Lords of Infinity

This game is the third in the Infinity Saga.

One of the biggest differences between the Choice of Games games and the Hosted Games games I've played is that, due to CoG house style, most official games are pretty well-rounded, being roughly equal in the way they treat stats, narrative, romance, and plot. Sometimes they struggle in all 4, sometimes they are fantastic in all 4, but due to testing and editor help it's generally a complete, relatively uniform package.

Hosted games that I've played tend to be very strong or completely focused on one area while ignoring or struggling with others. Wayhaven and Soul Stone War are hyper-focused on romance. Hero or Villain: Genesis is maximized with respect to stats. The Aegis Saga is all plot. This isn't bad; if I want to play, say, a simulator game, War for the West or the Magincia series can really satisfy that.

To this point, the only games that seemed really well-rounded in the official CoG way were the Fallen Hero games. But now this game, Lords of Infinity, is another one in that category. The first two games in the Infinity Series were very war-focused with little romance and only a few characters.

This game expands that world. I saw that some were dismayed that it's no longer purely a fighting/army game. And that's true; but at 1,600,000 words and with 1/4 of the chapters dealing with fighting, it essentially contains an entire war game.

This game branches very heavily, so I can only offer an insight into what I played. After war ended in book 2, I had the choice to retire to my estate or spend time with political maneuvering in the capital.

I chose the estate option, and promptly found that I had huge debts and fairly bad stats (I've heard the pre-made characters are OP, so I might do that instead next time). But I buckled down, courted a neighboring noblewoman's daughter who was my long-time betrothed, improved my village, dealt with bandits, and struggled against political unrest.

Later, combat and battle occur once more. As the game series progresses, we've moved from a frontline soldier with musket and sabre to a strategic commander. We now deal with some of the highest levels of military strategy.

There are multiple clubs you can join and sides you can take. After a while, I decided to use a guide. I had heard people say this series is stat intensive and hard, but I didn't think the last two games were that bad. This game had me restarting many chapters and referring to guides a lot. I found it fun.

Giant games like this do feel overwhelming at times. While they sell very well and are obviously great, I don't feel too bad about authors releasing multiple smaller games instead. But the market will do what it will do.

Very balanced overall, and now I understand many more memes from the Hosted Games subreddit. I've wondered what a 'Wulframite' was for a long time (I thought it was related to Book 1 Duke of Wulfram, and was so confused when he was written out of the book).

The depth, replayability, and difficulty of this game make it a good choice for people who want to rack up a lot of hours of playtime.