The Space 4X, it calls to strategy gamers like a siren song, leading game developer after developer to take a stab at creating "the" definitive space 4X to rule them all. Some games stick to the Master of Orion 2 model and try to further refine it, while others branch out into new directions, but most bill themselves as being something new and innovative. That's practically a necessity in a world where we've seen dozens of new space 4X titles come and go in the past decade. Astra Exodus is taking a bold step by intentionally labeling itself as a "retro-inspired" strategy game that will remind you of the older classics, with a splash of the new, and a hefty dose of pixel art and a color palette that screams 90's fashion. Seriously, this game is not afraid of being colorful.

Now, if you've had your fill of MoO 2 style games over the years and aren't interested in another take on that kind of game, Astra Exodus is probably not going to do anything for you. However, I imagine there is a sizable audience out there that finds the likes of Stellaris and Galactic Civilizations III to be a bit overwhelming, with endless mechanics, charts, and menus to sort through. Maybe you are indeed looking for something very akin to the classics, but with some modern spice in the mix. Astra Exodus may be just the thing for you. 

Astra Exodus is a single-player only affair, with two ways to play. There is the standard sandbox mode where you can pick one of 8 different factions and try to dominate the galaxy, or the story campaign where you will lead humanity in their quest to learn more about their past and the exodus from Earth. The campaign serves as something of a tutorial, starting you off with very small maps and weak opponents, and gradually cranking up the heat. Like the majority of 4X games, the story serves well enough as window dressing for the various scenarios, but isn't particularly riveting. The primary draw of the game will of course be the more open sandbox mode. 

The mechanics of the game are comfortably familiar. You've got star systems to explore, planets to colonize, ships to design, buildings to construct, technology to be researched, and leaders to be recruited. There are a variety of resources to keep track of, and money to be taxed and spent. Most of this works the way you would expect it to, with a twist here and there. Raising taxes brings in more revenue per turn, but decreases morale which in turn reduces the generation of other resources. You need cold hard cash for a lot of things, including the rushing of new construction. However, you also need all of those various resources to get your war machine up and running. As the population on a planet grows, you can allocate the "units" of population into different tracks, so as to boost the production of food, or speed along construction. 

Exploring and colonizing new worlds will bring in more of everything, but high quality worlds are a few and far between. You can research various terraforming projects to make worlds more habitable, but that too comes with a trade-off. One unique mechanic in Astra Exodus is that the tech tree is semi-randomized and split into numerous different fields of study, such as weapons or economics, etc. Within each field, you will have techs available for research, but can only choose one, leaving the other two locked out for the rest of the game. Then you get another three to choose from. While somewhat arbitrary, this limitation is interesting in that it forces you to potentially try new strategies and builds for your empire depending on what options you have available. I like this, as one of the biggest complaints of traditional 4X games is that the tech trees can be very boring and lead to the same choices every match.

I could go on describing more of the mechanics of the game, but like I said, this is a deliberately "retro" take on the 4X, and so most of it is stuff you have seen before. The diplomacy side of things is pretty standard, with the benefit of AI factions that are actually willing to make fair trades with you. This is one way you can get those technologies you missed out on, by swapping with other factions. The internal economics of your empire is pretty standard as well, you build mines to get more metals, high-tech farms to get more food, and so on. The one area where this game really does shine and even do things a bit better than some more contemporary games is the battle system. 

Astra Exodus does allow you to design your ships, and in this game there is actually more to it than just jamming the best stats possible into each ship. That's because the combat plays out like an RTS, with range, facing, and the speed of your ships actually making a difference. I always love any game where you get to handle space ships turning to bring undamaged armor to face the enemy, or racing in close to use short-range, but high damage weapons mounted on smaller ships. Astra Exodus has that and it works really well in my experience so far.

The game does have a quite a few issues, though none are major they add up to enough to drag the game down. The UI is clunky in places, requiring more clicks than necessary to get in and out of where you want to be. It's single player only, so you can't have a match with friends. The campaign missions can be a bit of a slog at times. The graphics will certainly not be everyone's cup of tea. Frankly, the $30 price tag is hard to swallow when more other, far more substantial games can be had for about the same price. It's enough that I can't really give the game a recommendation unless it is exactly what you are looking for: a new take on the old style of 4X space games. I think as an iPad game this would be great, but on PC there are just too many other options that have a lot more to offer.

