Bulwark: Falconeer Chronicles Review

thesixthaxis.com:

A successor to The Falconeer, Bulwark: Falconeer Chronicles is the second of three games to be set in universe created by developer Tomas Sala. Where you might expect it to follow in The Falconeer’s slipstream as an aerial combat game, Bulwark takes a much steadier approach, revisiting the vast watery expanse of the Ursee for a more sedate city builder.

At its core, Bulwark: Falconeer Chronicles gives players the task to build up the settlements of one of the main factions in this world, each with their own ideals and values.  In the campaign mode, you will start with a location and one outpost, looking to build up from there, however where many city builders, Bulwark’s focus is much more about building and exploring rather than resource management. Yes, you do need resources to build up your settlement, but Bulwark’s way of managing this is through distance rather than inventory.

The main resources in the game are workers, wood, stone, and iron. For your Bulwark to grow, you need access to all of these items, and that is achieved through your shipping routes. You can set up operations where these items are found, though you can be limited to the number of resource extractors running at any one time. Or you can trade with other factions. Whatever approach you choose, you will have shipping routes to manage and defend. Each route requires its own start and end harbour, rather than one harbour having multiple routes. An issue with this is that if you want to have multiple harbours placed at the same location you have to be really careful with placement, as you cannot build harbours right next to each other. This limits your route options and can be frustrating when planning routes. A large harbour with capacity for different routes could have been much better here.

At each harbour you can assign up to three Captains to transport goods, or protect the route. You do not have access to many ship captains to start with, and this is where exploration is key.

Exploration is