Millennia is a 4X strategy simulator from Paradox Interactive that sets you on the historic path of a budding civilization. Read our review to see what it did well, what it didn’t do well, and if it’s worth your time and money.
Millennia Review Overview
What is Millennia?
Millennia is a strategy simulator where you explore, expand, exploit, and exterminate your way through the various ages of your civilization’s storied history in search of ever-daring conquests and innovations. Striking a similar vein to Sid Meier’s Civilization Series, Millennia is a familiar-looking 4X game that still manages to differentiate itself from the genre’s most well-known titles through its unique gameplay mechanics.
For more gameplay details, read everything we know about Millennia's gameplay and story.
Millennia features:
⚫︎ Dynamic historical ages
⚫︎ Unique XP system for various technological, social, and governmental abilities
⚫︎ Familiar hex-grid landscape for Civilization fans
⚫︎ Simplified technology tree for expedited progress
⚫︎ Online PvP multiplayer for up to 4 people
 Steam |
$39.99 |
Millennia Pros & Cons
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
 Familiar Gameplay for 4X Fans |
Looks and Plays Cheap Art Quality is Inconsistent Multiplayer is a Hot Mess |
Millennia Overall Score - 58/100
As much as I want to love this game for its unique additions to the classic 4X formula, Millennia’s presentation and overall quality are far too questionable. The game’s wonky animations, poorly-tuned AI, multiplayer woes, and general lack of polish come together to make an experience that’s about as fun as the Dark Ages. This game is many things, but a Civilization killer it is not.
Millennia Story - 7/10
Like with most 4X games, Millennia’s narrative is forged by player choice and tempered by strategy and a little bit of RNG. The systems Millennia has in place—namely its Ages and simplified tech tree—contribute to a tapestry of your nation’s history that’s easier to follow through the years than most. It's actually quite compelling if you manage to progress through the ages how you wish.
Millennia Gameplay - 6/10
Millennia’s gameplay is rife with great ideas and new additions to the standard 4X formula. From the game’s various Ages to its unique XP system, there’s always something new to experience in this game, even if you are a 4X veteran. Sadly, new ideas are only as good as their implementation, and Millennia’s inconsistent quality across the board has eroded the value of said ideas somewhat.
Millennia Visuals - 6/10
Millennia’s art direction is concurrently host to some of the most breathtaking and most vomit-inducing assets I’ve ever seen in a 4X game. The oil-painting stylings of its Ages and the low-poly models of armies in the combat screen exemplify each of these extremes, respectively.
Millennia Audio - 6/10
Millennia’s music doesn’t hold a candle to Civilization’s OST, but it’s in no way a pushover. The rising voices and stringed arrangements of the menu music alone evoked the most powerful parts of Civilization’s "Sogno Di Volare", My only gripe is that these songs vary in tone too drsatically, and some of them play at the most confusing times. I swear, this game plays combat music while you're rearranging your capital city's production sometimes.
Millennia Value for Money - 4/10
As it is now, Millennia is simply not worth $40, and it misses that mark by just a bit. I can see the value of the game’s fresh takes on old 4X tropes, but this value is greatly overshadowed by the game’s glaring shortcomings and questionable quality. I don’t think my opinion will change when the game’s DLCs and updates arrive either, as the damage is done, and most of those DLCs are locked behind a paywall anyway.
Millennia Review: Stuck in The Dark Ages
I had high hopes for Millennia, I really did. I was fortunate enough to try its demo during Steam Next Fest and was blown away by its fresh ideas and clever mechanics. It wasn’t perfect—far from it—but it showed enough potential for me to be excited about the final product. It touted itself as the "Civ Killer", which was a bold claim to begin with, but I was on board—if for no other reason than curiosity.
Millennia’s official release grew closer by the day and my mind was filled with predictions of how the demo’s multitude of problems would be fixed by the devs on launch. Little did I know that all this grandstanding and hype would be wasted on a stillborn game that fizzled out immediately after release. Just like in countless tragedies from Greek antiquity, it was all hubris.