That said, this product is the result of the efforts by Atomic Kaiser, a one-man game studio in Uruguay, and I really don't want to discourage him from continuing game development. Astra Exodus does a lot of things right, it's just that a lot of it has been done before and I'm looking for something different. However, you might be seeking a retro experience, and in that case Astra Exodus is certainly worth a look.

Astra Exodus can be found on the Slitherine store and on Steam.

http://www.astraexodus.com/




- Joe Beard

Among the multitude of Warhammer 40k games that have swarmed across gamers’ PC’s the last couple of years, only a few really stood out as interesting uses of the license. One of my favorites from last year was Gladius: Relics of War. This 40k take on the 4x genre was a streamlined and fast paced rendition of the classic 4X formula. Diplomacy was completely tossed out the window in favor of a massive roster of units, each with their own distinct tactical uses. If you aren’t familiar with the game at all, check out my review here for all the details. Now we have the first new faction DLC for the game, bringing an alien horde perfectly suited to the battlefields of Gladius: the Tyranids. While the DLC doesn’t change the overall structure of the game much, the Tyranids come with their own set of unique mechanics that are a masterclass in matching theme and gameplay.

If you’re reading this, then you’re probably familiar with the Tyranids already. These are the Zerg of the 40k world. Giant, nightmarish swarms of monsters that resemble a varied assortment of giant space bug dinosaur things. They’re all teeth and claws, plasma launchers and acid blood, controlled by a mind hive consciousness and numbering in the trillions. They feel no fear, no remorse, and only desire one thing: to consume all biological life everywhere they go. Sounds like some great new neighbors, right?

While the Tyranids have a number of fearsome and deadly units in their arsenal, they actually begin the game quite weak. The lower tier Tyranid units are cheap and many are fast, but they can’t venture too far by themselves. Remember that part about being controlled by a hive mind? Not all of the Tyranid units have a direct “synaptic link” to the hive. Every turn spent out of direct contact with the hive causes these units to lose health and they can even become feral if detached too long, causing the player to lose control of them. This means that you must keep a more powerful unit around that can act as a relay for the hive mind. I really liked how this forced you to make some tough tactical considerations. Use your big bads to spearhead an offensive, and you risk their destruction. Losing your link to the hive could cause an offensive push to completely disintegrate. Playing as the Tyranids involves a lot of expansion and contraction of your forces. Send some fast scouts out for reconnaissance, quickly pull them back to a synaptic linked unit, then concentrate your forces and move towards whatever goal you have in mind (i.e. consuming everything in your path). This makes playing the Tyranids tactically distinct from other factions. Each group of weaker units needs a synaptic unit as the core of their group, and they must all move together to be fully effective. Compare this with the Astra Militarum (Imperial Guard) who’s lowliest unit of guardsmen can at least be stationed alone in some remote corner of the map to watch over a flank. For the Tyranids, a grouping of units is almost always necessary for any task. The Tyranids do not hold ground very well, they must always be on the move in one direction or the other.

On the strategic level, the Tyranids have some distinct differences as well. Resources have been distilled down to just two things, biomass and influence. Biomass is the organic matter that the Tyranids melt down and turn into all of their fearsome creatures and buildings. You get this by stripping the land bare and building up certain base structures. Unsurprisingly, you always need more, more, more. You can also reclaim some biomass by bringing units back to base to be tossed back into the bubbling goo. While this sounds like a minor gimmick, it’s actually entirely necessary for smoothly switching gears between one tier of units and the next when you are running tight on resources. A situation I found myself in several times.

The other resource important for Tyranid strategy is influence. This is used to power many buildings and some key special abilities. You can burn through a lot of influence in a hurry by scooping up extra biomass anywhere on the map with the Malanthrope unit, or to keep units under control longer when they are away from the hive mind. Having just the two key resources for all of your production and abilities may sound simple, but it actually creates an interesting economic situation where you are constantly balancing one with the other, while trying not to simultaneously run out of both.

A great touch to the game is how the Tyranids actually change the appearance of the map around them as the game progresses. The expansion of your hives and the special ability of the Malanthropes literally strips the planet to the bedrock, removing all vegetation and any trace of life one hex at a time. Gladius isn't all that pretty to begin with, and the Tyranids do their best to make it look even worse.

Like the other factions, the Tyranids have a tech tree mostly focused on unlocking new units and then bigger and badder upgrades for them. You can choose to spread research around to give yourself a lot of options, or focus on upgrading one particular line of units quickly. I really liked the variety of units offered for the Tyranids. You of course have hulking monstrosities that you can load up with tons of weapons, but there are also incredibly fast units for hit-and-run tactics, a stealth unit, and a hero that can allow you to move units around underground. All of these options, with the general mix of units between cannon fodder infantry and the big stuff that could startle a Space Marine, give the Tyranids a great roster to choose your army from.

