It has its fair share of rough edges, and yet, it is filled with interesting things to see and do. To use the “toy versus game” analogy (a good toy is fun to play with, while a game is a problem-solving activity approached in a playful way), I would call CoE4 a very good toy, a good game early on, and an inconsistent game in its later stages. For now, I’ve taken to giving myself a computer-controlled teammate, which handles the dirty work while I putter around with my army. CoE4’s focus on exploration, I would argue, would benefit from special, PvE-focused victory conditions, such as storming other planes or crowning an aspiring god-emperor. Similarly, Dominions 4 changed the default win condition from “defeat everyone else” to “claim the Thrones of Ascension”, unique locations with their own guardians and bonuses. The default game mode in Warlock 2 is explicitly PvE the player battles across the multiverse to reach, and ultimately defeat, the final bosses. Here, I think CoE4 could fruitfully borrow some ideas from Dominions 4 and especially Warlock 2, another fantasy strategy game with multiple worlds and tough independent monsters. The sole victory condition – defeating all opponents – is nowhere near as interesting as the earlier sense of discovery. Some of my endgames culminated in satisfying showdowns others developed into stalemates and on lower difficulty levels, it’s not uncommon to win by default when wandering monsters wipe out the AI. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg: there are 20 classes in the game.Īs with its predecessor, I feel that CoE4 is weakest in the late game, when most of Elysium has been uncovered. As an archbishop, I collected tithes, converted enemy soldiers, and unleashed an AI-controlled holy army 3 As a senator, my legionaries and ballistae saw off a demon. As a baron, I received an annual levy of knights and spearmen, and unleashed “swift justice” on a bandit lair (converting it to a gallows!). As a druid, they were where I summoned my most potent allies.Įven “human” classes play very differently. For most classes, forests are a pain a source of wandering monsters. This is a screenshot of my druid game: by this stage, my magic was spawning animals and miniature ent-like “shepherds” across half the forests on the map. Playing a warlock, I mined magic gems, used them to summon giant thunderbirds, and unleashed lightning:Īs a druid, I took over ancient groves, drove giant moose through enemy lines, and poured wolves into the breach. Downright unfairness is rare, but it does happen: one of my games ended in the first few turns, when my mighty Troll King ventured into a seemingly unoccupied ziggurat, only to be ambushed by an eldritch horror.Īt the same time, CoE4 brilliantly evokes a dangerous fantasy world filled with diverse factions, cool special abilities, and plenty to discover. It is unapologetically niche – the interface has retained its quirks from CoE3, and the CoE4 Steam page isn’t joking when it describes it as a “strategy game with a touch of roguelike”. This is a quick-playing “3X” game (no “exploit”) with an emphasis on the first “X”, exploration 2. In this regard, CoE4 is very much a bigger and better version of its predecessor, Conquest of Elysium 3, and much of my CoE3 review still applies 1. And the computer opponents can be an anticlimax. Much of the challenge comes from wandering and independent monsters. Like its stablemate Dominions 4, CoE4 offers spectacular battles of mortals against magic the demon’s demise was the moment the game won me over. That episode highlights several things about Conquest of Elysium 4. As the computer had already lost its other forts – marauding demon armies had overrun much of the map, and destroyed most of the other AI players – it was game over. The computer left a modest garrison and marched away.Ī few turns after that, my main army returned and re-retook the fort. This time, my two ballistae weren’t enough. Its vast army was spearheaded by a pair of ents, each with five times the demon’s health.
Ballistae (and Human Ingenuity) 1, Demon 0.Ī few turns later, the computer retook its fort. And that was just the start.īy the time the perforated demon limped up to the castle gates, a humble bowman was able to administer the coup de grace.
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Because it was a siege, my ballistae were allowed a number of free shots. Now that demon, with its vast pool of health and huge spell list, was going to snatch away my prize. I left a small garrison, stiffened by two ballistae, to hold the walls while my main army subdued the nearby hinterlands. The fort was my newest and proudest conquest, wrested from a nearby computer player. When the giant demon attacked my fortress, I cursed.
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