4X Stardock's Elemental: Sorcerer King War of Fallen Legendary Heroes

[tyrannosaurus rex]

Ok, I didn't know the studio was leftist, hadn't played their games before.

From what you are saying, there can only be challenge if the AI is an enviroment? I don't get it. Maybe I'm just bad at strategy games.

Your teen years bedroom does sound like a horrifying mess.

Because the AI is just another player like you and there's hardly anything else going on on the map. So you're fighting retarded players and that's it.

 

[Galdred]

Ok, I didn't know the studio was leftist, hadn't played their games before.

From what you are saying, there can only be challenge if the AI is an enviroment? I don't get it. Maybe I'm just bad at strategy games.

Your teen years bedroom does sound like a horrifying mess.

Actually, you provided the answer yourself there :

The point of the game is 4X like any other. Combat felt old pretty fast and bad AI is unfortunately the standard of this genre.

The poor AI is the reason why these games either need to be strongly asymetric, unless you are ok with most of the challenge coming from the AI cheating (which ironically makes the game asymetric).
Having the AI play as the "environment" removes the need to make it cheating, and thus works a little better, immersion wise, than having a stupid AI with lots of boni.

 

[Irenaeus II]

True, but some games have good AI. At least until you learn some exploit the AI can't defend against.

 

[Great Deceiver]

I can't think of a single turn-based strategy game that has good AI. That doesn't mean that such games can't be challenging, but player challenge often comes from absorbing a considerable volume of systems-related knowledge (something that becomes moot after a given amount of time), and overcoming preset numeric disadvantages when playing on higher difficulty levels. Often an AI is considered 'good' if it is able to actually utilize the game systems to its own advantage instead of simply ignoring them - I would call the best TBS AIs functional, but not good.

I haven't played this game yet, but does the AI not function properly, i.e. challenge the player's resources? I thought that the idea behind having a timer and not being able to sit back and build an uber stack to steamroll everything was pretty good, at least on paper.

 

[Irenaeus II]

I can't think of a single turn-based strategy game that has good AI.

Chess

 

[tyrannosaurus rex]

The poor AI is the reason why these games either need to be strongly asymetric, unless you are ok with most of the challenge coming from the AI cheating (which ironically makes the game asymetric).
Having the AI play as the "environment" removes the need to make it cheating, and thus works a little better, immersion wise, than having a stupid AI with lots of boni.

What I was gitting at.

 

[Hobo Elf]

I finally gave the finished game a spin. It feels so much better to play now. The rebalancing of units and spells, the new spells, the slightly improved crafting and addition of enchanting and all around polish make it a much more exciting and fun game to play now. I don't regret getting the game at all. Sure there's still something to be said of the graphical style. It's not bad, but it's not particularly exciting either, but the gameplay is always the most important aspect and here I feel like they managed to deliver on the goals that they set out to accomplish. I like the game.

 

[MoLAoS]

I finally gave the finished game a spin. It feels so much better to play now. The rebalancing of units and spells, the new spells, the slightly improved crafting and addition of enchanting and all around polish make it a much more exciting and fun game to play now. I don't regret getting the game at all. Sure there's still something to be said of the graphical style. It's not bad, but it's not particularly exciting either, but the gameplay is always the most important aspect and here I feel like they managed to deliver on the goals that they set out to accomplish. I like the game.

That's way too positive for a Codex review. Don't you feel like Domination devalues Tame and Hypnosis? Isn't the game way too easy even on the hardest settings? I assume they nerfed Last Stand by this time but Hero Focusing is still probably OP. Etc.

 

[mastroego]

I like the game.

I don't believe you.
I can't.
Plant?

 

[MoLAoS]

I don't believe you.
I can't.
Plant?

For someone who has Raging Goblin flavor text as his siggy, his attitude is totally mystifying.

 

[Hobo Elf]

That's way too positive for a Codex review. Don't you feel like Domination devalues Tame and Hypnosis? Isn't the game way too easy even on the hardest settings? I assume they nerfed Last Stand by this time but Hero Focusing is still probably OP. Etc.

