KickStarter The Legends of Eisenwald Thread

[Aterdux Entertainment]

I am not sure the console is working like that, so I don't know. I will ask my programmers. It might be we provided the syntax but didn't really implement it.

 

[Angelo85]

Awesome, well done for getting it out Aterdux.
Codex impressions?

I wrote this combat/King's Bounty comparison in response to Phantasmal in the Release News Thread

Was interested in this before being a King's Bounty whore who is sick to death of KB expansions but that trailer looked a little flaky. Checked on Steam and there appears to be a lot of negative reviews claiming it's banal, shit, boring with shallow combat that requires no strategy. If even Steamtards are calling it casual and lacking, I can only imagine how lackluster it may be. That's unfortunate.

Well you certainly don't need to be a clone of Napoleon in order to be successful in the combat aspect. On the acclaimed and "totally a thing" scale of SITHOFASS (Strategists In The History Of Time And Space Scale) I would put it near the level of Hitler or even Emperor Skutaxx II.

The game plays a little different compared to King's Bounty mainly due to the fact that you work with single units - which get knocked out and can be healed up to full health - instead of, as I like to call them, number mountains known from familiar games like King's Bounty or HOMM. So playing mediocre in the combat encounters and having units get wiped off the board is not as big of a deal because you can just heal them back up in exchange for a relatively small payment of resources. Which in this case happens to be gold, the only variable resource in the game next to unit experience and unit equipment. The latter two are accumulated in a more linear fashion.

Legends of Eisenwald is broken down into single maps/chapters, when transitioning to the next one you loose most of your accumulated wealth (advanced troops, gold, equipment). You only get to keep the equipment and experience on your Avatar, sometimes a couple selected troops (including the equipment on their persons) and a handful of legendary items you managed to gain via special quests.
Like I mentioned you do loose all your leftover troops, gold and equipment from the inventory - so you can't simply unequip the troops before the transition for the sake of selling them for a cheap gold boost at the beginning of the next map.
This was obviously done for balance reasons and I personally don't have a problem with it, but judging from various forum posts and reviews apparently many people don't like to loose their grinded and powerlevelled assets. Perhaps they treat this title a little different compared to other strategy games because this game has stronger RPG ties.

During my experience with about half a dozen maps thus far I found that your typical map plays somewhat like a 4X:
- Explore the map: either a very big chunk or all of it, with the goal of finding quest hooks and identifying the strength of the various enemy stacks. You'll recruit your initial troops along the way as well.
- Expand your stack & Exploit the map: by probing the in the "Explore phase" uncovered quests you identify the easiest ones, solve them and fight the lower level/number stacks on the map in order to expand the strength of your stack via experience and equipment, often also recruiting one or two additional units depending on how much gold you manage to obtain in this phase.
- Exterminate: tackle the medium/hard quests that sometimes even grant you legendary items and face the main foe(s) of the map. Often times in this phase you will also conquer castles which in turn allow you to recruit a couple more units to finally max out your stack and, after you exterminated the big bad of the map, you finish up by completing the special quests which will open up the passage to the next map (many times the hardest quests of the map obviously involve exterminating the big bad, too).


But let me tell you about what you've been referring to, the combat!

Combat can be summed up by this simple 3 word formula: attack - defense = damage
Or in 3 other words: number crunching simulator
Or if are inclined to go even further here are 3 more words: banal, shit, boring

As you probably already saw from screenshots, the battlefields themselves are quite small. There are also no special fields like blocked terrain or "danger fields" like traps for instance. The movement system itself works like this: each melee unit can engage it's closest enemies, there are no movement points.
It doesn't matter if the closest enemy to friendly unit A is 1 tile away or 8 tiles away. Unit A can always move up to attack. BUT it can only move as far as the closest enemy unit.
So for instance let's say the enemy archer B is 2 tiles away from friendly unit A, A can move up and attack. BUT if enemy knight C is 1 tile away, suddenly our unit A can't move the 2 tiles to the enemy archer B any longer, because the enemy knight C is only 1 tile away thus the maximum movement range of our unit A becomes 1, because the closest enemy unit (the knight C) is 1 tile away.
On paper it sounds a little confusing, in-game though it becomes intuitive rather quickly.

