents are kinda weak when you know what you're doing, but then again, it is a common problem for global strategies). Good music, especially European tracks - not quite suitable for the time period, of course, but pleasing to the ear. Totally recommend, if you like strategies.
• gamedeal user

  Feb 12, 2021

  This game sucks, but you already knew that based on the obviously fake reviews and the poor translation. GAMEPLAY: It's a civ clone, but without any of the fun. The screen is so busy- there's a thousand things on screen with very little explanation on how to use them. I'm good at strategy games and lost this on the easiest difficulty. The mechanics make no sense. Many elements are directly lifted from civ - luxury resources, the science tree - but without any thought into how to use it. The game automatically ends after 300 turns, and it feels like checking your watch. GRAPHICS: Horrid. You can barely navigate the thing due to how bad it looks. It's a stock image of a mountain and a badly rendered model of a castle, and then a world map with floating icons. DEVELOPER: They fill their twitter with bot followers and get people to flood fake positive reviews. Don't trust them. OVERALL: I bought this for a bad game stream with friends. Unless you're also doing that, don't buy it.
• gamedeal user

  Feb 25, 2021

  Honestly, very boring. You can knock out every achievement in about a day if you really wanted to. I don't see why this has such positive reviews. [Note I have 45 hours logged on the game, although that's just from leaving it running - 12 would be closer to reality, I think] Also it's rather disappointing to check the Dev's twitter feed and see obvious bot-fluff activity. Wish I'd seen that sooner, I would have known not to trust the Steam reviews. This is a standard economic simulator clone, with very little in the way of replayability or intrigue. It's a slog to get through and isn't worth revisiting once you've beat it. The UI is clunky and difficult to navigate, and the difficulty curve is pretty much non-existent. Interesting metrics to support it as well, both the Hard and Very Hard achievements have the same completion % among players.
• gamedeal user

  Nov 12, 2018

  I'm very sorry to give this a thumbs down. I loved the idea of this game and I love the passion these developers have for the work they do. However it sadly doesn't translate to good title. In short..its not really about banking and because the turns lack a real timeline, the goals of IMF and federal reserve aren't very realistic. the game lacks interacton with kings and merchants, it lacks historical content and game world information turn by turn. You do get war information when it happens but even this is lacking. It mostly resembles a phone game where u buy resources, make enough to buy access to new markets and then rinse repeat. The good: The graphics for an indie title are decent. The idea behind the game is excellent. The Bad: Basically its just not what is advertised. It isn't close to being complex enough to be called a bank manager game. You really aren't even banking for the majority of your income. I'm sorry to cut this review short I just don't want to go into all the ways the title doesn't live up to its name. In short the developers are a passionate group and i wish them the best the reality is this was just to ambitious a title for such a small time on the timeline they are on. If you enjoy casual iphone games where you buy resources then wait turns to generate income so you can buy more resources then give it a shot it doesnt cost a lot. the 2 hours steam gives is more then enough time to refund the title if you do not like it. Oh last thing, the tutorial is terrible so if u don't love what it offers right away click the refund button like i did.
• gamedeal user

  Aug 21, 2020

  After about 5 minutes after the 2hr mark, (just past the refund window) this game gets extremely repetitive. I've been playing on hard, and truly I might as well have been playing a click miner on my phone. Click here, level up this building, upgrade this whatever, and repeat ad infinitum. The strategic map gives you hope of some sort of strategy element, but the AI is completely stupid, and single provinces will routinely attack you with your 30+ regions under control. It'd be like Manhattan Island, trying to invade Brazil. and so you crush these tiny countries, and then 4 turns later they attack you again, and again and again. But it doesn't matter because you just need to keep piling money on their opponent. Its boring, monotonous, and a little bit cruel, in that the big map looks like they lifted it right out of Crusader Kings.. and that gives you hope before they dash it on the rocks that is this horrible game. Do not buy.
• gamedeal user

  Feb 7, 2021

  Honestly, this game could've been SO much better. I don't hate games that don't walk you through the whole process of how to play. But not providing the resources to figure out how to play is just lazy. Nothing is clearly explained. Heck, nothing is even lazily explained. You muddle through the first 10-20 turns, wondering if you're even doing the right thing, and then you lose. You try it again, with no explanation of what you did wrong, or what you could do better, and then you lose again. If you're a masochist, this game is for you. Because you will do nothing but torture yourself.
• gamedeal user

  Mar 3, 2021

  Very simplistic mid to late game. no strategy at all. just craft and sell weapons to warring factions. investments mean little. selling weapons quickly outstrips any and all other considerations. very little difference between what investments you make and where they are (apart from not not having that territory conquered by an enemy). game gets very boring very fast once you realize this
• gamedeal user

