KickStarter The Iron Oath - turn-based strategy RPG with awesome pixel art

[Sarissofoi]

This or Wartales? ? ?

None.
Play Battle Brothers or X Piratez

 

[Tyranicon]

This or Wartales? ? ?

None.
Play Battle Brothers or X Piratez

It's crazy how few RPGs manage to nail the mercenary company genre like Battle Brothers (and to some extent, early Mount and Blade) does.

We are seeing a glut of similar games right now, but I don't really see any standouts (except for maybe Plague Lords? which is pretty different and has some jankiness right now).

I could probably talk about what I like in these games for hours, and where they could stand to improve.

But it's really that freedom to do whatever, to let gameplay generate a narrative that makes the genre unique.

 

[Ibn Sina]

This or Wartales? ? ?

None.
Play Battle Brothers or X Piratez

It's crazy how few RPGs manage to nail the mercenary company genre like Battle Brothers (and to some extent, early Mount and Blade) does.

We are seeing a glut of similar games right now, but I don't really see any standouts (except for maybe Plague Lords? which is pretty different and has some jankiness right now).

I could probably talk about what I like in these games for hours, and where they could stand to improve.

But it's really that freedom to do whatever, to let gameplay generate a narrative that makes the genre unique.

I think it has to do with both the narrative/setting and gameplay. The other games do not give the feeling of commanding a band of ragtag mercenaries, but closer to commanding a band of adventurers.

 

[Joyvankek]

You're not the main market - I am!

Oh, you're the voice of your generation? I was wondering who it was. I'll be sure to join your millions of Twitter followers. What's the name again? Who are you?

Normal people

Jesus fucking christ. Look at yourself. Is this what "normal people" do? Scour video game websites for keyword "pronoun" and pick fights?

"Just ignore it and it will go away dude"

People like me, who just want to have good and politic free games, tried to do just that and here we are.
When you're silent and the minority of current cult of woke neo marxists are the only ones issuing demands, guess who will get the attention of developers and market researchers.
Then shadow banks like Black Rock and their ESG ratings make everything much worse.

So I'm glad to report that there's new content!

Finally got to the open world content after three back-to-back dungeons, two setpiece fights and like 10 pages of dialogue. Seems promising, but the game is front loaded with boring story content. I'm so fatigued from fighting the same 7 demons in a dungeon I really have no motivation to fight more demons through contracts.

It's like someone took a look at Battle Brothers and said, wouldn't it be great if the first five hours of every campaign was just the same set of linear missions?

So repetitive contracts, not enough content, and murican woke brain root to boot.
Eh... Here I though I will have some RPG/RTS with world to fuck around, with some influence on politic and power balance. Like being able to tip power balance by doing contracts for one side over another.
I guess Mount and Blade 2 will be the only thing close to a game that can scratch that itch.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

 

[jac8awol]

So I didn't get it. After reading the reviews on steam I have the impression that the mechanics are shallow. Will wait a while and see if it gets fleshed out or not. You fuckers aren't gonna trick me into buying unfinished shit like Encased again...

 

[agris]

is anyone here buying this? the only reason i have a key is from my rose-tinted glasses phase of kickstarter experimentation

 

[Late Bloomer]

is anyone here buying this? the only reason i have a key is from my rose-tinted glasses phase of kickstarter experimentation

The game so far has peaked on steam at 319 players.

 

[Tyranicon]

So I didn't get it. After reading the reviews on steam I have the impression that the mechanics are shallow. Will wait a while and see if it gets fleshed out or not. You fuckers aren't gonna trick me into buying unfinished shit like Encased again...

is anyone here buying this? the only reason i have a key is from my rose-tinted glasses phase of kickstarter experimentation

I bought it full-price (which at 20 USD, isn't the most expensive game) I'm not refunding it, but I'm also not especially happy with the game. I try not to lay into other games (especially an earnest effort such as this one) too much since I am a dev and these are my direct competitors. But at the risk of of sounding a bit unprofessional, I don't think the 'dex will like this one.

The main issues are pacing, writing and lack of content. The last is easy to excuse, they are in Early Access (even if they have been developing the game for five years at this point). However, the game currently railroads you into 5-ish hours of repetitive dungeon-crawling and horrendous, lengthy dialogues. Most of my time spent outside combat was alternating between smashing space and the 1 keys.