But what does this mean in terms of tactical combat? Well one might say combat becomes less tactical because of this movement system and I tend to agree. Then again if you exchange the movement system with areas of control like from D&D for instance, the outcome is essentially the same because of the small size of the battle grid.
Ranged units, both projectile and magic based, can hit any unit, neither friendly nor enemy units can block the line of sight.
Initial positioning also has very little impact on the actual outcome once again thanks due to the small battle grid size, there is no real room for outmaneuvering especially in the mid- and late game of a map when the stacks of units reach their maximum sizes.

While there are some special abilities for units, they are mostly of the really simple and uninspired variety. For instance archers can forfeit their current turn in order to gain +x% damage the next one (to help overcome high defense units. Remember attack - defense = damage). Other units can forfeit their turn for +defense (minor tactical decision: forfeit turn for unit, so enemy melee unit can't reach it at all thanks to movement system).

If a unit gains enough experience through combat, you can advance them on the spot to a higher tier which means +stats and being able to equip better gear (a unit that could only wear light armor and swords now can equip medium armor and axes along swords for example). Most units can choose between two different paths. Basic ranged units for instance can become either Archers (high intiative, good against low defense units) or Crossbowmen (low initiative, good against high defense units).

I did mention conquering castles earlier during the 4X description and perhaps that got you all excited about siege battles. Well I'm afraid siege battles are just normal battles. The only difference is that units start with a little less HP (simulating the ranged units firing upon the each other I suppose).

Taking all of this into account, I'm afraid to say that the combat boils down to an almost pure number crunching simulator and as a result you find yourself working very methodically through the maps. Beating overpowered units only via superior tactical decisions becomes nigh on impossible.
Then again, this seems to be part of the overall design. This is a strategy game after all, not a tactical combat simulator. And luckily there's an auto resolve button which thus far came in very handy for me. The auto resolve outcomes aren't as good as if you were playing the battles manually but an abundance of resources (gold) to replenish your troops on most of the maps make it a very tempting alternative that I made good use of thus far.

Having said all of that, minor no-brainer tactical decisions during combat can be found here and there. For instance you can move your more advanced/higher armor units up to the front while ordering the lower tier/squishier units to wait until the end of a combat turn. So the enemy will waste some of their damage potential on the heavy unit and you move your squishy units in at the end of the round to maximize damage potential. Still these little really no-brainer decisions won't be able to satisfy even the most inexperienced armchair general.


Another factor for the number crunching which also affects battles in a major way are unit equipment choices.
During the adventure you will find plenty of gear to outfit both your avatar and your troops. There are plenty of different armors, weapons, trinkets etc. to be found. Sadly, there are very few "cool" and unique items. Even the legendary items you obtain via lengthy and sometimes hidden questlines are more often than not essentially just bigger numbers.
Weapons come in different types of categories like Spear, Axe, Sword etc. each with unique combat boni. For instance axes ignore part of the enemy defense, swords allow for a counter attack of attack X% etc.
2 handed weapons are available and you trade +attack for -defense (lack of shield), sometimes -initiative (unit acts later in a combat round)
Armors (light, medium, heavy) are essentially gradually higher defense numbers, minor downside can be a lower initiative. But same as for weapons the formula is bigger = better.
Trinkets, of which each unit can equip 4 different variations like rings or amulets, also give minor boni like for instance +5 health or +1 attack. *yay*

In terms of equipment, and almost anything else about this game, it is very rare to stumble across something truly special or unique. But there are exceptions from the rule. You will find the occasional interesting item like a magical sword... which will ignore % of enemy defense thanks to it's "magical" attribute. In of itself not particularly awe inspiring but true to the "realistic fantasy" setting, you will encounter the odd enemy that is immune to worldly damage and can only be hurt via magic damage like for instance a ghost. 97.357% of the enemies you'll encounter are of the mortal, worldly variety though. And so will be your own units by the way.


On a more positive note, even while the combat can indeed be considered lackluster thus far I did enjoy the overall atmosphere of the game, the quests as well as the map objectives are varied and while the main story line is a little heavy on the cliché and OMG TWIST side of things I'm still engaged. There's also choice to be found in some quests, not so much consequence though.
I also have to mention that I did enjoy the exploration of the maps tremendously especially in conjunction with the quests. While many quests do have quest markers, there are just as many quests where you have to figure out for yourself where to go or what to do. That is quite the refreshing experience. More of this please!


