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

[Lacrymas]

It's not as good as mainstays like Age of Wonders 3

Do not insult Gladius (and our intelligence) like that. Seriously. Age of Wonders 3 is utter garbage, it is not a "mainstray" of anything, is casual trash.

I'm expecting reasons and comparisons.

 

[Lacrymas]

So, I just won a 1v1 hard game on a very small map with the Astra Militarum (coincidentally against the AM) and I must say I wasn't bored. Steam says only 3% of players have won a game on hard, which is a shame. Even though I basically got to nowhere on the tech tree and found a second city in the last 3 rounds of the game, the lowly soldiers supported by a commissar and a psyker have a lot of options (a bunch of grenade types, healing, the psyker's spells, the commissar's auras and commands) and are a force to be reckoned with. Had the AI played better, it would've destroyed me, though, because I was trash at expanding and choosing the right technologies to research. Taking down cities with only soldiers and scout robots was a bit of a pain, but eh, I know what I'm doing now and will be better in a future playthrough. I'm surprised I enjoyed an imperial army playthrough, I usually find them beyond boring in the context of WH40k. I figured I'd give them a go as a first attempt to get them out of the way before moving on to factions I actually want to play, but I found myself enjoying it so much I was planning my next run with the AM while finishing up this one. This + Fantasy General 2 are a pretty good track record for Slitherine. I know they have a reputation for shovelware, but these 2 are surprisingly excellent. Or maybe I'm getting soft in my ripe old age of 28. Either way, I'm having fun and I might gift the base game to a friend of mine so we can play together sometime.

The cons I noticed aren't really gameplay related, more usability related. I can't rotate the camera and can't enlarge the font. Even though I only have a 1080p monitor, I still find the font a tad too small and bunched up when trying to read unit descriptions. There's also no search feature in the compendium so I can't easily read the text there instead. Or I'm just blind and didn't see the search function.

 

[TemplarGR]

can't enlarge the font

You can. Look again at the settings.

 

[chuft]

I have about 300 hours in the game, all as Space Marines. I should try another faction sometime. I own all the content except the Tau, can't stand anime or anything remotely related to it.

I like playing gigantic games with an AM AI ally against three other teams of 2 AIs each. At the moment doing Tyrannnids, Chaos Space Marines, and Aeldari as foes.

In a previous game Tyrannids overran the entire map and it was like a scene from Aliens.

 

[Lacrymas]

Does a single faction offer so much diversity that you can play it for 300 hours?

 

[chuft]

Does a single faction offer so much diversity that you can play it for 300 hours?

It's not just the faction, it's experimenting with different sized planets, different amounts of landmass and various terrain settings, wildlife settings, different numbers and types of opponents etc. No two games are the same.

 

[Lacrymas]

can't enlarge the font

You can. Look again at the settings.

I looked, it enlarges the whole GUI. Not only do I not want that, it's also super blurry even at only 125%.

 

[TemplarGR]

I looked, it enlarges the whole GUI. Not only do I not want that, it's also super blurry even at only 125%.

Well, duh, in most games in order to enlarge the font you enlarge the GUI... Welcome to the real world.

 

[Norfleet]

I looked, it enlarges the whole GUI. Not only do I not want that, it's also super blurry even at only 125%.

It's super blurry because you used a value that isn't a power of 2. How exactly is the system supposed to deal with that? A letter of text is typically...one pixel wide. What happens when you make it "125%" bigger? A thing can't be a 1.25 pixels, so it immediately dissolves into a blurry mess. Always scale by powers of 2.