You MUST finish three long dungeons before the game lets you roam freely. Which is the height of bad design, especially when making a Battle Brothers-like. And the story is utterly mundane. There's some guy on steam who's screeching about them plagiarizing Dragon Age, and I wouldn't go that far, but the main points are there. Demons are appearing from the underground, they are called the Blight, there's a dragon flying around, and you have to close void portals.

Game is currently hovering around 81% Very Positive on Steam. Which means this will probably eventually fall into Mostly Positive. That, plus the super vague roadmaps, probably means I won't personally be looking forward to this one.

But I am surprised that they included open world content, despite not showing it at all in the trailers. This game also can be very easily salvaged. If the devs happen to read this, please please let the player do open world as soon as possible, and get an editor. There's a lot here to like, but the reading simulator is not it.

 

[jac8awol]

I was still on the fence until you mentioned plagiarizing Dragon Age. Yowza, if you're gonna rip off a story, at least pick something half decent.

 

[Late Bloomer]

I was still on the fence until you mentioned plagiarizing Dragon Age. Yowza, if you're gonna rip off a story, at least pick something half decent.

I thought it would be entertaining to read about that but could not find it on the steam forums.

 

[Tyranicon]

I was still on the fence until you mentioned plagiarizing Dragon Age. Yowza, if you're gonna rip off a story, at least pick something half decent.

I thought it would be entertaining to read about that but could not find it on the steam forums.

IMO, it's not close enough to be plagiarizing/a rip off. It's mostly surface-level stuff that would piss off people who are diehard Dragon Age fans (i'm sure there's at least a dozen or so somewhere).

Like this guy:

https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197985744477/recommended/699330/

I don't think EA's lawyers would care... unless Iron Oath actually makes enough money to be worth it.

 

[Tigranes]

Following my "eh it's OK" 15 minutes, I've played another hour now:

I think the main issue with the first impressions is that it's OK on everything. The turn based combat works fine but nothing really stands out, the tile-based dungeon exploration is fine but again nothing incredible. Maybe it gets better when it all opens up.

The prologue isn't that bad, it's a fairly interesting setup in theory. But it's the decision to frontload fairly mediocre writing & combat to make a first impression. Battle Bros feels promising because everything is relatively snappy and you can clearly see its procedural heart. Here, you get it, X just happened, but they have to talk about it like this is some kind of story-driven RPG.

The writing's main crime, to be sure, is that it's just generic. It's so textbook that I don't know if it'd ever qualify as plagiarising something, or being "political" (but then some snowflakes complain about this in every single game in the universe). I really couldn't tell you who anybody is or what they're on about... so they really should have had a lot less of it.

There are some potentially interesting things:

• Specific injuries with specific effects, like one which decreases healing effectiveness
• The little random? events in dungeon crawls are nice - it's notable that the procedural stuff feels better and that's what they should have gone all out on maybe
• Level up shows 6 attributes and a decent range of skills and upgrades
• While the portraits and sprites, etc. are meh, I like how they've done the world interface - the map has nice touches like an old school city info pane, and when you enter a city you 'zoom in' to it too. Cities have little icons on the map showing relevant states like increased patrols.

Anyway, as I see the map, I get more excited and think this could be quite good if the BB-like gameplay is robust. Remains to be seen whether it will do that or stay with this laborious story-based stuff.

 

[boot]

I like this a lot more than Battle Brothers, shows much promise.

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/the-iron-oath-early-access-review

The Iron Oath early access review: a tactical RPG on a mission to stand out
Band of the battles



I'm going to complain about The Iron Oath a lot. Not because it's bad, but because I'm really enjoying it, and I think it has the potential to really take off.

Think of these complaints, for the most part, as a pre-flight checklist done long before the pilot has even sat down; if the game were not in early access, these would be big disappointments rather than exactly the kind of annoying details that early access is meant to iron out.