  Nov 18, 2019

  I was initially enthusiast but after many hours of intensive play my game experience started deteriorating to the point that I felt the need to post it. You basically have 3 ways to win: [list] [*] Getting to 51% of the partecipations Federal Reserve [*] The Scientific Victory (first to complete the tech tree) [*] Making all 20 other competitors go bankrupt [/list] Here’s my experience: [list] [*] For getting to 51% of FR you just need to successfully spin a wheel for about a dozen of times. Like it or not, this is a pathethic minigame-in-the-game with no strategic implications. I call it “russian roulette” because if you click it wrong you might go bankrupt. Rare but can happen. [*] The “scientific” victory is very easy to achieve. So easy that, regardless the difficulty level, all you need to do is mechanically repeating 4-5 actions for ever. Oh yes, you must also remember to update your dipartments and managers about 10-15 times before winning. It’s so boring and effing procedural that I hardly understand if it’s me playing the game or viceversa. [*] Eliminating your competitors. This is by far the most strategic side of the game! There are some actions that you should plan and execute that can create harm, damage or disadvantege to the other banks in the run. Many of these actions are unfortunately simple buttons to press every N turns; some others, like improving regions with no competitors, supporting wars or revolutions to disrupt investments or manteining economic balance are someway possible but the horrible product usability makes it very frustrating. Questions like “which are the richest countries of my competitors?” or “how strong a bank is in the geography around the conflict” or even “which luxuries are available in this list of regions?” are almost impossible to handle cause of lack of good software design, planning ahead and data reporting but hey, the information is there so, you can actually be masochist enough to experiment such play style if you want, fighting against thousands of clicks. Not me for sure, especially because competitors seem to go bankrupt randomly or cause of loans.. [/list] [b]SHORT VERSION[/b] The idea is very cool but the product is poorly implemented, with no depth and no support to decision making. There’s not even a working UI. In order to compensate such a failure the game has been finalized with important RNG-based parts that make it not fully compatible with the category of strategic/management games.Keep this in mind if you’re looking for something serious.
• gamedeal user

  Dec 14, 2018

  I have mixed feelings about this game. I mostly enjoyed the time I played it. It sort of feels like a grand strategy game crossed with a clicker game with all the weaknesses of both and some of their strengths? A... grand clicker game? It's all kinds of complex, and if you like menus, ho boy does it have menus. It also doesn't explain a ton. Eventually you sort of get to the clicker-y "numbers go up" point, but there's so much *work* involved in it. I think the best explanation might an example turn from ~80 turns in. 1. Click Armory button. Drag slider to spend all my iron on Halberds (which cost more iron and have the same production cost as swords, where production is likely to be your bottleneck after turn 20) and any remaining production on crossbows (ditto above, but with wood and bows). 2. Click my Credit button. I need to pick someone to lend money to (which at this point means browse 15+ applicants to find the one that gives the highest rate of return and lasts as many turns as possible, so I don't need to check back here next turn, if I remember by next turn, which I won't). 3. Click the Exchange button, I have facilities producing about 5-6 different luxury resources, which I'll need to sell if their price forecast indicates that their price may go down later, or stay the same (because I may as well have the money now then) or hold if the price may go up. 4. Check the Ongoing Wars button to see who I'm going to sell the weapons I manufactured to this turn to. I have holdings in 10-15 countries, and if they lose a war in a region where I have land those facilities are damaged, so I need to make sure I sell weapons to any of them in an engagement. 5. If any of my countries *is* in an engagement then investing in them gives me better rates on property (albeit randomly). I can increase the amount that I can invest in them by helping them build better infrastructure, by going back to the main menu, opening my investments category, and seeing if the timer has expired since last time I invested allowing me to do so again. If I can, I need to double check what region was at war, then go back, invest in that region, then wait until next turn to invest. 6. See if any small countries (which are cheaper to buy my way into) are in conflicts. If they are, and the conflict won't be resolved in the next turn, I can buy in now, and repeat step 5, currency allowing. 7. Visit my Spy section to spend political currency generated by the building to maintain or improve relationships with *each* country I am involved in. Reputation degrades over time, and at this point can't be automatically maintained, you have to come back and push buttons every couple of turns or... bad things happen? It isn't really explained. 7a. I can also pay a fee (and wait on a turn-based timer) to force a nation I'm in good standing with to go to war (against a random neighbor). They may go to war with a nation I have investments in, so I need to make sure I invest in countries that are far apart. 8. Click on my Guard building. I can spend any Fear (a currency generated by the building) on missions as it accumulates. 9. If I have left-over money, I can buy an investment (a property) from the Investment menu. 10. I... geez, there's still more. I'm tired. Look, there's a lot. My point is, there's too much stuff to do that could be automated out. I'm spending time doing stuff over and over, and navigating menus back and forth that I *really* don't want to be. If more automation creeps in and the menu system was made a bit easier to navigate this could be quite solid. As is I just kinda feel like it's wasting my time. I do like it though. Wish I could recommend it, or want to play it.
• gamedeal user

  Jan 26, 2019

  I restarted twice to figure out how to play. Now that I know what the game wants me to do to be successful, the game is shallow. I believe the lack of proper instruction is intentional. If you knew how to play right away you would realize this is not a game yet. It took me a long time to play enough to figure this out. Most people work every day. I work. To get 12 hours in it took awhile. I should have read that top negative review. I impulse bought off of a half watched youtube video. My fault. So you get to keep my money even though it is not yet deserved. 1st review ever. Going to review some other stuff that I think of positively because I don't want to just send negativity into the universe.