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SpellForce: Conquest of Eo - strategy RPG from Fantasy General 2 devs

Lacrymas

Arcane
Joined
Sep 23, 2015
Messages
18,685
Pathfinder: Wrath
Oops. It was on Spellforce's Discord channel so I assumed it was by Grimlore. Fixed.
 

Lacrymas

Arcane
Joined
Sep 23, 2015
Messages
18,685
Pathfinder: Wrath
:thisisfine:
Eh, it will probably be fine. I'm a sucker for wargames nowadays and play them more than RPGs, so I'm up for it. Eo has enough races and lore to pull this off even if I'm not too attached to the setting, at least as it is now in its prequel phase. There is one cool story they can focus on - the destruction of the continent during the mage wars. Not only is it a cataclysmic event, it will also allow us to see how exactly our optimistic and bright-eyed heroes from Spellforce 3 became the destructive force they ended up being. I don't think this is what we are going to get with this, though. It's more likely a spin-off. The Fantasy General 2 devs need to be working on something after all.

Mmm, maybe I'm speaking too soon. This is what worries me -
Discover new adventures with each procedurally generated campaign
I don't want a procedurally generated campaign, I want a cool one.
 

Lacrymas

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Sep 23, 2015
Messages
18,685
Pathfinder: Wrath
One of the devs (?) told me on Discord that the map will always be the same, just the enemy and adventure (whatever that means) placement will differ.
 
Self-Ejected

Thac0

Time Mage
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Arborea
I'm very into cock and ball torture
This immediatly became one of my most anticipated games, I like the idea behind spellforce, I like King's Bounty clones, I like the elevator pitch of managing your own Isengard-esque mage tower.
 

Infinitron

I post news
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Messages
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Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/sp...strategy-rpg-with-4x-dna-and-do-or-die-action

SpellForce: Conquest Of Eo is a strategy RPG with 4X DNA and "do or die action"​

A new vibe for a classic series

I love the name "SpellForce", mid-word capital letter and all. It conjures a mental image of a kid’s TV show where some, possibly sentai-style, superheroes learn about the importance of spelling and grammar. Maybe a little punctuation, as a treat. SpellForce the video game series isn’t that; it’s a trio of RPG-RTS hybrids which, by the time you read this, will have had a new entry announced in the form of SpellForce: Conquest Of Eo. It’s a fresh, turn-based take on the series which casts the player as a wizard attempting to further their mastery of magic.

Ahead of the announcement, developers Owned By Gravity invited me to take a sneaky peek, and I was treated to a hands-off demonstration from producer Jan Wagner. While the game was in a pre-alpha state, it was already looking pretty swish, especially the rather lovely (and lovingly hand-crafted, I later discovered) world map. It all looks very 4X-like, and all four of the exes are present and correct in varying amounts - but there is one significant departure from the formula that Wagner was keen to emphasise.

Rather than world domination, your mage is something of an academic, only interested in researching the secrets of the Allspark - sorry, Allfire. Instead of sending forth mighty armies to conquer territory, you’re dispatching heroes to track down artefacts and magical secrets. It’s like being the quest giving NPC in an RPG, camped out in your tower doing nerd stuff while you send out a bunch of jocks to do the heavy lifting.

Having recently inherited the aforementioned tower from your mentor, whose disappearance provides an important story thread, you set about establishing your credentials as the hottest thing to hit the magic circuit since white rabbits. You can choose from pregenerated runesmith, necromancer and alchemist builds, or create your own by bodging together two or three schools of magic from those on offer.

Expanding your tower and performing various rites and rituals requires resources, furthering your need to explore the world and find new sources of stuff. The constant need to fuel your magical fires combined with the lack of empire building is all designed to “preserve the do or die action” of the early stages of typical 4X titles, Wagner explained, and to bypass the stagnation and repetition that frequently comes with the late game.

A wide shot of the intricate world map in SpellForce: Conquest Of Eo
The heroes themselves are unique individuals, all with their own personalities and backstories. They’re not working for you out of the goodness of their hearts; all of them want something from you in return and completing these quests is a major part of the game. They’re not on their own either, as each hero can be accompanied by up to five units of troops, an intentionally tight limit designed to keep punch-ups quick and, well, punchy.

The heroes are unique individuals, all with their own personalities and backstories.
Wagner showed me one of these battles, which are now turn-based in contrast to the previous SpellForce games’ RTS stylings. Like the world map, these battlefields are handcrafted in order to make the fights interesting, even with a low unit count. I wasn’t given an exact figure for the number of different maps, but there are enough for the whole world map to be more or less accurately reflected in the battles. Troops, which level up and gain new abilities every few levels, have been designed to be very distinct, even in their basic forms. The goal, Wagner told me, is to “condense the experience so that it’s always exciting.” A typical skirmish in the early stages of the game takes 10-15 minutes, with larger scraps not expected to reach the half hour mark. Automatically resolving fights is also an option, if you’re more of a big picture mage.