The premise is familiar, but not oversaturated. You run a mercenary company in a fantasy world, and must travel about it finding and fulfilling contracts that keep your fighters fed, equipped, and paid. Over time, your efforts at stabbing bandits and kicking wildlife in the face give you a reputation that you can leverage for better prices and more lucrative jobs from more influential people. They also make your members more skilled, and thus more expensive to keep on.

Although the mercenary management subgenre is still pretty small, this is all fairly standard within it. The Iron Oath distinguishes itself in a few ways, with the first being its emphasis on the long term. The kingdoms whose people and nobles you butter up can rebel or wage war on each other, and every few decades a terrible dragon appears to blast a city, spreading chaos and weird plagues. Time management is as important as penny pinching as you fit as much work along your routes as possible, or even, in an option reminiscent of Star Traders: Frontiers, let the main story quests pass you by altogether while you're busy doing other things.

That story is a personal one of avenging yourself on a group of traitors, but its skippable nature makes some sense considering that time affects your mercenaries too, as even those who live will tire and slow with age, and ultimately retire. Wildermyth players should already be savvy enough to know that this necessitates planning ahead, and using your best gear and experienced older warriors to prop up the younger, weaker hands until they're up to speed. They also have relationship scores with each other, although at present this doesn't seem to do much. The focus is less on stories and memorable characters than Wildermyth, but they share an obvious influence in Dungarees & Dingoes when it comes to combat. I'll get back to that in a bit.

Spoiler

However big your gang becomes (and it must grow over time, as wounded and exhausted fighters drop in and out of the frequent and painful fights needed to keep your profits above rising costs), you're limited to four stablads per fight. It sounds a bit off, but soon becomes comfortable as you shrug and accept its parameters. It helps you develop a capable bench in fact, rather than just bringing everyone and relying on a dream team.

All this puts The Iron Oath in slightly different territory to its peers. Individuals don't (currently) have much personality, but the structures are there for it. Each recruit comes with a handful of personality traits that affect their abilities, or possible dialogue options and courses of action. They're not as precious and irreplaceable as those of Wildermyth, but death does sting far more, and life is less cheap, than in the much more businesslike world of Battle Brothers. It's an interesting middle ground between dispassionate army drilling and a typical party of adventure palz. The character classes in particular are elevating it.

One of my favourite things about The Iron Oath is how its classes are so distinct from the usual generic RPG ones. There's no standard fighty guy. Pyrolancers are tough spearmen who hit harder the more on fire everything is, while Pugilists go in with raw kung fu brass. One of my spear-wielding Valkyries can push and pull enemies about or fly across a field, slashing everyone in the way anime-style, and later use a power that teleports a slower ally next to them. Only one class, the Hunter (archer), is archetypal, and the Guardian is sort of paladin-y, but with only four spots on the pitch you can't get too complacent with them. All skill access is strictly limited to your class, but which ones recruits start with varies, and which you upgrade or unlock with new levels is up to you. Weapons are proscriptive, which I normally bristle at, but it works here. You'll probably get a few fighters the best you can afford, but make do with less than optimal weapons for most and make up for it with those skills. There's very little faffing about with inventory.

I mentioned D&D back there because of its emphasis on melee, positioning, and class powers. In each round of combat, everyone present moves in order of speed (a direct number ranking rather than variable initiative rolls). Movement is, for once, discrete, so you can move a hex at a time to test ranges, and even undo a move provided it didn't trigger a hazard. The standard XCOM-ish "move twice or move then attack" applies, as using any skill or standard attack ends your turn, but instead of cooldowns each skill has limited uses until a character rests, and its attacks of opportunity, flanking penalties, and slight wiggle room around character death just feels different. This is especially true in the dungeon segments some jobs come down to.



Some jobs will mean a fight or two out in the world. Maybe you're patrolling for bandits, maybe animals randomly attacked you while you were heading to the next city. I love that some missions are extremely easy. I've been paid for basically going for a walk and asking a guy a question, then walking back. Escort missions are often uneventful, easy money for journeys you'd do anyway. This feels so much more natural than most games, where accepting an escort job guarantees a scripted bandit attack, making it no different to a "go and kill these guys" job except taking longer.

