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

[CthuluIsSpy]

Maybe I'm playing it wrong then. I'll give it another go on the GOG version. Any good settings I should look out for?

 

[chuft]

You can set up alliances/teams at game start. You generally want maximum landmass since water tends to screw over one or two factions if they start on a peninsula. Water is not well implemented in this map generator, so maximize landmass. There is lots of experimenting to do with regards to terrain. Try a desert world or a jungle world. Some factions are impacted more by terrain than others.

If you want it harder make minimum wildlife. If you want it easier make maximum wildlife, AI struggles with it.

The general "Difficulty" refers to what "level" it makes your opponents. Higher is more powerful. You can still change each of them though. You can also change your own to make it harder or easier. The higher level a player is (including you) the more Loyalty bonuses they get to production.

You could for example make a team of two average AI Orks but make a single faction team of one AI Necron that is very high level if you want both a qualitative and a quantitative difference in your opponents.

You can adjust general game speed or individual components like research speed, number of techs needed at each level before going on to the next etc depending if you want a typical, rush to late game units, or extended early and mid game in your play. If you like fast games, turn up the game speed and play on small maps with one or two AIs. If you want huge slugathons play with 4 teams of 2 and give yourself an ally, on a huge map with max landmass, and require 4 techs per level before going on to the next.

 

[chuft]

I should note the AI does not use special actions and transports. So they won't use Orbital Insertion, or put guys in a flying transport to go over water/wireweed etc. A lot of the difference between the factions only becomes clear when you play that faction and use all their toys.

 

[Lacrymas]

Maybe I'm playing it wrong then. I'll give it another go on the GOG version. Any good settings I should look out for?

Maximum landmass, big+ regions, minimum wire weed, more special resources, fast game speed, wildlife depends on what your goal is. When you have more experience, you can experiment with tech tier limitations.

chuft when have I been a dick? Imagifiers are busted because they have 3 AoE buffs that don't share a cooldown, all of them very powerful in a faction which is almost completely filled with op units. Too bad Proxy aren't taking the time to balance AdMech, Sisters and Drukhari, but at least there are balance mods.

 

[chuft]

You were mocking me for saying Imagifiers weren't very impressive in my game, and they aren't. I started a huge map game with max wildlife, me (Adepta Sororitas and a Space Marine ally) vs a two Eldar team, a two Ork team, a lone Tyranid and a lone Necron. My ally died quickly as did the Tyranids. I killed both Eldar AI's and am now destroying the Ork cities and have begun meeting engagements with the Necrons. In the course of all this Imagifiers have been pretty useless and in every case I wished I had another unit of another type rather than the Imagifiers I built. None of their buffs are particularly mighty and I'd rather have another line unit that can do real damage. There might be situations where they can be mildly useful but I haven't run into them yet. I know they were heavily nerfed recently so maybe your memory of them is pre-nerf.

33% more damage with melee/melta bombs, sounds impressive except melta bombs have 50% fixed accuracy so it's more like 16% more damage on an range 1 attack with a 10 turn cooldown. Whoop te do.

The feel no pain damage reduction costs their action. One research and you get the same ability for free (same buff too, they don't stack) on Hospitallers which can actually heal other units, AND the Hospitaller one is on all the time for free and doesn't cost an action. I'd rather have a Hospitaller backing a line than an Imagifier.

The movement one might be useful if your units are set up just so, I have yet to have a circumstance where it was used.

The Dialogus buffs are very powerful and they are ranged. Imagifiers have to be adjacent to a unit to buff it and the buffs are usually pretty weak. There must be some trick to using them, like building a cluster of Celestians (feel like I'm playing Planetfall) with an Imagifier in the middle so they do a lot of melee damage. But I have never had that happen yet, it would take too many turns to set it up.

 

[chuft]

Personally I like wireweed because you can use it with ranged units as a type of fieldworks to fire across. And you can remove it with clearing units so you can shape the battlefield. Also makes skimmers much more relevant.

 

[chuft]

Tale of the Warrior also doesn't boost melee damage from Mortifiers, Paragon Warsuits or Cerastus Knight-Lancers because they aren't infantry. Hardly any SoB infantry do melee damage.

