Conquest of Elysium 5

[Haba]

Just won my first game... all enemies died to independents within the first few turns.

Winning?

 

[Dayyālu]

Just won my first game... all enemies died to independents within the first few turns.

Winning?

It's a feature we got since the earliest CoEs. It simply happens because the environment is murderous and hordes of deer get your only capital and it's game over. CoE has never been a particularly .... involved strategy game, it's a game of fucking around and paying the price (yes, my army is totally gonna kill that beholder WHAT THE FUCK JUST HAPPENED MY EYES).

I'm not noticing massive differences bar even more options for fucking around, in my first Baron game I spawned in a goddamn swamp and now your monks (it's new or was that there in CoE4 too?) can drain the swamps and then build monasteries on it guaranteeing insane income and snowballing. It's a pity the game ended before Fun Stuff spawned in.

I'll always consider CoE a roguelike strategy game, if such a thing can even be possible. Shitton of options, many of them clearly memetic, games are short and brutal.

 

[AgentFransis]

(it's new or was that there in CoE4 too?) can drain the swamps and then build monasteries

You could drain swamps before but they would turn into farms not monasteries. Still useful, especially for clearing the terrain.

I'll always consider CoE a roguelike strategy game, if such a thing can even be possible.

Conquest of Elysium 5 is a quick turn based fantasy strategy game with a touch of rogue-like.

 

[coldcrow]

Just won my first game... all enemies died to independents within the first few turns.

Winning?

It's a feature we got since the earliest CoEs. It simply happens because the environment is murderous and hordes of deer get your only capital and it's game over. CoE has never been a particularly .... involved strategy game, it's a game of fucking around and paying the price (yes, my army is totally gonna kill that beholder WHAT THE FUCK JUST HAPPENED MY EYES).

I'm not noticing massive differences bar even more options for fucking around, in my first Baron game I spawned in a goddamn swamp and now your monks (it's new or was that there in CoE4 too?) can drain the swamps and then build monasteries on it guaranteeing insane income and snowballing. It's a pity the game ended before Fun Stuff spawned in.

I'll always consider CoE a roguelike strategy game, if such a thing can even be possible. Shitton of options, many of them clearly memetic, games are short and brutal.

Actually the problem is way less critical now. Indepedents are rather loathe to invade your fortress. What kills AIs the most are botched summonings resulting in death of their commanders. Basically an AI Witch/Demonologist/Cultist etc. lives on borrowed time. If they get a few early successful summons it only needs one failed major Demon/Old One whatever to kill their mage+stack. I think they will overcharge their rituals to lower the chance of that happening, but even then it's a sword of damocles.

 

[Mortmal]

Just won my first game... all enemies died to independents within the first few turns.

Winning?

It's a feature we got since the earliest CoEs. It simply happens because the environment is murderous and hordes of deer get your only capital and it's game over. CoE has never been a particularly .... involved strategy game, it's a game of fucking around and paying the price (yes, my army is totally gonna kill that beholder WHAT THE FUCK JUST HAPPENED MY EYES).

I'm not noticing massive differences bar even more options for fucking around, in my first Baron game I spawned in a goddamn swamp and now your monks (it's new or was that there in CoE4 too?) can drain the swamps and then build monasteries on it guaranteeing insane income and snowballing. It's a pity the game ended before Fun Stuff spawned in.

I'll always consider CoE a roguelike strategy game, if such a thing can even be possible. Shitton of options, many of them clearly memetic, games are short and brutal.

Actually the problem is way less critical now. Indepedents are rather loathe to invade your fortress. What kills AIs the most are botched summonings resulting in death of their commanders. Basically an AI Witch/Demonologist/Cultist etc. lives on borrowed time. If they get a few early successful summons it only needs one failed major Demon/Old One whatever to kill their mage+stack. I think they will overcharge their rituals to lower the chance of that happening, but even then it's a sword of damocles.

There's some games with stuff like manticores spawning next to the stronghold so IA get shredded by that, it's possible to have an empire capital right next to you, they now send small armies. Happened to me while playing kobold. Then there's the cloud lord, the IA cannot possibly manage that, i hardly can myself. The flying units must land on clouds after each move else they go ddown and could very well trigger a battle they cant win, or some stealthy horrors on the square.
How do you play them by the way ? They have the air plane alone for a while but there's not much to do there nor to conquer and when there's something there's end game units in it. The fllying units are weak, you have etheral troops too but too expensive. Seems it's talking too long to build them up when there's so many nations that will rolfstomp everything early and still be good end game.