Your choice of units doesn’t just impact battles, but also gives you more options during capital-A Adventures, another big feature of SpellForce. You’ll encounter these RPG style quests as you explore the map, some attached to specific regions or cities, others to characters or just random events. Each one has multiple outcomes and some tough moral choices are promised. At the time of the demo, they were approaching 600 individual stories, all handwritten.

The quest book, an old illuminated tome, in SpellForce Conquest Of Eo
Like a good alchemical potion, the real magic isn’t in the individual ingredients, but in how they all work together. This is where Spellforce gets really exciting, as all the moving parts begin to interact. How you choose to play and the decisions you make during Adventures will impact your reputation with the different regions and cities of the world, which then affects the Adventures available to you. You’re not the only new wiz on the block either, with three potential rivals, drawn from a pool of eight, in each game, all pursuing their own agendas.

With so much going on, the potential for emergent shenanigans is huge, so I asked Wagner if there were any particularly notable unintended consequences that popped up during development. I was told of a quest that features a ghost cow (and if that on its own isn’t enough to sell you on the game, I don’t know what is) that the player has to guide home in order to complete the unfinished business of a similarly spectral cowherd. Failed interactions with the undead ungulate result in it respawning elsewhere on the map, and in one instance it popped up in a city that it had no business being in. Eventually the presence of existing, entirely mortal, cows caused a bug to count the ghost cow among their number, resulting in its miraculous resurrection and rendering the quest unfinishable. Pre-alpha, remember.

A misty, night time battle in SpellForce: Conquest Of Eo

SpellForce veterans will be pleased to hear that the game is in good hands. Wagner himself served as a producer on the first two SpellForce titles, so Conquest of Eo is something of a homecoming for him. Even though it represents a shift in genre, he’s also insistent that it isn’t a spin-off of the numbered games, instead presenting a different take on the world. Taking place roughly 100 years after the original game, it serves as a direct sequel to the first two titles in the series, as SpellForce 3 was a prequel.

Current plans are for the game to enter beta testing this summer for a release “when everyone is happy”, either later this year or early in 2023. The blend of turn-based strategy, RPG and 4X had already piqued my interest and seeing it in action has me very eager to get my hands on the game myself. Until I do so, I can’t tell if SpellForce: Conquest of Eo will conquer my heart, but it’s a potential necromantic interest for sure.
 

Hobo Elf

Arcane
Joined
Feb 17, 2009
Messages
14,146
Location
Platypus Planet
Looks great. Fantasy General 2 was the best fantasy wargame I had played in a long time so seeing the same devs work on another one brings me joy. They seem to be operating with a real budget this time around as well, thanks to working with THQ Nordic.
 

cyborgboy95

News Cyborg
Joined
Aug 24, 2019
Messages
3,037
Developer Insight #1
Greetings esteemed wizards,

This is the first installment of our Dev Log, where we update you with news and insights about the game and design process (a.k.a. ramblings of a game developer). After we returned from Gamescom with a lot of enthusiastic feedback and had the chance to watch gamers play and enjoy the game while lurking behind them, we stuck our collective heads together and looked at what we could do better.

The game is already in a very stable state, so we can focus on improving gameplay and balance the challenges we put in front of you as an up-and-coming mage in the world of Eo. One thing we noticed is that while people loved the exploration, there was so much to do, that it was not clear to everyone what they should do first or what is at stake for the mage’s story in game. So, we wanted to give some structure to the initial phase of the game and also show you what you are up against.

Which leads us to the Circle of Mages – founded a little over a century ago by the pre-eminent wizards of the age, they will stop at nothing to prevent you from learning their secret: Mastery of the Allfire (also called Archfire by some), the source of all magic on Eo. Which of course is precisely what you set out to do. Initially, we had you hunt down one of their minions to gain more information about it, but this didn’t really convey the power of what you are up against and so our designer took matters into his hand and presented us with a new solution: Planting one of their towers right next to your own, cranking out fantastical monsters and dialing up the heat from the get go while also giving you a first clear goal: Get rid of those neighbors!
dc43988341ddef25cf9ab1bcff9accdf1f8d8191.png

This worked very well and focuses players on strategizing early on about how to deal with the threat, while at the same time giving you some juicy reward to look forward to. It’s a small thing, but it made the early game phase feel challenging and interesting without railroading the player into a specific course of action.