 

[Lacrymas]

Imagifiers are very cheap, their buffs are AoE and they stack with each other. You can place an imagifier in the middle of a cluster of units, use its buff, replace it with another imagifier and use another buff. This is in the context of a faction which is already kooky busted with its buffs and damage reduction. Hospitalers have at least 3 disadvantages compared to imagifier - they need research to have the damage reduction, have to stay sedentary in order to grant it and they don't have the other 2 buffs. Which means they are prime targets in PvP. Nobody is going to let hospitalers live in PvP, while imagifiers can survive at least a few turns (they are still going to get killed fast, but they are extremely cheap and replaceable).

Saint Celestine is a prime target for the damage buff from imagifiers, in addition to the Sacresants. Arco-flagellants now as well, but I've yet to try them out.

 

[chuft]

I don't play PvP or care about it. Hospitallers are just as cheap as Imagifiers and get the buff for no action cost and can still heal units or clear terrain.

What's the big deal with multiple Imagifiers (again I am trying to imagine how long it would take to set up a position where you could do a clown car thing like that). Dominions and Retributors are the damage dealers in the SoB early to mid army and neither has melee. Imagifiers get no ranged buff. Retributors get a severe penalty for moving so giving them +1 MP is not very exciting. So the big buff is 16% damage reduction? I'd rather have another Retributor or Dominion. St Celestine is unique, you get exactly one, and she can use jump packs to get to good spots. Unlikely Imagifiers could even get next to her in a pitched battle.

Sacrosancts are a Tier 6 unit. When I posted my remark in the Discord I was still clearing wildlife on Turn 80 (I play with max wildlife, and was playing with 4 researches per tier before you could move up, Sancosancts were nowhere in sight) and the Imagifiers were useless, I was wishing I had built just about anything else. St Celestine was 50 turns away from being built.

 

[Lacrymas]

First of all, you are playing in very specific circumstances most players won't play. Second of all, playing against AI with loyalty buffs (if you are playing above medium difficulty) is different than in PvP where balance issues are more pronounced.

 

[Lacrymas]

I've tried the new AM unit, Field Ordnance Battery, and while it's not bad at all it suffers from being part of the AM infantry roster. The way the game fundamentally plays screws the AM infantry over and they need a more radical tweaking to function properly. I've suggested having the commissar trainable from the barracks and I might make a mod to do that eventually to see whether it would help the AM infantry be more viable.

 

[Hydro]

I've tried the new AM unit, Field Ordnance Battery, and while it's not bad at all it suffers from being part of the AM infantry roster. The way the game fundamentally plays screws the AM infantry over and they need a more radical tweaking to function properly. I've suggested having the commissar trainable from the barracks and I might make a mod to do that eventually to see whether it would help the AM infantry be more viable.

For someone very vaguely remembering how commissar functions, could you elaborate on how it supposed to make AM infantry more viable?

 

[Lacrymas]

For someone very vaguely remembering how commissar functions, could you elaborate on how it supposed to make AM infantry more viable?

He buffs nearby infantry's accuracy and armor penetration, and can restore morale in a pinch by executing a squad member of a unit. The buffs are the important part, it makes infantry actually do some damage for once. It's especially good for long-range infantry like ratlings, heavy weapon teams and now the field ordnance battery, but it's effective all around. The AM have a tendency to do low damage as a faction, they only get real good when wyrdvane psykers come out, supported by either the lord commissar or the tank commander depending on whether we are talking about infantry or tanks. This means the buffs from the heroes are actually almost necessary for the AM's game plan, but getting a lord commissar out on a small map where infantry wars are expected is a very tall order, so infantry remain weak. Being trained in the barracks would imo fix the problem.

 

[InD_ImaginE]

First of all, you are playing in very specific circumstances most players won't play. Second of all, playing against AI with loyalty buffs (if you are playing above medium difficulty) is different than in PvP where balance issues are more pronounced.

Like do people actually play this game MP? So you like a make a date timing "Let's all be online at 8 PM and play for 3 hours every 2 day"?