But some jobs mean clomping about a dungeon. Here your gang of four must step from square to square, triggering or dodging traps and ambushes, rooting through bones and rubble and chests for trinkets, and eventually reaching the item in question, or confronting a boss fight. Down here, your health doesn't top up after a fight, and the longer you take the worse things get - every so many turns sets off a random condition, making traps hit harder, nerves more frayed, or misplacing an item. To offset this, you've an NPC at the entrance (actually on staff, but whatever) who sells healing potions, and bandages for treating persistent injuries. You can also rest a limited number of times, burning various incenses that heal and provide bonuses of your choice, like more gold, more XP, or restoring uses of special skills. Short rests, like.



I'll be honest, the restrictions on camping in dungeons never really felt clear in my mind, and I invariably brought as many people with healing powers as I could. I never bothered with ale since morale never seemed to dip, and though there's a whole tab for "alchemy" to unlock new incense options in the company management screen (as your reknown grows you can exchange points for prizes), I never bothered when the other options are clearly better - 20% lower salaries or 10% faster healing seemed a no-brainer next to occasionally getting a slightly different way to sleep.

And here come those complaints. The difficulty in dungeons comes from some arbitrary restraints, and its time pressure system in practice offers little choice. You'll be down there long enough to trigger 3 or 4 conditions regardless, so you might as well investigate and loot everything. There's no way to tell what any enemy is capable of besides the trial and error of letting them slash you up. Given that you're supposed to be a hardened lifelong mercenary it is strange and annoying that you apparently know absolutely nothing about anything, particularly at the deployment phase of a fight, when I have no idea what any enemies can do or who will go first.



Inadequate display of information is a common problem, as damage indicators are a difficult to make out red on black, health bars are squintingly thin, and the dialogue text is annoyingly small. There's no way to view where a job will take you on the map without accepting it first, or what state your people are in before you decide whether or not to start a fight. I've found nowhere that lists when each person gets paid, so I've no idea how much money to set aside except by spending too much. You have to unequip everyone to compare shop items to what they're using, and there are a handful of attacks that charge up for x turns, but whose turns those actually are can vary enough to make those attacks unavoidable. Admittedly, this can be used to your advantage, and is part of the point, but it's a bit tricky to keep track of when things are going to happen sometimes. The world map is honestly a bit uninvolving. Battles pop up occasionally, but unlike a Battle Brothers or Wartales, you never see anyone and can only move directly from site to site, so might as well make the movement part instantaneous rather than have us sit there watching a counter slide about.

I'd also love to be able to zoom in, because the art and animation are terrific. The sound is too, and all three are a huge part of why I'm loving the game anyway. Combat feels chunky, and even when you don't trigger the occasional goresplosion effect on a kill, taking someone out feels satisfying. I came across one evil mystic who had three times the health of a strong warrior, but my best pugilist went Goku and hit her hard enough to kill four men, letting my hunter finish her in a single turn. The plenty of opportunities to betray, rob, and kill people make the option to be merciful and generous all the better, and probably vice versa. I don't feel all that attached to my specific band, but I'm definitely enjoying my time with them. If Curious Panda can flesh things out enough on top of the smaller tweaks they already appear to be patching in, and really lean into its unusual details, it could distinguish itself well in an increasingly competitive division.

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.gamebanshee.com/news/126318-the-iron-oath-early-access-previews.html

Polygon:

The biggest issue throughout my time with The Iron Oath is the UI. It’s a collection of little annoyances that don’t seem to matter individually, but they pile up over time. For instance, during battles, there’s no easy way to see my characters’ health at a glance as I survey the battle. Their portrait overlays will have a red shadow that represents their general HP loss, or I can hover over them with my cursor to get a full name and health bar — but neither of these are ideal when I’m also trying to suss out all the enemy information and terrain, while also worrying about the remainder of the dungeon. At other times, I accidentally closed out of upgrade screens, and it took me a while to find them again. None of these are deal breakers (especially in an early access game) but they’re bummers nonetheless.

PC Invasion:

After a few hours of playing The Iron Oath, I found myself with a beefed-up squad of four and several substitutes that are part of my roster. Unfortunately, I hardly cared about any of them. Moreover, I’ve fought countless battles, just repeating the same tactics over and over.

