Misleading reviews

[OakenWall]

I would like to start with that :I have played Gladius, I'm not a big fan but I did not hate it. I really like Planetfall and Age of wonders 4 and I have a lot of hours in those games.

I have played a couple of hours now and I had a good time, actually managed to win a normal game without completely knowing what I was doing but I am a veteran gamer and usually play strategy games on a bit harder difficulty.

Reviews : There is a lot of misleading information that almost kept me from buying this game,

Lets clear something up

Some review's were saying you just had to sit in a corner and wait for endgame since you could not kill your enemies. This is misleading and I'm not so sure sitting in a corner trying to survive is a good idea since you want to have a map presence and grab the outpost tiles for bonuses. I did not sit in a corner anyway.

You can kill your opponents, yes you just kill their cities and their gone.

Maybe he meant the 2 endgame crisis factions, well that's not your opponents, its basically an event and they have "bases outside of the map so to speak" without spoiling everything.

I'm not sure if this is how it works but I think removing their map base reduce their strength(I killed a machine base and he had less titans)

[Whatever100500]

You can win before the endgame crisis. This requires fully removing 2 out of 3 npc factions (since they are always at war with each other), be allied to the remaining npc faction and all remaining players (or remove them all too).

But the larger the map/more players, the less likely you are to achieve this. In my 'tutorial' game with medium size and standard difficulty I finished with only few turns remaining. Anything larger/more difficult - and I wouldn't have been able to.

[badassunicorn]

Originally posted by OakenWall:

Reviews : There is a lot of misleading information that almost kept me from buying this game,

I saw those reviews, too. And it's not 'misleading information'. It's simply disinformation from people who don't grab the game, in my (absolutely not humble) opinion.
Let's have a look:

»Everyone can build any unit!«

Well, yes. And I struggled with that one at first, too.
But: in all my games so far I didn't had time to build other affinities' units or there simply was no need to do that.

In my ongoing match I build 1(!) unit not of my affinity/faction for the first time. Commander instead of Crypt Archai as a choice for 2nd Hero Unit. That's it.

So, you can build any unit. But in most cases, you won't, for whatever reasons.
On the other hand, you could build ALL Heroes through the affinities and stomp across the map with them (definitely going to try that one!)
But every "alien tech" requires you to have the necessary resources to build and maintain them. And the buildings to do that and to produce the resources for maintenance. And every building needs space. The ability to build any units comes with a price.


»Don't like the endgame!«

I see what the devs did there. I understand why they did it. I'm also not a fan of it.
Reasoning here: I don't want to be forced into an "endgame" at turn 105-120 in a turn-based game. I tend to settle a third city about turn 90, perhaps.

But that's simply personal and I can turn the "endgame" off, so why bother?
It's not my cup of tea that people seem to have the attention span of Musca domestica nowadays ^^

»There is no difference between factions/affinities!«

I beg to differ. There are. Playing as Rogue Operative, my units can shoot and move afterwards.
So I shoot, step aside with the unit and make room for the next one. Rinse and repeat.
Try that with other factions.

Human Affinity:
Well, Fallen Soldier has integrated healing. And he can buff that up. He has this Outrider from the start. Best exploration + toughest infantery in early game.

Practical Romantic: the whimpy guy with the morale problem.
But he can compensate for that. That Dreameater (Enslaver) over there? No problem guys, b/c WE can buff our morale for the low price of some influence and kill the monster the next turn. Even comes with healing abilities in version 2.0

Aristocrat? Well, he's somewhat fu***d because he's got no healing. Needs more food, the hedonistic chubby.
But he can boost production in his cities. Maybe my guys can't heal from the start, but I have six of them and YOU don't! Hah!

tl;dr: the differences between the factions and affinities appear meager at first glance. But in my experience they make up for a whole new game feeling with each of them.
Like fractal iterations.

So far, me like.