 

[Lacrymas]

First of all, you are playing in very specific circumstances most players won't play. Second of all, playing against AI with loyalty buffs (if you are playing above medium difficulty) is different than in PvP where balance issues are more pronounced.

Like do people actually play this game MP? So you like a make a date timing "Let's all be online at 8 PM and play for 3 hours every 2 day"?

This usually happens through Discord. Battlesector functions the same way atm.

 

[InD_ImaginE]

First of all, you are playing in very specific circumstances most players won't play. Second of all, playing against AI with loyalty buffs (if you are playing above medium difficulty) is different than in PvP where balance issues are more pronounced.

Like do people actually play this game MP? So you like a make a date timing "Let's all be online at 8 PM and play for 3 hours every 2 day"?

This usually happens through Discord. Battlesector functions the same way atm.

I mean Battlesector is Skrimish, I can understand doing an one-off game night

But Gladius game can take hours, certainly not going to be finished in like 2 or 3 sitting of 2 hours per sitting. The level of commitment is really different

 

[Lacrymas]

I mean Battlesector is Skrimish, I can understand doing an one-off game night

But Gladius game can take hours, certainly not going to be finished in like 2 or 3 sitting of 2 hours per sitting. The level of commitment is really different

It really depends on the map size. A 1v1 on the smallest map can be over in 30 minutes.

 

[Galdred]

First of all, you are playing in very specific circumstances most players won't play. Second of all, playing against AI with loyalty buffs (if you are playing above medium difficulty) is different than in PvP where balance issues are more pronounced.

Like do people actually play this game MP? So you like a make a date timing "Let's all be online at 8 PM and play for 3 hours every 2 day"?

I only played MP once, several years ago, so it is a bit foggy, but Gladius is relatively short. With a timer, you can probably get a game completed in 3 hours, if playing simultaneously.
Civilization does have an MP scene, and they get the games completed in a single sitting (4-6h).
Now, if you insist on playing MP FFA on large maps with a bazillion AI factions, you only have yourself to blame, but a team game should be relatively fast.

 

[Hydro]

For someone very vaguely remembering how commissar functions, could you elaborate on how it supposed to make AM infantry more viable?

He buffs nearby infantry's accuracy and armor penetration, and can restore morale in a pinch by executing a squad member of a unit. The buffs are the important part, it makes infantry actually do some damage for once. It's especially good for long-range infantry like ratlings, heavy weapon teams and now the field ordnance battery, but it's effective all around. The AM have a tendency to do low damage as a faction, they only get real good when wyrdvane psykers come out, supported by either the lord commissar or the tank commander depending on whether we are talking about infantry or tanks. This means the buffs from the heroes are actually almost necessary for the AM's game plan, but getting a lord commissar out on a small map where infantry wars are expected is a very tall order, so infantry remain weak. Being trained in the barracks would imo fix the problem.

Makes sense. Do AM have any other ace up their sleeve other than heroes to be viable in the early skirmishes?

 

[Darth Roxor]

Two usability questions:

1. Is it possible to chart paths for units to move along through? When the autopathing takes my niggas through overwatch hell even though it doesn't have to, I feel like throwing my PC out the window.

2. Is it possible to actually get useful fucking damage previews? Say I have a warboss with a worthless range 2 shoota and a strongpowerful range 1 melee attack, the fucking preview always shows me what will happen if I attack from 2 hexes. Meanwhile the damage formula is so completely obscure to me that I could analyse the numbers for ten minutes and still have no idea how much damage I'll actually be doing. Likewise I'm also incredibly upset at being unable to get a damage preview for active abilities like nades before getting into someone's face.

 

[Lacrymas]

2. Hold down ctrl and it will show you where you can do the most damage (or one of the spots from which you can do the most damage).

 

[Lacrymas]

Makes sense. Do AM have any other ace up their sleeve other than heroes to be viable in the early skirmishes?

Early AM infantry is good - guardsmen with grenades, ratlings, now the field ordnance battery. Only the heavy weapon squads are excruciatingly meh. However, infantry quickly falls behind if they don't get some kind of support, either the two infantry heroes or tanks, both of which are hard to get going on an infantry build.