This may not look like much now, but when a fire-spweing demonic beast comes at you the first time and you field a mage's apprentice and a few goblins, the heat is literally on!

fc6bad147ed4f555f0f708f07508c0f60b8c4807.png
 

cyborgboy95

News Cyborg
Joined
Aug 24, 2019
Messages
3,037
Developer Insight #2
Greetings esteemed wizards,

Today we want to talk a bit about Lore as well as lore. As many of you have been eager to point out, the world of Eo has a rich and varied history and that is not made less complex by the first two games and their add-ons taking place on the world timeline after the third game, which is set pre-convocation. The Convocation of course being the cataclysmic event that shattered the world of Eo.

Now our game is placed right between the last one’s story and the Convocation and thus we had a bit of a historical deep dive to do – what did the world look like at that time, who was alive and who wasn’t, which creatures existed? Fortunately, the loremasters in the SpellForce community helped us a lot and kept us abreast of glaring historical errors and missteps. So we ended up with what we see as a sort of bridge between the two generations of SpellForce. But that poses another issue – how can we create game that does not change the “future” for Eo’s timeline and yet still provides enough free room to explore and expand for the player’s own story.

Therefore we focus on you as a mage and the Circle – we won’t re-write history with nations being conquered or kingdoms toppled. Instead, it is a journey of magical power and knowledge, that will have you travel across the world map in search of the secrets of the Allfire.

As you can see on this eagle eye view, we start out in the Highmark, which is dominated by humans, but a diverse and interesting area bordered by the Middle Mountains, orcs, dwarves and a nation under constant pressure from all around.

ab7477560616f84413384dce1e7e550e4cc11c07.png


Audale, Connach, Lyraine and other small towns dot the region and befriending any of them can be quite useful to gain access to their resources. Of course Sevenkeeps dominates the area and holds many interesting locations and new adventures.

4874c38e2ce3121c253348acbc9b453dd3aaca3f.png


Speaking of adventures: While you play a (soon to be) powerful mage in the game, we of course wanted to have one of the mainstays of SpellForce: Heroes and their individual stories.

Each hero who joins you has a different story to tell, which will also be explored via your grimoire – initially very little is known about your new companions, but further adventures and research will reveal new aspects for your heroes and give you more and more background. Or in the case of the dwarven alchemist and bomb-maker Lore, new ways to blow things up in spectacular ways.

32fd3b9c520417ca6b16c97840b1e44ab6eef170.jpg


This way, you unlock more reasons to explore the game world and involve yourself in new adventures. And you can make one dwarf really really happy.
 

Lacrymas

Arcane
Joined
Sep 23, 2015
Messages
18,685
Pathfinder: Wrath
It is an interquel between 3 and 1? Meh. I thought it was set after SF2. 3's setting isn't nearly as interesting.
 

Suicidal

Arcane
Joined
Apr 29, 2007
Messages
2,316
Ah, so it's a sequel to Spellforce 2? Interesting.
To the actual game or to that fucking awful void demons expansion that they outsourced to some no name sweatshop studio?

EDIT: NVM, appears to be neither
 

cyborgboy95

News Cyborg
Joined
Aug 24, 2019
Messages
3,037
Developer Update #3
Greetings esteemed wizards,

Today we are going to talk a bit about combat and some of the things we do to make it more interesting.
Turn-based combat is at the heart of our battles and especially for a brand that has so far had real-time strategy at its core, it was important for us to make them turn-based but fast-paced, while at the same time providing a certain tactical depth.

One of the things we did to achieve that is, that while we limit the number of units in battle (you start out with stacks of up to 5 different units, but during the game expand to up to 8), we provide over 60 different hand-crafted battlefields allowing us to make terrain and cover an integral part of many of them. Thinking about where to engage enemies, how to minimize your frontline exposure (to prevent you suffering flanking attacks) or which unit to use to tank means every battlefield is different for you from the outset, setting us apart from more traditional instanced battles where you simply have rows of units being pitted against each other. Add to that the special skills for many of our units (which gain new key skills every 5 Levels as they progress) which can add new tactical options, such as ignoring zones of control, blinding enemies, volley shots and armor piercing or increasing certain damage types from elemental to white or death damage to damage against certain types of enemies, you have quite a mix.

e1e2c9d329ca191a11bf7c669e51ff340d07d7f5.png


Getting the AI to understand and use a wide range of possible option was one of our challenges – especially with regards to how it uses terrain to its advantage but allows us to make even battles with relatively few units require some thinking from our players. In the below case, the AI defended a village but moved out and up on the elevated position to shoot missile on the player forces. And since the map has an added feature effect called “snipers” damaging attackers every turn, the Ai decided to wait our troops out.

ab195df12321fc56450b186bf7208a878cac9052.png


Now the player needs to find solutions beyond simply waltzing up to the enemy and letting loose with the apprentice’s spells. (We got the AI to split forces by smashing the village gate and feinting an attack from the left while baiting the defenders with a weak unit to the right in case you were wondering. Then goblin shaman gave berserker ‘shrooms to everyone so they heal a bit and do some extra damage, meaning they could soak up the defender’s initial volley and then go into melee.)