While the Tyranids may sound like an unstoppable faction ready to swarm over everyone else on Gladius, they are actually rated “Hard” (along with the Imperial Guard faction) and this was no lie. My first run at the game on normal difficulty ended with my being overwhelmed by two enemy factions and some neutral units at the same time. This was mostly my fault for trying to spread out too far, too fast. On my second run I took the difficulty down a notch to Easy. Around turn 200 I’m still alive, but it’s been a struggle most of the way. The enemy AI pulls no punches and the world itself is hostile to your presence.

Look at all that lovely biomass, ready to be consumed.

Lastly, I wanted to touch on the updates to Gladius overall since launch in July last year. A long series of small updates and tweaks has really polished what was already a solid experience. The most impressive is the enemy AI, which for me presented a serious challenge. In a big name 4X series which uses the same sort of hex-based combat and rhymes with Bivilaration, it has long been a common sight to see an AI make bone-headed moves with their units and waste them on futile attacks while marching right past much easier targets. Not so in Gladius. Here the enemy forces will swarm out of the fog of war if you venture near their territory, only to immediately pull back if you are able to heavily outnumber them. Enemy units routinely scout the edges of your territory, snapping up undefended strategic resource locations and prodding deeper where they can. The enemy will give battle when they have a large enough force, and then reinforce or retreat as the fight goes one way or the other. It was rare to get an easy kill on an enemy unit without extending your own forces into the no-man’s-land.

The Imperial Guard won't go down as easily as you might imagine.

As you can tell from my review, I really like the Tyranids expansion for Gladius. While the game has a had a couple small DLC since launch, this is the first addition of an entire faction and it has set the bar very high. The matching of theme and gameplay mechanics is top-notch and makes the Tyranids a fresh experience even for veterans of the game. I imagine we are guaranteed to see more factions added over time, and I hope they are all done this well.

-Joe Beard

Gladius: Tyranids is available directly from Slitherine and on Steam/GoG

Developer: Proxy Studios

Publisher: Slitherine

As you may have heard, in the grim dark future, there is only war. So what to do when you create a 4X strategy game in the universe of Warhammer 40k? You go all in on that last X, eXterminate. WH40k: Gladius - Relics of War (let's call it Gladius), is the first WH40k game to enter the 4X world of titles like Civilization and Master of Orion. Gladius strips down the classic trappings of the genre to only those elements which make sense in the 40k setting. The most notable feature lacking is any kind of diplomacy. All factions are at war from the start and there are no truces or trade agreements. Other aspects of classic 4X games are here, but streamlined down and serve only to facilitate the production of bigger and better units for the combat which kicks off early and rarely lets up. If I could describe Gladius in the simplest terms possible, I would call it the deathmatch mode of 4X gaming.

Gladius was developed by Proxy Studios and published by Slitherine Games. The same duo previously created the underrated Pandora: First Contact, which was something of a spiritual successor to Alpha Centauri. Now the team is trying to do something fresh with the 4X genre; instead of adding layers of mechanics and complexity, they are trimming things down to create a fast paced combat focused strategy game. We'll cover each X in turn, leaving the best for last.

eXplore
Whether you're playing as the Space Marines, Orks, Necrons, or Astra Militarum (Imperial Guard), the first thing you will need to do at the start of the game is explore your surroundings. You'll start with a handful of units and the option to place your starting base anywhere you choose. Each hex shaped tile in the game world has different resource bonuses and finite spaces for buildings. Finding some easily defensible terrain is worth considering as well. When playing on the default medium sized map setting, your neighbors will come calling before you know it.

The battlefield you will be fighting over is the scarred and ruined remains of Gladius, a planet that was, until recently, a thriving Imperial world covered in cities and loyal followers of the God-Emperor of Mankind. Then a cataclysm of ill fortune hit the world. An Ork invasion, a Necron awakening, and a giant warp storm. All of these events have left the surface of the world an ugly and toxic place. Though there are some surviving patches of green here and there to keep things from getting too bleak.