 

[Lacrymas]

So, I just won a 1v1 very hard game on a very small map with the Astra Militarum (whom I still like for some reason) against the Orks. The AI gets a bunch of bonuses on higher difficulties and can pump out 3 units per turn, so it kinda became a bit grindy. I'm also still terrible and didn't manage to get more than a couple higher-than-tier-2 units. If the AI played less idiotic, I wouldn't have stood a chance. They like to get out of their cities and into overwatch range, so they get decimated by heavy weapon squads. The Orks did ridiculous damage and I don't know why, they could basically one-shot any unit they came into contact with, regardless whether it was a hero, robot, or soldier. Perhaps they were using very high tier units, but I wouldn't know because I still haven't played with the Orks. Either way, the tactic was staying just outside their city so they get slaughtered by overwatch until their resources ran out. It didn't help that the map generation was against me, I spawned in the desert and there wasn't a forest in sight. All in all, good gaem. The gameplay complaints I have now after 2 games is that the AI is dumb so it just gets more resources on higher difficulties as opposed to just playing better, and that there is no story campaign to get through. Yeah, sure, you have individual stories for the factions and that wins you the game if you do it, but I would've liked a campaign at least akin to Fantasy General 1. It's not a dealbreaker or anything, the story quests do quite a lot of heavy lifting, but it would've been nice. Perhaps I'll slide into their Discord and ask if they are planning to make a campaign as a DLC.

 

[TemplarGR]

The gameplay complaints I have now after 2 games is that the AI is dumb so it just gets more resources on higher difficulties as opposed to just playing better

Like pretty much all 4X/Grand Strategy games.

 

[chuft]

The Orks did ridiculous damage and I don't know why, they could basically one-shot any unit they came into contact with, regardless whether it was a hero, robot, or soldier.

I have not played AM, but one-shotting a hero? That seems hard to believe.

Try playing Space Marines against Orks and see what happens.

Strength of AM is their vehicles, as I understand it. The Leman Russ tank is certainly a monster.

 

[Lacrymas]

I have not played AM, but one-shotting a hero? That seems hard to believe.

Yeap, Big Meks did ridiculous damage (~30+) and could one-shot anything, including a Lord Commissar with 8 armor.

 

[chuft]

What makes the heroes so tough is not their armor, though that helps, it's their damage reduction. Lord Commissar has 50% hero damage reduction and 33% invulnerable damage reduction in addition to armor (around 8% per point of armor assuming no enemy armor penetration). So even before armor, incoming damage is reduced by 50% for the hero damage reduction, and then by 33% for the invulnerable damage reduction.

Damage is also capped by the max hit points of the "model" (he is a lone figure, with 6 hit points, so the 30 damage first is capped at 6).

So a 30 damage shot would be capped at 6, then reduced by 50% to 3, then reduced by 33% to 2, then cut by 8% per point of armor that is not cancelled by armor penetration.

The attacker would have to have multiple attacks as well as serious armor penetration to have a chance of one-shotting him.

 

[Lacrymas]

So, I'm trying to play with a friend of mine, but we ran into a problem. I want to be the host because I have the unit DLCs, but he can't connect to me, it says connection lost. I can connect to him no problem, however. We tried disabling our firewalls, port forwarding, enabling UPnP, but nothing works. Any suggestions?

 

[Lacrymas]

So, I just won an ultra hard game as the AM against the AI (coincidentally against the AM again) on a very small map and I noticed a few things. First of all, the beginning turns are the most important and you have to know what you are doing because you will get cock blocked by resource shortages very fast. At one point, you can go for 10s of turns without being able to train a unit because everything is so expensive and the resource buildings give so little income. This kind of creates this dynamic where you are front-loading your unit production in the early game. This is exacerbated by the fact you basically need all the level 1 and 2 research. You NEED grenades, you NEED tanks (chimeras, I'll get into it), you NEED heroes*, you NEED techpriests, you NEED heavy weapon squads. Which is good on paper, nothing goes to waste. However, there are two problems - the AM early game is kinda always the same because you have to get all this research, which feeds into the second problem. Which is that the AM are very weak without all of this research, I haven't noticed the other factions being this powerless at the start. Soldiers die like flies, but aren't very easy to replace, especially once you hit that resource cock block after a few dozen turns, but also because they take 4 turns to create (on the normal speed). Which means you also NEED the barracks production ordinance research. Or at least it seems so at first glance. What you actually have to be doing is not letting anyone die, but that is impossible without the aforementioned chimeras. Chimeras have 2 problems, they fill in every possible weakness of the AM: squishy units, low damage, lack of movement speed. Which means they are absolutely essential and you can not win or make any progress on the higher difficulties without employing them liberally.