 

[chuft]

Two usability questions:

1. Is it possible to chart paths for units to move along through? When the autopathing takes my niggas through overwatch hell even though it doesn't have to, I feel like throwing my PC out the window.

No. If you want exact control over their planned path (which you can see by keeping the mouse button held down as you move the cursor around) you will have to move in shorter jumps. That said, overwatch only hits the final hex of movement. You do not get tagged running through fields of overwatch as long as you don't end in one. So the path is usually irrelevant.

It only matters if it goes next to an enemy, whose ZOC forces you to stop. (Ground unit ZOCs don't affect flyers.). The main thing to look out for here is hidden units in cover, which can surprise your unit and force it to halt movement and potentially take overwatch fire if your path goes next to it. This is a feature, you can take advantage of it yourself.

2. Is it possible to actually get useful fucking damage previews? Say I have a warboss with a worthless range 2 shoota and a strongpowerful range 1 melee attack, the fucking preview always shows me what will happen if I attack from 2 hexes. Meanwhile the damage formula is so completely obscure to me that I could analyse the numbers for ten minutes and still have no idea how much damage I'll actually be doing. Likewise I'm also incredibly upset at being unable to get a damage preview for active abilities like nades before getting into someone's face.

Note this is not a "preview" it is the actual damage that will be dealt, there is no RNG. This is a deterministic combat system. The only thing that would affect it is if your unit gets stopped by a hidden unit ZOC or takes damage from overwatch before getting to the position and firing. It is often best to move the unit and then attack afterwards after seeing if there were any nasty surprises, rather than give a combined move and attack order.

As Lacrymas said holding Ctrl will plot a max damage attack. Holding Alt will show how much damage the target would do to your unit if it was the one attacking. This is useful for evaluating threats.

The damage formula is obscure and is wrong on the wiki but it makes sense and has no randomness. I can explain it if you care.

 

[Jaedar]

The damage formula is obscure and is wrong on the wiki but it makes sense and has no randomness. I can explain it if you care.

Please explain it then, because I too find it to be incomprehensible how much damage something does, especially once the various weapon traits get added on.

 

[chuft]

OK so here is how damage works in Gladius.

The attacking unit will have one or more attacks. The unit may have multiple attack types. For example a Space Marine Captain has a Power Sword with 3 attacks (melee) and a Bolt Pistol with 1 attack (ranged, even though it is range 1). Note type has effects on what you can target. If you are attacking over a cliff, even against an adjacent unit, the Captain would be able to use his pistol but not his sword. If you see an entire attack type missing from the preview, it means there is some issue like altitude or range preventing one of the attack types from being used.

Melee is better because it ignores cover but has the obvious issue of it having to be used on adjacent enemies.

Damage is calculated for each type and shown separately in the preview. This is for informational purposes, the total damage is from adding up all the damages it shows in the preview and applying that total against the enemy unit as a lump sum.

The number of attacks for each attack type is often not a whole number. The Space Marine Captain for example might have 3.75 attacks with his Power Sword and 1.25 with his Bolt Pistol if he was equipped with a Concealed Weapon System item, which gives +25% attacks. Get used to weird numbers like 3.75 attacks and 2.2 damage.

This will all make more sense if you realize this is based on a tabletop system based on minis (what they call "models"). Each unit has one or more models. A healthy squad of Space Marines has 5 models for example. A Predator tank unit has one model. Models, unlike a game like Age of Wonders, are not just an indicator of unit health. The number of models affects both offense and defense of the unit. A unit which has lost models loses a proportional number of attacks.

Tooltips will show you the properties of each attack type (what I will call a "weapon") a unit has. The tooltip over the unit's level will explain how experience level raises damage.




The best way to think about all this is that each attack is against a single model.




Each attack is evaluated separately as follows:


First, the damage shown for the weapon (the base damage) is capped by the hit points of a single fully healthy model in the unit being attacked, if the model has less hit points than the damage. For this purpose assume there is at least one fully healthy model in the target unit.

- For example, say you have a squad of Space Marines with 15 hit points. It is undamaged. It has 5 models. Each model has 15/5 = 3 hit points. If you shoot a huge weapon against it that says it does 20 damage, the damage is capped to 3, the hit points of a single model in the target unit. This is why large single shot weapons do poor damage against squads. The cap would be the same even if the unit was damaged.