To be fair, there are some interesting concepts here since there’s a wider world to see, more mercs to recruit, and noble houses that are vying for control. But certain limitations (i.e., four-person party) and odd elements (i.e., the timer and unrewarding dungeon runs) led to a dull experience. It is an Early Access game, which means there’s a lot of work to be done. However, at this stage, it’s not something I could recommend.

 

[Vincente]

So I didn't get it. After reading the reviews on steam I have the impression that the mechanics are shallow. Will wait a while and see if it gets fleshed out or not. You fuckers aren't gonna trick me into buying unfinished shit like Encased again...

Heard they were having a 100% sale over at gog-games, I say try the game out there.

 

[cyborgboy95]

You can skip the prologue now: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/699330/view/3199254625403751308

Patch Notes 0.5.141
Hello mercenaries! Today's patch is a pretty big one with many bug fixes, balance changes, and QoL features (like skipping the prologue!). Be sure to update your client.

Going forward, our plan is to patch as needed on Fridays. Next week we'll be focusing on three commonly requested things: repairing gear, comparing items in the market to equipped gear, and the ability to see when your merc's salary payments are due (so you can plan accordingly). Here are the patch notes for this week:

Patch Notes for 0.5.141

Fixes

• The damage from Burns now increases based on the number of stacks applied
  
• You can no longer cycle through temporary allies when viewing character sheets within party select (there was a crash you could trigger during the final fight of the prologue by doing this)
  
• Dismissing characters from the company will now update the UI to accurately reflect the current number of active units
  
• Dismissing characters from the company will now properly pay them the coin required to do so
  
• Available contracts in a city will no longer change upon leaving and re-entering the city, or saving and loading
  
• When an enemy is rooted, they will no longer pass on their turn if they have a viable target to attack
  
• The Huntress' Overwatch upgrade that increases its range to 3 is now working as intended
  
• Fixed a bug where if the Huntress killed an enemy with Overwatch, the next 2 enemies would take their turn at the same time
  
• If the target of the Guardian's Judgment ability dies, the channel will be aborted
  
• The number of stacks for the Guardian's Radiance passive is now properly displayed on the status icon
  
• When exiting a dungeon, the dungeon details tooltip will no longer get stuck on screen if you happened to be mousing over it as the overworld loaded
  
• Spectral Weepers will no longer fear their own allies
  
• The control maps for Wait and Guard are now shown correctly in the Options menu
  
• You can now open the escape menu in areas you previously could not (during AI turns in combat, and during dialogue events)
  
• The Charion Behemoth's death animation is now visible
  
• Channel length now updates properly in the ability's tooltip when upgraded (note: the initial channel length of some abilities is still off - this is being investigated)
  
• Can now enable debug settings by setting the value for DebugEnabled to True in the config file
  
• Skeletons that are summoned by necromancers will not be able to act until the next round of combat
  
• The point cost of incenses are now displayed in the company upgrades screen
  
• The Resuscitate upgrade for Healing Trance now works properly (previously it would only restore bleedout points if the target was knocked down)
  
• Re-enabled the Dreadknight's Pull of The Void ability
  
• The House Skirmisher should now deploy their Spearwall ability a bit more intelligently (The Skirmisher's AI still needs some fine tuning though)
  
• Fixed a scripting error that displayed a character's name as "0" during the introduction of the 'Direct Action' quest
  
• You can now target Sleeping allies with a Basic Attack in order to wake them up
  
• Certain Noble quests will no longer crash upon accepting them
  
• When loading a save file, the encumbered icon will no longer display unless you are actually encumbered
  
• Potentially fixed a crash that could occur when a player character died with certain buffs/debuffs applied to them
  
• Fixed a potential crash when channeling certain abilities
  
• The Risen Bonecrusher's Shield Bash attack will no longer Stun the target if they evade it
  
• After Waiting with a character, you will no longer be able to Wait a second time in the same round (doing so previously would forfeit their turn)
  
• The Stormcaller's Rainfall ability no longer applies multiple instances of wet terrain on a single cell
  
• Fixed a soft lock that could occur if all party members died except for one who was charmed
  
• The damage previews for Skewer, Sweeping Spear, and Holy Barrage now work
  
• The Wet debuff has been altered to do 50% bonus damage, instead of a forced critical (there still is an issue where units that run through wet terrain are not given the debuff)
  
• When using the Huntress' Hone and Overwatch abilities, you are now required to target the Huntress in order to use them (no more misclicks!)
  