While scouring the landscape, you will find special resource tiles which can be captured to provide a resource bonus and offer your units a defensible outpost in a world filled with dangerous wildlife. The "wildlife" ranges from packs of kroot hounds up to giant guardian automatons and Enslavers, particularly dangerous enemies which can mind control one of your units. With danger comes rewards, however, since the first faction to fight their way through the baddies will find numerous resource boosts and relics which grant various bonuses like passive healing or extra movement to all of the units of whichever faction controls them.

eXpand

As you might expect, you won't be building trade networks or art galleries in Gladius. Expansion has only one goal in this game: build bigger deadlier units and more of them. There are several resources to juggle, but the economy is pretty simple. You'll need a bit of everything, so keep an eye on the numbers and build whichever resource building is lacking (in the tile with the highest respective bonus) and you should be golden. Each type of production building you create has its own production queue, so there is little need to create additional cities at the beginning of the game. In fact, the Space Marines can never second city, but instead can occasionally drop down fortresses next to desirable resource nodes.

The tech trees in Gladius, the contents of which are completely unique for each faction, are structurally simple. There are ten tiers of research and about a half dozen options in each tier. Research two techs in one tier and you unlock the next. The vast majority of the techs either unlock a unit, building, or combat upgrade, but there are also some resource bonuses and special powers scattered around. This simplicity creates some stark decisions. Do you focus on providing upgrades for your starting grunts, climb the tree to find more powerful and exotic units, or try to build up your war machine? 

eXploit

So what are you doing on Gladius anyway, what is the goal here (other than killing and destruction, obviously)? Each faction gets some nice flavor text and "quests" to offer them direction throughout a match. This was one of the best features of Endless Legends, and it works just as well here. Completing these objectives as they come up will give you bonus resources and units. After the first few simple tasks, the story objectives will require you to venture out into the map for one reason or another, inevitably leading to conflict with neutral units and other factions. This gives the game some nice replayability, since each faction has its own story to follow and different goals to achieve. In the end though, only one faction can win, and the others must all perish. This brings us to the final X:

eXterminate

While some other 4X series like Civilization have tried to make combat more of an option than a necessity in recent iterations, Gladius goes all in on warfare.  While research and production is streamlined, combat units have detailed stats and options to consider. Units have health, armor, morale, perks, experience levels, sometimes multiple weapons, and so on. All of the variables can be improved through new technologies. For example, the lowly Imperial Guardsmen begin the game at a disadvantage against literally everything else. However, with some researched upgrades, later in the game they can have decent stats and multiple special abilities.  All of the favorite units from WH40k lore are here. Dreadnoughts, Killa Kans, Baneblades, and many more all take to the battlefield in a surprisingly short period of time. Where in Civilization, by the time you hit turn 50 you've probably said hello to a couple of neighbors and built a second city, in Gladius you will already be skirmishing with multiple opponents, by turn 100 it's a full scale war that doesn't let up. Whether you find that to be a positive or negative will determine if this is a game for you or not.  Combat is very much the meat of the gameplay.

I've only played the game on the default map settings so far, and it makes for a real knife fight compared to other 4X games. Three and even four way battles are common sights. It's fun to watch a battle for one of the special resource tiles swing back and forth between two or three factions, as units are destroyed and reinforcements arrive to counter-attack. As the battle rages your units that survive can gain up to ten experience levels, making a battle hardened veteran from the early game a really potent tool in your arsenal. You can give such units a distinct name if you like, creating a bit of extra attachment with them. 

Hero units in particular can be devastating to lose, since they unlock multiple extra powers and abilities as they level up. Each faction gets three hero types, typically some variations of a warrior, mage, and support. Each hero has three starting abilities to choose from, and a more powerful ability unlocked at level 6. All of these abilities can be upgraded multiple times, allowing you to customize your heroes as you see fit.  

All of these elements taken together make for a simple, but fun 4X game focused on combat and building cool units. The missions given to each faction give some context to all the fighting, though it wouldn't hurt to see some extra variety there. Each faction always gets the same set of goals, which can railroad some of your early build order decisions if you know what is coming. 

The game looks very nice for a 4X, with especially good animations and weapon effects. I saw a lot of comments on my preview video from people saying that the game looked too brown and ugly, but I found that most of the randomly generated maps feature a decent amount of green grass and other colorful areas, in addition to the obligatory ruined cities and wastelands. It certainly feels like a world beset by a warp storm and multiple alien invasions. It's a hostile and dangerous place to be for everyone involved. 