- For example, say you shoot the same weapon at a Predator tank. At full health it has more than 20 hit points, so the damage is not capped.



Then, you apply the multipliers, of which there can be many. The order doesn't matter because they are multipliers.



Attacking modifiers:

Accuracy: this is shown for each weapon and usually this lowers damage but not always. Let's say your accuracy is 67% and your base damage is 9. The accuracy reduces it to 6 (0.67 * 9). Accuracy has the potential in some circumstances to go over 100. In this case it raises damage. If your accuracy is 110% you will do 10% more than the base damage shown for the weapon.

Note accuracy for heavy weapons carried by infantry is lowered significantly by moving that turn. That is why standing still and shooting often does a lot more damage than moving and shooting if the unit is carrying heavy weapons such as Melta weapons or Lascannons.


Morale: if the attacking unit is Shaken, it lowers Accuracy by 17%. If it is Broken, it lowers Accuracy by 33%.




Defensive modifiers:

Morale: if the defending unit is Shaken, it takes 17% more damage. If it is Broken, it takes 33% more damage.

Damage reduction: You can see all these for a unit by hovering over its Shield icon in the upper left of its unit card. Damage reductions each have a name. Usually the only significance of the name is to indicate whether things stack. For example if you have two effects which give a flat "17% ranged damage reduction" each then you just have 17% total. But if they give "+17% ranged damage reduction" then you have 34%. If they have different names then they always stack.


- Armor: Each point of armor reduces damage by 8.3%. Armor effectiveness is capped at 83.3% (10 net armor). Weapon penetration can negate armor on a point for point basis. If your penetration is 4 and their armor is 6, then their net armor is 2 and it stops 16.67% of damage. If your penetration is 2 and their armor is 14, then their net armor is 12, capped to 10 and stops 83.3% of damage. Excess penetration has no effect, so penetration of 6 vs 4 armor just cancels the armor.

- City: Being in a city provides 33% city damage reduction for units friendly to the city. Cities also provide 33% ranged damage reduction (doesn't affect melee weapons) for infantry.

- Outpost: Being in an outpost provides 17% city damage reduction to units friendly to the outpost. Note flyers can't take over terrain such as outposts so it is possible to be in a hostile outpost. Outposts also provide 17% ranged damage reduction (doesn't affect melee weapons) for infantry.

- Cover: Being in Imperial Ruins or Forest provides +33% ranged damage reduction (doesn't affect melee weapons).

- Miscellaneous: You will see a lot of these from effects or Heroes, such as Hero, Invulnerable, Feel No Pain etc. The different names just mean they all stack even if they are flat and not a +%. For example a unit with 50% Hero damage reduction and 50% Invulnerable damage reduction will get the benefit of both even if they are flat amounts and do not have a plus sign in front of them. In this case damage would be halved, then halved again, since all of these modifiers are multiplicative.



So after doing all this, you have the damage for a single attack. If you have multiple attacks of the same type, you just multiply the result by that. For example if you do 3.75 attacks and one of them does 1.5 damage after all these calculations, you do 3.75 * 1.5 = 5.6 total damage from that weapon.

Repeat the whole calculation process for any other weapons (planes often have 3 or 4 different weapons!) and add the damages from the weapons to get the total lump sum damage.

Apply it to the enemy. Remove models as appropriate. For example if a Space Marine squad with 5 models and 15 hp took 7 damage, that would leave 8. That's 2.something Space Marines left so 2 models are removed and 3 are left. The Space Marines, normally getting 5 attacks, one for each model, now only get 3 going forward because they are down to 3 models.





Okay ready for some examples?

An experienced squad of Devastators decides to attack some Eldar Fire Dragons which are in some ruins.

The Devastator squad has 3 attacks of their Lascannons. Damage is 13, armor Penetration 6, Accuracy 42% because they moved and get an accuracy penalty.

The Fire Dragons are at full strength and have 4 models, 8 hp so 2 per model. They have Armor 9 and 33% ranged damage reduction from the ruins.