I don't know, I need to test these out. Unfortunately I might not have the time to do that for a few days.
There's nothing overwhelmingly bad about this particular game, at least not yet. I just think that people who expect or wanted a pure fantasy 4X experience from this game will be disappointed. It's more a 4X-lite/RPG Hybrid. I got the game with that expectation and was not disappointed. The one thing I can see becoming a little bit tiresome is how the basic idea of the game remains mostly the same, always. Collect as many crystals, grind your doomstack and go spank the Sorcerer King. But then you can play as the Tyrant in which case you'll be a mirror of the Sorcerer King himself, which is pretty entertaining.

 

[Aothan]

that sounds okay, are there High Elves and Gryphons ?

 

[Hobo Elf]

I've only seen Humans, Dwarves, not-goblins and not-orcs as far as humanoid races go. Possible that one of the Neutral factions could be High Elves. I've not seen Gryphons but it's possible that they are in seeing how pretty much all the other fantasy monster cliches are in it as well.

 

[Naraya]

Released on GoG. I'll wait for reviews before parting with my $$$.

 

[Yeesh]

So here we are again, again.

Sorcerer King: Rivals

They just keep re-re-releasing their games as stand-alone sorta-expansions. It was cute the first 3 or 4 times, but now I'm worried that this could represent the very beginning of some sort of pattern of behavior, maybe.

 

[Irenaeus]

Is Sorcerer Kangz the original any better than Elemental Fallen Soldiers Emperess (or whatever it's called)?

 

[muds_animal_friend]

Elemental: War of Magic -> Elemental: Fallen Enchantress -> Fallen Enchantress: Legendary Heroes -> Sorcerer King -> Sorcerer King: Rivals

It's less like a pattern and more like obsessive compulsive disorder at this point.

Is Sorcerer Kangz the original any better than Elemental Fallen Soldiers Emperess (or whatever it's called)?

Meh. It's different to, and in some ways more polished than, the previous three iterations of this game but not necessarily better. I'd say it's a more focused game so some of the game mechanics work slightly better, but ultimately it feels less re-playable than Legendary Heroes. If you want a recent Fantasy 4x I'd try Warlock II or AoW III first.

 

[Irenaeus]

Yeah, I play Warlock, AoW3 and Endless Legends.

Played some Fallen Enchantress: Legendary Heroes and it's good enough, but couldn't get arsed to play Sorceror Kings so far...

 

[JarlFrank]

By this time Stardock has become the Spiderweb Software of strategy games.

 

[Raghar]

So here we are again, again.

Sorcerer King: Rivals

They just keep re-re-releasing their games as stand-alone sorta-expansions. It was cute the first 3 or 4 times, but now I'm worried that this could represent the very beginning of some sort of pattern of behavior, maybe.

Do you remember Arma? Have they made a game that was different?

 

[Mortmal]

By this time Stardock has become the Spiderweb Software of strategy games.

Exactly , and it will be the "best" release this year by complete lack of competition.

 

[Great Deceiver]

To be honest Fallen Enchantress: Legendary Heroes was a very good game (certainly the best 4x in a long time, remember it was before AoW3 or Endless Legend), it just got a bad rep because people were tired of the iterative approach and they were burned on the first game pretty hard (the original Elemental was shit, no ifs or buts).

The only really negative point about the game is its visual style, looks bland as fuck, no personality. But the gameplay is very decent.

 

[Hobo Elf]

The expac is -50% for those who own the original SK game. This time they actually included other playable factions and not just humans, which is a big fucking joke as that should've been something you can do in the original game. Fuck these fuckers and their nickel and diming bullshit. They're even worse than Paradox.

 

[JarlFrank]

So here we are again, again.

Sorcerer King: Rivals

They just keep re-re-releasing their games as stand-alone sorta-expansions. It was cute the first 3 or 4 times, but now I'm worried that this could represent the very beginning of some sort of pattern of behavior, maybe.

Do you remember Arma? Have they made a game that was different?

At least they changed engines.

 

[Raghar]

So here we are again, again.

Sorcerer King: Rivals

They just keep re-re-releasing their games as stand-alone sorta-expansions. It was cute the first 3 or 4 times, but now I'm worried that this could represent the very beginning of some sort of pattern of behavior, maybe.

Do you remember Arma? Have they made a game that was different?

At least they changed engines.

That's even worse. (From point of view of game developer. That proves lack of creativity.)