Kaiserpunk Review

Kaiserpunk has a really interesting concept: You’re rebuilding society after an alternate version of World War I that lasted way longer and destroyed almost everything. The world is left in ruins, and you have to help people survive and rebuild. What I really like is how the game mixes this post-war setting with a cool 1920s city-building vibe. When it focuses on that part, it really shines.

But honestly, the strategy map feels a bit off, like it’s trying to be a grand strategy game but doesn’t really pull it off. Plus, there are a lot of technical issues. If this was an Early Access game, I might understand, but since it’s a full release, it’s a bit disappointing.

Every time you start a new game, you build small houses and farms on maps inspired by real-world places like Seattle or Sydney. I love how the early buildings look like they’re made from scraps, with old pre-war brand names still visible. Watching the workers moving around these little diorama-style buildings was actually fun.

As your city grows, you add more skilled workers and wealthier citizens. Some neighborhoods start looking so nice that you forget the world fell apart. That part is really satisfying—turning a ruined place into a lively city again. The production chains are pretty deep too, and figuring them out kept me entertained.

Kaiserpunk reminds me a lot of the Anno series. You start small with farms and slowly build up to making things like radios and televisions for your growing middle and upper class. Planning out the city felt rewarding, especially at the early stages. One detail I really liked was how your main government building changes depending on the policies you choose—it reflects the kind of society you’re building.

Kaiserpunk Feels Confused About Its Scale and Systems

Kaiserpunk offers plenty of resources and buildings — from schools to clinics — to improve people’s lives. But many of these systems feel shallow. For example, nobody cares if their house is right next to a steel mill, not even the wealthiest citizens. Health and education needs are solved just by placing buildings, and factory pollution doesn’t seem to affect anyone’s health. This makes cities look messy and unrealistic, unlike how real cities grow and develop.

The problems get worse on the strategic map. Kaiserpunk doesn’t seem to know what scale it wants. In the city, I’m worried about whether my 200 machinists have enough gramophones. But on the world map, huge regions like “Central Europe” are treated as a single area, similar to the board game Risk. It just doesn’t fit together.

Honestly, they should have kept the strategy layer smaller. Since a lot of the style feels British, focusing on a post-apocalyptic UK might have worked better. It doesn’t make sense that small city-states struggling to survive would suddenly try to conquer the world like in Hearts of Iron.

The strategic systems also feel weak. The turn-based battles look silly, almost like slapstick comedy. The mechanics are complicated but not very clear — after a fight, you’re often left wondering why you won or lost. Things like terrain and supplies do matter but feel half-finished and confusing.

Overall, it feels like there was a great idea for an interwar city builder, but then they added a world map that wasn’t fully developed. Honestly, removing that whole layer might make the game better. Instead, they could’ve focused on building the defense industry — making tanks and artillery — just to protect your borders, without turning it into a global war game.

There are diplomatic and scientific victory paths, but if you want to succeed at either, you can’t really ignore the world map — which is a shame.

AI Feels Unfair and Technical Issues Hurt the Experience

The AI on Normal difficulty is pretty ruthless. As a new player, I often felt like the AI was way ahead of me by the time I ran into them, which was discouraging. I don’t mind a challenge in a city builder, but since there’s already plenty of struggle just keeping my people alive, having the AI outpace me so quickly felt too much — especially when I was still learning the game. It’s just not balanced well for beginners.

And that’s before the technical problems even start. If this were Early Access, I might be more forgiving. But for a full release, the polish just isn’t there. There are little things that feel sloppy — like resource counters on the world map not updating in real time. I had to close and reopen the map just to see the correct numbers.

The resource screen is frustrating too. You can’t click columns to sort, which is annoying with so many resources to track. The tooltips for citizen needs don’t give enough detail, so I often found myself clicking house by house just to figure out what people were missing — like doing a door-to-door survey.

The economy also feels off at times. Building a high-rise full of specialists prints money, even if they’re unhappy. But trying to meet their needs ends up costing more. It should work the other way — happier people should pay more taxes — but the game doesn’t always follow that logic.

Worst of all, it’s buggy. Until right before this review, I had save files that refused to load after hours of play, which was super frustrating. They fixed it last minute, but still — losing progress after 25+ hours kills the mood.

And then there are the random events that make no sense. One time, before meeting any other factions, I suddenly got a message that “the enemy” had launched a firebombing campaign on my city. Out of nowhere, a dozen buildings caught fire. Who did it? Some random raiders hiding nearby? It just didn’t add up.

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Pros and Cons of Kaiserpunk Game

✅ Pros	❌ Cons
🎨 Unique 1920s post-war setting	🐞 Big bugs that break saves
🏙️ Nice city visuals and designs	⚙️ Complicated and missing basic controls
🏭 Fun production chains	🤖 AI is too strong and hard for new players
📈 Good city growth and progress	🌍 World map feels unnecessary and confusing
📝 Interesting policies to shape your city	💰 Economy feels unbalanced
🌎 Real-world map locations	🔥 Random events don’t make sense
🛠️ Could improve with future updates	⚠️ Too many technical problems
💡 Fresh idea for a city-building game	😩 Feels unfinished and tiring to play

Conclusion: Kaiserpunk Has Good Ideas but Feels Unfinished

Kaiserpunk has a nice style and some fun city-building parts. The production system is interesting too. But the game has big bugs that break your saves, and the controls feel incomplete.

The city-building is good, but the world map part doesn’t fit well and feels too much. Maybe future updates can fix it, but right now, I can’t recommend it. Playing it just feels tiring.