We calculate one attack. Damage 13 is capped to 2 because that is the max health of a Fire Dragon model.

Damage = 2 (base damage)
x 0.42 (accuracy)
x 0.75 (net 3 armor is 25% damage reduction)
x 0.67 (ruins have 33% ranged damage reduction)
= 0.42 damage,
x 3 shots = 1.26 damage.
The Fire Dragons are reduced to 8 - 1.26 = 6.73 hp. They are above 75% of their max health so they don't even lose one of their four models.

This was a terrible attack. Devastators are better suited to attacking large targets.



Next a Teminator squad walks up next to them. The Terminators have lost two Marines and only have 3 left.

The damaged Terminator squad has Storm Bolters which attack twice per Terminator so they get 6 of these. Each does 2 damage with armor Penetration 1 and Accuracy 67%. They also have Power Fists, one attack per Terminator so they get 3 of these. 5.9 damage, armor Penetration 6, Accuracy 50%.

We calculate the Storm Bolters.

Damage = 2 (base damage, no need to cap because Fire Dragon model is 2 HP max)
x 0.67 (accuracy)
x 0.34 (net 8 Armor is 66% damage reduction)
x 0.67 (ruins have 33% ranged damage reduction)
= 0.3 damage,
x 6 shots = 1.8 damage.


We calculate the Power Fists.

Damage = 2 (5.9 damage capped to 2 for Fire Dragon model HP)
x 0.5 (accuracy)
x 0.75 (net 3 armor is 25% damage reduction)
(ranged damage reduction for ruins is ignored because this is a melee weapon)
= 0.75 damage,
x 3 punches = 2.25 damage.

Total damage is 1.8 (Bolters) + 2.25 (Power Fists) = 4.05. Fire Dragons are reduced 6.73 - 4.05 = 2.68 hp left. This is more than one (2 hp) model so they have 2 models left.


By contrast imagine if the Devastators had shot at an Armor 8 tank. Its HP would be large enough when at full strength that the shots would not be capped. It would also get no ranged damage reduction because non-infatry can't get ranged damage reduction. The Devastator attack would be 13 x 0.42 (Accuracy) x 0.83 (net armor) = 4.5, x 3 shots = 13.6. If the Devastators hadn't moved, their accuracy would be higher and they would do even more damage.





Special note: There are effects which increase the number of targets affected by an attack.

Blast = +2 targets. Typical of Frag Grenades.
Large Blast = +4 targets. Typical of artillery like Basilisks.
Template = +2 targets, also gives 100% Accuracy (or 117% with twin linked weapon). Typical of Flamers which also ignore Cover.
Cleave (a hero item) = +1 target

What does this mean? It means each attack affects multiple models instead of one, if they exist. So a Large Blast would do the calculated damage, x 5 if there were 5 models present. If there were only 3, it would only be x 3. Blasts are much more effective against large groups. As a result, order matters - if you are attacking a squad, use Blast type weapons first while the group is large, before using other weapons to pick off the survivors.

There is a hero item, the Axe of Blind Fury, which has Cleave and affects +1 Targets. This doesn't sound like much until you realize somebody like our Captain with 3.75 melee attacks would get double damage as long as the defender had two models, since each of his attacks would affect two models rather than one.



As an example, a full squad of Adepta Sororitas Dominions has 5 Sisters each equipped with a Flamer. These weapons do 2 damage, but have Template (100% Accuracy, +2 targets) and Ignores Cover. They have armor penetration 1. How would they fare against our Fire Dragons at full strength?

Damage = 2 (no need to cap)
x 1.0 (Accuracy)
x 0.34 (net 8 Armor is 66% damage reduction)
(ranged damage reduction for ruins is ignored because Sisters, get the flamer - the heavy flamer)
= 0.68 damage,
x 3 because Template hits 3 models instead of 1 and there are at least 3 Fire Dragon models
= 2.04 damage per Sister,
x 5 Sisters = 10.02 total damage. The Fire Dragons are burnt to a crisp, as befits such loathesome xenos.



Hope that helps.


TL;DR Total damage = capped base damage x accuracy x number of attacks x damage resistance 1 x damage resistance 2 etc