Warhammer Warhammer 40,000: Gladius - Relics of War - turn-based 4X from Slitherine

[chuft]

Won a Very Hard 8 player FFA huge map game with CSM. Just now won one as the Tyranids. Reloaded to the previous turn to finish the Tyranid quest line, probably a mistake as these quest stories always end up a brutal grind against waves of enemies at the end.

Will probalby buy Adepta Sororitas soon. Can't bring myself to buy Tau. Have everything else except the Lord of Skulls unit which sounds like just a random bone to whomever is near it.

 

[Lacrymas]

Even though Tau are generally anime fodder, they still have a different playstyle and Gladius deserves all the support it can get. And yeah, Lord of Skulls is more than likely not worth it.

 

[chuft]

KURAKHOVE, Ukraine — Before driving into battle in their mud-spattered war machine, a T-64 tank, the three-man Ukrainian crew performs a ritual.

The commander, Pvt. Dmytro Hrebenok, recites the Lord’s Prayer. Then, the men walk around the tank, patting its chunky green armor.

“We say, ‘Please, don’t let us down in battle,’” said Sgt. Artyom Knignitsky, the mechanic. “‘Bring us in and bring us out.’”

Ukrainian tech-priests.

 

[chuft]

In case anyone has experimented - which would you say is more difficult on a huge map? Fighting 3 AIs or fighting 7 AIs?

 

[chuft]

The answer is fewer AIs is harder. I am in the middle of a massive battle (Turn 157 huge map) with my AM (Guard) against five Xenos on Very Hard. Either I suck with AM or they are just weak because I got crushed on previous attempts. This time I dialed Wildlife to highest setting and that slowed down the AI city explosion enough to let me compete while still keeping the later game interesting. I killed Necrons, somebody (Necrons and Chaos I think) killed Tyranids. Now it's Orks, Eldar, Chaos and me. Had a disastrous battle against the orks but was able to recover and build a new stronger army which I have hit the orks with while Eldar were distracting them. Been a very exciting game and there's still huge battles to come.

As AM, using Wyrdvane Psykers to inflict Misfortune is key, as is using Enginseers to boost the accuracy of your tanks. Once in a while the normally useless infantry will surprise you - Ogryns with a Commissar doing "Bring It Down" level 3 (gives the infantry an additional 6 armor penetration) can take down even a Gorkonaut with Misfortune.

 

[Lacrymas]

AM is hard to play well as we've established on Discord ;d Infantry isn't useless, just not good on big maps. You also want a tank commander for the 45% attack boost to tanks.

 

[chuft]

Yes tank commanders are very useful once leveled up, the movement bonus ability of +3 can really make a difference in tactical maneuver, and of course the +45% attacks. Strike and Shroud can be useful although it blocks line of sight for guys behind you. But these abilities all have cooldowns. The psyker debuff doesn't, and lasts three turns to boot, and the Enginseer accuracy bonus has the same cooldown as its duration, so these two ideally are in use every turn. The psykers die like flies since they have to get within 2 of the enemy, so I brought a lot of them to the fight and make more as fast as possible.

 

[Lacrymas]

Life in the guard is hard and short, there's a reason a doctrine for improved wyrdvane psyker production exists ;d

 

[chuft]

Have not built Basilisks this game and haven't missed them. Built three Chimeras for the starting Guardsmen to ride in and man the lasgun array and have not built any Guardsmen.

 

[Lacrymas]

I like to have 2, max 3 basilisks hanging out in the back. There's only so much room for lemons on the front lines.

 

[chuft]

At this point I am using hunter killer missiles (twice the range of a Basilisk) to pick off wounded units, even heavily armored ones, or finish off heavily damaged cities.

I think there are use cases for long range low penetration blast weapons, like killing low level Tyranids or ork squads, but most stuff is too armored for Basilisks to be anything more than a nuisance.

 

[Lacrymas]

You obviously stop using basilisks if you have hunter killer missiles, but those are tier 10.

 

[chuft]

No you keep using them because they get Hunter Seekers too.

 

[Lacrymas]

Gladius is free on the Epic Store right now. Go get it.

 

[chuft]

Steam spring sale has also started. So Gladius is only $4 on Steam if you don't feel like dealing with China/Tencent.

 

[Lacrymas]

GOG also sent me a coupon code that reduces the price of the base game to 3 Euro. If anyone wants it, I can PM it to you.