Another thing that we do slightly differently is our action system that offers more than just a way to tell you how many attacks your units can do and which we are going to take a closer look into next time.
In the meantime, if you have any questions on the game, feel free to hop on the SpellForce discord[discord.gg] where we have a sub-channel or let us know here on Steam!
 

Infinitron

I post news
Patron
Staff Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2011
Messages
99,459
Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1581770/view/3522406836376206156
Developer Insight #4
Battle Action

Time for action!

Venerable Mages,
as promised, today we are going take a deeper dive into our combat and action system at the core of our battles. It is a bit different from what many games do, so bear with me for a second.

Basically, all our units have three actions represented by the little yellow diamonds beneath the health bar. Each turn, every unit can use up to two of them for movement with distance depending on movement range of unit. The remaining action can be spend on a defensive “guard” action or an attack. If you don’t spend actions on movement, you can use them for attacks, cast a spell or execute some other ability. These will always consume ALL remaining actions, and here is where we already differ from many games: We use what we call the ‘Committed Action System’.

So, when you decide to cast a spell or to attack someone, you automatically spend all remaining action points on that task, fully committing to that course of action. In the below picture, the necromancer’s apprentice has just cast a spell to heal the skeletons above him, so he has no more actions left.
726d4b03473d192b85f72ef566929ceb780fcfd9.png


He could have spent two actions for moving and still cast the spell but once he does cast it, he will be ‘committed’, spending all his remaining actions. In the same vein, once the skeletons now decide to attack those Paladins left of them, they will commit fully to attacking, spending all three actions for three attacks on those pesky humans.

This makes combat much more fluid and faster than counting action points while still leaving a lot of room to maneuver. You don’t have to decide what to do for each single action point and you focus your attacks on one enemy. But it also means you need to think about which target to choose.

In melee every attack further results in a counter-attack, that will cost action points for the defender. Action points don't refresh on YOUR turn, but at the beginning of a full turn – meaning at the same time for both you and the enemy. So you effectively have three actions to divide across movement and attack or defense – if you attack, you cannot keep points for defense and vice versa.

At first glance this may seem to just be a way to speed up combat, but this actually opens up a lot of tactical depth: First, players can flank the enemy (giving you an unopposed attack) or position their units for a better range (but take heed of zone of control or you may suffer free attacks by the enemy) and still attack or stay back and prepare a defense for the enemy.

Players also decide when to commit to an attack or wait for the enemy. But if the enemy attacks first, it will drain your action points by simply attacking your unit with three attacks – resulting in all points spent counter-attacking in melee and leaving you out of options when your turn comes.

Of course, you can do the same to them: Swarm a big strong troll with hordes of undead and risk a few of them (easily replaced by summoning more), to keep the enemy permanently occupied and allowing you free attacks once the troll’s actions are exhausted. It allows you to control which of your units receives damage and prevents strong single units from using special skills that can devastate your army.
6757ff0c615bd6aa09069081ef5cf7289eed946e.png

This opens up new tactical effects – smaller units surrounding a bigger one can effectively pin the big one down with repeated needle attacks instead of a simple exchange of melee strikes and players need to make sure they do not expose their frontline units to an enemy swarm.

Defensive positioning is also important, and can be augmented by standing next to areas that cannot be accessed (such as rocks or buildings) or barricades (which some units may also summon, but which can be destroyed), creating choke points or safe zones for your missile units to stay behind as in the below picture, where the minion unit behind the fence can safely pepper the fire beetles on the other side with its magic bolts.
4255163035c0fde208172a59d688e8682d4d0d70.png

Between our Committed Action System, Flanking/Zone of Control/Blockers and the way actions refresh, our action points become part of the tactical consideration in battle, allowing you to control the flow of combat, use superior positioning to your advantage and make amount of units interesting beyond simply dishing out damage. And yet, it keeps the action fluent and fast. We are looking forward to you trying it out!

We also want to talk a little more about the game world and our main antagonists: The Circle of Mages. Here is a little preview of one of them. Meet Ianna, the Singer.

bd7f3fad97b9d4739af738f83d490df240e1018a.jpg

More about that next time.
 