Although the game only features four factions, each is completely distinct and will give you different experiences. Fans of Endless Legends will feel right at home playing factions with radically different mechanics. One really fun mechanic is the Ork "WAAAGH!" meter; keep the fights coming and your units will all get extra attack damage that builds more and more. Each faction has a different starting difficulty rating, and you should pay attention to it. I stubbornly attempted to play as the Imperial Guard several times, despite the HARD difficulty warning, and got my tail kicked on each attempt. Hopefully we'll get to see some more factions added to the game. It would be great to see the Eldar, Tau, and Chaos Space Marines joining the fray, among many others.

WH40k: Gladius - Relics of War succeeds at what it sets out to be. This is the arena shooter of 4X games, where combat is the primary focus of each campaign, and moves at a much faster pace than you might expect. Just when you think you're unstoppable, the enemy will show up with a next tier unit and rain on your parade. This creates an enjoyable back forth with fluid front lines. I didn't get a chance to play multiplayer, but I can only imagine that a group of friends would have a fun afternoon exterminating each other. The fast paced turns and relatively simple gameplay mean that you could potentially play an entire match in one long sitting.

The drawback of this streamlined approach is of course that the game could suffer from a lack of variety after you've tried out each of the four factions. The winning strategy is always war, never diplomacy, science, or culture, they aren't even an option. This may be a relief for some gamers, however, who just want a good fight and not to worry about establishing the most efficient trade routes or converting others to your religion (this is 40k, you purge anyone who isn't your religion with gratuitous violence!). For those players, I can safely recommend this game if they are at all interested in the setting. For myself, I have enjoyed all the time I've spent with the game so far, and haven't managed to win just yet, so I'll be heading back out there shortly to claim Gladius for myself. 


Warhammer 40k: Gladius - Relics of War releases July 12th on Steam and GoG. The regular price is $45, but you can get a 10% discount if you hurry. The GoG version comes with a free copy of WH40k: Rites of War if you pick it up before July 26th!

 - Joe Beard

I take a very first look at the new 4x strategy game from Proxy Studios and Slitherine, Warhammer 40k: Gladius - Relics of War. This one takes 40k to a new genre, the 4x. Take a look!

Interested in space 4x strategy games, but just don't have the time for a marathon gaming session? Take a look here at Space Tyrant, a new title from Blue Wizard Digital that just released onto Steam early access.

From the developer: "Space Tyrant is a fast-paced roguelike-lite 5X game set in a grimly grimdark future of eternal war. Build a terrifying space fleet, make enemies and disintegrate peaceful extraterrestrials in your relentlessly unpleasant march to total domination!"

Watch me conquer the galaxy on YouTube

I'll write up a written preview of the game as well in the coming days, as I watch it continue to develop. As it is though, the game is very much playable and fun.

Official Website: http://spacetyrantgame.bluewizard.com/


- Joe Beard

Sovereignty: Crown of Kings, published by Slitherine and developed by The Lordz Game Studio, is an interesting new take on the grand strategy genre. If a fantasy version of Europa Universalis with hex-and-counter tactical combat sounds like something you might enjoy, come see what this title has to offer. 

Sovereignty is a fascinating mix of ideas that I have not seen put together quite this way in any other game out there. The game takes place in a well developed fantasy world where 35(!) unique realms are available for the player to choose from. You take the lead of one of these realms and attempt to achieve a specific set of objectives. Your options as leader include engaging in diplomacy, managing the economy, developing spells, and of course building armies and taking them to the battlefield. I'll explore all of these in detail separately later.

Sovereignty takes place in a detailed and complex fantasy world.

The first thing you will realize when trying to decide on a realm to play is that each one has a fairly detailed back story, and that many of them are interlinked. By reading these different backstories you can get a feel for the world. There are two major human empires rivaling for power in the south, orc realms threatening on the borders, and various flavors of elves that are separated at the start, but can seek reunification. There are also human barbarian tribes in the north, a colony of pirates in the south, and swamp full of undead in the middle. There is certainly something for everyone, and every realm has a different set of goals to pursue.

I found these unique goals to be one of the game's most interesting features. Unlike the open ended gameplay of most other 4X titles, here you begin each campaign with a specific set of objectives to achieve. For example, in my first (disastrous) campaign I played the High Elves of Sonneneve. Their goal is to form a powerful alliance with the other two elven realms, the Wood Elves and Dark Elves. These other elven realms are a fair distance away, have different alignments (realms can be good, evil, or neutral) and if either one is destroyed, you lose. So right out of the gate, I can see that diplomacy will be important for this campaign, as well as having a military force capable of getting me closer to those realms and aiding them in inevitable conflict. If you go play as those other elven realms, your objectives will be similar but distinctly different in one case, and completely different in the other. 