That makes the AM's early playstyle severely reliant on chimeras. Not only that, which is a sin in itself imo, but it also reveals the second problem. They are DLC. I know the DLC is like 2 euro when it's discounted and they discount them all the time, but it still leaves a bad taste in my mouth. It's pay-to-win with the AM and that's a perversion. It's the Sisters of Avelorn problem in TW Warhammer 2 all over again, but at least the high elves can win without them even on the highest difficulties. Maybe you can win with the AM too and that's only really a problem on a very small map against the AI, but that's what it boils down to on these settings. The AM are so weak that I'm not sure you can win when it isn't a mirror match. Tomorrow, I'm going to try to win against something else on the same settings, but I kinda feel it's a lost cause. Also, I now have all the faction DLC apart from the T'au (yeah, the worst race in the entire WH40k roster, I'd have preferred literally anyone else), but the random AI seems to always pick one of the 4 original factions to play as, kinda weird.

*You don't actually need heroes, but the tank commander is quite a beefy unit. I won this game only with a single Lord Commissar because I was so resource starved I couldn't get out a second hero.

 

[Galdred]

So, I just won an ultra hard game as the AM against the AI (coincidentally against the AM again) on a very small map and I noticed a few things. First of all, the beginning turns are the most important and you have to know what you are doing because you will get cock blocked by resource shortages very fast. .

That is what I dislike in the economic part of the game: it is not as much choosing a strategy, but solving an optimization puzzle as you have very little room to deviate from the optimal formula.
AM were trash tiers when I played indeed (but that was before the Chimeras!).

 

[TemplarGR]

A new faction is in development, it will release probably a few months from now. Rumours say it is gonna be Adeptus Mechanicus.

 

[Lacrymas]

Do they have enough distinct units from the Astra Militarum, though? Craftworld Aeldari shipped with 19 different units and a 20th was added with the specialist pack. Do the Adeptus Mechanicus have so many unit types? If I were to guess, I'd say it's the Dark Eldar. Sisters is also possible, but my money is on Dark Eldar. I'm fine with all 3, though. The only faction in WH40k I actively dislike is the T'au.

 

[baud]

from what I remember looking at the AdMech miniature line, they should have enough

 

[Lacrymas]

Balanced. If someone has tips and tricks to share about winning as the AM on ultra hard against something that isn't the AM, I'm all ears. The AM is missing early game options against armored targets and the damage is simply not there. I know you can win as any faction even on impossible with the right map settings, though.

 

[Hobo Elf]

Do they have enough distinct units from the Astra Militarum, though? Craftworld Aeldari shipped with 19 different units and a 20th was added with the specialist pack. Do the Adeptus Mechanicus have so many unit types? If I were to guess, I'd say it's the Dark Eldar. Sisters is also possible, but my money is on Dark Eldar. I'm fine with all 3, though. The only faction in WH40k I actively dislike is the T'au.

AdMech is its own, separate faction, and very different from the Astra Militarum.

 

[lightbane]

AM can also have the Skitarii as its own separate subfaction. Fear not, they have enough gadgets, guns, techs and crazy units to work in a strategy game. In fact, their gear is the most advanced of the human factions, since they use archeotech.

 

[GreyViper]

It kind of makes sense regarding AdMech, we had neutral units for other factions, cultist, kroot hound, vespids, wandering tech-priests and Castelan robots. Still I wonder if we are going to get Sisters and Dark Eldar.
I do recommend mods that add extra SM chapters (Chapters of Imperium) and Eldar craftworlds (Childern of Asyrian), since they add a bit of replayability. Also Gladius+ & Too many Voices as honorable mentions.

 

[Lacrymas]

Like last time, my money is still on the Dark Eldar as next faction. I guess we'll find out soon.