• Potentially fixed an issue where characters of the same class could have different base Speed values
  
• Fixed an issue where a character who was 'Waiting' as the previous fight ended would incorrectly start the next fight at the back of the turn order

Additions and Changes

• When starting a new campaign, you can now choose to skip the entire prologue, giving you immediate freedom of where to go
  
• Added a large font option for dialogue
  
• Holding spacebar will now quickly skip through all dialogue, only pausing when there are multiple dialogue choices available
  
• You can now close the dungeon provisions window by hitting the same key used to open it
  
• Added a new company upgrade called Draft Horses which increases your available storage space
  
• Your storage space now defaults to a capacity of 25, with all items contributing to it regardless of their type (previously it was based on whether or not you were encumbered in a single category)
  
• Added a Scouting Report to the party select screen, displaying which enemies you can potentially face (currently this only works for dungeons, not overworld encounters)
  
• You can now see the environment/tileset during the party select screen
  
• During the party select screen, you can now view the character sheet for people that are already assigned to the party without having to first remove them (hover their portrait to bring up the button)
  
• A skull will now display over an enemy's health bar to indicate if the attack will be a killing blow (in addition to the red glow we previously had)
  
• Enemy groupings are now more varied with a few other enemies mixed in (where it makes sense to do so)

Balance

• The frequency of overworld encounters has been reduced, but have been made more difficult (more enemies)
  
• Removed the temporary immunity that was applied to your characters when they were repeatedly afflicted with the same status effect
  
• The Stormcaller's Wind Surge ability now cleanses all negative conditions (instead of only a few specific ones)
  
• The Stormcaller's Rainfall now heals for a small amount over time (in addition to its previous effects)
  
• The Pugilist's 'Mind, Body and Soul' ability now heals for a small amount (in addition to its previous effects)
  
• The Valkyrie's Skewer has had its damage reduced from 135% to 125% (based on Power)
  
• The Valkyrie's Sweeping Spear has been buffed from 100% to 135%
  
• The Huntress' True Sight ability no longer requires line of sight to the target and has infinite range
  
• The Pyrolancer's Return To Cinder ability now does damage equal to 60% of Power, increased from 20%
  
• The damage of the Pyrolancer's Infernal Pillar ability has been reduced to 150% of Power, down from 175%
  
• The damage shield granted by the Guardian's Safeguard ability is now 50% more

---

Yesterday we did a live interview with the Escapist for their 'Design Delve' segment where we discussed the game's inspirations, design choices, and different aspects of its development. We had a lot of fun doing it and you can check it out below:

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/the-iron-oath-is-an-engrossing-and-hugely-promising-tactical-rpg/

The Iron Oath is an engrossing and hugely promising tactical RPG
Lead your mercenary band through dark dungeons and difficult decisions.

You can hardly move for mercenary companies these days. At the entrance to every monster den, and parked outside every bandit camp, are countless bands of blades for hire, all bickering over who gets to claim the bounty. Early access RPG The Iron Oath is the latest game tapping into this trend, and you won't be surprised to learn it drops you in a medieval fantasy world, with frequent bouts of tactical, turn-based combat.

Where it differs from Battle Brothers is in its slightly less gritty world, and its focus on a set narrative as you seek to avenge a devastating betrayal. There's a lengthy prologue—which you can skip, jumping right into the open world—that leaves the company in ruins and sets them off on their retribution mission, although you can ignore this main quest and go tramping off across the world whenever you like.

The story is concise and well told, hitting familiar genre beats in a setting that's more high fantasy than the other mercenary games. There's a creature named the Void Dragon that's going around devastating villages, and which is the progenitor of hellish monsters known as Voidspawn. Magic is commonplace: you'll cast pyromancy and storm spells, and wield miraculous powers as you fight Voidspawn, the undead, and your fellow humans.