Some of the especially unique victory conditions include searching for clues to a hidden treasure (the aforementioned pirate realm), capturing a bunch of prisoners (the ice realm of the Winter Witch), and taking complete control of the seas (an England-like island realm). There are trade focused campaigns, campaigns focused on specific political rivalries, and of course several that require simple conquest of particular provinces. You can also choose to play each realm with more generic objectives like conquering the entire world, or taking out a particular rival. 

For my second, much more successful, campaign, I decided to be the Germanic barbarian themed Vessoi realm. Now my goal was to control the four "totems" so I could call the Horde to sweep across the land. I also had to ally with two of my northern neighbors. The twist here is that in order to control all of the totems, I would have to attack and conquer land from one of those neighbors, and use diplomacy to cozy up to the other, which was led by the isolationist and kinda spooky Winter Witch.

Once you have settled on a realm to play, the game begins. Gameplay is split between the strategic layer and the tactical combat layer, both being turn based. You spend your time between battles on the strategic layer, purchasing units and buildings, making trades, and moving armies around. When one of your armies encounters an enemy army, the combat takes place on a more detailed map using a hex-grid. 

My soldiers form a line and await the undead hordes.

First, let's talk about the strategic layer. In a world where Europa Universalis IV exists, any game that occupies the same niche is going up against some serious competition. I don't think there is any game development studio out there that is going to top the sort of excessive options and extreme detail found in a Paradox grand strategy game, so I won't fault Sovereignty for coming up short in a direct comparison. It's not that Sovereignty does a bad job of giving you information and options for how to shape your realm, but, overall, it can't help but feel a bit crude in the shadow of Europa Universalis IV. For example, every other realm has a relationship with you ranging from friend to enemy, but why the rating is what it is, and what variables are influencing it, is not readily apparent, compared with EU where you get a detailed breakdown of your relations and how they are changing over time.

Diplomacy and trade in Sovereignty is handled in a manner that will immediately be familiar to any experienced 4X gamer. Deals can be made for resources, gold, treaties, and so on. What makes Sovereignty a bit different is that you are limited by how many "agents" you have available for assignment. Several turns are required to complete trades with realms that are further away, and your agent cannot be used for anything else in that time. Some nations have several agents available and can constantly be wheeling and dealing, while others may have only a single agent to work with. In that case, you must try to make every exchange count, since these agents are also needed for spying and influencing diplomatic relations. I was pleased to find that the AI in Sovereignty was actually willing to make fair deals with me. Too often in other 4X games I don't even bother with negotiations, since the AI usually wants an arm and a leg for even the least valuable resources. Here you can usually expect to make a deal that is both reasonable and beneficial. 

There are about a dozen or more resources like iron, gems, and beer to be found in Sovereignty, and acquiring access to them through trade or conquest is a critical part of the game. Any non-basic unit, and almost all province upgrades, require one or two of these resources to build. The resources are produced by specific provinces scattered across the map, which generate one unit of that resource per turn. This means that the amount of a given resource in the game world at any time is finite, making them quite valuable. 

At the start of the game you will often only have direct access to a couple of the resources, and will need to acquire the others somehow. There are a few ways to do this. Negotiating for a couple units of iron is simple, but inefficient, since you will immediately use them up and need more. Going to war with a neighbor in order to conquer their resource producing provinces could be a lengthy and costly endeavor, but will get you unlimited access to that resource. The third option is something that should have been a great feature in the game, but currently feels incomplete: the stock market. The market lets you sell resources for cash, or buy resources that other realms have sold. The price of the resources is supposed to depend on supply and demand.  Unfortunately, the market didn't seem to work quite like it should in theory. All prices are exactly the same at the start of the game, and in my experience playing they never budged one way or the other. On most of your turns there will only be one resource available to purchase, if any. This should be a lively and interesting part of the game, but in the current iteration it is not.


Besides specific resources, the most important part of your realm's economy is gold. You begin the game with a healthy income, and your primary expenses will be buying new units and paying maintenance on existing ones. There is little reason to stockpile cash on hand, so you will always want to keep your income-expense ratio pretty tight by building the biggest and best army you can afford. You can invest in upgrades to provinces to make them produce more, so you will want to keep that in mind while setting your budget as well. The more income you have, the bigger an army you can field.