Millennia is a classic case of a good idea executed poorly. It has plenty of new gimmicks and mechanics that fell flat on their faces before the game could ever take off running. We’ll go over them in earnest, then discuss which of the game’s shortcomings countered their effectiveness. We’ll start with the game’s most promising aspect: its gameplay.
Millennia is a 4X game through and through. It has mechanics in place for you to expand, explore, exploit, and exterminate your way through the tapestry of your nation’s history. Half of these mechanics are genre staples that you can expect from any 4X game; things like hex-based movement, production queues, and tech trees. The other half is comprised of new ideas and approaches to the 4X formula that shake things up enough to make Millennia its own thing. There are many to go through, so let’s discuss the one that they’ve marketed the most first: Ages.
Millennia’s progression is split into various ages. While this isn’t in any way unique—Civilization VI notably has Eras to replace ages in its system—Millennia put its own spin on the idea by emphasizing each Age’s importance and giving it a roguelike flavor. Depending on how the previous Age went, a new set of Ages will be available for you to experience when this one ends, each with its own unique modifiers to set it apart. Just to name a few, we have the Age of Monuments, which focuses on monumentality (duh), and the Age of Blood, which focuses on expansion through bloodshed.
Leading a throughline among these various Ages is Millennia’s simplified tech tree, which is a lot more compact and linear than you’d expect from a 4X game. Millennia leaves the branching to the Ages, opting for a compartmentalized set of technologies within each Age to keep things trucking along without overcomplicating your progress. Advancing through technologies is how one finishes an Age, with non-standard Ages having additional prerequisites like killing a certain number of non-barbarian units or discovering natural wonders.
Lastly, instead of a civics system, Millennia employs an XP system for its governance, warfare, engineering, exploration, and arts. It’s a bit complex but think of it as mana that you gain a variable amount of per turn depending on what improvements and resources your cities are producing. Each of the aforementioned pools has its own unique uses for its respective XP, with Warfare XP mostly being used to supplement your armies and Government XP being used to integrate vassals and summon settlers.
With all those mechanics out of the way, let’s talk about why they couldn’t give Millennia the push it needed to escape the Dark Ages and enter an Age of Enlightenment. For one thing, clever as they are on paper, each of those mechanics has minor kinks that compound into major issues down the line, especially once they start interacting with one another.
The Ages, though supposedly equally viable, are anything but, with some being much easier to fulfill than others and being much more desirable to pursue regardless of your current path.
The simplified tech tree, while much easier to account for and quicker to progress through, just doesn’t explain each of its technologies well enough for newbies to fully understand what they’re committing resources to. It also doesn’t help that it’s way too easy to accidentally end an age prematurely by completing too many technologies too quickly, which may lock you out from certain ages completely.
The XP system, though quite good at keeping the game’s tempo and allowing the player to allocate resources more effectively, becomes incredibly unwieldy as more and more types of XP differentiate themselves as the Ages go by. Pretty soon, you’ll be running around with ten-something types of XP, each with four or so unique things you can spend them on. Variety is good, but this is hitting critical mass.
There’s also a good case to make about the game’s overall quality in terms of art and polish. Apart from the glaring problems the game’s questionably implemented mechanics have wrought, the game itself just doesn’t look and feel good. The UI looks like it came from a 1995 RTS game, and I don’t mean that as a nostalgic complement. I’m not sure if this was intentionally done to evoke a certain style, but I can tell you right now that it’s not working.
There’s also the game’s horrendously animated battle scenes, which, again, just look like they came from a late 90’s RTS with their stiff caveman swinging and slide-across-the-floor movement. Keeping the game’s creative, but poorly implemented mechanics in mind, these graphical flaws paint the picture of a game that should have been left to cook for a couple more months. And with Millennia’s multitude of upcoming DLCs and updates slated to release later this year, it becomes increasingly likely in mind that this game was rushed out the door sooner than it should have been.
And here lies the final strings of Millennia’s tapestry. Unfortunately, despite its great ideas, it will not stand the test of time like its fellow 4X games. Civilization continues to stand tall, nonplussed by Millennia’s unfulfilled declaration of superiority.
Perhaps there is salvation yet for Millennia when its devs finally decide to improve on the game’s meager foundations. Until that happens, however, I’m afraid Millennia’s stuck in a perpetual dark age with no Renaissance in sight.