Interestingly, the dialogue adapts as your mercenaries meet untimely ends. Playing on the medium difficulty—which offered a satisfying challenge, full of tense battles and frequent character deaths—I had buried all my original mercenaries by the time I finished the prologue missions. The resulting text narration made a point of commenting on the losses, while a later event invited me to perform a burial. I spent precious time on the funeral because the game was treating these expendable mercs as actual characters in the written story—and, consequently, so was I.

Perhaps inevitably, the flip-side of this narrative focus is that The Iron Oath is limited as a sandbox game, at least in this initial early access version. Where similar games procedurally generate their worlds, or offer a suite of starting options, here you're deposited in a fixed landscape with no way to tailor the world of Caelum to your liking.

To be fair, there is plenty of stuff going on in the background. Little icons by each town tell you which factors are currently affecting them, including the presence of bandits or monsters, or environmental effects like dust storms. These might sound dramatic, but mainly they decide the types of jobs on offer. If there's undead in the region, there will be more jobs asking you to hunt them down, while bandits supposedly increase shop prices in nearby towns.

These factors change as time passes, but I couldn't detect any notable fluctuations to the economy in affected towns, while it hardly matters which type of monster you've been sent to kill as part of a job.

Jobs, for the most part, are typical sidequest stuff: clear out these monsters or escort this caravan in exchange for cash and renown that increases your standing in that part of the world. A higher reputation leads to better shop prices and jobs, while a lower one may put a bounty on your head.

The Iron Price
When combat breaks out, either in a dungeon or out on the overworld, it's handled swiftly and gracefully, in the tried-and-tested turn-based tactics manner. You can take just four of your company into fights, on smallish hex maps with a smallish number of enemies, which really gets you into the heat of battle quickly.

There's light and heavy cover, but that's only part of The Iron Oath's emphasis on terrain, as there are also spike pits and holes, and sigils that trigger magical effects when stepped on. Rarely do your abilities just cause damage to your opponent; you're laying a fire trap with your pyrolancer, then using your pugilist to push the enemy into it.

Positioning is everything, which can make the fixed viewpoint frustrating sometimes. When the participants are bunched together in a mass of sprites and interface icons, it can be difficult to read the battlefield. On the whole, though, battles are enjoyable and tactically rich thanks to the thoughtful use of terrain and abilities.

It's not just one-off battles, however. Your mercs are more than happy to descend into monster-filled dungeons packed with obstacles and branching pathways. The closest comparison is Darkest Dungeon, as you hop from node to node while managing dwindling resources, including health potions, bandages, and abilities that (only potentially) recharge when you make camp. At the end, your mercs will be bruised and probably injured, requiring stays in an infirmary. And what do you get from all that effort? Well, not very much.

There are jobs that take place on the overworld, and jobs that have you spelunking into dungeons, and your rewards for the latter—a few more experience and renown points—are hardly worth it. Despite this, I still found delving into dungeons to be a tense, satisfying experience—the first couple of times. After that, I tended to focus on the shorter, less stressful jobs. Jobs that wouldn't leave my mercs in the infirmary—or the grave.

The biggest issue at the moment—and it's a common one in early access games—is content. Oh, there are stacks of towns to visit, and piles of dungeons to clear out, but not enough varied art assets to make any feel unique. I can't say I'm keen to visit more aesthetically identical dungeons, but I would definitely return to that map, which is beautiful and a joy to traverse.

I'm interested to see how The Iron Oath will develop over the coming months, as compared to many early access games it has launched in a remarkably solid state. The story is reactive and the combat satisfying, even with the small number of classes currently available. The roadmap suggests that more are coming, along with more quests, environments and enemies—more of what it's currently lacking. But this is already an engrossing and hugely promising tactical RPG.

 

[Waterd]

I really wanted to like this one, but the combat is so shallow and you do the same again and again with the game not really forcing you to change that tactic you figured out in the third fight.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

I really wanted to like this one, but the combat is so shallow and you do the same again and again with the game not really forcing you to change that tactic you figured out in the third fight.

Really? It's shallow like Fallout shallow (go for the eyes, etc.)? Or is it just simple with easy and obvious to use abilities that outshine all the others kind of shallow? Or is it each merk gets like three moves (offense, defense, healing) and you use one of them for the occasion?