Another important money sink is the magic system. Every realm has a set of spells available to them, but these spells must be earned over time by gathering research points. The points can be generated by specific provinces and buildings, and can be purchased each turn in exchange for gold, with the cost per point being different for each realm. Once you have enough points, you can either unlock a new spell, or open up a new tier of spells. This is the closest the game has to a tech tree, and while the options are somewhat limited, the spells available are quite useful. Some give you a strategic layer bonus of some sort, while others can upgrade a specific unit. Higher tier spells can make powerful, and sometimes permanent, changes to provinces and units. I really enjoyed this system, since every realm had a unique array of spells available, and there was always something useful to work towards.

The final way to spend your funds is the most fun, building an army. While diplomacy and trade are features of the game, make no mistake, you will need to have a large army in the field at almost all times. Units are broken down into six categories: infantry, irregulars, archers, cavalry, siege units, and naval units. Within each category you will have usually have two or three choices. The exceptions being naval units, which are not available at all to some realms, and siege units which usually have fewer options when available.

The unit production screen. This dwarven realm has a lot of infantry options, but no cavalry.

Now, you might be thinking that only a couple of options for infantry and cavalry sounds limited, but this is another area where the game offers a ton of variety between its 35 realms. While some units in different realms may share the same art, they all have unique names and stats. In addition to their stats, many units have attributes which further shape their role on the battlefield. Some can move across difficult terrain types with ease, others can resist cavalry charges, some strike fear into enemy units, while others can offer a morale boost to the entire army, or give you a scouting bonus on the strategic map. There are a ton of different attributes in the game, and individual units can even gain more as they survive battles and level up. The armies of most realms have some kind of theme, and these attributes go along with it. The better units require specific resources, as mentioned previously. At the start of the game you have access to all of your possible units, but not the resources needed to build them.

One thing that disappointed me about the units was that they have no accompanying description or flavor text. There is a box for it on the unit purchase screen, but for every unit it is either blank or contains a quote from a real world historical figure like Sun-Tzu or Otto von Bismark. It's a bit odd that these descriptions are absent, since there was clearly a lot of effort put into giving each army a distinct style and interesting units. A user mod on the Steam Workshop is available to rectify this, but I would prefer official descriptions.

In addition to regular units, you can recruit heroes to lead your forces. These heroes do not appear in the battle, but instead give you one-shot abilities that can be used to turn the tide in your favor. As your heroes lead battles, they can level up, at which point you get to choose a new ability for their arsenal. There is a lot of variety in these abilities. Since you can only use each one once per battle, you will want to time it carefully to maximize the effect. This adds an interesting wrinkle or two to each fight, and makes your individual armies feel more distinct, even if they contain the same list of units.

That covers all of the elements of the strategic layer, so let's take a look at what happens when two armies collide. You are first given the option to fight it out manually or auto-resolve. I really liked the auto-resolve feature in Sovereignty compared to games like Total War. Instead of simply clicking and getting a result, here the auto-resolve is broken into three phases, offering you multiple chances to retreat or press the fight. There is also more suspense, as you watch the unit icons smack each other around one at a time until one side retreats or is annihilated.

In most cases though, the best result will be gained by taking direct control of your forces. This option takes you to the tactical battlefield, where all the abilities discussed before come into play as you maneuver units around a hex-based grid depicting the local province. This phase of the game handles much like Panzer General and similar titles, so will be easy to jump into for most strategy gamers. I found this portion of the game to be surprisingly good. It offers a light wargame feel where the unique attributes of your various units really shine. Terrain plays a major role in the battles, and the home team will often have some kind of advantage in this regard. Attacking across a river can be especially tricky. Common sense tactics, like forming a solid line of infantry backed by archers, will give your forces the edge. Cavalry must have flat ground and open attack lanes to fully maximize their charges, which are more powerful the further away they start from the target. Archers can deal a lot of damage at range, but are helpless if melee units reach them. You will want to keep units alive, since they can level up and gain better stats or special abilities. These experienced units can make short work of freshly recruited foes later in the game.

While the early game battles feature mostly standard units slugging it out, the fighting only get more interesting as more exotic options become available. You are limited to four each of your "elite" units, and they can take many turns to build, but once you get them on the field they really light things up. In my Vessoi campaign I was always excited to get my Shapeshifters (think werewolves) into the action, where they made mince meat of most foes. Other higher tier units include dragons, unicorns, walking trees, undead nightmare creatures, and all sorts of other fantasy genre highlights.