ArchAngel

Arcane
Joined
Mar 16, 2015
Messages
21,180
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1581770/view/3522406836376206156
Developer Insight #4
Battle Action

Time for action!

Venerable Mages,
as promised, today we are going take a deeper dive into our combat and action system at the core of our battles. It is a bit different from what many games do, so bear with me for a second.

Basically, all our units have three actions represented by the little yellow diamonds beneath the health bar. Each turn, every unit can use up to two of them for movement with distance depending on movement range of unit. The remaining action can be spend on a defensive “guard” action or an attack. If you don’t spend actions on movement, you can use them for attacks, cast a spell or execute some other ability. These will always consume ALL remaining actions, and here is where we already differ from many games: We use what we call the ‘Committed Action System’.

So, when you decide to cast a spell or to attack someone, you automatically spend all remaining action points on that task, fully committing to that course of action. In the below picture, the necromancer’s apprentice has just cast a spell to heal the skeletons above him, so he has no more actions left.
726d4b03473d192b85f72ef566929ceb780fcfd9.png


He could have spent two actions for moving and still cast the spell but once he does cast it, he will be ‘committed’, spending all his remaining actions. In the same vein, once the skeletons now decide to attack those Paladins left of them, they will commit fully to attacking, spending all three actions for three attacks on those pesky humans.

This makes combat much more fluid and faster than counting action points while still leaving a lot of room to maneuver. You don’t have to decide what to do for each single action point and you focus your attacks on one enemy. But it also means you need to think about which target to choose.

In melee every attack further results in a counter-attack, that will cost action points for the defender. Action points don't refresh on YOUR turn, but at the beginning of a full turn – meaning at the same time for both you and the enemy. So you effectively have three actions to divide across movement and attack or defense – if you attack, you cannot keep points for defense and vice versa.

At first glance this may seem to just be a way to speed up combat, but this actually opens up a lot of tactical depth: First, players can flank the enemy (giving you an unopposed attack) or position their units for a better range (but take heed of zone of control or you may suffer free attacks by the enemy) and still attack or stay back and prepare a defense for the enemy.

Players also decide when to commit to an attack or wait for the enemy. But if the enemy attacks first, it will drain your action points by simply attacking your unit with three attacks – resulting in all points spent counter-attacking in melee and leaving you out of options when your turn comes.

Of course, you can do the same to them: Swarm a big strong troll with hordes of undead and risk a few of them (easily replaced by summoning more), to keep the enemy permanently occupied and allowing you free attacks once the troll’s actions are exhausted. It allows you to control which of your units receives damage and prevents strong single units from using special skills that can devastate your army.
6757ff0c615bd6aa09069081ef5cf7289eed946e.png

This opens up new tactical effects – smaller units surrounding a bigger one can effectively pin the big one down with repeated needle attacks instead of a simple exchange of melee strikes and players need to make sure they do not expose their frontline units to an enemy swarm.

Defensive positioning is also important, and can be augmented by standing next to areas that cannot be accessed (such as rocks or buildings) or barricades (which some units may also summon, but which can be destroyed), creating choke points or safe zones for your missile units to stay behind as in the below picture, where the minion unit behind the fence can safely pepper the fire beetles on the other side with its magic bolts.
4255163035c0fde208172a59d688e8682d4d0d70.png

Between our Committed Action System, Flanking/Zone of Control/Blockers and the way actions refresh, our action points become part of the tactical consideration in battle, allowing you to control the flow of combat, use superior positioning to your advantage and make amount of units interesting beyond simply dishing out damage. And yet, it keeps the action fluent and fast. We are looking forward to you trying it out!

We also want to talk a little more about the game world and our main antagonists: The Circle of Mages. Here is a little preview of one of them. Meet Ianna, the Singer.

bd7f3fad97b9d4739af738f83d490df240e1018a.jpg

More about that next time.
Endless Legend had something similar to this where if you got initiative and attacked enemy, they could do counter attack but then could not attack on their turn.
 

ChildInTime

Savant
Joined
Jun 13, 2019
Messages
646
Ok. gotta say that despite my earlier doubts, at least the artwork is on point, the gameplay is not spellforce at all, but oh well. Not sure about the story and the lore yet, but Spellforce was always (almost) good in that department.
 

Hobo Elf

Arcane
Joined
Feb 17, 2009
Messages
14,146
Location
Platypus Planet


About 1h of gameplay shown. Looks good. The dev in the video was apparently a producer on some of the previous Spellforce games so the people working on this aren't completely blind to the world building. Lore seems to play a heavy role on the game in general. Not sure why this thread isn't in the Strategy & Sim sub.
 

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