Pros of Millennia
| Things Millennia Got Right |
|---|
|
Familiar Gameplay for 4X Fans |
Familiar Gameplay for 4X Fans
Millennia brings a lot of new things to the table, but it also wears the 4X genre’s staples on its sleeve. Hex-based traversal is one of the more well-known ones, as is turn-based combat, production queues, tile improvement, and technology trees.
As long as you have any passing familiarity with the most basic gameplay features of similar games like Stellaris, Age of Wonders 4, Civilization, HUMANKIND, and Old World, you're going to have an easy time picking up Millennia.
Cons of Millennia
| Things That Millennia Can Improve |
|---|
|
Looks and Plays Cheap Art Quality is Inconsistent Multiplayer is a Hot Mess |
Looks and Plays Cheap
I’ve mentioned it before but it bears repeating: the quality of this game’s look and gameplay does not reflect its price. If I’m paying $40 for a game, I expect it to have a UI that can’t be rivaled by a mobile game. I expect its AI to be balanced and its animations to be…existent. One could argue that the fixings don’t make the game, but that only applies if the game in question is substantial enough without them. This isn’t the case with Millennia.
Art Quality is Inconsistent
Honestly, I’d rather have a game with consistently bad art than one that has masterpieces mixed in with the chaff. At least the former won’t remind me of what the game could have been had the developers been more consistent with their art direction. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what Millennia is.
Placed squarely between the horrid animations of the game’s battle sequences and the utter travesty of its UI are panels upon panels of beautifully painted scenes depicting the various ages one could go through. It’s a good thing that Paradox offered a bunch of these paintings as wallpapers for signing on to their newsletter, as that is the only way one can enjoy these things on their own.
Multiplayer is a Hot Mess
This game was marketed as an online multiplayer experience similar to Civilization VI, but that is not what you are getting. Granted, multiplayer is still available, but the hoops you need to go through far outweigh the middling multiplayer experience that the game offers in return.
Server-based online multiplayer is currently unavailable for Millennia. The only way you can play with your friends is through peer-to-peer setups similar to Hamachi. This connection isn’t very stable to begin with, but the problem is compounded further by the game’s plethora of performance issues through such channels. The game’s developers have promised to add such a feature in the future, but the burning question in everyone’s mind right now is why this game was released in this state in the first place.
Is Millennia Worth It?
No, Not in a Thousand Years
For the first time in a while, I’ll answer this question with a flat-out no. Dare I say, Millennia won’t be worth its price in the future either, as its salvation through DLCs and updates won’t be free. It just misses the mark on too many aspects to be worth anywhere near its asking price of $40, especially if you made the mistake of encouraging a friend to buy it with you. Paradox Interactive has countless 4X titles for you to choose from; let this be the last one you pick.
| Platform | Price |
|---|---|
| Steam |
$39.99 |
Millennia FAQ
How Do I Enable Multiplayer in Millennia?
To access Multiplayer, players will need to create a Paradox Account first, then start the multiplayer game and do their turns in sequential order, like in the single-player game. To launch a Cloud Hotseat game, players must initially all gather in a lobby and be able to connect to pass around initial setup information.
Does Millennia Have Mod Support?
No, Millennia does not have any direct modding support, although the game’s developers have confirmed that further updates regarding the game’s mod support will be revealed sometime in 2024.
How Do You Delete Custom Nations in Millennia?
You cannot delete custom nations from within the game at the moment, although that feature has been confirmed by the developers for a future patch.
In the meantime, if you want to remove them yourself they can be found in the following folder: AppData\LocalLow\CPromptGames\Millennia\CustomNation.
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Millennia Product Information
 |
|
| Title | MILLENNIA |
|---|---|
| Release Date | March 27, 2024 |
| Developer | C Prompt Games |
| Publisher | Paradox Interactive |
| Supported Platforms | PC (Steam) |
| Genre | Strategy, Simulation, 4X |
| Number of Players | 1-4 (Online Multiplayer) |
| ESRB Rating | PEGI 12 |
| Official Website | Millennia Website |