The primary downside here is that the AI is not the best. Every battle involves the attacker trying to occupy two or three cities while the defender holds them off for X turns. A human player can often trick the AI into maneuvering its forces poorly, and either seizing the objectives when attacking or distracting the AI long enough to run out the clock when defending. This assuming your forces aren't strong enough to simply crush the AI army in direct battle. That isn't to say I won every battle against the AI, because I certainly got my rear end handed to me a few times.

So, between all of these interesting pieces, how does the whole stack up? For me, the game somewhat remains a diamond in the rough, even after almost two years in early access. There are a lot of things here I really like, and I love the concept of the game. However, it still feels not quite finished in some ways, as I mentioned earlier. There are reports of bugs from other players, and I experienced a few myself. I also found that the UI was at times clunky, with one open window covering another, or not displaying the information I expected it to display as I moused over various parts of the screen.

Despite those issues, I do really like what The Lordz Game Studio is doing here. The game is a one of a kind experience, letting you jump into something like a basic version of Europa Universalis set in a fantasy world of dwarves and orcs and elves. Unlike EU, here you get to take direct control of your forces in battle and lead them to victory or defeat, instead of watching some numbers tick as the invisible dice roll. While there are other fantasy 4X's out there, none offer such a detailed and ready made world to explore. The world of Sovereignty feels like it has history, and the events that unfold during the game add to that story. Every time I started a new campaign I was confronted with a very different set of circumstances, and few games can make that claim. Fewer still can do so while offering thirty-five different choices of nations to lead. Considering the game's very reasonable price of $25, I think anyone interested in a strategy game with a fresh take on things should give it a shot. With a touch more polish and elbow grease, this game could rise above it's current shortcomings and become a great game that stands alone in style and substance.


Joe Beard

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Sovereignty: Crown of Kings is available directly from Matrix Games/Slitherine, and on Steam.

Polaris Sector, the highly enjoyable new 4X space game from Slitherine, has some great, unique, and very interesting mechanisms right out of the gate.

First item would have to be the ease of which the colonization of new planets can be accomplished. While scouting your randomly generated universe, you will naturally come across a planet that you want for expanding your empire. There is simply a “Plan Colonization” button which does two things for you. First, it automatically puts a colony ship in the queue at your ship building planet. Then, if you choose to, you can immediately turn the basic function of the planet over to the AI once it’s settled. Your choices are Agricultural (food), Innovation (research), Industrialization (production), Mineral (mining), Balanced (self-sufficiency), or the pick that I’m most experienced with, Micromanagement. The last choice is obviously the most hands-on, full control selection for people that want to place, and make decisions, for every structure built. Once you decide between the more macro- or micro-management approach, you can easily change your mind at any time later during the planet’s development.

Research is not the normal, static tech tree many 4X games utilize. Research is more fluid, studying multiple aspects simultaneously. It is broken down into two basic categories: Fundamental Science (further subdivided into Biology, Chemistry, Math, and Physics) and Applied Science; each of which having sliders for you to increase/decrease your prioritization as you see fit. There is also a Priority button in case you are wanting/needing to really ramp up a certain tech very quickly. Each specific tech is explained quite well.

Ship customization is also deep and very pleasurable. As you progress through the technologies, an increasing amount of hulls, weapons, shields, augmentations, etc. become available. This allows you to create and streamline a huge variety of ships for your use in battling your opponents. Variety in ships and design is key to victory as the ever-adapting AI will exploit your vulnerabilities or weaknesses. A force of all of one type of ship will quickly spell your doom, whether all large capital ships or all speedy smaller ships. You will need an assortment of more specialized vessels to keep your enemies off guard. There is most likely infinite possibilities of combinations. It is also an easy, intuitive drag and drop method of building them.

The last aspect I will quickly touch upon is the ultra-cool tactical battle system. Once your fleet meets your opponent’s ships, the game switches to the tactical battle screen. On the right side is the fleet set-up, to position your ships before the battle, but only if you’re the defender. If you are the attacker, your ships are already set and cannot be changed. Once the fighting begins, it is time to launch your fighters (if applicable) and give initial orders to your ships. The tactics you employ can lead you to victory even if you’re outnumbered and outgunned. Because of the diversity in ship sizes and speeds, it instantly gave me a “Battlestar Galactica” feel. The quick, flitting, smaller fighters speedily fulfilling their orders, while the larger capital ships slowly move their bulk to accomplish theirs.

Polaris Sector is going to live on my hard drive for a very long time. There are so many other good things that I didn’t even touch on, it would take a book’s-worth of writing to even begin to talk about them all. Instead of doing that though, I have a new universe to (try to) conquer.