 

[Louis_Cypher]

When it first came out, I thought Gladius sounded iffy, as a concept. Opinions were mixed, and the Warhammer 40,000 licence was pushing out a lot of shovelware. 40K mobile games, 40K chess reskins, 40K microtransaction loot games; they all dilute the brand. Gladius sounded like a cheap Civilization clone, where you would just have Space Marines acting like generic starting tribesmen. The idea of all the factions, on one planet, building cities within striking distance of each other, also seemed a bit thematically weird, so I questioned the wisdom of making a 4X in the setting.

However, just I bought it on the strength of Codex opinion (also a desire to get back into strategy, a low-stress genre I used to pile days into), and am enjoying it well enough so far. Units feel right; Marines are Marines. Actually each map feels more like a wargaming scenario, and fits 40K well so far. Perhaps it might end up being one of my most-played 4X games, already a genre where you pile 100-hour-plus hours by default. Star Trek: Birth of the Federation is probably my personal all-time favorite, and I generally like space ones more than ground ones, but it's promising.

Some questions, for fans here (I've only played briefly):

One thing I haven't picked up yet, is what exactly the tile bonuses do, and how you claim them? At first I thought they were faction-wide passives, but that would be over powered, so do they just apply to the specific structure placed on them? Like a 20% bonus to a single refectory's output? The tutorial mentioned something about placing matching buildings on the tiles, but I was distracted and missed it; so do you have to place a generatorum on a power tile, to get it's 20% bonus, or can any city tile claim that for the entire city? I guess outposts, upon features, provide faction-wide passives? Do Space Marine 'Fortresses of Redemption' also claim what they are sitting on? Also, I didn't quite remember what the white

resource means?

I know it's lazy, and I could probably find answers elsewhere, but thought I would ask Codex bros.

 

[chuft]

Special resource tiles (outposts) if claimed by a unit give the little fixed bonus to your empire bank account, like +2 ore a turn, +2 influence a turn, or whatever. The yellow percentage bonus on the other hand is a global multiplier to all your income of that type. But to get it the tile has to be inside the city or else have a Fortress of Redemption next to it. For other races besides SM, it has to be inside one of their cities and only helps that city.

For regular tiles (Ctrl-Z to see all tile bonuses) the bonus shown only applies to buildings built on that tile. So a mine built on a desert hex with +20% energy won't get any benefit. The benefit would only apply to buildings that generate energy - just the HQ and generatorums for SM I believe.

The white symbol you posted is an indicator of how many buildings will fit in that hex. Usually 3, 2 if there is terrain that reduces it (rocks, forest, ruins). The latter two can be cleared to make it 3 but will remove the +10% ore bonus (probably +10% requisitions for SM).

 

[Louis_Cypher]

Thanks chuft! I think I'll start an Imperial Guard vs Ork game to begin with, before trying 4 factions.

 

[chuft]

Good luck. IG is rather hard to play compared to Space Marines. Early on, turn off Overwatch on your units so you don't start any fights with wildlife that you aren't ready for.

 

[Louis_Cypher]

I don't have the Ratling or Chimera DLC either, so I think I'll set it to an easiest difficulty; just want to see what the IG look like mostly. Next I'll do normal 4 faction game, perhaps as Necrons.

 

[chuft]

Guardsmen are pretty weak. Ratlings and Chimeras (Chimerae?) help a lot with the early game. IG are mostly a vehicle faction once you get past the early game.

I have not played Necrons but I think their armor and regeneration makes them relatively easy compared to IG.

 

[Lacrymas]

The IG is one of the hardest factions to play, if not outright the hardest. Not having ratlings and chimeras means you'll have to play for the long haul, i.e. a vehicle build. But since you'll be playing on the easiest difficulty, I don't think it matters what you do or have.

 

[chuft]

Just started playing Mechanicus last night for a change of pace. Very atmospheric game, reminds me of Battlefleet Gothic Armada with the art and voice acting.

 

[Irata]

I've been playing this for the last couple days. I wasn't expecting much so I was pleasantly surprised when I enjoyed it.
I read someplace, probably here, that the game is more of a turn-based RTS than a 4X. I would agree with that.
I don't tend to care about multiplayer in this genre, but I feel like this game would really shine in multiplayer. Unfortunately, the games last too long and I can't dedicate that much time.

The game is way too quiet though. I'll probably try the voices mod, but there needs to be a mod that adds the voices from Relic's games. The things the units "say" in this game are not nearly as fun.