 

[AgentFransis]

Actually the problem is way less critical now. Indepedents are rather loathe to invade your fortress. What kills AIs the most are botched summonings resulting in death of their commanders. Basically an AI Witch/Demonologist/Cultist etc. lives on borrowed time. If they get a few early successful summons it only needs one failed major Demon/Old One whatever to kill their mage+stack. I think they will overcharge their rituals to lower the chance of that happening, but even then it's a sword of damocles.

Really? How can you tell? In my experience from CoE4 these classes usually did quite well.

 

[coldcrow]

Soria the witch lost their last commander, xxx the demo lost their last commander... Could be also indies, but I've seen them lose that way quite a bit.

But true, bad indie spawns can and will still happen, it just felt not as aggravating as in CoE4. But small sample size, I guess.

 

[Black_Willow]

Hello, I'm just here to say that the music in this game is absolutely awesome and I keep restarting Voice of El campaign just to hear that vocal.

 

[Oberon]

Hello, I'm just here to say that the music in this game is absolutely awesome and I keep restarting Voice of El campaign just to hear that vocal.

COE 5 is a step up from COE 4 in the music department for sure.
Dominions 5's music however was a major downgrade from 4's, that game had one of the best and most fitting soundtracks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=px8PZ-4r1WY absolute banger

 

[Naveen]

How do you play them by the way ? They have the air plane alone for a while but there's not much to do there nor to conquer and when there's something there's end game units in it. The fllying units are weak, you have etheral troops too but too expensive. Seems it's talking too long to build them up when there's so many nations that will rolfstomp everything early and still be good end game.

I only played with them for an hour until I miscalculated and drowned my entire army. Basically, you need to go down to ground level*, because that's where the money and jewels are. While it's true that their troops are expensive, they also fly, meaning that while everyone else painfully slogs across jungles and mountains, you can just fly around and conquer everything. And if someone captures them, you can wait a bit and fly quickly to take the resources back. As for the resources, you need diamonds and sapphires (all gems are useful, but I think these are the most important.) You can use a minor summoning for ¿25? diamonds I believe, but I suspect it's not worth it (the only time I used it I summoned like 20 crows, which was cool, but fairly useless for someone short on money.) The greater summoning at 50 diamonds is way better because I got 3 or 4 thunderbirds. Don't forget the water tiles, which have resources and only neutrals try to conquer them. There is, of course, the risk of drowning your army, but ethereal troops don't tire, so perhaps they can be used for that.

*You can either use those mountain spires (use gateway is, I believe, how the command is called) or the beanstalk. Alternatively, just fly where there are no clouds and press the button fly downwards.

 

[Hag]

How do you play them by the way ? They have the air plane alone for a while but there's not much to do there nor to conquer and when there's something there's end game units in it. The fllying units are weak, you have etheral troops too but too expensive. Seems it's talking too long to build them up when there's so many nations that will rolfstomp everything early and still be good end game.

I only played with them for an hour until I miscalculated and drowned my entire army. Basically, you need to go down to ground level*, because that's where the money and jewels are. While it's true that their troops are expensive, they also fly, meaning that while everyone else painfully slogs across jungles and mountains, you can just fly around and conquer everything. And if someone captures them, you can wait a bit and fly quickly to take the resources back. As for the resources, you need diamonds and sapphires (all gems are useful, but I think these are the most important.) You can use a minor summoning for ¿25? diamonds I believe, but I suspect it's not worth it (the only time I used it I summoned like 20 crows, which was cool, but fairly useless for someone short on money.) The greater summoning at 50 diamonds is way better because I got 3 or 4 thunderbirds. Don't forget the water tiles, which have resources and only neutrals try to conquer them. There is, of course, the risk of drowning your army, but ethereal troops don't tire, so perhaps they can be used for that.

*You can either use those mountain spires (use gateway is, I believe, how the command is called) or the beanstalk. Alternatively, just fly where there are no clouds and press the button fly downwards.

Agreed. Tier 2 summon are quite good : lightning, plus often ethereal or decent tanking. Plus occasionally a great surprise. The mobility added by flying allows to keep minimum gem incomes, if you have at least one mine of each type then diamond alchemy is a good accelerator, else rubies or emeralds allows for very correct 25 golds recruits you can spam mid-game.
Haven't really played end game with them but the titan looks correct, if a little expensive. Maybe as a standalone map control unit that will make quick job of mostly everything.

 

[Haba]

The witch summon doppelgangers are just pure meme material. Walk around killing squishy neutrals, grow up your tentacle family for free and soon nobody wants to even fight with you.