TL;DR: If you are looking for a true alternative to King's Bounty or HOMM I'm afraid you will be disappointed, but Legends of Eisenwald is fun in it's own right. Too bad the combat is lackluster, since you will be doing quite a lot of it I can understand how that could be off-putting. But there's always the auto resolve button and the exploration together with the quests make Legends of Eisenwald a worthwhile experience in my humble opinion.

 

[Aterdux Entertainment]

Thanks for long read! So seldom these days. I disagree of course about combat but that's just me. Did you watch a battle I had in my combat video? The thing is the level of challenge depends on you and what armies you take on:
- Play "safe" and attack armies only weaker than you - means less healing, more gold and less exp
- Play "tough" and attack strong armies early on - means more healing, wounds and more exp.

The save to my combat video is still there and the thing is auto resovle looses that battle. But I could win it in the end.

Like in King's Bounty, attacking very weak armies won't give you enough tactical richness, same is here. So playing the "tough" way is my choice.

 

[Gord]

Hm, it might be that your incentive to tackle more difficult fights is a bit too low, compared to just doing the (plentiful) easier content until you are sufficiently strong.
However, I have to admit that I'm still very early in the game, so that is based on my rather limited experience on the first couple of maps.

Regarding your mention of the XP system, Aterdux Entertainment , how exactly does that work? How is the experience you get from a fight calculated?

 

[DeepOcean]

Stuff.

Well explained sir. It looks like a King's Bounty with a big improvement on the strategic map even if the tactical map is a little lackluster. Will buy it, I have a hard on for those strategy/RPG hybrids.

 

[Aterdux Entertainment]

Hm, it might be that your incentive to tackle more difficult fights is a bit too low, compared to just doing the (plentiful) easier content until you are sufficiently strong.
However, I have to admit that I'm still very early in the game, so that is based on my rather limited experience on the first couple of maps.

Regarding your mention of the XP system, Aterdux Entertainment , how exactly does that work? How is the experience you get from a fight calculated?

The reward was low because exp was broken the first day, "a launch giveaway".

Exp is calculated on how much AI thinks a given warrior participated in a battle. And if you attack strong army, then you get way more experience. Attacking weaker you get the bare minimum + bonuses on easy, normal and difficult level (+5, +3, +1). Ultradiffficult gets no bonus.

 

[One-and-a-half-Ivan]

This is the game Belarus should be proud of, not World of Tanks.
You guys rock! Hope the heat of the last days won't kill you )

 

[vonAchdorf]

This is the game Belarus should be proud of, not World of Tanks.
You guys rock! Hope the heat of the last days won't kill you )

Yes, unlike Wargaming, they don't offshore their earnings to Cyprus, unless maybe for holidays.

 

[Gord]

Aterdux Entertainment , is there a way to see which difficulty you are playing or to change your difficulty in a running campaign?
I've reasons to suspect that I accidentally started my game in easy difficulty and would prefer a higher difficulty setting.

 

[Aothan]

I'm not quite sure but don't remember an option to change difficulty midway through, and I believe the game starts on easy by default.

 

[Aterdux Entertainment]

Aterdux Entertainment , is there a way to see which difficulty you are playing or to change your difficulty in a running campaign?
I've reasons to suspect that I accidentally started my game in easy difficulty and would prefer a higher difficulty setting.

Yes, no way to change it in the middle of the campaign. We had it once made available but it was causing crashes since armies allocation changed etc. So we turned it off. Starting new campaign or single scenario with tutoriall off in the game options will provide difficulty setting. Playing on easy - remove one extra guy or two from your army and will be normal! And trade at nights.

 

[Gord]

I've just restarted. Wasn't that far in anyway and once you know how to do some of the side-quests, you can play through the missions quite fast.
Also gives me the possibility to check a few things I had missed before.

Personally, I'd decouple the tutorial option from the difficulty setting.

 

[Aterdux Entertainment]

I've just restarted. Wasn't that far in anyway and once you know how to do some of the side-quests, you can play through the missions quite fast.
Also gives me the possibility to check a few things I had missed before.

Personally, I'd decouple the tutorial option from the difficulty setting.