Is it too easy with enemies that are predictable? Please give some more details.

 

[Waterd]

Most fights are very similar, with a few notable exceptions is your 4 characters on one side an dthe 4 enemy characters in the other.

Something that I'm very surprised because on paper is no tthat way is also every character and enemy are kinda of "samey", they all move kinda a the same speed, are kind of similarly tough and kinda of do the same damage. The enemies have a little more variety even, because some hit a single target while others hit multiple target or ranged. But in practice for whatever reason is kinda of the same.

The same goes with ability, all abilities hit with 100% chance, all abilities do kind of damage/divided by number of targets, but all have a small area of effect. So who is the damage dealer? Everyone really. you don't have a real tank or a real support or basically roles, so every unit is just "do more damage".
you don't have widely powerfull stuff like in D&D, like Mass sleep or whatnot or resistance or big AOE.

I don't say that is the solution i'm just saying that every character you have kind of feel is a very well balanced single target damage dealer, two targets at most. The space also feels super open and not constrained at all, so you kinda of do what you want (Which is not a good thing)

It doesn't help that every fight kinda starts the same , between teh same number of characters. So you just sit back, create a choke point and just kill them one by one in the chock point like Zerlings. Sometimes you can line them up with something like the huntress which has through shoot and hit seeral at the same time, definitly the most "interesting" of the abilities, but yeah.

Compared to like battle brothers where fights comprehend vastly different numbers, vastly different terrains, the enemies feel VASTLY different. From the unarmored super fast characters to the slow tank sof death.

I'm a fan of tactical games and Board game tactical games, and never felt combat being so samey, except in some mobile tactical games that are very forgettable.

I feel tactical games go two routes:
A) few characters that are extreme polarizations that somehow evolve super fast and thus the relevant abilities change through the game
OR
B) Tactical games that have a lot of units that are kinda samey, but by having vastly different terrains, vastly different starting conditions, vastly different numbers of untis on each side on each battle, or maybe have some kind of recruit system or quir.

This one feels the units have the simplicity of the B) units without the different variety of setups that keep those fights fresh.

i feel you don't even care how your team is composed you can just run any 4 characters and will do kinda of the same.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

From the sound of it this game seems pretty similar to Stormguard, that too had too many 4 vs 4 combat encounters.

 

[Darth Canoli]

So, I played it for one dungeon and a half.
I'll compare it to Battle Brothers (BB) and Urtuk which are fairly similar. And some parts to Darkest Dungeon (DD) as the dungeon part is somewhat inspired by DD (loot + supplies + wounds + resting and healing management)

The good

• I like how the world is designed better than in BB (which is better than Urtuk)
• Combat skills are quite interesting and classes are a plus.
• The dungeon crawl was an interesting idea.

Neutral

• Is there more than 4 classes? If it's just 4, it's really lame. 8 would be alright, 12 would be great.

The bad

• Dungeon design is just decent but it lacks a great ambient like in DD.
• It also lacks the risk/rewards gamble you have in DD through no light runs.
• As said, combat becomes quite tedious fast because you fight the same enemies over and over, there's not a lot of variety not challenge ahead and worse, no interesting rewards either.
• Combat UI could be improved with move+attack in a single click at least for the basic attacks and single target skills.
• The engine sucks, everything should be twice as fast.
• Itemization is also pretty bad (+2% armor, seriously?)

Suggestions if a dev drops by

• The dungeons time limit/debuffs should improve the chances to get interesting loot, as in exploring the whole dungeon versus not doing so, not wasting time to increase the time limit.
• Expand the bestiary, maybe add some rare monsters with special skills and add them depending on the dungeons debuffs, and with better drops.
• Improve the itemization and particularly armors.

 

[Darth Canoli]

Looks like I didn't really compare the 3 games.
In spite of the interesting skills from Iron Oath, BB simplicity, perks and weapon related attack moves makes for better combat.
Powerful skills with charges is a decline in my book, I'd have preferred less powerful ones but with infinite uses, just like in BB.

Overall, I prefer Urtuk combat, BB second and Iron Oath way behind.
On the long run, BB is better because of the enemy variety and tactics, better exploration and mods.

Iron Oath has a long way to go to top that.