 

[Hag]

Won an Empire game as the Scourge Lord, here are a few thoughts :
- Overall quite fun. Watching the map turning to desert as you gain power is nice.
- Good at camping. I was left alone by the IA fighting each other for some time and managed to get the ball rolling without too much expansion.
- Strong mid-game. Tier 2 summons are great. Not many other fighting options though than summoning, summoning, summoning.
- End game ok, not sure how it would fare against warlocks or demons or other powerful shit. You can have only one tier 3 commander that is fearsome (over 300 kills) and have good summons, but on the other end you can spam tier 1 commanders, which may get a bit overpowered if abused. The Mountain of Power is underpowered, considered that you need your only King to build it for 3 whole turns. Overall a bit disappointed in rituals variety.
- The crystal globe is way too much fun. Not that useful, but getting snapshots of the other planes if nice. Aztlan in particular looks comfy.
- Managed to go to the Sky via a portal (not that interesting overall, but the endgame map reveal showed some hidden place of interest) and to Agartha and Hell with objects. For the few turns I spent there, looks like Hell is now more interesting than in CoE4.
- Ships are nice, IA also use them. I managed to send a commando by sea behind enemy stacks to get their last stronghold and eliminate them cleanly. Neat.
- The Empire is a whole new faction that will defend its shit.

Nice game, enjoyed the little changes here and there.

 

[Filthy Sauce]

Is there any point to this if I already have 4? Ive been watching some streams and it looks identical.

 

[Malakal]

Is there any point to this if I already have 4? Ive been watching some streams and it looks identical.

Its the same as all other Illwinter games/sequels - its the same game with more things added and some optimization done.

 

[Joggerino]

Is there any point to this if I already have 4? Ive been watching some streams and it looks identical.

I think you should get a discount if you own COE 4.

 

[Berekän]

Is there any point to this if I already have 4? Ive been watching some streams and it looks identical.

The QoL stuff alone is a good argument for it. Arguably, they're things that should've been added in the earlier games already but eh, I'm happy supporting indie finnish autism.

 

[Hobo Elf]

Did they add any new units to the existing factions?

 

[Naveen]

A few ones, I think. Dwarves have sappers, who carry crossbows and a hand weapon, but also the siege tunneling ability (a % of popping up inside the castle.) Arbalests are now Slow, so these sappers come in handy. Looking through the manual, I see that Pale Ones have Pale Slingers. The Markgraf can upgrade little zombies into little zombie soldiers, crossbowmen, and so on. These are just the basic troops, though. I don't know about specials, although I think I have seen new creatures. But I think you would find pretty much all the factions quite similar as they were in CoE 4. I have not seen any massive changes or overhauls—more like subtle ones (like making the arbalests slower, or the swordsmen now are more expensive but have Armor 1.)

I believe the "faction" that has been changed the most are the independents (and the environment and map in general.) Towers now send armies and the "imperial" faction seems to behave like one.

 

[Hobo Elf]

Alright, finally got around to picking this game up. It has been a while since I last played a CoE game, but I don't remember the music being this good in previous titles.

 

[Malakal]

Alright, finally got around to picking this game up. It has been a while since I last played a CoE game, but I don't remember the music being this good in previous titles.

Oh yea music legit is getting better and better in those games.

 

[Hobo Elf]

Won my first attempt as a Druid. It's always a pleasant class to play as since there's nothing you can do that could really screw you over, provided you remember to park your Cockatrices at an ancient forest if you summon one. Think I'll try the new factions now. They all seem pretty cool.

 

[Mortmal]

Won my first attempt as a Druid. It's always a pleasant class to play as since there's nothing you can do that could really screw you over, provided you remember to park your Cockatrices at an ancient forest if you summon one. Think I'll try the new factions now. They all seem pretty cool.

There's a way to screw up when you create the game and pick color, pick a green color then discover in game the square match the forest color and you dont see anymore if you conquered it ....

 

[oscar]

Seems like solid improvements and the new heroes are a lot of fun. Having a blast with kobolds. This series has definitely grown from a kind of basic and underwhelming experiment into its own beast now. But yeah if you fundamentally didn't enjoy the basic recipe of the last two games this probably won't swing you. I like how this series gives you a lot of tools to win. Chaff swarm, summoning super units, rituals to fuck up the world while you just bunker down and let your opponents kill themselves or any such combination.

 

[Joggerino]

Lost my first game because Inferno opened nearby. Won the second game as druid, it was pretty fun.