That's unintentional and is a bug. Trying to see how we can easily fix it. We got in the past quite a bit of negative reviews when people went into Cursed Castle straight and were killed by the first army they saw. So we do want somehow to disable single scenarios until Tutorial is played. But not the way it is now.

 

[Infinitron]

Aterdux Entertainment gets what Serpent in the Staglands didn't: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2015/07/06/legends-of-eisenwald-pc-release/

Although he kind of backhandedly implies the game isn't that good

 

[Aterdux Entertainment]

Aterdux Entertainment gets what Serpent in the Staglands didn't: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2015/07/06/legends-of-eisenwald-pc-release/

Although he kind of backhandedly implies the game isn't that good

We will get some more! At least one big review is on the way. And whatever they imply, it's good it's up there!

 

[Nryn]

I think I'm in the middle of Chapter 4, and I've got to say that I'm a big fan of the soundtrack. There are some great mellow pieces and the combat theme has been stuck in my head for the last day or two.

Also there's been a lot of effort put into the narrative side of things. I like how the different legends one hears about (and there is a lot of reading involved here, which is a plus) are often their own optional hidden quests. And then these legends can intersect with one another and with the main quest -- always been a fan of this sort of structure. The story itself has enough twists and turns to keep me engaged and curious about what's going to happen next. The big issue I have is with regards to the English translation. Functionally it's adequate, but the sentence structure and flow feels awkward. I'm curious as to how those playing the game in its native language feel about it -- I'm guessing this complaint is not an issue there.

Combat and progression-wise, I still would have preferred retaining a core group of party members throughout the game instead of starting (nearly) from scratch at the beginning of a new chapter. For balance purposes, each class could have had the same sort of lengthy progression system that the main character has. Currently the system is a giant tease -- I reach the highest specialization for my party members, but then the chapter's end is near, and so I don't get to play around with the highest class specializations for a very long time; this happened at the end of Chapter 2, and I'm not looking forward to it happening again at the end of 4.

Anyway, I'm liking the game on the whole.

 

[Gord]

The big issue I have is with regards to the English translation. Functionally it's adequate, but the sentence structure and flow feels awkward. I'm curious as to how those playing the game in its native language feel about it -- I'm guessing this complaint is not an issue there.

It reminds me a bit of other originally russian (or related) titles, so I guess it's an effect of the translation.
I sometimes notice similar effects in english texts that got translated into german. I guess it takes some extra effort to completely hide the original language.

 

[Aterdux Entertainment]

We didn't really translate the texts though. They have been fully rewritten/adapted by Joel Martin who is a published author in Australia. So, he might be writing in a language a bit close to medieval times like Sir Walter Scott novels. We heard some complaints while in Early Access but after the release this here is the first one I hear. I think he and his editor did a great job.

 

[Gord]

Interesting. Maybe that was his intention, but as a non-native speaker, I can't tell, obviously.
Mind, I'm not complaining, I just felt reminded a bit of games like e.g. the Stalker series in the way people talked.
I'll eventually play a bit in german, I'm interested to see how the german translation is.

Btw. Aterdux Entertainment , did you guys come up with all the tales you get to hear yourself, or are they based on some old folk tales?

 

[Aterdux Entertainment]

We came up with some ourselves and some are based on the old folk lore. I am waiting for people to finish the game when they see how it all fits together!

 

[Chaotic_Heretic]

After the prolouge, with a lv3 mystic i get buttraped. No army, fucking pesants wandering lynch the mystic. What to do? Can recruit one peasant at max.

 

[Atchodas]

On the Scale of Incline from 1 to 10 how much of incline this game is ?

 

[hivemind]

Aterdux Entertainment
What was the reason for not allowing a unit be able to pass a turn completely ?

I literally just had to send 3 peasants to die because the unit closest to them was a guy with counter attack that one shot them before they could touch him.

Why aren't you able to use your trash units as bait and have the enemy be forced to waste his turn to clean them up?

 

[Aterdux Entertainment]

Not all units can skip a turn. If everyone would it brings battle to stand still. Both sides waiting. Peasants have no abilities. You can equip them with potions and drink them skipping the turn but that's the only way to do it. We want you to fight Not wait around.

 

[hivemind]

Fair enough.